Yury Nikitin - The Grail of Sir Thomas

A sturdy, sinewy monk stepped out of the line. He joined his palms by his breast, made a low bow. Thomas tilted his lance slightly: every man of civilization should respond to a greeting, and a man of culture all the more. Oleg pressed his palm against his heart in reply, bowed his head.

The monk made a swift move with arms, took a strange fighting stance.

Chapter 16

“He calls for fisticuffs!” Oleg realized. He started to dismount reluctantly, groaning.

“May I do it?” Thomas suggested, with a quaver in his voice.

“You need half a day to take your steel off.” Oleg dropped the reins on the saddle, spat loudly on his palms, took his stand against the fighter. While high in the saddle, he had spotted something strange about the whole line of shavepates. Now that he dismounted, he grasped that the sinewy monk’s head, with his face of a skillful and ruthless fist fighter, was on a level with his breast. The monk’s thin arms with tiny fists looked like switches.

With a terrible shriek, the monk dashed forward. Oleg stepped back involuntarily under the hail of his blows, shielded with arms in fright: it was like being attacked by a furious she-cat in a dark barn, as he once was when he’d bothered her kittens. He heard guttural cries of monks, then Thomas yelling. Oleg waved away once and again, each time hitting the thin air. The yellow robe flickered before his eyes, then he felt a hard blow on lips, pain and salty taste in the mouth. He roared with fury, his fists began to move faster, but he missed every time, punching the air, while the monk wriggled around like a loach, showering him with swift frequent blows from all sides. Oleg stopped backing, stood in place for a while, his fists darted forward menacingly, as he targeted the monk’s concentrated face that glistened with big beads of sweat.

Suddenly the monk flew up, gave out such a terrible shriek as if he got under a loaded oxcart, and hit Oleg’s breast with both feet. Oleg lurched, made a step back to keep his balance, waved his hand and gripped the falling monk by ankle. The adversary had bent, ready to somersault, but now, being caught by leg, he struck against the ground forcefully with his face, choked with nasty fine dust.

Oleg still held the foe’s ankle, guessing what to do now, when the monk thrashed in his arms, hit his breast with the other heel and squeaked with pain, then hit lower but the wonderer’s belly was not much softer, so the monk squeaked again, arched his back like a cat, gripped Oleg’s hand with both of his, digging his nails deep into flesh. Oleg’s fingers unclenched hurriedly, jerked his hand away. The monk fell down but jumped up at once, as if his bottom were pierced with an awl. Standing with his back to Oleg, he started raising his leg for a sider, but Oleg got cross and kicked him forcefully below his back.

The monk was sent flying. He collapsed into the dust in several steps and remained there, sprawled like a frog squashed by a wheel. “He shouldn’t have scratched me!” Oleg said loudly, as an excuse for himself. “He could bite me either… Though I’d have knocked all his teeth out then!”

Thomas looked at Oleg with goggled eyes. The senior monk came out of stupor and whispered – not bellowed! – a few words. Two monks dashed to their fallen comrade. Oleg watched, with compassion and concern, the injured man to be turned on his back. His arms were pulled apart, the air was blown into his mouth. At last, one of the monks cried something in a high-pitched, bird-like voice, the senior monk cast a sharp glance at Oleg, and the defeated fighter was carried at a run into the open gate.

Two monks, whose solemn faces seemed to be carved of dark stone, stepped forward. One winced malevolently, shot a fierce glance at Oleg. Another gave a terrible scream and shivered, as if in some dashing dance, his face contorted, sinews in his neck bulged like a spinal comb of a big lizard. The senior monk looked them over approvingly. “Which would you like?” he asked Oleg harshly.

“To fight, you mean?”

“To combat.”

“Well, to make it fair… Both.”

The senior monk’s eyebrows jerked up. “The two of them?” he repeated slowly, unable to believe his ears. “At the same time?”

“What’s wrong?” Oleg wondered in turn. “If no mortal combat, why not to have some fun? When I was young, we fought face-offs in groups…”

The monks started coming to him from both sides. Oleg stepped away from one, but missed the stroke of another who flew up like a hellish bat, bared his teeth, raised his hand but struck with foot : so high that the bare heel hit Oleg’s head. Oleg spat with vexation for being tricked like that. He moved to grip his ankle, as he did with the previous combatant, but failed. Meanwhile, the first monk took a running jump from the left. The violent kick of both his feet on the neck almost knocked Oleg down. He turned, raising his fist for a mighty blow, but both monks whisked under his arms and began to pound his back with fists, elbows, feet, even heads. Once Oleg wheeled round, like angered bear, both warrior monks slipped to behind him again, knocked on his back like on a wall of logs, screaming in high-pitched voices, hitting with their heads. At least they neither bite nor scratch.

After a fifth or sixth attempt, Oleg managed to snatch one of them blindly. It turned out to be his head, so Oleg took care not to squeeze it, got a better grip on his leg, whirled the monk overhead and rushed after the other one. The adversary ran away from him in circles, screaming desperately. Oleg chased him as if he were a naughty kitten, brandishing the first warrior monk overhead, roaring with joy.

Finally, the fighter stumbled, fell into the dust, shielded his head with both arms in wild fear, then pulled the hem of his robe over. “I see you give up,” Oleg understood. He took his “weapon” with both hands and laid him down on a dusty road near his brother. “Live on, lad!”

The monk whom Oleg intended to use as a club, though landed no blow with him, lay with his eyes goggled as a lobster’s. His face and neck were horrible crimson, filled with bad blood. The veins on his temples bulged in tight branchy knots.

The monks were backing in horror. Their even line broke, their goggle-eyed gazes shifted between their sprawled brothers and the smirking giant barbarian. The senior monk glanced back at his monastery walls in confusion, as if he expected some help from there. “Give me two more of yours!” Oleg suggested. “Or come with them yourself. I’ve only started to warm up. We Slavs are a nation of north, we harness slowly… It’s been ages since I romped in fisticuffs. I see no harm in pleasing myself and our gods with them!”

The senior monk glanced at Oleg and Thomas angrily, spat out few words in a high-pitched voice, like a street fishwife. One of the monks darted into the gate, the sprawled brothers were carried after him. Behind the wall, there were shouts and horse neighs.

Three warriors, in yellow jackets and strange straw hats, which looked like caps of mushrooms, with red tassels, ran out of the gate briskly. Each had a short spear in clenched fist and a thin curved saber on his belt.

“Serious guys,” Oleg admitted. He backed to his horse, where his bow and quiver lay across the saddle and his giant sword hung beside it.

Thomas drove his horse ahead, blocking the way. “Sir wonderer,” he said solemnly, “it’s a shame for me to hide behind a peaceful back of a holy hermit. I’m a noble knight after all, a professional fighter for justice. Please let me warm up now. You need time to take your sword, and I have mine in hand!”

Thomas dismounted heavily, walked ahead slowly, stopped before the three warrior monks. He looked like a glittering tower of metal, his armor gleaming so bright that it was painful to look at. Slowly, Thomas lowered his visor, unsheathed the sword. The sunlight scattered blue sparkles over the double-edged blade of Damask steel.