and more often. Only by miracle none of them bumped into the men. Suddenly Thomas saw a well-fed badger who climbed heavily out of its dark hollow nearby, scratched its fat belly, trotted across the field. A huge ant was running to intercept it. He was five times that large, with his monstrous sickles of jaws apart. The badger looked soft, unprotected. The colossal jaws should have cut it in two at once, with no effort at all.
The ant came onto the badger, like a black wind, his metal antennae touched it on the go. The animal squatted and froze. Paying no more heed to him, the ant dashed away. The badger gave a snort of discontent, trotted along the same way, sniffing the puny shoots that stuck out of the dry ground.
“Badgers… have magic?” Thomas whispered in fear.
“Hardly they have,” Oleg replied indifferently. “Antes may treat them as pretty birds or fishes. Or badgers may be sacred animals protected by ant gods… I don’t know, Sir Thomas.”
The yellow wall was growing/ Thomas noticed some branchy trees with thick trunks. The closest were sticking out of the gleaming rampart itself, the middle row was shaken with mighty blows of huge golden blocks that often came rolling down from the wall. Only the third row of trees remained intact. In the forestless steppes, they only grew there, around the gold-yellow rampart. Thomas suspected ants had brought selected acorns from the far Forest on purpose.
Oleg started to turn, lest they come straight into the wall, dazzling in the sunlight. In times, black knights emerged on the top of it, with big gleaming boulders in mandibles. Some of them frowned at the strange creatures, moved their long metal antennae, while others simply unclenched their jaws to let the boulders roll down, jumping on the unevenness. Some stones got stuck. Freshly washed by underground water, they had a special bright glitter.
One boulder rushed down, jumping, until it rolled into a young oak, which Thomas and Oleg were passing by. The blow made the oak shake, sprinkle sap out of the scratch.
The sun was sinking slowly to the horizon. The top of the wall blazed with unbearably bright red-orange light. Thomas turned his head anxiously, tried to increase his pace. “No time to leave?” he said in fear.
“We’ll spend the night here,” Oleg agreed.
“With these monsters all around?”
“Would you prefer a way back? The Forest is still close… And the lands of this tribe are in three or four days’ journey around.”
Thomas glanced back anxiously at the colossal rampart, along which they were walking, jumped away from the boulder that rolled straight on him. “Well, let’s go. We must go, as you Ruses put it. Off chance it will come right!” Oleg was silent and concentrated.
They walked until the sun was under the skyline and the dusk came onto the steppes. With no arrangement, they started to pick up dry branches on the go. Once they had armfuls of those, they halted. At last, Oleg could use his bow: whether the animals were sacred or not, the travelers vowed no fidelity to the ant god. As a sign of respect, they would sacrifice bones and limbs to him. And also feathers if their prey is a bird.
When the fire blazed up, Thomas clayed the killed monitor lizard and two skinny ducks that had dared to fly over their heads, put them into the coals, sprinkled with hot ashes all over. “Now we have protection!.. Fire is fire. No animal comes near it. Even antes. They are no men, after all… Are they?”
“Who knows.” Oleg shrugged. “I heard different opinions on it. I only know antes were created by gods long before humans. Antes lived for millions of years but did something wrong or displeased… Other sorcerers say they failed to fulfill some great plan of gods… I don’t know, really. I explored other things.”
“Is there a sorcerer who explores ants?”
“There is. More than one. Antes are a strange nation: very ancient, very mysterious. They have their own world, own rites and ways. As long as you follow them, no trouble… By the way, these spells are driven out over time. Renew them!”
Reluctantly, Thomas sprinkled himself, shaking out the last drops. Oleg rubbed the odorous liquid into his bare arms, moistened his hair with it. The smell of ants made a pleasant mix with the odor of roast meat from the fire.
The sky was going dark slowly, as well as the ground, only the distant ramparts still shone with coarse- grained whiteness. Thomas alerted at every rustle behind, every move of shadows. His hand clapped on the sword hilt involuntarily. Ants rushed by trodden ways, and Oleg, as Thomas noticed, had selected a place far from the trampled paths. Ants dragged dry tree trunks in their jaws, carried animals and even birds, others had jaws empty but bellies almost dragging along. Oleg explained obligingly that was the ants’ way to transport mead and water.
Oleg took the kettle. He went to where the ants with swollen bellies were running and soon came back with the kettle full of cold spring water. The fire was lighting a small spot. Beyond it, there was darkness, full of scary rustle and moving clots of black. Thomas shrieked when a huge cast head, which looked like an anvil, emerged from the dark suddenly. The supple feelers reached Thomas and started to move, feeling the jets of warmed air. Thomas turned stone when the antennae crawled, with a metal screech, on his armor, touched his legs and chest. Fortunately, the ant caught his visor, it fell down with a clang, screening Thomas’s face from the world. When the ant started to examine the head of strange creature, Thomas just closed his eyes and stopped breathing.
The ant felt Thomas thoroughly. In times he had doubts and started feeling again, once even grasped by hand with jaws. With utmost clarity, Thomas realized that if the ant moves them a bit closer, his armor would crack like the quail egg shell!
Once he dashed away, Thomas breathed out noisily, raised his visor with trembling fingers. “A dragon will be a smaller fright to me!”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Oleg warned. “We have to cross the mountains that have more dragons than bats. Dragons are only good in their sleep! And if a dragon is awake… and hungry… And they are almost always hungry…”
“Sir wonderer, can’t we take another road?”
“Aren’t you late for your Krizhina?.. By the way, that ant was very angry.”
“You know their tongue?” Thomas was surprised.
“Only a bit of it,” Oleg comforted. “Just the smallest bit!”
They heard a trample of many hard dry legs in the dark, resonant clicks of sharp claws on the stone.
Oleg jumped up. “Away from fire! Fast!” he urged, then splashed the rest of water out of their small kettle, ran away after Thomas. Half a dozen big ants came from the dark. Thomas made a move to return for his sword, which lay glittering near the fire, but Oleg seized him by shoulders and held.
One of the ants all but came running into the fire, wheeled round at once, a strong jet of water gushed out of his swollen belly. They felt a poignant smell of formic acid. Coals hissed, a cloud of steam flew up. Other ants surrounded the fire, turned their bellies to it — some only raised on their forelegs, their bellies tucked up — and spurted at the dying fire from all around. The coals burst with hissing, faded. A cloud of sharp smell went spreading in all directions,
When the ants left, after having put the fire out, Oleg picked up the kettle, which was half full of formic acid, packed the bag and went into the night. The steppes were only lit by stars and the waning moon. Thomas took the swords and the bow with arrows, hurried after the wonderer who knew the language of black ants, though only the smallest bit of it.
Oleg made a fire again, a smaller one. Thomas jumped up. “Will they come?”
“We got far enough… I hope.”
“Keep the fire smaller,” Thomas begged. “I don’t like anyone looking over my head! Even if their genealogy is hundred times as long as mine!”
The kettle emitted a strong sharp smell. Oleg caught Thomas’s sight at it, said comfortingly, “Now we have enough spray for a week! I hope we’ll get out of here before.”
“A spray for ants…” Thomas muttered unhappily. “And for dragons?”
“No spray will do for dragons,” Oleg agreed with great sympathy.
Thomas glanced at the smelling kettle with disgust. “What are we to cook in?”
“We’ll pour it into the cup,” Oleg suggested. He met the knight’s perplexed eyes and explained, “The one you have in your bag. Holy Grail, that’s it.”
Thomas blushed crimson with noble indignation. “Sir wonderer, how
