came out to bask in that mad torrid sun. He ate one of them raw, to show the wonderer how indifferent the inspired warriors of Christ were to carnivore joys. The wonderer also ate his one raw.
“What land is it?” Thomas asked. He had climbed out of his armor, stripped off, covered his body with clothes to shield from the burning sun. The touch of light breeze was blissful to his body: it was all red, like fresh- boiled meat, with jets of overheated air rising over.
Oleg, with hands behind head, looked in the sky. He had a dry grass blade in his teeth, a confused ladybird crawling along it. “The beginning of Steppes.”
“Steppes… The Wild Field?”
Oleg turned his head a bit, looked sharply, His voice was biting. “You got the skill to foresee?.. It
“Do they?” Thomas doubted. “They have herds, after all. What would they do to the milk, meat, and skins?”
“They create no material culture,” Oleg corrected himself. “Build no cities nor canals, plant no trees, write no books. Should they take a city, they burn it, with all its temples and libraries. They shatter beautiful statues but make none of those. The few city dwellers who survive are taken for captives. And we, Rus’, are the shield between Steppes and Europe!”
“Is your Rus’ against Steppes?”
“Yes. All our life is a struggle against Steppes. A struggle of plowmen against nomads.”
“So… we are going to run into the steppe dwellers?”
“Yes. We are about to enter the lands of Polovtsians — the ones who press on Pechenegs who, in turn, have come to Kiev. But the days of Pechenegs are over. They’ll be crushed between the hammer and the anvil, and Ruses will have an exhausting struggle against Polovtsians… I’m afraid we’ll see their tents soon. But first the numberless herds of their horses… However, first of all comes the swish of their arrows. Polovtsians shoot before they ask any questions.”
Thomas raised his head a bit, looked around. Within scores of miles, the steppes were empty save the strange orange rings. Perching, Thomas saw two more of those gleaming ramparts on the very brink of sight.
Oleg also raised his head. “Had enough rest?” he inquired. “Then climb into your irons. We must go!”
Thomas moaned, crawling on the ground like a squashed turtle. “I’ll memorize it for lifetime and entrust my grandsons: to fear a Rus saying ‘off chance’, ‘and over’, or ‘we must go’!”
They made no more than two score steps when Thomas sniffed, glanced over at the wonderer with doubt. Oleg nodded. In several more steps, the smell grew sharp, strangely invigorating, like a sip of cold water in the heat. Oleg cast attentive glances around. Suddenly he sank to his hands, rubbed his belly against the ground, then turned and squirmed on his back. Thomas goggled his eyes. The wonderer made an inviting gesture. “Sir Thomas, please…”
“What for?”
“We came into the lands of a strange tribe. They only know their kin by smell.”
“Like dogs?” Thomas asked with disbelief. “Why should we care?”
“Dogs mark trees and stones on the borders of their territory, Sir Thomas. For others to know them. A bear on his borders would scratch trees, an elk would strike logs with hooves, and this tribe does it the same way as dogs… You were right about that.”
With disgust, Thomas rubbed himself on the stones sprinkled with gleaming yellow drops. He was glad he had armor on, unlike the wonderer. They moved on, across the steppes, heading for northeast. Far and wide away, there was Rus’, the civilized kingdoms beyond it, including Germany that was but a step from Britain.
On the way, Oleg rubbed twice more on the smelly rocks. Once he found some intact drops in a cavity, he collected them accurately into a flask on his belt. Thomas wrinkled his aristocratic nose but said nothing. During the laborious Crusade, he had seen plenty of things, had been both high and low!
Suddenly they heard a rustle of grass in ten steps, caught a glimpse of something. Oleg did not move an ear, his sword remained on his back, along with the bow and feathered arrows. Thomas relaxed his muscle, started to calm down, but his heart kept pounding very fast, as though it felt a mortal danger.
After two hundreds of steps, Thomas glimpsed, out of the corner of his eye, a moving dark point on the left. Soon he made out that was a killed deer carried by some strange animal in jaws. The deer’s head and legs were dragged on the ground, catching the grass. Once the branchy antlers got caught in a poor bush. The animal yanked the deer up impatiently, it flew up with the bush in antlers, of its white, shamelessly bared roots made a flash in the sun. The animal seemed to be monstrously strong, though three times smaller than the deer. Thomas shivered, started to pull his sword out.
“Antes,” Oleg said without slowing down his pace. “Never mind them. We are protected by spells.”
“Spells?”
“I mean the smell. Do you remember the stones we rubbed on? Let me sprinkle some more on you.” Oleg sprinkled the knight’s gleaming armor with big drops of sharp-smelling liquid, aiming into the slits.
“Which antes?” Thomas asked, stunned. “I’ve never seen…”
“Antes… are just antes. We Ruses are antes too. This is how some foreigners call us, for we are numerous and hard-working.”[21]
Thomas opened his mouth to ask a new question but remained still, his jaw dropped. The deer was dragged across their way… by a giant ant! He looked like an ingot of black iron, glittering in the sunlight, like a shiny knight, armored from the end of his feeler to the least of his claws. His thick jaws were a steel trap of two jaggy sickles, his prominent unblinking eyes looking in a cold and hostile way, his iron legs moving so easily as if he carried no prey at all!
He rushed by, in a score of steps ahead, left an invisible jet of sharp invigorating smell. Thomas followed with dumbfounded eyes the black body that dashed away on its six crooked paws… to the sparkling rampart!
“The ants of Herodotus.”[22] Thomas whispered in enchantment. “I thought ‘the father of history’ fibbed…”
“Fancy that,” Oleg said in surprise. “Have you read Herodotus?”
“They’ll tear us to pieces,” Thomas whispered again. “Our swords… what are they against their armor?”
“Off chance they won’t. What does Herodotus say of it?”
“My tutor was retelling it to me. I can’t recall all of it.”
“Sir Thomas, if we did not run onto this field, we’d have scattered the forest edge with our picked bones! The Dark Forest is not likely to let its prey go that easy.”
Behind them, there was a whole procession of huge ants: as large as wolves, but clad in the most durable armor, with not a smallest slit to stab a dagger into. They were running in wolfish way: one by another, each next one touching his predecessor with long supple feelers. Some jerked their antennae up as they ran, felt the air. The ants paid no heed to Thomas and Oleg.
“Go on, Sir Thomas,” Oleg said, but Thomas heard no confidence in his voice. The wonderer looked so strained as he’d never been before, flinched often. “The smell of the liquid ants use to mark their ways will protect us.”
“What if it won’t?”
“Better die of their jaws than of foe’s hand.”
“That’s right,” Thomas agreed with a heavy sigh. “Animals are innocent and foes will rejoice… Let them not have it!”
The wonderful rampart was growing with every step. As a small child, Thomas had seen such rings on trodden paths, after rain. The rings were made of white sand, very distinctive against the dark ground: ants were taking the sand out from the depth of earth to rampart their holes, protect against something or somebody.
The black knightly beasts, in which Thomas did not dare to recognize ants, were coming towards them more
