by Yury Nikitin
Chapter 32
They climbed up sheer walls, squeezed themselves into narrow cracks and crawled through endless winding burrows, scraping their sides and backs. Every time they fell they were caught, by the small but strong hands of young sorcerers. The third of them, Nazar, carried the knight’s clanging armor in his bag and had the hilts of the huge swords, the bow and arrows jutting out strangely over his shoulders.
Looking at the sorcerers, Thomas suspected they could easily get above straight through the rocks if not the need to pull their guests along. Once he even spotted, out of the corner of his eye, that Ostap’s shoulder came in contact with the protruding sharp stone edge but the young sorcerer proceeded with no hint of stagger, as though it were no solid stone but a cloud of smoke. Then Taras whispered something to him angrily, pointing at Thomas and Oleg with his eyes. Tired Ostap gave his excuses. Thomas pretended to see and hear nothing.
Long before the surface, they felt fresh smells. The tinkles of water, which often crossed their way, were growing colder till they turned icy cold. Smirking Oleg explained to stunned Thomas that deeper into the earth is warmer, so Agathyrsians knew neither winter nor cold autumn for several thousand years – it was always warm summer in their middle caves. If one gets deeper, he’d have to walk across scorching deserts, on hot stones. Deeper in, the walls are burning hot and the air as boiling as within a stove. It smells of burning, with even more torrid heat coming from below. Probably that’s where Hell, of which Christians tell so many terrible things, lies? Oleg decided to find out later. When there would be no more dragons, giants, and stolen princesses on earth.
Thomas glanced back. “We need to memorize the way. Hell, you say?”
“Why would you need it?” Oleg was surprised. “You have a place in heaven! On a cloud, with harp in hands.”
“And you?” Thomas cried with insult. “How can I sit on a cloud while you sit in a pot of boiling tar? May all the feathers on my wings burn, but I will come to rescue my sworn brother!” He kept glancing back to memorize the way to Hell. His face was solemn and tragic. He was already planning that journey in his mind, checking his equipment.
They felt currents of air and, finally, saw the light ahead. The sorcerers tied thick black cloths over their faces but kept moving with confidence, with no touch to the walls. Thomas started screwing up his eyes, as he saw the breach ahead. They made the last steps on their bellies, scratching their knees and elbows.
Thomas gasped, as he saw the trees and old stumps flooded with bright light. It was night, the scatter of stones from where they came out was shielded by thick branches, which whispered anxiously, but the dark sky seemed as bright as day!
Ostap was the only one to come out on the surface, while Taras and Nazar stayed in. Ostap tossed the bag down on the ground; it gave a protesting tinkle. He hurried to take off the sword baldrics, the bow, and the quiver. His voice sounded muffled through the thick black cloth. “Even this light is too bright for us! Eyes are watering. We leave. We adjure you again; tell no one about us!”
Oleg embraced him. Thomas shook his hand and assured, “Good sires, I’d never betray people who saved my life!”
Standing in the crevice, Ostap raised his hand in farewell and vanished. Oleg and Thomas stayed in the shining night forest. Puffing with strain, Thomas climbed hastily into his iron armor, clasped the steel plates on his legs and arms. At last, he put on his gauntlets, clenched and unclenched his fingers happily. His steel fists looked menacing.
“No wink of sleep,” Oleg warned. He checked his bow and fingered his arrows critically. “It’s night. A moonless one! May the sun not blind us when it comes out!” He examined the trees thoroughly, squatted to touch the last year’s leaves on the ground, the empty shells of acorns.
Suddenly Thomas clapped a hand to his forehead. “Sir wonderer! We’ve spent much time there. I’m afraid I’ll have to ride more than one horse to death to get on the bank of the Don by Saint Boromir’s Day!”
Oleg pecked at the earth silently, trying his sword grip, then landed a test blow on a young tree. Being cut down slantwise, it stuck into the dark ground near them, fell across the glade, its branches rustling anxiously. “I’d like to know where we are,” he said thoughtfully. “To see the stars at least…”
“What do you mean?” Thomas was surprised.
“Anyway, it’s not the place where they found us,” Oleg explained politely. “I recall them carrying us… Agathyrsians are nomads. They roam in their caves. Where have they taken us for those two weeks we spent unconscious? That’s a mystery!”
Thomas looked stunned. He sank down helplessly on a rotten log. “What? They could have taken us back?”
“In the morning we can find ourselves at the walls of Jerusalem. Or in those ruins where Gorvel socked you on the head… Or even in China.”
“Where’s that?” Thomas inquired gloomily. His eyes had an evil glitter.
“Sir Thomas,” Oleg reminded, “they saved us from inevitable death! Agathyrsians are the only people who still remember how to heal such ‘grass-eaters’ as we. And being taken to travel in their nomadic ways is a sign of trust.”
Thomas squirmed restlessly, kept standing up and sitting down again. At last, he declared resolutely, “Sir wonderer! We need to go, or I’ll burst with anxiety.”
“Which way?”
“Any. Just to get moving.”
“Then north,” Oleg decided. “Judging by these trees, we are still in Europe.”
Thomas, with all his concern and fear of being late to the bank of Don, noticed strange things about the forest. It was solemn and silent, as all the animals and birds were sleeping, and the faint light that came down through clouds and branches was enough for his eyes, as they were accustomed to dark. Thomas knew he would never see a night forest that way again; only a dark place where one can make no step without bumping into a tree or falling into a pit.
Long before the sunrise, their eyes started to water with the dazzling light. The edge of the earth was only lit a bit, the bright disk only about to come out, but the forest looked flooded with liquid sun. Then everything went bloody red. Thomas grasped that morning rays had set the clouds on red fire. He started to shield his eyes with his palm. The wonderer, screwing up at his side, comforted that the Agathyrsians had led them out in dense woods deliberately; the tent of thick branches would not let the sunlight in. Moreover, the day promised to be dull, and later their eyes would get accustomed.
Once they understood the light would not grow any brighter, they took the risk of crossing a glade. The wonderer fingered his charms anxiously, flinched often, hunched in fright. Thomas glanced over, seized the sword hilt, but the forest was strangely quiet. No birds squealing in their nests, though they should be awake by that time.
“Hurry, Sir Thomas,” Oleg said nervously, all of a sudden.
He almost ran deep into the truly wild wood. Thomas stumbled over logs, got stuck in prickly shrubs, his head hit against low thick branches. The wonderer seemed to be barging into the very thickets deliberately, like a madman. He climbed over the rows of logs, plunged under hanging trees, which were likely to collapse from a careless blow, jumped over pits of black water that looked strangely still, like set tar. Thomas had his bag with the cup and even his sword baldric stuck in the twigs continually. As he ran, his head bumped against obstacles with such a force that he saw stars flying out of either his iron helmet or his eyes.
“This forest is too strange!” Oleg said nervously on the go, to explain his hurry. “I see no animal tracks, hear no birds, no gnats…”
“I don’t miss gnats at all,” Thomas said through gritted teeth.
“And no frogs…”
“Neither do I miss frogs. Though they should be, you are right… They are everywhere. They are said to live even in Heaven; big green frogs…”
“Sorcerers say they also live in our paradise. I didn’t see it with my own eyes, but why should heaven be better than paradise?”
Thom
as gasped at that shameless blasphemy, came running into a thick trunk and was thrown under a rotten log that fell down on him with gloat, powdering his face with decay, thick fat worms, sticking up his eyes with mold. Thomas understood he should not argue. This is an ancient, Pagan forest, after all. And frogs don’t always live in bogs, plenty of them inhabit woods and grass. There also are small frogs dwelling on trees, jumping on branches. And Heaven has beautiful green shrubs. Frogs can live in them…
Again, he got such a strike that all his steel rang. Oleg looked back gloomily but did not hurry him up, his eyes anxious. Thomas listened; the forest was absolutely silent, as though it were a winter night, not midsummer. However, even in winter one can hear a clatter of claws on the wood, the caw of a crow.
“I’m afraid we’ll know all of it soon,” Oleg said slowly.
“And till that time we’ll get on without gnats and frogs,” Thomas replied with forced humor, as though he had to cheer up his tired soldiers before the storm of Jerusalem. “One should find good in everything, sir wonderer!”
For a long time, they forced their way through thickets, then there were more glades on the way. Suddenly, all shrubs vanished. Only dead black trees stuck out of the bare ground. Few were covered with green moss, the rest were dry or rotting slowly, dropping their heavy twigs. The ground was so dry that it rang under their feet. The last year’s leaves had gone, and the glades were crossed with deep clefts.
They came out in a broad field bounded by the same black forest far ahead. Thomas alerted at once, put his hand on his sword hilt. Ahead, there were huge white stones that looked like picked skeletons of strange animals. The tallest ones were almost at height with his shoulders. Those protruding blocks seemed to have been sinking into the ground for the thickness of ant’s feeler with each century. Judging by the smoothed edges of stones, it had once been the roof of a high watchtower.
“Trouble,” Oleg said drearily. “As though we had little of it before!”
Thomas lowered his visor, tugged his sword in the sheath and moved into a position more convenient to draw it out immediately. His eyes in their narrow slit glimmered like blue ice, his breath burst out quickly. The knight was not as light-hearted as he pretended to be.
They passed the stone-studded field with nothing to report, got deep into the forest again. Trees were giant there, their green branches entangled very high above. When they were deep in it, Thomas brightened up, pointed at a huge anthill. Big red ants were dragging caterpillars, bugs, and grasshoppers to it from everywhere. Soon after, they heard the first birds, caught a glimpse of red squirrel backs among the green branches. Thomas sighed with relief, took his hand off the sword hilt.
Oleg, on the contrary, was frowning more and more often, peering at the dark trunks, following squirrels with intent anxious eyes. Suddenly he snatched the bow from his back, put an arrow on.
There was a glimpse of a marten on the branch ahead. It ran over the road, lay down on the thick twig, arching its back, and peered at the men. Oleg raised his bow slowly, aimed. Thomas was sure the marten would flee, as it was in no more than twenty steps from them, but the lithe animal only made a higher arch of its back. Its eyes had the creepy sparkle of mica crystals.
There was a dry click of bowstring. Thomas saw clearly that the sharp arrow hit the marten’s neck with force. The animal lurched but only dug its sharp claws deeper into the branch. Eyes blazed up like coals, jaws opened menacingly, showing white fangs, too long for such a small creature. The rebounded arrow shook several leaves off, fell down on the road ahead.
Thomas froze with fear, while the dark-faced wonderer walked on, picked the arrow up silently. When they made about hundred steps, Thomas glanced over in fright. The marten still lay on the branch, its back a gracious arch, and followed them with narrowed malicious eyes.
Suddenly Oleg raised his bow again, aimed quickly, and shot. The marten bared its teeth, as the arrow hit on its side. That time, the animal was thrown up. Its squealed with fear, flew down, trying to catch at some leaves with its sharp claws. The quiver of branches marked its fall, but the marten did not fall down on the ground; it seemed to vanish in the greenery.
Thomas said nothing, afraid that his manly voice, accustomed to giving commands and calling for storm, may quaver with fear.
They walked through the forest all the day long, with three stops for rest, drained the jug of mountain mead given to them for the road, ate the slices of roast meat. Thomas turned his nose away from it at first, but the wonderer shot nothing in the forest. When Thomas’s belly gave a rumbling protest, he took the smallest slice reluctantly, started a conversation about wonders, lest he see the filth he had to chew. He only came to his senses at the end of the meal, after he finished the last slice. The wonderer had stopped eating long before; he took the iron head off his longest arrow and put on a silver one, of a flattened coin, instead.
By the coming of night, their eyes got accustomed. Thomas said nothing against the fire, even fetched the twigs for it. The wonderer, for some strange reason, came dragging a stump, put his cloak on it, placed his boots filled with grass nearby, and slipped into the dark silently. Thomas lay down on the other side of the effigy, but his fear drove away his sleep. He did not even dare to stir.
At midnight, Thomas heard heavy steps far behind the trees. It seemed to be an oak walking to their fire through green saplings. The knight screwed up his eyes, then dared to open one eye a bit.
A giant figure, twice as tall as a man, emerged in the circle of reddish light. The stranger was massive, clad in black fur. The eyes on his hairy face had a strange glitter, and when he opened his mouth, as red as a burning stove, there was a flash of pointed white teeth. “Take that for yesterday!”
With a terrible force, he brought his giant club, made of a whole tree, on the cloaked stump. It cracked, sank into the earth with a crash. Thomas lay quivering all over, but the stranger paid no attention to him.
“Take that for today!” a malevolent voice thundered suddenly in the dark.
The giant turned at it. In the reddish firelight, there was a brief flash over the glade. The stranger gave a sudden terrible roar, not of threat but pain and fear; a white feather was stuck in his chest, as the arrow had gone deep,
Thomas held his ears involuntarily, though this move almost revealed him before the stranger’s eyes. He couldn’t bear hearing that scary roar full of deathly terror.
The giant dropped his club, reeling, his monstrously broad hands gripped the injured place. The club, as large as a log, rolled to Thomas. The giant turned round, staggered into the dark shrubs. The night hid him from sight at once, but for a long time Thomas kept hearing his heavy uneven steps. Trees shuddered, twigs cracked, then the earth was shaken with a sudden heavy blow, as though a tree collapsed.
Oleg came out from the dark, drew a circle on the ground around Thomas and himself, whispered and spat for a while. “Why don’t you sleep?” he said with a jaw-rending yawn. “The day was hard. Hope tomorrow is better. Get to sleep!” He lay down by the fire, got to snoring almost at once.
Thomas lay awake for a long time, flinched, peered at the branches protruding from the dark. He heard squeaks outside the lit circle, a clatter of small claws on wood. A bright blue feather came down, swaying in the warmed air, like a boat in Golden Bay. Suddenly its edges blazed up with small flames, it sank closer to the fire. A strong push of heat made it fly up and vanish.
Thomas shivered, tucked his legs up when they got too close to the border of light. He seemed to see hairy paws, eager to grab him and drag him deep into the woods… or even under the roots of giant trees, into those dark gaping holes that breathed out deathlike cold. Once there was a pat on his cheek. Thomas jumped up with a mad shriek but the wonderer did not awake. It was two small panting ants who carried a crumble of cave animal’s meat. It was caught and stuck at times, but the brave insects kept dragging it, fearlessly ignorant of giants, werewolves, and the cowardly knight. Shamed, Thom
as sat up closer to the fire, pulled his sword out and put on his knees. The wonderer slept with his knees tucked up. A Pagan. Nothing matters to him.
In a strange forest, someone must stay on watch, Thomas told himself resolutely. The bravest warriors are the first to guard the sleep of others, and we have just one warrior here! The wonderer takes up arms only in case of need, as though his real Truth can be obtained by an unarmed man. And in such an unpleasant place as this forest is, it’s better to have on watch not a plain warrior but a brave knight.
The sword was shiny and, due to the Agathyrsians, sharp enough to cut apart a single hair. Thomas, unsure what other thing to take up, stripped off his shabby belt, unpicked the worn-out lining and started to line a new one of the boar skin, thick and sturdy. Sir wonderer kept pestering him with his workshyness, while he, Thomas Malton of Gisland, a noble knight, cared of his warhorse himself, cleaned and washed him. Though it’s actually a job for squires and servants. In their journey, Thomas was the one to gather brushwood for the wire, fetch water from the river, boil the porridge, and often the one to do the cooking…
He heard the wonderer’s mocking voice behind; a bit louder than it used to be and too resonant, as though Oleg shouted from inside a hollow. “Who’s the belt for?”
“The devil,” Thomas replied with a start. He was annoyed with himself being scared by that sudden voice, and the question was stupid indeed; the wonderer had no need of a new belt, as his own one could endure a mountain or the forest giant’s club hung on it.
He looked up and flinched. The wonderer was asleep, rolled up into a ball, and the voice came from somewhere to the left… Thomas turned hastily, caught a glimpse of a huge green back moving away, but the stranger vanished in the dark so swiftly that Thomas could not be sure whether he saw him or it was just the night wind stirring the branches.
Flinching at every rustle, he bent over the belt, trying to keep his hand as close to the sword hilt as possible. When it began to grow lighter over the trees, the wonderer snuffled uneasily, crawled up to the fire in his sleep. Thomas tossed the last twig into the fire; the air at dawn is the coldest. As the wonderer felt the warmth, he moved away, without waking up.
The twig burnt down. Thomas tapped on Oleg’s shoulder. “Sir wonderer!”
Oleg woke up, his clear green eyes looked at Thomas in bewilderment. He sat up at once, stretched himself sweetly, which gave his bones a crunch, yawned with a creepy howl, like a forest animal. “You are right, Sir Thomas. We must go! Have you slept?”
“I was on the watch,” Thomas replied proudly, nodded at the bare sword that was still across his knees, showed the belt. “You see, I can do things myself.”
Oleg turned his head. “That’s a surprise, Sir Thomas… If it were not for your unhappy lot to be born a noble knight, you could make a good tanner!”
Thomas forced a smile, but the next moment the wonderer turned solemn, his hand seized the bow. Thomas heard twigs crackle. A strange man came out from behind an oak (if that was a man); a head taller than Oleg and Thomas, thrice as broad in shoulders. All covered with grey-green bone plates, he looked like an old, mossy giant lizard. “Good morn,” he roared menacingly. “Give what thee swore!”
Oleg drew his bow. “Who are you?” he asked quickly.
“The forest devil!” the stranger bellowed in a creepy low voice. “Leave it. The arrow of thee does no harm to my skin. Even headed with silver!”
“Sir wonderer,” Thomas said hastily, writhing with embarrassment, “lower your arrow. He’s right. I promised the belt to him.”
He hurled the belt, the green stranger caught it deftly in the air. He was impossibly quick, like a nimble lizard, but there seemed to be tight muscle under his thick bony shell. He examined the belt carefully with his unblinking snake eyes, pulled it, then tried to clasp it around. Thomas had a secret hope it would not fit; the master of night forest was thrice as broad as the knight, but Thomas had made some spare holes during his watch by the fire.
The devil sucked his scaly stomach in, pulled the catch of the belt, and the pin got into the very last hole. The devil puffed his belly up – the belt crunched but endured. The devil burst with hoarse resonant laughter that sounded like stone blocks rubbed against each other. “Good! I take it.” He turned round and went away. Soon the snapping of twigs died down.
The wonderer followed him with astonished eyes, as large as a surprised owl’s, his jaw dropped to the waist. “What about your intolerance, faith in Christ, hate for infidels? Did your principles give a crack?”
Thomas replied angrily, as he found himself in an awkward situation. “Sir wonderer, I will never give up my principles! I simply can’t do that! But that forest toad caught me in a word, and the knightly word is all that matters. Even if given to a mortal enemy! Haven’t I concluded a truce with Saracen relying on the word of honor only? I never broke it, neither did they!”
Oleg took the bowstring off, put his bow into the quiver of arrows, jumped up to his feet. “We must go. Forgive me, I was wrong. One should keep his word even with enemies. Then he may see they are no enemies at all.”
They went through the forest. The light grew even brighter, their eyes ached bitterly, but Oleg was glad they could stand the light of the sun that was above the trees. The next day the direct sunlight would not blind them.
“What forest is this?” Thomas asked. “Do you know where we are?”
“The Dark Woods. The only good thing is that no one would look for us here. Even the Secret Seven.”
“Why?”
“No one has ever come out of it alive,” Oleg comforted him. With disgust, he rounded a tangle of snakes intertwined in their mating rite, went through the thickets, as passionless and immersed in his thoughts of eternal verities as Thomas knew him to be almost all the time.
It was hard to walk in woods without roads. Thomas got tired soon, as he had to carry Burlan’s knightly armor on him while climbing the logs, which the wonderer could simply jump over, and force his way through prickly thickets. The knight started to think of having a rest when suddenly they heard a crackle of twigs, shouts and screams ahead. The noise was coming on them quickly. Thomas lowered his visor abruptly, his hand dropped to his sword hilt.
The shrubs ahead opened like waves, a snorting horse bustled out. A big man in the saddle, in rags of hunting costume, was clinging convulsively at its mane, as the reins had been torn away. Something was strange about his face. Thomas did not get at once why it made him feel creepy all over. As the rider dashed by, Thomas saw a smooth prominent surface in place of his face, as though all its features were rubbed away by the head wind, in the same way it rubs the sharp edges of rocks for thousands of years, turning them into rounded boulders.
The rider darted past and across the glade. Thomas felt an irrepressible fit of sickness. The rider had his face on the back of his head. That might have been an effect of the head wind that kept blowing on him for the third century in row or a part of his punishment; to see all the terror chasing him at his heels.
Some strange horrible animals, huge, shaggy, and scaly, broke out of the shrubs into the glade. Heavy blocks of darkness, with only a glitter of sharp fangs, claws, thorns, and combs, they rushed after the madly galloping horse, all but snapping at its legs. The air was rent with roar, screech, barking, a clatter of cloven hooves. All of them dashed across the glade, then into bushes. For a while, there was a clatter of hooves, a squeal dying away.
Thomas shrugged with a shiver, drew his sword in with a thud. “I didn’t think they’d chase him that far!”
“Who was it?” Oleg asked with surprise. “You know him?”
Thomas waved away carelessly. “The Wild Hunter! He’s known to everyone.”
He walked on silently, sure that his explanation was full. He even gave a start when Oleg said warily, “Sir Thomas… Definitely, I realize what a trifle it is, known to everyone on earth, even the sheiks of deserts, the children of mountains and steppes, even to
Burkinians, but you know I happened to spend some time in woods… er… in the cave. I’m ashamed to confess it but I’ve missed some events of world importance. The Wild Hunter… who is he?”
Thomas gave the wonderer a surprised look. The Agathyrsians called him Wise, once even the Wise, but if he didn’t know such a famous event… er… “He was a highborn lord,” Thomas explained patiently. “Had a beautiful wife, a healthy child, a fine castle, and faithful vassals. But he had too much love for hunting…”
“Many men have it.”
“But he, in excitement of it, would trample down the crops of peasants, offend the weak. Once he even killed an old man whom he bumped into while chasing a deer… For that, the hunter was doomed to turn into prey himself and be chased forever by a pack of demons. That’s how he keeps galloping for the third century already. My grandsire told me of him.”
“Will his torments last long?” Oleg asked with sympathy. “Punishments don’t last forever, do they?”
“The torments of sinners in Hell last forever,” Thomas claimed adamantly.
“You have a cruel god,” Oleg reproached. “And we Rodians have no hell at all.”
“That’s why you are so shameless! Each takes two wives!”
“Not each, really. It does not befit some men to have two wives, as they can take ten or twenty. Prince Vladimir, for instance, had nine hundred wives and a thousand concubines. And he was the prince who brought your Christianity to our Rus’.”20
For a long time, Thomas walked silently, confused by such a man as a guide in Christ’s faith, then said, without much confidence, “Yes, that’s possible in your…”
“Why only ours? King Solomon had a thousand wives.”
“Then he is in Hell too,” Thomas declared firmly. “All violators go to Hell!”
“Your god looks like a wild nomad to me,” Oleg said. “He enjoys throwing live people into pots of boiling tar, burning them with red-hot iron, skinning or stretching on the rack.”
Thomas was crushing through the thickets stubbornly. He even outran Oleg, to avoid discussing godly matters with that Pagan. “I can’t get one thing. Are we already in Britain?” he asked with concern.
“The Wild Hunter was an Angle?”
“He was,” Thomas said through gritted teeth, “but he could be a Scyth as well, couldn’t he? Or a Ross. You may say one could gallop really far for three hundred years. But how did he cross the sea?”
“What if he galloped by land?” Oleg supposed. “Around?”
“Britain is all surrounded by water, sir wonderer! However, he could come from Old Angles who stayed on the continent while the rest of the tribe moved to the British Isles.” He fell silent, as he stopped near a big block of black basalt that resembled the figure of a sitting man. Looking hard enough, one could even see his shield and sword.
Silently, Thomas unsheathed his sword, saluted, flung it back into the scabbard with a thud. The knight’s face was grim as a thundercloud, his eyes, blue like wild flowers, went dark.
Oleg shifted his gaze to the knight. “Your kin?”
“Garald,” Thomas replied significantly.
“Ah, just a familiar.”
“Garald,” Thomas said again in a raised voice. He watched Oleg with some annoyance. “A great warrior! Didn’t you in Ross hear of him?”
“No, we didn’t.”
“Holy Virgin! How do you live in this wide world?”
“Getting by,” Oleg sighed hypocritically. “Was he an Angle too?”
“Of pure Anglic blood! Once he led all of his hosts to meet the enemy’s force that landed on our shore. That was the greatest battle. The foes were utterly defeated, but the sons of Garald, his brothers, and even his beloved old father perished in the fighting. Garald was the only one who got no scratch, though he fought ahead of his warriors… He felt so bitter while walking across the endless field all covered with dead bodies that he sat down on a stump, froze in his brooding, and then turned to stone!”
They walked, leaving the rock behind them. “That battle must have been long ago,”
Oleg said respectfully. “All the corpses picked by crows. But why did they fight in wild woods?”
“They fought in a field,” Thomas replied with vexation. “The forest grew up later.”
Oleg cast a glance over the hundred-year-old oaks they passed by, mighty and branchy, over innocent flowers and poisonous grass that killed cattle and turned the soil barren. “I can understand,” he said cautiously, “how the Wild Hunter could get here and why the devil of the woods spoke the Old Anglic dialect… But Garald? Are you sure his battle took place in your new Anglandia? In Britain, I mean?”
Thomas glanced at him askance with a fiery eye, like angry horse, waiting for a catch.
“However,” Oleg supposed, “if there was the great migration of tribes and peoples that crushed the old empires of Rome, then our gods, demons, spirits, and ghosts could also move somewhere… The flow of time changes even the concepts of good and evil! And our gods travel from country to country, from nation to nation, change themselves on the way… I recall my amazement when I encountered the Firebird of ours at the other end of the world, in a country of strange people with dark brown skin!
“The Firebirds turned out to be native to that land, have nests there, and ours was just a stupid one with passion for far transmigration. It got acclimated in our country; fun to shine with its southern feathers in the snowy North…”
They were separated by a huge log, then walked on both sides of a mighty oak. Thomas could not hear the wonderer’s words but glanced at his side with interest. Suddenly Oleg yelled, pointed with his hand. In perplexity, Thomas turned his head – and his blood ran cold for a moment; a boar of colossal size, with his head lowered menacingly, was rushing on him!
He felt an acute regret that he had no lance with him, raised his hand hastily to the sword hilt. The boar was flying like a catapulted rock, his small red eyes blazed with savage fury, scary glittering fangs were as large as elephant tusks!
Thomas planted his feet wider apart, pulled out the sword. The boar came down on him like a collapsing rock. Thomas felt acute pain, struck forcefully against the hard ground.
There was a menacing roar and cursing aside. Thomas had time to turn on his side before a violent blow came on his back. He flew up, breaking branches, saw the goggled eyes of a squirrel and her young, turned in the air and fell back down on the glade heavily, gave a howl of pain.
The wonderer was yelling two steps away. Thomas turned with effort. He felt maimed and bleeding. A heavy carcass fell down on him, splashing him with hot blood, twitching and kicking, his armor screeched. Then the carcass was moved away, he heard the wonderer’s angry voice asking, “Are you alive?”
Thomas struggled up on his elbow. The boar lay two steps away, in a pool of blood. He was all but slashed in two, with a second deep wound across his skull where the sword broke it. “Thank you, sir wonderer,” Thomas said emotionally.
The wonderer stood over him, pale with rage, the blooded sword shaking in hands, his eyes blazing with fury. “Why stand in his way, you fool? No space to jump?”
“Sir wonderer!” Thomas said with dignity. “The boar was running straight on me! If I jumped aside, wouldn’t that be cowardly?”
The wonderer gasped with rage. “Cowardly? What a noble Angle! Do you really mind what a boar thinks of you?”
Thomas thought for a while and admitted reluctantly, “Truly I don’t. But the knightly traditions…”
With great effort, he struggled up. For a long time they walked in silence; the wonderer was angry. Thomas tried not to limp, endured the pain of bruises and abrasions. They left the boar carcass behind; no need of meat yet. The wonderer frowned more often, seized his bow.
That was how they went for almost half a day. Gradually, the wonderer softened, started to give brief answers. The knight felt guilty and spoke to him first. The wonderer started to tell of the Dark Forest but stopped in
the middle of a sentence. Thomas saw blood rushing back from his face. Oleg turned all ears, even stopped for a moment, then grew even paler and cried hoarsely, “Get your butt in gear! Nothing to save us but our legs… And you, fool, have them broken by a boar!”
“Won’t this save me?” Thomas asked, clapping on the sword hilt.
“If only it could! I have the same piece of iron on my back.”
“Sir wonderer! If legs were always the best rescue, hares would never die!”
Oleg rushed ahead, through shrubs and wind-fallen trees, picking no real path. Thomas clenched his teeth, ran after him. The forest looked the same, Thomas could see no danger but he’d made enough miles together with the wonderer to trust in his charms and Pagan intuition.
The wonderer darted across the thickets, like a loach. Sometimes he stirred no branch, as though he turned into smoke or had learnt from Agathyrsians to pass through solid things, while Thomas in his steel shell broke through, like a flying rock, paying no hint to prickles and sharp twigs. Oleg often glanced over while running, looked for the knight but Thomas hardly ever dropped behind. In times Oleg got stuck in a tangle of branches but Thomas, though heavier at his run, crushed any obstacle like an enraged rhino. He left behind a broad trodden road covered with broken young trees and branches, ruined anthills.
They were running for ages. For all that time, Thomas heard not a single sound of pursuers, no howl of wolf or other animal, no crackle of twig or small branch behind. Only once a big shadow darted above, but the three floors of branches made a solid screen between the sky and the ground, so that bird, if any bird could be that large, should have seen not a damned thing. When the shadow moved away to where they came running from, Thomas seemed to see that the wonderer livened up a bit, stopped hunching like a hare at the sight of a kite.
However, the wonderer kept yelling for him not to stop, not to slow his run. The remainders of the mountain mead were blown away. Thomas was flung from one trunk to another, his mouth salty, his body screaming with pain. In addition, the dry ground was replaced by a thick carpet of green moss. His feet kept sinking into the wet champing layer and became as heavy as the stones used to tie up ships in a port.
The wonderer urged him on. Through the shroud of muddy sweat, Thomas saw him nearby; Oleg gripped his shoulder, dragged him on, yelled, all but hitting him. Thomas dragged his feet along. He wished nothing but to fall down and die in peace, without even wiping the salty sweat off his forehead.
Suddenly his eyes were dazzled by a glaring light. Exhausted, Thomas raised his head, stared in perplexity at the huge dark trunks, especially dark and gloomy because of the bright light shining behind them!
Oleg dragged Thomas up to the edge of the forest, pushed him forward. Thomas made several steps, squeezed himself between the giant trunks that stood very close there, on the border of Forest, to protect, like knightly armor, the tender inside of the woods from the scorching breath of the endless Steppes.
