Yury Nikitin - The Grail of Sir Thomas

The wonderer darted across the thickets, like a loach. Sometimes he stirred no branch, as though he turned into smoke or had learnt from Agathyrsians to pass through solid things, while Thomas in his steel shell broke through, like a flying rock, paying no hint to prickles and sharp twigs. Oleg often glanced over while running, looked for the knight but Thomas hardly ever dropped behind. In times Oleg got stuck in a tangle of branches but Thomas, though heavier at his run, crushed any obstacle like an enraged rhino. He left behind a broad trodden road covered with broken young trees and branches, ruined anthills.

They were running for ages. For all that time, Thomas heard not a single sound of pursuers, no howl of wolf or other animal, no crackle of twig or small branch behind. Only once a big shadow darted above, but the three floors of branches made a solid screen between the sky and the ground, so that bird, if any bird could be that large, should have seen not a damned thing. When the shadow moved away to where they came running from, Thomas seemed to see that the wonderer livened up a bit, stopped hunching like a hare at sight of kite.

However, the wonderer kept yelling for him not to stop, not to slow his run. The remainders of the mountain mead were blown away, Thomas was flung from one trunk to another, his mouth salty, his body screaming with pain. In addition, the dry ground was replaced by a thick carpet of green moss. His feet kept sinking into the wet champing layer and became as heavy as the stones to tie ships to in a port.

The wonderer urged him on. Through the shroud of muddy sweat, Thomas saw him nearby: Oleg gripped his shoulder, dragged on, yelled, all but hitting him. Thomas dragged his feet along. He wished nothing but to fall down and die in peace, without even wiping the salty sweat off his forehead.

Suddenly his eyes were dazzled by a glaring light. Exhausted, Thomas raised his head, stared in perplexity at the huge dark trunks, especially dark and gloomy because of the bright light shining behind them!

Oleg dragged Thomas up to the edge of the Forest, pushed him forward. Thomas made several steps, squeezed himself between the giant trunks that stood very close there, on the border of Forest, to protect, like a knightly armor, the tender inside of Woods from the scorching breath of endless Steppes.

Chapter 33

There was flat steppe ahead: no end to it, not a single bush nor a tree – only low grass, tough and stunted, that had won the struggle for life in the ruthless light of blazing sun!

Thomas made a step out of the shade of trees, reeled of the heavy torrid heat that came down on him. There were some clouds, as white as lambs, in the blue sky, but they made no obstacle for the scorching sun to burn the ground. At once, he got nasty trickles of sweat running down under his armor.

Oleg glanced over at the Forest with fear. “Let’s go… Forest animals can dart out on the edge.”

Obediently, Thomas limped away from the dark wall of the Forest, though it did not seem that scary anymore.

“Sir Thomas,” the wonderer said reluctantly, “now I know precisely where we are.” His face was depressed.

Thomas got frightened. “Did Agathyrsians take us back?”

“Just the opposite. But… they were going east and let us out on the way. Now we are much closer to Rus’ than to Britain.”

They walked in silence, Oleg kept his hasty pace. Thomas, with his head aching, could hardly get the meaning of his words. “We got closer to my Britain? Or farther from it?”

“Closer to Rus’,” Oleg replied evasively.

“So we’ll have to cross your Rus’? At last I shall see which kingdoms it is clutched between!”

Oleg mended his pace. Thomas could not see his face, wanted to ask more questions, but the enraged sun made his armor red-hot, boiling him in own sweat so that he felt like a crayfish in an iron pot. He dragged his feet along on dry yellow grass, hoping he’d live till the halt.

When the wonderer cried the halt, Thomas fell down, as though the ground was kicked from beneath his feet. After a while, he turned onto his side, stretched his aching legs. As Thomas had a look through the blades of grass, he gave a scream and rose to his knees.

Far ahead, there was a bright gleaming wall… or rather a rampart made of strange orange blocks. The sight of it made Thomas’s heart beat faster. Oleg followed the knight’s look, pointed in another direction indifferently. There was a similar glittering circle of rampart. It could house a huge castle but Thomas doubted whether it did: all he could see was the tall wall sparkling in the sun.

Oleg gathered some grass blades, thick and knotty, made a fire. Thomas looked with disgust at the two fat lizards that the wonderer had killed by hurling stones. The knight’s hunger made his stomach gripe, but that food was too unchristian!

“Better a small bug than a hungry mug,” Oleg comforted coolly. “Would you prefer to go without food?”

“Give me your frog.”

“No frog. That’s a small crocodile. Do you recall the fare of Agathyrsians? Those were big crocodiles. It’s all the same sort.”

Thomas ate the lizard up with its skin and claws, then took a stone and waylaid two more stupid ones that came out to bask in that mad torrid sun. He ate one of them raw, to show the wonderer how indifferent the inspired warriors of Christ were to carnivore joys. The wonderer also ate his one raw. To please either his beastly Pagan habits or his beastly Pagan gods.

“What land is it?” Thomas asked. He had climbed out of his armor, stripped off, covered his body with clothes to shield from the burning sun. The touch of light breeze was blissful to his body: it was all red, like fresh-boiled meat, with jets of overheated air rising over.

Oleg, with hands behind head, looked in the sky. He had a dry grass blade in his teeth, a confused ladybird crawling along it. “The beginning of Steppes.”

“Steppes… The Wild Field?”

Oleg turned his head a bit, looked sharply, His voice was biting. “You got the skill to foresee?.. It will be called the Wild Field, then the Ruin, but now it’s just Steppes. A pool that keeps – for countless ages, a century after century – splashing out strange nations without number, savage, fierce, and blood-thirsty. They bring death, fire, and ruin everywhere but build nothing. They only live by plunder…”

“Do they?” Thomas doubted. “They have herds, after all. What would they do to the milk, meat, and skins?”

“They create no material culture,” Oleg corrected himself. “Build no cities nor canals, plant no trees, write no books. Should they take a city, they burn it, with all its temples and libraries. They shatter beautiful statues but make none of those. The few city dwellers who survive are taken for captives. And we, Rus’, are the shield between Steppes and Europe!”

“Is your Rus’ against Steppes?”

“Yes. All our life is a struggle against Steppes. A struggle of plowmen against nomads.”

“So… we are going to run into the steppe dwellers?”

“Yes. We are about to enter the lands of Polovtsians – the ones who press on Pechenegs who, in turn, have come to Kiev. But the days of Pechenegs are over. They’ll be crushed between the hammer and the anvil, and Ruses will have an exhausting struggle against Polovtsians… I’m afraid we’ll see their tents soon. But first the numberless herds of their horses… However, first of all comes the swish of their arrows. Polovtsians shoot before they ask any questions.”

Thomas raised his head a bit, looked around. Within scores of miles, the steppes were empty save the strange orange rings. Perching, Thomas saw two more of those gleaming ramparts on the very brink of sight.