The Grail of Sir Thomas

by Yury Nikitin

Chapter 3

  All the next day Thomas stood in the full blaze of the sun, tied to a post in the middle of the yard. His clothes were torn off. The servants laughed, threw leftovers at him. The burning Saracen sun was driving him mad. Bugs and flies swarmed his bleeding wounds, his eyes, nostrils and ears, fresh welts on his back. Thomas swore, then roared like a bull till his voice got hoarse and his head dropped to his chest. He could only moan then. His legs gave way, so he hung on the bindings that cut into his flesh tightly and made it blue.

  Oleg hoped Thomas would be brought back to the barn, but night came and the poor knight was still not there. Tired stone-breakers gobbled their meal. Twice they fought near the food cauldron for a slice of meat, then everyone collapsed on pitches of rotten hay. Soon Oleg heard snoring, rattling breath, painful groans.

  He listened to the sounds outside, approached the gate. Behind those oaken wings banded with thick iron, two soldiers had to watch all the night long. The Baron is tough, but are both guards actually there?

  Without looking at the chink between the panels, through which the iron bar could be seen, Oleg grabbed the edge with his left hand, his right one set against the crossbeam. He strained and began to lift, his knuckles scraped against the stone gatepost. The massive hinges creaked faintly, the gate bar moved with a grind.

  With gritted teeth, he used every effort to lift the massive panel, his eyes fixed on the glittering pole rising slowly from the rusty hinges. The wooden edge almost touched the stone vault.

  Suddenly, the pole slid out. Oleg could hardly keep the panel in hand. Holding his breath, he put it down carefully and listened. The yard was as quiet as the shed was; heavy sleep had overcome exhausted slaves. As a breath of fresh night air came in through the wide slit, some of them tossed uneasily and groaned.

  Oleg squeezed himself quietly between the stone wall and the wing, taken off its hinges. The broad courtyard looked empty. He heard horses snort in distant stables, their hooves knocking on the wooden fence. In the moonlight he saw a tethering post in the middle of the yard.

  The castle was lit from inside. He caught a glimpse of a man’s figure, big and round-headed, against the curtain in the fourth, topmost floor. In the next window, a woman’s head was seen for a moment, her golden hair, lit by a torch from behind, looked ominously red, till some long, dark hands seized her by white shoulders and pulled her away. The silk curtains were drawn at once.

  Oleg sneaked in the shadow along the wall. For a moment, it seemed to him that he had been sneaking the same way before, in the same rags, emaciated…

  He waved unnecessary thoughts away, picked a stone; tossed it up to feel its weight, sides, roughness. The warden’s stone hut was dark ahead, a drowsy guard sitting on the threshold. Oleg passed by him on tip-toe and climbed the wall, clutching at the juts of rough stone.

  On the top of the wall he lay down, lest they see him against the stars, and listened. Finally, he heard a faint rustle, as if a leather sole shuffled on top of the wall in three or four steps. The sound did not repeat, but Oleg had detected the shadowed guard by it. He took the stone out, weighed it in hand. He had never missed a mark at this distance before.

  He ran tip-toe, making no more noise than a moon ray, and saw the guard better: big, broad-shouldered and young, in a glittering helmet and mail with shimmering iron plates. He leaned on the wall drowsily, with half-closed eyes, but if he raised his head a bit his eyes would have met Oleg’s.

  Oleg prepared to hurl the stone. He knew he would not miss, but a strange weakness fettered his muscle. A young man is to die… for what? Is it his fault that a runaway slave bumped into him? Perhaps he’s an outlaw, the worst kind of man, but he might just as well only happen to be here and soon leave for a good honest job…

  Oleg ran to him noiselessly, the tips of his toes barely touched the stone. He punched the helmet, it crunched, the boy went slipping down the wall. Oleg caught him, put him down into the corner. Dark blood gushed from under the helmet, spilt hot on his hands. Oleg clenched his teeth. He did not expect this, unused to violence in his cave. The lad will never come to… I could have thrown the stone after all!

  Feeling guilty, he took the sword belt off the body, unsheathed the knife and tucked it into his belt backwards, in the Scythian way. A cloud hid the moon for a moment. He sneaked along briskly, getting accustomed again to the weight of a sword on his left.

  The yard remained empty, its broad, ill-fitted pavers and dented stone stairs flooded with moonlight. The walls were formed by solid stone slabs, while the broken pieces were used to cobble the courtyard. The place was all stone, from top to bottom: the keep, walls, towers, slave cellars, even the yard…

  Slave cellars? Thomas must be in another kind of cellar: a torture chamber. The Baron must have one. All great lords have those: open and secret, separate for common people and nobles. But where is it?

  He stopped dead, his eyes examined the dark stone buildings. The Baron built in a hurry to fortify in the unfriendly land, men in his stone quarry dropped like flies, but everything was durable, made to withstand the ages… and following a familiar pattern. According to that canon, the torture chamber was placed straight under the keep, for the lord to visit his treasury and cellar with his most dangerous – or expensive – prisoners without stepping outdoors.

  Oleg took in the castle at a glance, estimated the thickness of walls, the location of windows and rooms. His intuition pointed at a small guarded window at ground level. The yard was still empty, the moon covered by a shaggy cloud, so he adjusted the sword belt, ran along the top of the wall and kneeled, ready to slip down into the dark.

  Huge inhuman hands emerged from the darkness on his left. Oleg was late to stir away; strong fingers had grasped his neck. He gave no cry of pain and astonishment, only because his throat was squeezed. He felt lifted up in the air. His head jerked back almost to the point of breaking his neck. Another monstrous hand hit Oleg’s arm, the one with the sword he had managed to draw out despite the pain. The sword disappeared, with a brief flash in the moonlight.

  His arm was numbed from the heavy blow. Through pounding in his ears, he listened to hear steel tinkle on the stone but it was quiet, as if the sword fell into a haystack. Gasping, he grabbed the fingers on his throat but could not remove them; his right arm was dangling. He was getting weak quickly. With a soft growl, the monster pressed him to the tower wall. The moon came out, and Oleg felt deadly cold, as he found himself in the grasp of a fierce grinning troll!

  Wheezing, Oleg kicked the tower wall to push off. He flung away together with his enemy, who stopped on the very edge of the wall; his foot hung off. Monstrous teeth snapped straight before Oleg’s eyes, but the fingers unclenched; the troll had no wish to fall down on the stones, even with prey in his clutches. Staggering, Oleg rubbed his throat, backed away two steps and jumped down briskly onto the lower cross-wall, visible in the moonlight.

  His trembling legs failed him. He fell, everything went dark with pain as his injured arm was pressed down. He rose hastily, gasping still. The troll could have killed him with an ambush, with a sword or a hammer-like fist, but the beast loathed people, he craved to see the agonized face of a man seeing his death and trembling with fear, to enjoy his agony and terror!

  He had barely got up when the troll jumped down to him softly, like a giant cat, although twice as heavy as Oleg. A curved blade glittered in his right hand. Oleg leaned against the wall desperately; a deadlock, but the troll didn’t raise the sword. He could hack Oleg’s head off, slash his body slantwise or down to the waist, but that was too easy a death!

  Suddenly, Oleg grasped what the troll wanted: to slash his belly open, guts to fall out, death be inevitable, but last long, very long, and the victim to know it is coming, to wail in fear, to crawl, with the wet grey tangle of his entrails dragged behind…

  He gathered the last of his strength, pushed off the stone and leapt on the troll, his right foot aimed at the sword paw, his left one – at the groi
n. The troll stirred, the sword slipped from his fingers and went tinkling down the stairs, but Oleg’s left foot missed and kicked the monster’s hip instead. The troll reeled, his blood-colored eyes flashed like burning coals when blown by the wind. Oleg fell on his back, defenseless like a baby before a wolf. The troll hung over him, huge and ferocious… and rushed for the blade.

  The sword lay a floor below, shimmering like a fish just out of water. The troll stooped for it. Oleg jumped down at him, kicked his back with both feet.

  Any man’s spine would have been broken like an overdried splinter, but the troll only collapsed; his body rolled a floor downstairs, with a thunder of bones. Oleg felt cold when he saw a glitter in the black paw – the troll had seized the sword!

  Gasping for air, Oleg rushed back to the top of the wall. The cellar where they keep Thomas is straight beneath, but this mad beast is in the way! Goodness knows how a troll got to this southern land… A cloud slipped over the moon, and everything went black. Oleg felt his back grow cold. He could barely tell the narrow passage along the top of the wall from the black emptiness. He clenched his fists and ran along the path. His heart sank with every step, as he expected his foot to find abyss…

  The castle was an ordinary tangle of walls, towers, stairs and landings made for defense, good to place catapults and blazing tar barrels on, but Oleg realized with fear that he was lost. He ran to the corner, rounded a watchtower with a sleeping sentinel inside and stopped, trying to figure out where he was.

  The clatter of the troll’s sharp claws on the stone was approaching, as the monster ran up the narrow stairs. The sword swung in his paw, glimmering in the moonlight. His ears were pointed and upright like a wolf’s, his big white teeth bare and gleaming.

  Oleg retreated till he climbed on the observation deck, the highest point of the castle. Over the wooden railing he saw stars: cold, far, and prickly on the sky as dark as sin, the ground far below in the blackness.

  The troll sniffed, raised his head. His grin got broader, he went upstairs at a slower pace, bending slightly, a tight, alert ball of bestial muscle.

  Oleg retreated to the edge of the deck, looked around like an animal at bay. His right arm still ached, fingers bent poorly. The troll ascended slowly, in silence, his eyes fixed on Oleg. The broad curved blade shared its predatory glitter with the monster’s big teeth, the four curved jutting fangs the brightest.

  Oleg’s back clung fast to the corner, the railing cracked. The troll climbed on the deck in five steps. Their eyes met. Seeing the runaway fully in his power, the troll grinned with malice. He took a step forward, yellow saliva foamed in the corner of his thick lips. He watched the victim’s face with delight. It was a helpless creature trembling before him, and he wanted to take all the pleasure of it, to the last drop, to revel in the fear and awe before taking a life – with regret that it was an impossibility to kill him twice, thrice, many times – taking it slowly, for the victim to see his own death, inescapable and terrible…

  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 there was 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 his 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 took 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 choking on 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 knife-hand forward, his eyes such a bright blaze that Oleg could see nothing but those red fires.

  Keeping an eye on the troll, Oleg picked up the sword, jumped into the corner. For a moment they stood, devouring each other with their eyes. Oleg raised the sword: heavy, sharp, with a curved blade. The troll reeled but kept walking, the 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 felled tree.