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Chapter 10

 

The sun sank behind the horizon to a half when their road brought them up a hill, from where they could see a high massive castle towering on the hill that had evidently been erected for that very purpose, surrounded by a stone rampart and encircled with a moat of water. A broad drawbridge was thrown across the moat, its thick iron chains glittered in the light of sunset.

 

“Are you sure,” Thomas asked nervously, “the cup was taken there?”

 

“No other castle nearby,” Oleg replied without much conviction. “And my charms say your cup is there.”

 

Thomas glanced slantwise at the wonderer. Ragged, bashed, and worn out, he managed to keep his charms. Though Kite’s hirelings had touched them (Thomas saw it), they were not tempted by a wooden necklace, especially this one: carved roughly, without proper skill.

 

Horses, wheezing and dripping with foam, brought them up to the gate. By that time the plain was striped with reddish-black shadows. Only a crimson edge still stuck over the skyline, then it sank too, and the dusk fell.

 

A head in glittering helmet rose over the castle gate. The man was sullen, his face irritated, his eyes under swollen eyelids looked with malice.

 

Thomas, still ahorse, knocked on the iron-riveted logs of the gate. “Hey, over there! Open!”

 

“Who you are?” the guard inquired in a voice viscous like old syrup.

 

Thomas glanced at Oleg’s rags, at his own torn remnants of clothing that hung on him like on a scarecrow. The iron bangles glittered dimly on his hands and legs, the fragments of chains rang. “Don’t you see, numskull? Godly travelers! Pilgrims! Open it, now.”

 

The guard leaned forward to have a better look at the godly travelers who yelled and swore like villains. “Oh, I see how godly!.. Wait ‘ill morning. Steward comes an’ sorts out.”

 

“Till morning?” Thomas cried in a scared voice. “It’s not even night now!”

 

“Soon it be,” the guard explained in a more friendly tone. “Night and day to while away. Have to while a day, and night… we won’t see it, thank God. Our place quiet, what they want here? Can’t stay at home. Roam, roam…” He scratched himself noisily, gave a wolfish, howling yawn.

 

Thomas gasped with fury. Oleg dismounted, with his face mournful. “Brother Thomas,” he said gently, “please hold my horse. That’s the world created by Rod: people would rather obey strength than truth. Take the horses back, and I’ll knock out the gate of this vile pigsty.”

 

The guard above burst with resonant laughter, his ill yellow face turned crimson. “Knock out?.. Ha ha!.. Saracen tried it with ram!.. An’ had hard time, like bears near fish…”

 

Oleg backed three steps, puffed up, held his breath. The guard neighed merrily, but Oleg rushed on the gate suddenly, hit against the tightly-knocked-together logs. Thomas shuddered with terrible crash, thunder, the screech of iron strips torn apart. Horses jumped, trying to break off the bridge into the moat, Thomas held them with iron hand. When he looked at the gate again, he could not believe his eyes. It seems to be smashed with a rock shot from a giant catapult. Huge bars kept the folds from flying open, but the whole gate had been broken out: it lay in the yard in twenty feet from the breach. The walls of the stone arch had gaps from torn-out rods, the crumble of bricks rained down.



 

The wonderer lay, sprawled like a frog, on the gate: he looked like having slid there on ice that way. Thomas barely had time to turn horses when Oleg rose, beating the brick dust and small crumbles loudly off his clothes and swearing as only can swear a pilgrim who saw a lot of the world, passed Crimea and Rome, spent a night under the priest’s pear tree, not to mention Jerusalem where every Tom, Dick and Harry had been to.

 

Thomas rode through the breach proudly, leading the wonderer’s horse by reins. The survived guard was hanging above, shrieking shrilly. He was no more crimson but white, his feet scratched the air helplessly.

 

Other guards ran out of the building near the gate, stunned by the thunder. Their eyes popped out as they saw, in place of their indestructible gate, a gaping forest, far and dark, with some unwell blow coming from there. Massive hooks and hinges that had once been holding the heavy gate folds stuck out from the walls on both sides.

 

Thomas stopped the second horse near Oleg who was still beating small pebbles off his rags with disgust. Thomas pointed at the empty saddle, Oleg waved away sullenly. “Mounting, dismounting… What a monotonous life! ”

 

He walked across the yard to the main building. Some warriors ran down the porch, clanging with steel. Thomas kept snatching his hip: no sword there anymore.

 

They were surrounded, but Oleg, with no look at the warriors at all, went straight upstairs. Thomas vaulted off, threw the reins arrogantly into the face of the closest clot with axe in hands, and followed the wonderer. He heard a shriek behind: as the clot was grabbing the reins, he dropped the axe on his foot and went yelling, hopping along, gripping the injured foot with both hands, while horses, still trembling with fear, bustled about the yard.

 

The stone stairs were not pressed into the ground by their feet, as Thomas apprehended, not a single one even cracked. With relief, he realized that, despite all the monstrous strength, his weight was the same, as the bunches of overcome grass weighed less than a dead mouse.

 

Thomas and Oleg came into the entrance hall, which was all lit by the crimson light of a huge blazing fireplace near the far wall. Two armored men dried some cloths by the fire, their waders dried on the iron fender. There was a smell of fish pluck. Both men glanced over with surprise at the strange ragged newcomers who were followed, at a respectful distance, by three apprehensive soldiers with bare swords.

 

Oleg got tired of clanging sounds behind. He wheeled round suddenly, made a horrific grimace, and stamped his feet. The three soldiers were blown away at once, as though by hurricane. They collided at the door, a dropped sword rang, then a heavy body was heard to be rolling downstairs, crackling, crunching, and rattling. Thomas made a move to come back for the sword, which lay on the threshold and shimmered like a toadstool in the moonlight, but Oleg clutched his hand tightly. “Sir monk, do arms befit us?”

 

Thomas released himself with caution, his face grew white, his eyes suffering. “Sir wonderer, one should eat overcome grass, not gorge on it like a horse!”

 

Oleg replied in a grieving voice. “Grasses are to be found nowhere in our land in winter! Unlike these lands, where they have only summer. We hyperboreans have a habit to get full up at once.”

 

They passed the hall. A guard jumped away from the ornate inner door: something warned him not to stop the strange vagrants. Thomas kicked the door open before Oleg could do it. The folds flew open with a crack, the door bar, wrenched out roughly, flopped on the floor, some debris rained down from the ceiling.

 

The great hall was decorated with swords, axes, maces, and knightly shields over the carpets on the walls. In the middle, two tables were surrounded with benches made of halves of a split oak. Oleg nodded to Thomas, explaining silently that was a measure against brawlers who could, in full swing of a feast, lift a bench and brandish it, crushing others.

 

Both tables were formed by thick marble slabs rested on grey square blocks of stone. There were blazing fireplaces on two opposite walls, a good smell of fragrant smoke and burnt hair. The floor was made of huge slabs, the same as the walls of that gloomy castle, the cracks stuck with grey clay. However, the heavy blocks were fitted so tight that an ant could hardly pass between any of them.

 

Thomas sat down at the table and spoke haughtily, addressing no one in particular. “Hey, lord!.. Run for him, you bow-legged! I’ll have all of you flogged!”

 

Some heads, in horned helmets and without those, peeped into the door the friends had come through. Thomas’s menacing roar made the heads vanish. After a while, they came back, but not all of them.

 

Oleg walked along the walls, examined the arms. His heart pounded resonantly, about to get smashed up against the rib cage. Should he approach the door, the heads vanished and fast thumping was heard from the stairs, as though some scattered peas rolled down up to the cellar.

 

They heard a heavy ringing sound from the far door. A tall man emerged there: clad in iron armor all over, he looked so alike a metal stature that Oleg turned his head involuntarily to check whether Thomas was in place. Thomas, all ragged, his hands and feet bare, pulled an understanding smirk on.

 

The other knight was covered with gleaming steel from head to feet, but his raised visor allowed to see a narrow weather-beaten face, a red face burnt mercilessly by the southern sun. When he stepped in, some warriors appeared behind him, with a glitter of swords and heavy axes in their hands.

 

One of the warriors held a blazing torch, but the knight’s face was in the shade.

 

“Who are you?” the knight roared, his hand on the hilt of huge sword. He sounded like a lion and his voice, however closely Oleg listened to it, had no hint of confusion or fear, which are so often concealed by a might roar – only surprise and curiosity.

 

Oleg was silent, collecting his thoughts. Thomas cast a slantwise glance at him, replied in a deliberately meek voice, mimicking his friend. “We… humble pilgrims… Go from the Holy Sepulcher to Rus’. Live like song birds that walk roads and peck dung… An’ sing praises to Holy Virgin… Wear fetters…” He raised his hands to demonstrate the steel bangles that had rubbed his flesh away up to the bone. The chain fragments gave a tinkle.

 

The knight came, in a slow pace, up to the table where Thomas sat. His armor rang at every step, which made Thomas flinch with jealousy. The warriors came in after him but they dispersed along the walls. Each second man had a shiny broad-headed Saracen spear.

 

The knight stopped in two steps from Thomas, peered at him. “Humble pilgrims, eh? Since when has Thomas Malton of Gisland, which is on the bank of Don, become a humble vagrant? You used to go to sleep with no wench but your sword!”

 

Thomas gave a start but kept his seat, replied in a slow controlled voice. “As you see, Sir Burlan, I have no sword now.”

 

“Neither a wench,” the knight spoke in an unpleasant voice where a jeer could be heard. “Only a pilgrim friend instead… ahem. In this land, a fever is picked up by one and vile habits – by another… Have you lost your sword?”

 

Thomas blushed, blood rushed up to his cheeks at once, but with a visible effort he made his shoulders relax, replied in an even voice. “With the help of Our Lady, we get what we want without a sword. There’s only base folk, and I bare my noble sword only for noble foes. For example, the thief of Holy Grail had his death of my bare hand… No, he was killed like a dog – by the stone I hurled at him. And now I came for the Holy Grail!”

 

Burlan’s eyes were the color of water running over the river boulders. His eyelids all but closed, as he narrowed his eyes in a predatory way. “If you come without armor, like a bird without feathers… like a plucked crow, as we knights put it, you shall be treated with as much honor as a common tramp. If you don’t please us, we’ll crucify you at the gate!”

 

The warriors began to stir, exchanged glances, then started to approach in cautious short steps, their spearheads aimed at Thomas’s chest. Thomas was slow to respond, and Oleg (he stood by the wall) asked Burlan innocently, “The old gate or the new one?”

 

Burlan did not seem to get it. A warrior jumped up to him, whispered obsequiously in his ear. Burlan started, stepped quickly to the window, looked outside for a while, unable to believe his eyes, then went pallid, his fingers of both hands clutched the windowsill. There were still faint screams, shouts, a clang of steel heard from the yard. “What’s wrong with our gate?” Burlan demanded in a constrained voice.

 

“Rotten through,” Oleg replied uncaringly. “A blow and a spit reduced it to pieces. You’ll need a new one to crucify a man on! Surely, the times are hard…”

 

Thomas slapped on the table impatiently. “Sir Burlan! I want back the cup that was stolen from me. Immediately!”

 

The warriors along the walls exchanged glances. Burlan turned away from the window. His voice was still constrained, as though an invisible hand held his throat. “The cup was left for me to store. I have no idea why so much fuss about it: my chests are full of silver and golden cups, while this one is plain copper. But I was asked to keep it in my place. Asked by a noble man. And I will comply his request.”

 

“Where’s the cup?” Thomas demanded.

 

Burlan glanced over at the warriors who crowded at the door, blocking it. He gave a malevolent smile, his voice grew louder. “Straight behind this wall. On the shelf near the lamp. Take it if you can.”

 

The warriors gripped their swords, scowling at two unarmed travelers from under their helmets pulled over their brows. Behind them, some spearheads and spikes of helmets could be seen.

 

Thomas started to rise, red with fury. Oleg intruded quickly. “Your Grace, I have a lower rank… I’ll fetch it!”

 

As he stood near the wall pointed by Burlan, he bumped against it. There was a crash, deep cracks ran along the wall, huge blocks thundered out. Oleg stepped after them, leaving a cloud of dust in the breach.

 

Thomas gave a start but made himself stay at the table and adopt an air of boredom. Burlan grew as white as snow, his jaw dropped, his eyes goggled and glassy. Two of his warriors dropped their spears and ran away, shrieking.

 

They heard shouts and clang on the other side of the breach, then a hunched figure emerged there, in the crimson light of the fireplace. Oleg kicked aside a block of stone, as large as a bull’s head, his sneeze raised a small cloud of dust. He carried a copper cup, pressing it against his chest, shielded from small falling stones with his palm. With a humble bow, he put the cup in front of Thomas and bowed again. “Your Superiority, that’s your chalice.”

 

Thomas touched the salient side of the cup, greenish with age, with fingertips, said to no one in particular, “What the ways in this pigsty!.. Aren’t you going to feed your humble guests? Where would we have our next feast?”

 

Oleg dusted off noisily, slapped clouds of dust out of his rags. He heard a sad note in Thomas’s apparently cheerful voice but said nothing: no one had ever come back from another world to tell what is the food there like. Small stones glittered in his hair. The block he had kicked away was lying on the other side of the hall. Warriors glanced at it with fear: hardly any of them could simply move it.

 

Burlan turned his head with a screech. “Bring food for these… pilgrims… guests,” he said in a hoarse voice.

 

Carefully, Oleg sat down on the bench near Thomas. He moved slowly, like a clever horse among fragile dishes, even felt the bench before sitting. Burlan stood by the window but did not look in it anymore: his goggled eyes were glued to the breach in the wall, through which a man could pass ahorse.

 

Oleg made an inviting gesture. “Sir lord… Burlan or Burdan… or Buridan… would you have dinner with us?”

 

Burlan gave a start, took his eyes with effort off the gaping breach. Oleg waved at him welcomingly, and Burlan came to, in wooden steps, and sat down on the bench facing Thomas. As their eyes met, the last blood rushed away from Burlan’s face: the eyes of ragged knight errant shone like two stars of Bethlehem, bright red roses flashed and faded on his cheeks.

 

Behind Thomas, there was a breach where men rushed about, shouted, dragged someone from under the stones, then carried him away. The fallen torches smoked on the floor. A servant in a greasy, soiled apron came through the gap, stepping over huge stone blocks that lay as far as the hall. The tray in his hands quivered. When he put it on the middle of the table, Thomas winced: the meat was cold and the bread so hard that it could be used to break another wall.

 

“That’s on a fast day, eh?” Oleg sympathized. “It should be fish, grass…”

 

Thomas who had just stuck his teeth into the first slice of meat recoiled. “Sir lay brother,” he said with vexation, “your reminders are either too early or too late!”

 

The servant hurried to take the meat away. Thomas followed him with hungry eyes.

 

Oleg cried after him. “Fish for him!.. Fish!.. I saw a big fish here – it scratched itself against the fence when we passed… er… through the gate. Scratched and grunted!”

 

Burlan shifted his stunned gaze between Thomas and Oleg. Both had very serious hungry faces.

 

Oleg sniffed. “Good host would have something to wet our whistles,” he said with a jeer. “But you see, sir abbe, these people are starving!”

 

Burlan blushed with insult and blurted out. “Five barrels of wine of Cyprus here, across three halls! And in my cellar, I have twelve barrels of madeira, Cahors wine, and northern moonshine!”

 

“Thank you for information,” Oleg replied politely.

 

Burlan had barely bit his tongue, as he realized his mistake, when the strange vagrant bumped, like a blind man, into the wall pointed by the master, broke through with a terrible crash, made a breach from the ceiling to the floor. Huge blocks, each would do to smash a bear, rained down his head and shoulders, rolled down his back. He sneezed of dust and vanished.

 

Burlan was yellow like a dead man. Blue veins twitched on the temples of his head, his face fell, his nose sharpened. Soon there was some more thunder, an irritated roar, crash of rolling stones, heavy steps, then a terrible crash and thunder again, sounds of falling stones, frightened screams, a plaintive cry.

 

A fresh roast meat was brought in. Thomas gorged on it, as he suffered a beastly hunger. His fingers scratched against an empty tray before he knew it. The servants vanished. At once, there was the “fish” that scratched itself against the fence and grunted, and also the “fish” that flapped its wings in the reeds. Actually, Thomas could have real meat with no remorse: a traveler may lose a count of days or even the calendar itself, but the wonderer reminded of the fast inopportunely… Thomas’s hand stopped, he felt a surge of fury. What if the wonderer was just teasing? A bloody Pagan, he can hardly know the days of fast… Maybe he wanted more meat left to him?

 

He felt the empty tray again, cast an annoyed glance at the servants. They started to rush about faster, serving roast swans, geese, ducks, quail, a roast boar by the way, a couple of baked turkeys with apples, some venison… When, finally, they brought some crucians fished in the pond, Thomas waved that away sluggishly: he was full up, and his friend would have to start from a roast bear or, at least, an ox.

 

In times a thunder was coming into the hall, broken with short periods of silence. As Thomas ate, he did not listen much, but then felt a vague surprise. Burlan had said the wine was just across three halls, hadn’t he? Then Oleg should break through only three walls… Or four?.. But there was much more crash, anyway. Could the poor wonderer get lost in the labyrinth of the castle halls and passages, so unusual to a Pagan like him? And now he walks everywhere, breaking through the walls, demolishing stairs and passages, his breath choked with dust… And I, Thomas Malton, sit here and pig out while my hungry friend roams the strange castle?

Thomas spat the bones out on the middle of the table, started to rise, with strong intention to walk on the distant noise… or walking in the opposite direction would do better if the wonderer had gone far?.. when a scary crack ran down the opposite wall. There was a thunder, huge boulders crashed into the hall, rolled about it, and the hunched figure of the wonderer appeared in the breach. With a forty-basket barrel on his back, he looked like Atlas.

 

The edge of the barrel got stuck in the gap. The wonderer gave an angry roar, kicked out the protruding stones below, elbowed away the boulder that bulged out on a level with his shoulder. A big stone fell down on his foot, and the wonderer spoke ill of Christ, the Virgin and her knight who sat gobbling and snapping his jaws instead of helping his friend in Christian way before he sets to drinking in knightly way – gorging on…

 

Oleg tried to get through again. Thomas yelled to warn him. “The barrel will break!”

 

His terrible shout made torches drop from the walls and the helmet of the warrior who stood steadfastly in the doorway fly away. Reluctantly, the wonderer set the barrel down on the scattered stone blocks, went over all the possible pedigree of the Virgin with own insets. Hell burn this Pagan! Roaring, Oleg brought down all but the whole wall, grappled the barrel and brought it to the table. The blocks of heavy stone had rolled about the hall, one stopped at the very table. With joy, Thomas put his foot on that stone and rested his elbow on the knee.

 

Carefully, Oleg put the barrel down near the table, knocked out the bottom with a spat. The befuddling smell hit their nostrils. Thomas gasped, grabbed the biggest scoop eagerly. Burlan’s face showed despair.

 

Oleg looked at the lord and nodded. “I don’t like the wine of Cyprus, it can’t be helped. I reached it, tasted… ‘No!’ I thought. I’ve always loved sweet things. The Cahors wine would do! I went to get it but lost my way… I hope you had no urgent need of those paintings stolen from Jerusalem? They were ruined when those marble statues, stolen either in Mesopotamia or Babylon, fell on them… They would not fall, but I slipped on the spilled precious attar of rose when I caught on those barrels by accident – I mistook them blindly for some wall design…”

 

Thomas drank much and enjoyed it. His head was strangely light and empty. Sounds grew louder, then quietened again. Even the hall seemed to narrow at one moment and broaden at another, torches first went pale, then blazed up so bright that it made his eyes screw up at once. He reached for the meat, but his fingers stretched for scores of feet and the plate turned out to be one the other end of the table. He burst with drunken laughter, snatched a big slice, almost dropped it down but caught in the air, sank his teeth in it with a roar.

 

Only three warriors remained in the hall. They clustered at the door, ready to rush away at every moment. When Thomas dropped his meat, they exchanged glances, one backed and ran downstairs on the sly. If the two strangers get drunk, they’d smash the castle like a doghouse. Either it had walls made of stone or those two came from Hell for the soul of the master…

 

Oleg gobbled meat, washed it down with the wine he scooped. Burlan quivered, not daring to rise from the table. He gestured to his servants to serve new courses as frequently as possible, and the pilgrims gulped down piles of hazel-hens, hocks of deer, fillets of beef, washing all of it by waterfalls of wine. Thomas got red, his cheeks glistened, his eyes roved. Suddenly he began to bowl the marching song of Roncesvalles. Dishes started to shake, the thick dust with small stones poured down from the ceiling, and the third wall gave a dry crackle, as a winding crack ran down, from the vault to the floor.

 

Thomas made an encouraging gesture to Burlan, and the lord began to sing in a shaky voice. He sounded like an old goat bleating. Thomas frowned: he recalled Burlan’s voice to be different. Could the host be mocking at him? Could he mimic his guests, which was simply inadmissible for any European, even uneducated one, not to say anything of a civilized man whom a noble knight of Christ’s army should be…

 

Just two warriors remained at the door: backing, jerking their heads up in fright to look at the crackling vault. Thomas got silent for a moment, taking a breath, and a trample of feet running away came from the corridor. With ardor in heart, Thomas sang about the last battle of Roland, in which he slayed Saracen with his beloved sword, wishing no mercy of them. A new, broader crack ran across the first one. Small stones rained down.

 

Oleg clapped Thomas on the shoulder, pointed at the crack, and stood up. “Thank you for your hospitality, lord. That’s our way: everything for guests! But we mustn’t outstay our welcome. Sir Thomas, take the cup. We must go.”

 

Pale Burlan managed to raise himself up his feeble feet. His armor clang like dishes in a cart pulled by a horse galloping along a forest road, over stumps and logs.

 

“And I want to paint the town red!” Thomas declared stubbornly. “A death I’d like is to drown in a barrel of wine!” He gave a loud hiccup, scooped some wine hastily and drained it.

 

Oleg clapped on his shoulder. “Sir Thomas!” he said in a warning tone. “The last time we painted the town red we ruined all of it… That’s no good!”

 

“And here… hic!.. we r-r-r-ruin…” The scoop in his hand got crumpled like a burdock leaf. Thomas threw it away indignantly, groped about the table, felt the plate where the roast boar had been very short time before.

 

“No good,” Oleg repeated with reproach. “That time you were punished by forty bows and two days fasting without wine and I, as a Pagan, was told to sacrifice to Peroun two sheep, a goat, and three Christians! If they tell me the same now, where am I to find sheep and goat in this place? Though it’s good with Christians…”

 

He stared with dim eyes at the last brave warrior who held the door steadfastly, though there were terrible holes in both walls, each large enough for two men to ride through in a row. The warrior went pale, gave a sob. He seemed to be blown away by wind, with only a fast tapping of heels heard, then a door slammed below.

 

“And you,” Oleg went on persuading, “you’d rather burn in hell than do two days without wine! Let’s go.”

 

As Thomas, in his tragic absent-mindedness, thought over the wonderer’s words, he rolled the iron dish into a pipe, smoothed it again carefully, like a crumpled parchment, and rolled again. His eyes were dim. Oleg raised him by shoulders. Thomas, in his last gleam of consciousness, grabbed the cup, pressed against his breast with both hands.

 

Oleg turned to Burlan. “Tell them to drive up quickly two remounts! With blankets and food for a week. And give our clothes back to us. Do it quickly, or he’ll smash the place all over!.. As he destroyed the Temple of Solomon, the Gardens of Semiramis… and the Tower of Babylon – the second, smaller one…”

 

With his help, Thomas was clad in full knight’s armor. Oleg hurried to lead the knight outdoors. The floor was rocking like sea waves. Shadows darted ahead, some heads stuck out and vanished. All the doors were wide open, neighs and frightened screams heard from the yard.

 

Oleg led Thomas down the porch, embracing him by waist. Men bustled about in the dark night and red torchlight, carried sacks and saddle bags. Two saddled horses were jumping, in fright of shouts and torches, trying to pull their reins free. The bravest men took the risk of leading them up to the porch.

 

Oleg helped Thomas into the saddle, tucked the reins in his hand. Thomas went drowsy at once. In terror, Oleg felt his own body get heavier quickly. His legs seemed to turn cast-iron, his mouth dry, his tongue scratching the throat. “Hail,” he muttered, “ssssee us off not…”

 

Once mounted, he took the reins from Thomas’s hand, drove the horses to the breach in a slow pace. The scattered blocks had been removed, but the gate still lay in the middle of the yard. Smiths and carpenters in the torchlight were tearing the iron cramps and stripes off, dragging the heavy logs away. As they saw the travelers who had knocked the gate out coming, they dropped crowbars and ran away.

 

Losing his strength quickly, Oleg glanced at Thomas with fear. The knight reeled, then lay down on the horse’s mane. In the breach, there was a clatter of axes and hammers. Oleg thought sluggishly that they, he and the valiant knight, were too weak to beat off sparrows.

 

Suddenly the clatter stopped abruptly, some shadows darted away and vanished in the dark. The horses galloped out briskly, with a feeling of freedom, from under the stone vault into the night. The cold air chilled to the marrow. Oleg curled up, feeling as though skinned. He took a firmer grip on the reins, as heavy as soaked logs, with his fingers going numb, used his last strength to kick the horse with heels.

 

The road glimmered dimly in the ghastly starlight: no moon. The earth looked scarily dark, only the tops of knolls, stamps, and boulders were silvered a bit.

 

Giant trees dashed past, on both sides of the road. Horses galloped on, as though along a narrow valley, the faint starlight silvered the path a bit. The cold of death was coming deeper into Oleg’s stiffened body that had spent all of its vitality before, his heart beat slower and quieter. Finally, trees came closer, branches intertwined overhead, screening off the sky.

 

Their horses stopped in complete darkness, blacker than pitch or tar.

 

That was the last thing Oleg could recall.

 


 


Date: 2015-02-03; view: 584


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