“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. “
“In the morning we can find ourselves at the walls of Jerusalem. Or in those ruins where Gorvel socked you on 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 on 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 to get 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 clouds on red fire. He started to shield his eyes with palm. The wonderer, screwing up at his side, comforted that 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 grew 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 of a careless blow, jumped over the 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.
“The 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 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 own eyes, but why should heaven be better than paradise?”
Thomas gasped of 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 grasped he should not argue.
Again, he got such a strike that made all his steel ring. Oleg looked back gloomily but did not hurry up, his eyes anxious. Thomas listened: the forest was absolutely silent, as though it were winter night, not midsummer.
“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 a forced fun, 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 the broad field bounded by the same black forest far ahead. Thomas alerted at once, put his hand on the 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, that had once been the roof of a high watchtower.
“A trouble,” Oleg said drearily. “As though we had little of it before!”
Thomas lowered his visor, tugged his sword in the sheath and turned into a position more convenient to draw it out immediately. His eyes in narrow slit glimmered like blue ice, his breath burst out quickly. The knight was not that 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 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 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 a creepy sparkle of mica crystals.
There was a dry click of bow string. 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 sharp claws. The quiver of branches marked its fall, but the marten did not fell 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
