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 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, 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. His eyes on the hairy face had 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
The giant turned at it. In the reddish firelight, there was a brief flash over the glade. The stranger gave a sudden terrible roar of no threat but pain and fear: a white feather was stuck in its chest, as the arrow had gone deep into
Thomas held his ears involuntarily, though this move gave him out just 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 up 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, draw a circle on the ground around Thomas and himself, whispered and spat for a while. “Why not 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 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 the 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 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 were two small panting ants who carried a crumble of cave animal’s meat. It was caught and stuck in times, but the brave insects kept dragging it, fearlessly ignorant of giants, werewolves, and the cowardly knight. Shamed Thomas sat up closer to the fire, pulled his sword out and put on his knees. The wonderer slept with his knees tucked up.
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.
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. “Whom the belt for?”
“The devil,” Thomas replied with a start. He was annoyed with himself being frightened by that sudden voice, and the question was stupid indeed: the wonderer had no need of 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 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 that was just a blow of night wind stirring the branches.
Starting 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 grew 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 patted Oleg by shoulder. “Sir wonderer!”
Oleg woke up, his clear green eyes looked at Thomas in perplexity. 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 not 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.
“Devil of woods!” the stranger bellowed in a creepy thick voice. “Leave it. The arrow of thee 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 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 toad of woods caught me in a word, and the knightly word is all that matters. Even if given to 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 his feet. “We must go. Forgive me, I was wrong. One should keep his word even with enemies. And 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
