Yury Nikitin - The Grail of Sir Thomas

Oleg came from aside, stopped in three steps. “You’re not dead,” he told Ganim, “so leave my knife’s hilt. Look at me.”

Ganim made no move. His quivering fingers straightened. Oleg came from behind, turned him with a knock and recoiled. Suddenly, Ganim jumped from the ground. His left hand flung a handful of earth into Oleg’s face, his right one pulled the knife out of his chest and struck, with lightning speed, the spot where Oleg should been standing. But the earth flew past Oleg, he elbowed the knife away, seized Ganim’s hand and twisted it fiercely. Ganim screamed, fell to his knees.

Oleg twisted it further. He heard bones crack, tendons burst with a crunch. Ganim’s face hit on the ground, which was wet with blood. The red spilled out from his chest in an uneven trickle, pulsing in time with his quivering heart.

“I have not missed,” Oleg told him pressingly. “I wanted to ask, that’s why you are still alive… Who paid five thousands in gold?”

With effort, Ganim turned his face. It was caked in bloody mud, his eyes and mouth closed up with it. “You’ll be destroyed both…” he croaked. “No one can stand up to their might!”

“Names!” Oleg demanded. He twisted the enemy’s hand, the last gristles crunched, Ganim stopped twitching. His strength was drained fast with the blood loss. Oleg hit him by shoulder blade, heard a dry crunch, seized the fragments, as thin as bird bones, and started rubbing their blooded ends, with marrow flowing out of them, against each other. “Say it!” he demanded fiercely. “Say it now!”

Ganim wheezed with terrible pain, twitched, his lips foamed. Oleg seized his private parts with another hand and squeezed. The new pain made Ganim toss up, his pallid face went black, a wheezing voice escaped his lips. “I’ll say… It was… in person…”

He tossed up again, his body flinched, then stretched like a log, gave a last quiver, like grass in the wind, and froze. His face looked more awful than a strangled man’s one, his goggled eyes were full of terror. Oleg sighed, closed his eyes, folded his arms on his chest.

The crossbowman lay still. The blade had gone deep into his brain. Oleg pulled the hilt with caution, to overcome the resistance but avoid being spattered. He wiped the knives clean, then put them into covers. Both entered their nests reluctantly, like the swords of minstrels’ songs that screamed with joy (swords, not songs) each time when unsheathed and cried with grief when leaving the battle.

Searching the shelter of branches, he found a well-hidden leather bag with gold coins, weighed it in hand. If these are golden dinars, they number in no less than five thousand… Someone is craving for the cup desperately. So craving that he ordered to kill two in his way: a knight, hero of the capture of Jerusalem, and a peaceful pilgrim. Now the knight must be beating off two killers, if still alive. He might have been invincible in jousting and heroic as a member of attacking knightly force, but Saracen assassins were harder nuts to crack. The poor knight might already be wheezing with his throat cut, his hot blood shedding the ground…

He hid the gold in a different place, went around the shelter in broadening circles. He saw lots of hoof prints. On the wet ground near the stream they were so distinct that he could easily count every nail and dent in iron horseshoes. However, the sun rose high in the sky before he identified the horse of the mysterious employer, the one who had brought five thousands of golden dinars.

Oleg ran, watching the tracks on the earth and patches of trampled grass, listening to the birds crying and grasshoppers chirring. A steppe is a whole being. An experienced ear on the one end of it will grasp easily what’s going on another.

He ran in wide steps, keeping his elbows behind, so that his chest breathed in deeply and mightily without squeezing his heart. In hundred steps on the left, a magpie flew out of a bush with an indignant scream. At once, Oleg slowed his run down to a walk, his eyes fixed on the suspicious bush, his hand on the knife hilt.

His eyes were still on the veil of green leaves, trying to penetrate through the bush, when he heard a soft voice behind, “Here, slave!”

From behind a thick log, a dried-up sinewy man stood up, clad in a thin mail with wide collar. He had a curved sword on his belt and bow in hands, an arrow on the string. Oleg recognized Ternak, a slave hunter who had impeded his homecoming and had Abdulla bring him to Baron Otset’s stone quarry.

“Didn’t expect?” Ternak flung out, his eyes narrowed fiercely. His upper lip jerked up in a predatory smile, baring yellow teeth. “Was it you, with that blockhead knight, who raised the mutiny? Though it doesn’t matter anymore. The castle now has another master. I see you managed to kill Ganim and his man. I had little love for them, but I have even less for those who succeed in killing such…”

He failed to find a proper word. Meanwhile, his hands drew the bow string. He expected to see fear in the face of the runaway slave, desired it, but Oleg kept his expression as impenetrable as he could, despite his thoughts jumping like gudgeons on a hot pan. How did Ternak happen to be here? Did he follow us all the way?

“Did you hire Ganim?” he asked, making no move.

Ternak smirked, his eyes blazed with malevolence. “Those in Hell know all. Ask them!” He aimed at Oleg, shifting the pointed arrowhead between his face and breast.

Oleg did not stir. “Why does your partner hide? He may come out.”

“What partner?”

“In that bush. A magpie flew out,” Oleg pointed with his finger.

Ternak did not move an eye, replied with a smirk. “I’m no greenhorn to be entrapped that easy.”

The bow string clicked. Oleg jerked aside. He would have caught the arrow flying, but changed his mind at the last moment (what use of arrow in hand if Ternak draws his sword out?), so his hand reached the throwing knife.

Ternak knew fighting ways. Oleg was late to grasp it. He felt a strike on his side, touched the hurt place: the arrow stuck out there! Ternak smiled, happy of his outwit, bow still in hands, but his smile seemed to be curved in wood: the knife was deep in his breast.

Oleg came up to him, kicked the bow aside. Pain spread in his side, blood trickled down his clothes, dripped on the dry ground. Clenching his teeth, he felt the arrow and flesh around it. With relief, he found out that the iron arrowhead had slid along his rib, scratching it. There was a swollen bump under his skin on the other side, as though a nut hidden there.

Holding his breath, he pushed the arrow deeper into and almost broke his neck, trying to see the place where the arrowhead would come out. The bump swelled and stretched, glittering in the burning sun – and suddenly sank, pierced by a sharp metal point from inside. It was red with blood spurting out from that new wound. Oleg moved the arrow further quickly until its jaggy head was all out. Swearing quietly, he broke the wooden shaft, pulled it out from the other side. The blood went gushing from both ends of the through wound. Oleg bent hastily over the dead man to use the thin cloth of his turban as dressing.

A low voice, resembling a roar, ordered sullenly from behind, “Stand still! No dressing.”

Oleg turned round slowly. From behind the bush on his left – the one from which the scared magpie had flown out – Gorvel’s minstrel stood. He was in travelling clothes, his pale malevolent face alerted, his eyes catching Oleg’s every move, a small bow of aurochs horn in hands, a curved sword and a long narrow dagger on his belt. Oleg cast a helpless glance at his knife, hilt-deep in Ternak’s chest. The singer caught his look and nodded. “Leave it be. And don’t move. I love to watch the blood pour out. Even if I was not the one to shed it.”