Yury Nikitin - The Grail of Sir Thomas

He smiled malevolently. Oleg saw triumph and delight in his swamp-greenish eyes. The singer could have killed him by shot in back through the bush, but then the bloody pilgrim would have died unaware of his killer, in no torments – and now he’ll realize that, though he killed Ternak, Ganim and his man, there are even stronger and more skilled ones. The strong and skilled minstrel will walk around while the pilgrim’s bones will be dragged by animals…

“Did you hire Ganim?” Oleg asked in a depressed voice. He staggered, blood trickled down his leg to soak into the dry ground. He felt hot and wet within his boot.

The minstrel gave no reply. He bared his teeth, drew the bow slowly, looking straight in Oleg’s eyes. Several times he released the string and drew again. Despite the smirk, his eyes were guarded. They caught every smallest move of the pilgrim’s muscle. Oleg tried to swing aside but his side burst with pain, his legs gave way. He heard ringing in his ears. It’s the loss of blood. He felt his face go pallid – and saw it in the minstrel’s smirk, his triumphant eyes. “I’ll make a cup of your skull!” the singer promised. “You were a mighty warrior…”

“Did you hire him?” Oleg saw the singer’s smirk and glittering eyes, the rest blurred with hot haze. Suddenly he glimpsed a move out of the corner of his left eye, looked there asquint. As Ternak had gripped the hilt of the knife in his chest, he was still holding it, his fingers weakening, losing touch with it one by one. In a moment, his hand would fall down into the grass. “Ternak,” Oleg said insistently, “fling the knife at him!”

The minstrel shot a glance there. Ternak’s hand fell with a noise, burying itself in the grass. The singer shot briskly. His arrow struck Ternak heavily under his thrown-up chin, went into almost to the feather.

Oleg jumped back and aside once the arrow left the bow string. He fell into a gully, broke through bushes, rolled down in a ball until he reached the bottom. The thickets softened his fall. He hastened to climb above and aside, feeling giddy, big black flies rushing before his eyes, his blood dripping on the grass. Twisting, he pulled out his second knife, gripped the hilt. The minstrel was sure he’d left his only knife in Ternak’s body. Oleg had made him think so with devouring that knife with eyes. Now he had a little chance to outwit the minstrel who proved out to be a skilled and experienced assassin, those three killers no match for him. It’s strange he has to wander in a singer’s likeness…

He heard a rustle above. Minstrel was coming slowly down the slope, bow in hands, arrow on the string. He kept his eyes on the blood stains on the ground and leaves, and he walked carefully, not ran. He stared at each blade of grass, his eyes (a match for Oleg’s) missed neither a grasshopper jumping nor a lizard darting in the grass. At the same time he seemed to notice what was going on around and even behind him.

Oleg clapped himself mentally on the shoulder: he had left the bottom of the gully on time. He lay hidden in the grass, almost in the open space. Such places are never looked upon closely when sided by thick bushes. A wounded prey would usually hide behind branches, so the minstrel kept away from shrubs, ready to shoot an arrow at any suspicious move.

Oleg felt his face muddy. He got dirty all over, like a pig, while crawling on his belly along the bed of a lately dried-up stream, but that made him invisible among boulders, grey and muddy the same. His body was plastered with leaves and dry grass blades, the clots of earth dangled from his cheeks.

The minstrel stepped with caution. He not only looked at the bloody trace but glanced around. The red stains led him to the logs that had stopped Oleg’s fall. The four of them, with their branches tangled, made a perfect hide. The singer’s lips curved in a ghost of a triumphant smirk, but he kept moving on in a guarded and tenacious way. He was an excellent hunter, the one who would easily trace and kill a wounded bear, or even a lion.

Oleg lay, clinging to the ground, barely daring to breath. With his left ear pressed to the ground, he heard every step, every move. He could not see the minstrel but his intuition informed that he’d passed by and was leaving.

Oleg raised himself a little on trembling arms and saw a bent back in twenty steps ahead. The singer sneaked, ready to wheel round at any moment, to jump aside or fall under the protection of shrubs. He had the bow half-drawn while peering at the tangle of roots and branches of stout fallen trees. The iron arrowhead glittered like a big snake’s wet tongue.

Oleg struggled up, trying not to step on his right leg, numb and disobeying. The singer made ten more steps away. Oleg aimed clumsily, as if it were his first throw in a lifetime, and flung the knife. Everything went dark before his eyes, he lurched and stretched his arms, trying to keep his feet.

He heard a convulsive sob ahead. The minstrel wheeled round, his arrow flew over Oleg’s head. The singer’s eyes were goggled and mad, the last blood flowed away from his cheeks, and his face went pallid yellow. He seized a second arrow briskly, shot at Oleg. A click – and the arrow missed. The minstrel bared his teeth, reeled, blood went trickling out of his mouth. He kneeled slowly, staring at Oleg with astonishment. The bow slipped off and down into the grass.

Oleg came up, limping heavily, dragging his foot. The minstrel coughed, spattering blood on his chin. “You did it…” he croaked. “I underestimated…”

“Who sent you?” Oleg demanded.

The minstrel made a little wave of head, his eyes flashed. “No way to force me… I’m dying…”

Oleg nodded sullenly. If the knife struck where it should have, then the point of the blade had cut through the spinal muscle and into the heart. “Should I burn or bury you?” Oleg asked.

Blood gushed out of the singer’s mouth unevenly, as his heart was still clinging to life. His breast rose heavily, with a squelch inside, as if a big fish were splashing there. “I worship fire,” he said in a fading voice.

“All the four elements are sacred,” Oleg added at once. “I can bury you according to your rite. Would you speak?”

The minstrel’s eyes were closing, as he rocked on his knees. Oleg barely heard his whisper, “Take my sword… Worth forty cows and two horses…”

“In the name of Zarathustra,” Oleg demanded in Farsi. “Who sent you?”

“The Lords of the World…”

He fell face first, already dead. Oleg tugged the knife out of his back (it had actually reached the heart!) and wiped on the minstrel’s shoulder. He took some gold coins he found in the dead man’s pocket, before starting a hard climb above. Although his bleeding stopped, he felt too weak to defend even against a sparrow. He’d have not been able to bury the singer in European way if even he wanted to. Luckily, the faith of fire worshippers prohibits the bodies to be buried in earth, burnt or thrown into water: all the four elements are sacred and should not be defiled by corpses. A dead body should be left open for the predatory birds and animals to bury it in their stomachs, with the remainders picked up by ants and bugs.

He fainted twice until he came back to the shelter. The bodies of Ganim and crossbowman were all covered with a quilt of green flies, and big yellow ants had trodden ways to them. While the ants rushed to the bodies, their bellies were tucked in. Those who returned had their bellies swollen, red fibers of flesh in their tiny jaws.

The horses snorted, backed from the man covered with blood. Oleg raked out the bag of gold coins, cursing himself for having hidden it that deep, tied it across the saddle of Ganim’s horse and mounted, with great difficulty, the crossbowman’s one.