Yury Nikitin - The Grail of Sir Thomas

He heard the wonderer’s mocking voice behind: a bit louder than it used to be and too resonant, as though Oleg shouted from inside a hollow. “Whom the belt for?”

“The devil,” Thomas replied with a start. He was annoyed with himself being frightened by that sudden voice, and the question was stupid indeed: the wonderer had no need of new belt, as his own one could endure a mountain or the forest giant’s club hung on it.

He looked up and flinched. The wonderer was asleep, rolled up into a ball, and the voice came from somewhere to the left… Thomas turned hastily, caught a glimpse of huge green back moving away, but the stranger vanished in the dark so swiftly that Thomas could not be sure whether he saw him or that was just a blow of night wind stirring the branches.

Starting at every rustle, he bent over the belt, trying to keep his hand as close to the sword hilt as possible. When it began to grew lighter over the trees, the wonderer snuffled uneasily, crawled up to the fire in his sleep. Thomas tossed the last twig into the fire: the air at dawn is the coldest. As the wonderer felt the warmth, he moved away, without waking up.

The twig burnt down. Thomas patted Oleg by shoulder. “Sir wonderer!”

Oleg woke up, his clear green eyes looked at Thomas in perplexity. He sat up at once, stretched himself sweetly, which gave his bones a crunch, yawned with a creepy howl, like a forest animal. “You are right, Sir Thomas. We must go! Have you slept?”

“I was on the watch,” Thomas replied proudly, nodded at the bare sword that was still across his knees, showed the belt. “You see, I can do things myself.”

Oleg turned his head. “That’s a surprise, Sir Thomas… If not your unhappy lot to be born a noble knight, you could make a good tanner!”

Thomas forced a smile, but the next moment the wonderer turned solemn, his hand seized the bow. Thomas heard twigs crackle. A strange man came out from behind an oak (if that was a man): a head taller than Oleg and Thomas, thrice as broad in shoulders. All covered with grey-green bone plates, he looked like an old, mossy giant lizard. “Good morn,” he roared menacingly. “Give what thee swore!”

Oleg drew his bow. “Who are you?” he asked quickly.

“Devil of woods!” the stranger bellowed in a creepy thick voice. “Leave it. The arrow of thee no harm to my skin. Even headed with silver!”

“Sir wonderer,” Thomas said hastily, writhing with embarrassment, “lower your arrow. He’s right… I promised the belt to him.”

He hurled the belt, the green stranger caught it deftly in the air. He was impossibly quick, like a nimble lizard, but there seemed to be tight muscle under his thick bony shell. He examined the belt carefully with his unblinking snake eyes, pulled it, then tried to clasp around. Thomas had a secret hope it would not fit: the master of night forest was thrice as broad as the knight, but Thomas had made some spare holes during his watch by the fire.

The devil sucked his scaly stomach in, pulled the catch of the belt, and the pin got into the very last hole. The devil puffed his belly up – the belt crunched but endured. The devil burst with hoarse resonant laughter that sounded like stone blocks rubbed against each other. “Good! I take it.” He turned round and went away. Soon the snapping of twigs died down.

The wonderer followed him with astonished eyes, as large as a surprised owl’s, his jaw dropped to the waist. “What about your intolerance, faith in Christ, hate for infidels?.. Did your principles give a crack?”

Thomas replied angrily, as he found himself in an awkward situation. “Sir wonderer, I will never give up my principles! I simply can’t do that! But that toad of woods caught me in a word, and the knightly word is all that matters. Even if given to mortal enemy! Haven’t I concluded a truce with Saracen relying on the word of honor only? I never broke it, neither did they!”

Oleg took the bowstring off, put his bow into the quiver of arrows, jumped up his feet. “We must go. Forgive me, I was wrong. One should keep his word even with enemies. And then he may see they are no enemies at all…”

They went through the forest. The light grew even brighter, their eyes ached bitterly, but Oleg was glad they could stand the light of the sun that was above trees. The next day the direct sunlight would not blind them if they come in it.

“What forest is that?” Thomas asked. “Do you know where we are?”

“The Dark Woods. The only good thing is that no one would look for us here. Even the Secret Seven.”

“Why?”

“No one has ever come out of it alive,” Oleg comforted him. With disgust, he rounded a tangle of snakes intertwined in their mating rite, went through the thickets: as passionless and immersed in his thoughts of eternal verities as Thomas knew him to be almost all the time.

It was hard to walk in woods without roads. Thomas got tired soon, as he had to carry Burlan’s knightly armor on while climbing the logs, which the wonderer could simply jump over, and forcing his way through prickly thickets. The knight started to think of having a rest when suddenly they heard a crackle of twigs, shouts and screams ahead. The noise was coming on them quickly. Thomas lowered his visor abruptly, his hand dropped on the sword hilt.

The shrubs ahead opened like waves, a snorting horse bustled out. A big man in the saddle, in rags of hunting costume, was clinging convulsively at its mane, as the reins had been torn away. Something was strange about his face. Thomas did not get at once why it made him feel creepy all over. As the rider dashed by, Thomas saw a smooth prominent surface in place of his face, as though all its features were rubbed away by the head wind, in the same way it rubs the sharp edges of rocks for thousands of years, turning them into rounded boulders.

The rider darted past and across the glade. Thomas felt an irrepressible fit of sickness. The rider had his face on the back of head. That might have been an effect of the head wind that kept blowing on him for the third century in row or a part of his punishment: to see all the terror chasing him at heels.

Some strange horrible animals, huge, shaggy, and scaly, broke out of the shrubs onto the glade. Heavy blocks of darkness, with only a glitter of sharp fangs, claws, thorns, and combs, they rushed after the madly galloping horse, all but snapping at its legs. The air was rent with roar, screech, barking, a clatter of cloven hooves. All of them dashed across the glade, then into bushes. For a while, there was a clatter of hooves, a squeal dying away.

Thomas shrugged with a shiver, drew his sword in with a thud. “I didn’t think they’d chase him that far!”

“Who was it?” Oleg asked with surprise. “You know him?”

Thomas waved away carelessly. “The Wild Hunter! He’s known to everyone.”

He walked on silently, sure that his explanation was full. He even gave a start when Oleg said warily, “Sir Thomas… Definitely, I realize what a trifle it is, known to everyone on earth, even the sheiks of deserts, the children of mountains and steppes, even to Burkinians, but you know I happened to spend some time in woods… er… in the cave. I’m ashamed to confess it but I’ve missed some events of world importance. The Wild Hunter… who is he?”

Thomas gave the wonderer a surprised look. The Agathyrsians called him Wise, once even the Wise, but if he didn’t know such a famous event… er… “He was a highborn lord,” Thomas explained patiently. “Had a beautiful wife, a healthy child, a fine castle, and faithful vassals. But he had too much love for hunting…”

“Many men have it.”

“But he, in excitement of it, would trample down the crops of peasants, offend the weak. Once he even killed an old man whom he bumped into while chasing a deer… For that, the hunter was doomed to turn into prey himself and be chased forever by a pack of demons. That’s how he keeps galloping for the third century already. My grandsire told me of him.”