Yury Nikitin - The Grail of Sir Thomas

He dragged the meat above, bathing in sweat, but did not dare to take off even the baldric with two-handed sword, not to mention five-stoned armor. Oleg hurled the meat into the mouth of dragon who opened his jaws less and less willingly. At last he refused to open them. Oleg shoved a bleeding slice straight to his nostrils. The dragon looked at it with disgust in lackluster eyes and turned away, as he had no eyelids and, as Thomas realized, could not close eyes.

“Enough?” Thomas asked, staggering. Turbid sweat was pouring over his eyes, his legs giving way, worn out by that constant climbing up and down. Thomas felt pity for monkeys who had to climb trees all the day long.

“Are you kidding?” Oleg wondered. “It’s time to carry up all the rest of meat! A saturated serpent won’t rush on it. While hungry, he wouldn’t have devoured all of it but flung it sideways, trampled on… He’s a very stupid animal, after all. God created him long ago, when He was young and did not know the better way.”

Thomas dragged himself back on feeble feet. He was glad he had time for sleep and rest before, though now one could wring him out and throw down to wipe feet on, but while he had at least a drop of strength…

He dragged the meat from the cleft up the slope, cursing through gritted teeth the stupid dragon who had too little brain to make his hole lower, where the ground was softer, cursing his stupid fate that drove him at the back of beyond, though his wise tutor said one can see God staying at home, cursing the heat. Meanwhile, the wonderer tied the bleeding slices into skins, put one of those bundles on his back, came to the dragon and went climbing up his huge green paw fearlessly. Clinging at bony plates, Oleg got up the beast’s back covered with thick shell. To Thomas, he looked like a crow on a plough horse: that kind is constantly ridden by both crows and rooks, which peck away horseflies and gadflies and even those white worms infesting poor animals under their skin in heat. Such horses would walk carefully, in order not to fright away the sharp-pecked strangers who eased their torments.

The wonderer fidgeted, settling in, tied the bundle quickly to the broad bony spike, yelled to Thomas. “Sir, I see all of it from here! Drag up the rest of meat!”

Thomas glanced back at the dragon’s huge snout: it lay on his paws, his eyes covered with the film of skin in sleep, his nostrils steamed. “Sir wonderer… Do you really want to ride him?”

“Ride?” Oleg asked with concern. “Serpents are not very good at running. So they would hide in caves and only steal the cattle at night for the first seven years. Until they have their wings.”

“Wings?”

“They are a bit better at flying than running,” the wonderer explained with a grimace.

Thomas, dumbfounded with all that happened, was dragging the last bundles of meat tiredly, giving them to wonderer who set them on dragon’s back: it had spikes, protuberances, slits between bony slabs, and the wonderer had made a real web of ropes with enough room for both men and meat. He walked on the dragon’s withers as though it were a barn roof. The dragon, drowsy after a hearty meal, paid him no more heed than a dog pays a fly. As Thomas served the meat, he kept glancing slantwise at the dark entrance to the cave from which the dragon leaned out. Some huge, scary shapes could be seen in there, the depth smelled strongly of scum, stagnant water, and frogs.

Suddenly the dragon stirred, opened his menacing eyes. He yawned, with his mouth opened wide, shut it with such a creepy thud that made Thomas’s blood run cold. These jaws can flatten a man in steel armor into a thin metal plate, reduce his bones to gruel… “Sir Thomas,” Oleg cried anxiously, “get up here!”

The dragon breathed steam out, started to creep slowly out of the cave. The stone ceiling screeched. The huge bony comb along the dragon’s back, which was pressed along to it within the dark cave, was standing up. “Sir Thomas!” Oleg shouted. “The dragon is about to fly!”

On both sides of dragon’s body, there were huge colorless logs of protruding bones, as long as ship masts, stretched with thick skin, while all the remaining skin was coiled in thick rings on the dragon’s long back, which seemed endless as the creature kept getting out. The wonderer sat only on his withers, and the dragon really was a giant long lizard…

“Fast!” Oleg yelled fiercely. “He’s flying up!!!” He leaned head down, holding with his feet, stretched his arm out. Feeling deathly cold in his stomach, Thomas clutched at the scaled log while it rushed by. He felt a jerk but held on while the log hit the ground, its claws, as large as knives, screeched on the stone. Thomas reached the wonderer’s hand, his face struck against the bony plate.

Oleg dragged the knight up, threw a belt around his waist, secured the other end to the comb and also, to make it more reliable, among bony spikes and protuberances. The crest on the dragon’s back kept unbending, as the dragon still crawled out of the cave: his sharp needles had made a cave in the ceiling. Thomas said loudly all the prayers he knew. As he knew only the first words of each one, he began them again and again. Finally, the crest got shorter, but the needles continued to the very tip. They were especially sharp and fresh there, as though the dragon’s tail was much younger than its owner.

The dragon crept up to the end of the stone ledge, leaned his head on flabby neck down, shook it sadly sideways. Oleg took out a dagger, stabbed it between the bony plates suddenly, leaned with all his weight on it. The dragon gave a piggish scream, fell from the steep, with just a scratch of claws on the stone. Big boulders went rolling down to the foot.

Thomas heard the air swish around. They were falling, in howling wind and cries of frightened birds. Thomas felt cold, dead, he already saw the spot on the stones where he would plop down, like a frog dropped by a stupid flying heron, with only a clang of armor… But then, suddenly, he was pressed on the bony plate with such force that his eyes popped out, his body got heavy, his jaw dropped (suddenly he imagined himself in the age of seventy).

He collapsed prone on the dragon’s back. The wind stopped swishing in ears, and Thomas heard another sound: mighty, broad flaps in the air, as though a storm wind blowing in a ship’s sail. Thomas closed his eyes and offered the Holy Virgin an ardent prayer for the sail enduring, as the loss of it is almost always fatal to sailors…

He was sprawled on the bony plate, shabby and scratched, whitened with rains, wind, and snow. The flapping stopped abruptly, as though cut away. The heaviness was gone, he heard a soft voice near his ear. “Just look…”

The blue sky was ahead, on the left and on the right, even behind them. Perplexed, Thomas looked at the white hill of wadding that floated in half a mile on the left, then realized with fear that was no wadding but a cloud! He turned to the right: a whole scatter of clouds and sharp rocky mountains far below. He saw thin strips of roads, tiny groves that looked like high grass – and the steppes beyond, scarily flat and deserted!

On the dragon’s both sides, huge leathery sails were spread, the thick skin on the bridges stretched as tight as on battle drums. The flying dragon looked like an old giant lizard with a bat’s wings. Thomas had once seen such a creature in his far journeys: that lizard leapt between trees, spreading its leathery wings, but it was the size of a pigeon while the dragon resembled a flying granary of a rich seignior.

Oleg prodded anxiously with dagger, searching for a weak spot. “Sparrows flap their wings often,” he said reluctantly, “and the bigger a bird, the more time it spends soaring. Eagles flap seldom.”