Yury Nikitin - The Grail of Sir Thomas

The troll raised the sword in right hand, his left one stretched aside, reaching the rails. Oleg hardly took his eyes off the glittering blade. The troll grinned: this time no way for his enemy to escape. Suddenly he tossed the sword to another hand. Oleg’s heart beat faster, but then he looked in the beast’s blazing eyes and realized: the troll has equal use of both arms, he plays with the sword to make his prey liven up for a moment, to plunge it into a deeper agony and terror afterwards.

The rails crackled under Oleg’s weight. He felt poles moving apart. A moment – and I’ll fall down into the cobbled yard. The troll would not kill with a sword: he’d rather gnaw at his prey to feel warm salty blood on lips, tear the living flesh while the prey writhes, twitches, pushes him away with weakening fingers…

Oleg was fingering a rough pole behind him when his palm found the knife hilt. He flinched. How could he have forgotten it?

Trying to look petrified with fear, he pulled the knife out cautiously, gripped the handle. The troll made one more slow step, his gleaming red eyes almost burnt his prey through.

A crow cried harshly above their heads. The troll shot a glance at it. His eyes returned to his prey at once, but Oleg had time to swing his hand: so fast that he saw only a blurry move himself. The troll gurgled as if he choked with wine, his eyes popped out. The knife was deep in his throat. His monstrous hairy paws convulsed, the sword slipped out, struck against the stone, bounced and stopped.

The troll seized the knife handle, lurched. Oleg saw the blade, dark with blood, in the huge hand, a hole in his throat, blood gushing out like a mountain stream, foaming and steaming in the moonlight. The troll went staggering to Oleg, his hand with the knife advanced, his eyes such a bright blaze that Oleg could see nothing but those red fires.

Keeping an eye on the troll, Oleg picked the sword, jumped into the corner. For a moment they stood, devouring each other with eyes. Oleg raised the sword: heavy, sharp, with a curved blade. The troll reeled but kept walking, a knife in his hand stretched far ahead. He was wild, wheezing, covered with blood.

Oleg did not strike – the troll collapsed at his feet, sprawled like a cut-down tree.

* * *

Thomas hung in his chains, feeble and half-conscious, when he heard the door bar click, then a soft whisper: “Sir Thomas! Don’t sock me on head!”

A familiar figure slipped into, setting the door ajar. Thomas jerked his head up, peered at the wonderer, unable to believe his eyes: Oleg had a sword on his belt and a knife in hand. He stopped in the middle of the torture chamber, giving his eyes time to accommodate to the fading light of the only torch. “Oh… You seem to have been socked.”

He approached, seized the hooks on which the tormented knight was hanging. The muscle bulged on his shoulders. Oleg sniffed, pulled – and the iron pin creaked out of the wall. Thomas could not believe his eyes, but the wonderer, breathing heavily near his left ear, tugged another pin – and Thomas was free.

The small room smelled of burning, the air was stiff. A wall was covered with hooks, pincers, saws, iron rods used to pierce a leg through, special tongs for tooth wrenching and lip ripping. The corner housed a small forge and a pile of firewood. Wincing, Thomas rubbed his swollen wrists. “Was there a guard?”

“There is,” the wonderer said in a dull, almost sleepy voice. He did not seem to mind the thick iron ring chaffing his neck. The deeply curved writing on it, visible in the semi-dark, said the slave belonged to Baron Otset. Oleg looked around the chamber sadly. A bunch of keys that had once been on the jailer’s belt jingled in hand. “Can you walk?” he asked softly.

“My bones intact,” Thomas informed bitterly, with waking hope in his voice. “I’m burnt and beaten, that’s all. I only mind I didn’t hit back this time!” He snatched at his slave collar violently: that damned thing was burning him days and nights.

The wonderer glanced back at him from the door. Thomas followed him out, screwing of bright light: there were two torches lit in the passage. The wonderer glided along as a shadow. On the go he threw the bunch of keys under a heavy gate, with a wide stream of sewage running out from under it. There was a startled cry, a trample of bare feet.

“Runaway slaves there,” Thomas explained unnecessarily. “You knew it?”

“It’s the same everywhere. All the same…”

Thomas struggled to keep up but suddenly checked himself. “Wait! We won’t get out! At night the yard is guarded by a troll. I don’t know where he came from…”

“You could have warned before,” the wonderer grumbled. “His watch has ended.”

Thomas sneaked after him, clutching at the wall. The answer puzzled him. He could barely keep up with Oleg: stiff legs were reluctant to obey.

“Let’s go to stables,” the wonderer said. They stopped. “Your horse is there.”

“I can’t leave the cup!” Thomas replied, looking aside.

The wonderer shrugged indifferently. “Hurry then. Dawn’s at hand.”

“And you?”

“I’ll move on my way with a prayer. Fights and bloodshed are none of my business.”

The corridor curved. In twenty steps there was a massive door to the courtyard. Beside it, a bulky soldier sat on a keg, his back rested on the wall. His helmet, iron plates on his shoulders and knees, and the broad blade of his axe were gleaming red in the torchlight. Sometimes his red lips opened sleepily, but the guard stirred at once, cast a suspicious look around, and got drowsy again. His black hair was shoulder-long. He had a thick leather armor under his iron plates, an axe across his laps, a gleaming shield leaned against the wall next to him.

Hiding in the shadow, they watched him. Thomas clenched and unclenched his fists. “If I got this bumpkin… But he’ll bellow as a bull before I reach him!”

With obvious displeasure on his face, the wonderer pulled his knife out, took it by sharp point, as if to weigh it, then by handle. Thomas watched in confusion. The wonderer swung, his hand made a sudden brief and swift move. A faint lightning flashed in the smoky air along the corridor, died out at once. The sleeping guard stopped quivering, his head dropped, his chin set against his chest.

Thomas snatched the sword from the wonderer’s hand, rushed forward. The knife was stuck in the guard’s head beside ear, two thin dark trickles running down. The wonderer pulled the knife out on the run, picked the guard’s axe. He stopped at the door, wiped the bloody blade with a cloth. “We get out?”

Thomas hardly took his astonished eyes from the pilgrim’s pale face. “What? Ah! The armory must be on the right, sir wonderer.”

“Been there?”

“No. But if I were building…”

The armory door was in ten steps, guarded by two men. Thomas noticed that the wonderer clenched his fists powerlessly and whispered something of no more killing, please, for we are all strangers in the night, or some nonsense like that.

The guard seated on a wooden block was dozing, his legs jerked. Another one was walking to and fro, yawning, rubbing his eyes with fists.

The sitting guard gave a loud snore, his legs stretched across the passage. Irritated, his partner intended to kick him, but the sleeping man looked like a bull, so the guard thought better and went away to the opposite wall, with a small guarded window in it. He jumped, grabbed the rods with both hands and pulled his face up to the fresh air jet.

“Day is breaking,” the guard said, then jumped down and turned. He saw a flash, a violent blow shook his body. Oleg caught him in the fall, put on the floor gently. He felt a draught, as Thomas galloped by like a horse. There came a thump, as if a log were axed.