“If you cannot save Rognyéda, lay the castle in ruins, vanquish the Zilants,—shed your heroic blood for her, and crown your love with an heroic death!”
A beautiful morning with radiant beam gilds the tops of century oaks. Turning his horse to the midday sun, our knight leaves both the castle and forest.
Ravines, cliffs, rapids, crags, groan under the heavy beats of the hoofs; dense dust like a cloud and whirling in a pillar flies upwards where Gromvál races.
Through the gloomy pass of a rocky mount the knight rides into a vast steppe: an ocean of sand spreads before his view, and in the distance, it seems mingled with the sky.
No wind stirs the sandy waves; heat breathes there its pestiferous breath; no shrubs rustle there, nor brooks babble: all is quiet and still as in the cemetery at midnight.
Through that wilderness, those terrible fields, no road leads, no tracks are seen; only in the east one can discern a steep mountain, and upon it a mighty castle stands out black in the distance.
Struggling three days with thirst and heat, the hero passes the barrier of death; on his worn-out steed, and in a bloody perspiration, he slowly reaches the foot of the mountain.
Over slippery paths on overhanging cliffs that threaten to crash down into the valley, slowly ascending the narrow footpath above an abyss, Gromvál reaches the top and castle.
Zlomár has built this castle with the power of Gehenna and the spirits of Hell. The turrets that tower above black cliffs announce destruction and evil death.
With Rognyéda in his heart, with bravery in his soul, Gromvál, like a fierce storm, breaks the hinges of the cast-iron doors, and with his tempered spear enters the terrible castle.