Yury Nikitin - The Grail of Sir Thomas

Oleg mounted and they galloped, heading the strengthening wind. The cloud was spreading out and concentrating. Once as white and curly as a sheep, it went dingy grey, then coal-black, heavy, flashing with brief evil lightnings. The heavy menacing storm cloud moved onto them like an avalanche: thundering, spark-emitting, crushing down the blue of the sky and getting bigger at every moment. Its dark belly was illumed continually by flashes of white light.

The road went down, between rocky walls. The wind grew stronger and howled, squeezing through the narrow canyon. Then the walls came apart and became lower but the path kept winding. Oleg glanced at the dark sky, urged his horse on. The rain is about to pour down and the tracks of Gorvel’s horse are fresh. If they hadn’t lingered with villains, they could come upon him at this very spot!

Horses trotted along a tall sheer wall when Thomas cried in excitement, “I see fire!”

In three or four hundred steps ahead, a faint smoke was rising from a slope. They could not see the fire: it was hidden artfully behind rocks. Thomas vaulted off and craned his neck, peering there. Oleg hold his horse in. He felt anxious but could not detect the threat.

Thomas threw the rope hastily round the stallion’s forelegs. “You go with me?” he called to Oleg.

Oleg dismounted slowly, shifted the bow from the saddle to his shoulder. Thomas adjusted his sword baldric and started up the steep slope. In his gleaming armor, he looked like a metal statue. Stones cracked under his iron body, burst, crumbled. Oleg barely had time to dodge boulders falling from under the knight’s feet.

They could see the fire burning out, its burnt crimson coals, when there was a thunder of stones above. Oleg grasped it at once, bellowed for Thomas to look out and jumped away, under the shelter of a stone ledge.

A colossal boulder was rolling down. On the go, it bounced and kicked down two more huge stones. The three of them brought down a whole rockslide.

Crawling on his fours, Thomas tossed his head, glanced at Oleg, then looked up again, advanced his hands involuntarily. The rockslide was coming down at him. Stones bounced, fell down with force, knocking down another mossy boulders.

Cursing, Thomas dashed aside. Oleg felt a hit on shoulder, curled up under the ledge. Rocks crashed overhead, bouncing down from it. The dust rose. Big boulders flew above and by but pebbles, grits, clods of earth, and broken stone fragments rained down his back and head.

When the thundering sounds descended, Oleg straightened up, throwing a layer of earth and pebbles off his back. The rockslide had rushed by, the stones scattered within scores of steps at the mountain foot. Horses had run aside, terrified by the crash.

The earth was bare where the rockslide had passed. Thomas was seen nowhere. Cold with fear, Oleg dragged his feet down the slope. His right arm hung loose, numb of the strike by stone. The ground was sagging beneath his feet, bare and friable.

After he made two score steps down, he saw a scatter of stones, a flash of metal beneath them. He hurried down there, flung some rocks aside. A crumpled, filthy iron shoulder turned out to be hidden beneath. The cleft was filled with stones and the knight had been thrown there too, the mass of rocks rolled over and trampled his metal body deeper into the crack.

Oleg hurled the boulders away, his back prickling, right arm still aching and unable to move. He released the knight’s helmet, then turned Thomas on his back, tugged his visor but the crumpled grate stalled. Scraping his fingers and making an awful grind, Oleg raised the visor – and recoiled. The knight’s face was pallid, its right side covered with red blood, his lips foaming with bloody saliva. “Sir Thomas,” Oleg called insistently. “Sir Thomas!”

Thomas’s eyelids were closed tightly, the eyeballs beneath them motionless as if made of wax. Oleg rolled away the last rocks angrily. The knight’s armor, once gleaming, was dark and dented. However hard Oleg tried to pull Thomas out of the iron shell, he failed to do it with his one hand: no clasp wished to be undone. He felt the first shiver down his right arm, the fingers on it started to move again.

He undid the flack, splashed the water from it on the knight’s pallid face. Thomas’s eyelids fluttered, rose slowly. He stared into the space, his smashed lips moved. Oleg heard a rattle. “Sir wonderer… Are we still in this world?”

“It’s the only world where we can be together. Can you get up?”

Thomas strained but his body remained as motionless as the cleft he lay in. “My road ends here,” he whispered in a dull voice.

Oleg heard a rustle above followed by heavy hasty steps. It was Gorvel hurrying down to them, hopping on stones. He was clad in armor: not full armor, as the one Thomas had on, but a light mail riveted with steel plates on most vulnerable places. The mail reached his knees. He wore light boots and a gleaming Saracen helmet topped with a feather, a green cloth winded in rows around its base. Gorvel had a curved dagger on his belt and a curved heavy sword, a strange mixture of a knightly sword and a saber, in hand. “You’ve had a long run after me!” he cried. “But I’m no deer to flee a hunter! And even a deer can hit with antlers, can’t he?”

Oleg stood up, his fingers seized the knife handle. No time to shoot. Gorvel in three steps.

The red-bearded knight smirked at him. “Why in left hand?”

“I’m a left-hander,” Oleg replied. Gorvel looked him over and smirked maliciously.

“…with a scabbard on your right? You are both -hander, a fool can see it. But now you have one hand and a knife whilst I have two and a sword. See it? You can return to your horses. Ride away and never look back.”

Oleg bent down a little, the knife pointed at himself, in Scythian way. His grass-green eyes were fixed on Gorvel’s sullen, angry face. “I’ll stay with him.”

Gorvel muttered a curse, made a small step ahead, his sword started whirling in semicircles. Oleg recoiled swiftly to the right, then moved left, checking his bruised body.

Gorvel’s eyes widened. He stopped and grumbled, “I hate knives… Hey, pilgrim! You are a very dark horse. Why do you care of this knight? I have scores to settle with him.”

“I rode with him.”

“And I was at war with him!”

Thomas moved his lips. Oleg heard a faint whisper. “Sir wonderer… Leave. It’s my fault, my mistake!.. Leave…”

“We’ll win more wars,” Oleg comforted Thomas, keeping his eyes on Gorvel. “The Gate of Heaven is still closed to us!”

“Leave… Then… if you like… come back and kill… Holy vengeance…”

Gorvel heard him and nodded. “Quite so! Come back later and…”

“I’d rather kill you now,” Oleg objected. He prepared to throw a knife, swinging on his half-bent knees, looking for Gorvel’s vulnerable places.

The red-bearded knight glanced back angrily. His face was unhappy, as if he were bound to do what he hated. “I hate knives… Especially throwing ones. But I’m not afraid of them!”

He stepped forward, raising his sword. His eyes met Oleg’s. Two steps remained between them. Gorvel bared his teeth, went pale, as he drove himself into rage. His forehead bulged with sinews, his sword became a part of his glittering steel body.

Chapter 12

Suddenly they heard a clatter of hooves below. Five riders galloped, raising dust, to the foot of the hill, surrounded the horses of Oleg and Thomas. Two of them dismounted at once, untethered horses, grabbed the reins. Gorvel saw it over Oleg’s head, bellowed in fury, “Blizzard! They stole my Blizzard!”

Oleg glanced back, rocked aside at once, in case of Gorvel taking the chance to hit. At a glance, Oleg saw among the riders a horse with ornate harnesses, empty saddle and a big swollen bag behind it. Gorvel watched the strangers in fury, making no attempt to attack Oleg. The burglars rode slim short-legged horses, so the stallions of Franks stood out by their might and height.