Yury Nikitin - The Grail of Sir Thomas

Karganlyk sobbed, raised his hands, as though to grip the injured place. His fingers unclenched, the red-hot rod dropped on Gorvel’s bare chest. Karganlyk swung back and forth, hanging over the sprawled Gorvel, then collapsed slowly on his back. The hard heavy body hit the ground with a force that made it tremble and lurch.

Disbelieving, Hazars watched their invincible leader whose face was now covered with dark blood, red bubbles rose from the gurgling mass in place of his socket. Immortal Karganlyk, the awe and demigod of their tribe, the hope of rebirth of their bygone glory… lay in dust, as dead as a road stone!

Someone screamed in terror, turned and ran away. Other backed, their widened eyes fixed on the ruin of their leader. A dreadful shriek burst out from them before they wheeled round and fled without choosing their way. The tread of bare feet was everywhere, along with the stiffing dust raised by them, the clatter of stones. Mad Hazars were climbing up the slope, having abandoned their horses, things, camp, and captives.

Roland and his man stopped cursing, turned their heads after the runaways. Gorvel groaned through gritted teeth: the damned Hazar had dropped the red-hot rod on his naked body and before it got cold, a furrow was branded in his flesh! The knight smelled his own burnt flesh as he breathed.

When the footfall died away, the strange pilgrim, a friend of Sir Thomas, showed up. He walked unhurriedly, without looking around, the bow and quiver of arrows jutted out over his shoulder. On his go, he drew a knife, cut Roland’s hands free in two easy moves.

The leader of marauders goggled his eyes. “Why they took such a flight? Three score men!”

“Karganlyk was a live god to them,” Oleg explained. “Without him, they are nothing.”

Another marauder, still stretched on the stakes, swore. “You know how to treat them, holy father!” he said with a malevolent smirk. “You know … The arrowhead no iron – it’s silver! I have keen eye for such things.”

Wincing, Roland kneaded his swollen wrists. His back was numb, he bent forward with effort to untie his feet. “Barbarians!.. We, soldiers of imperial guard, would have fought to the last man. Whether the Emperor alive or dead, we are personalities! No wild mob.”

Oleg nodded. “Look here, personality. See a hundred of Hazar horses over there? No, twice that number. Unsaddled, but that’s how they do. Such horses are a fortune for you, aren’t they?”

Roland bared his big teeth. “Holy father! May your Pagan gods reward you for your kindness. This is our Christian God, and all the saints and martyrs, who speak with your mouth now. Two poor former soldiers of imperial guard do have a great need of two Hazar horses. Of four, if to count spare ones!”

He tossed the rope off his feet, got up. A saber abandoned by some Hazar glittered aside. He took it, cut the limbs of his comrade free. Supporting each other, they plodded to the horses that grazed in the thick green grass. As they walked, they picked up things left by Hazars: weapons, clothes, boots. Roland’s comrade glanced back at Oleg thievishly, as he grabbed Gorvel’s thin coat of mail and expensive sword of Damask steel. Oleg nodded as a sign that Gorvel had no further need of those. Smirking openly, the marauders caught horses and rode away. Each of them had taken two remounts.

Behind Oleg, Gorvel croaked with his dry throat, “It’s time to unbind me too!”

Oleg turned to him with a still face. “Faithful Christians are saved by angels, as your legends say. Are you a Christian? No, because you serve the Secret Seven.”

“Damn you! What do you want?”

“Nothing,” Oleg replied sadly. “Before I came here, I’d been to our cleft. Yes, I found Sir Thomas.” He turned his back to Gorvel, made a couple of steps away, turning the scattered Hazar things with the toe of his boot.

Gorvel twitched helplessly, being stretched in the sturdy ropes, cried after Oleg in a strained voice, “You are worse than Hazars!.. That’s a war! One of us had to die. I had to kill him, and I killed…”

Oleg picked a bag up, thrust his forearm inside, searching, Suddenly, his motionless face lit with a condescending smirk. He pulled out the familiar cup with greenish edges, looked it over, tossed back into the bag and then told Gorvel with a slight surprise, “Why do you think you’d killed? Thomas is a knight, not a thinker. His weak point is his heart, not head.”

He shouldered the bag and made his way to the foot of the mountain. Gorvel groaned, as he had nobody more to conceal his despair in front of. Some dark points sprang up in the blue cloudless sky. They expanded slowly, moving in uneven circles. Bathed in own sweat and the urine of others, Gorvel suddenly felt cold under the scorching rays of southern sun. He did not know who were first to come to the battlefield in these lands: crows, griffons, eagles, vultures, or jackals, but he had no doubt that soon he would know it.

He closed his eyes convulsively, almost feeling a strong beak pecking on his eyeballs.

* * *

At the fork in the road, Oleg reined up in hesitation. The mountain and the valley where the last Hazars – barbarized offspring of the proud founders of Khazar Kaganat – had terminated their existence was behind them. Chachar and Thomas, still pallid, rode mighty Frankish horses. Behind each of them, two remounts carried their load.

Thomas suffered of pounding in his ears. He did not mind where to go. All he wanted was to get as soon as possible to his native Britain where beautiful Lady Krizhina counted in fear the days that remained before Saint Boromir’s Day. The next morning after it, her brothers, hating Thomas, would force her to the altar with abominable Meloun who had no virtues but a long pedigree and a pair of short legs!

Oleg hesitated. The broad road straight ahead is broken, in some several hundreds of miles, by a narrow strait that separates two worlds: Asia and Europe. On the opposite shore, there lies Constantinople: the city of cities, the second Rome. And if they ride straight for some more hundreds or thousands of miles, the road will lead them to the next channel, with gloomy rocks on the other shore of it: the cold shore of Britain. “We’ll spend the night here,” he resolved suddenly. “Something wrong about the city ahead.”

“Sir wonderer,” Thomas said in a faint voice, “it seems to me we’ll have to winter among Saracen!”

“Sir Thomas, you don’t cling to your life, but what about the cup?”

Thomas touched the bag involuntarily. Now he would not allow the cup away from himself even for a moment. He carried it on his mount, mistrusting other horses.

“Sir Thomas, you’d better lie down,” Chachar said hastily.

“If that’s an invitation…” Thomas began hesitantly.

“You look unwell,” she hurried to explain.

They dismounted aside from the road, in a bunch of trees. Oleg unsaddled horses, while Thomas and Chachar went for brushwood. Chachar boasted she knew herbs from her grandmother, a famous witch, and promised to gather them. Thomas gave Oleg an awkward look, warning him not to expect any wood to be brought then.

Oleg gathered some dry twigs himself, made a fire and peered at the dancing flames. He saw distinctly the riders galloping, birds flying, flapping wings of dragons and ferocious faces of warriors, hands raised in begging, the glitter of sabers… In fire, everything changes swiftly, vanishes and comes back in a different shape, showing only a bit of its nature, a hint. But sorcerers are taught to know the trouble by a flash, as a hunter knows the bird by its feather and the animal by its single hair!

He felt his hair raised with fear. A mortal danger waited for them just at the city gate! Something vague but related to blood, axes, horse hooves. If they went left, then across the river, on the other side of the ferry, there was an ambush of Saracen assassins. They’ll shoot point-blank from strong crossbows – who gave British crossbows to them? – and finish us off with curved Damask sabers. The road on the right was barred by something indistinct but abominably dangerous. We’ll definitely fall into its dreadful spider clutches if we go there…