The Grail of Sir Thomas

out. Feeling deathly cold in his stomach, Thomas clutched at the scaled log while it rushed by. He felt a jerk but held on while the log hit the ground, its claws, as large as knives, screeched on the stone. Thomas reached the wonderer’s hand, his face struck against the bony plate.

Oleg dragged the knight up, threw a belt around his waist, secured the other end to the comb and also, to make it more reliable, among bony spikes and protuberances. The crest on the dragon’s back kept unbending, as the dragon still crawled out of the cave: his sharp needles had made a cave in the ceiling. Thomas said loudly all the prayers he knew. As he knew only the first words of each one, he began them again and again. Finally, the crest got shorter, but the needles continued to the very tip. They were especially sharp and fresh there, as though the dragon’s tail was much younger than its owner.

The dragon crept up to the end of the stone ledge, leaned his head on flabby neck down, shook it sadly sideways. Oleg took out a dagger, stabbed it between the bony plates suddenly, leaned with all his weight on it. The dragon gave a piggish scream, fell from the steep, with just a scratch of claws on the stone. Big boulders went rolling down to the foot.

Thomas heard the air swish around. They were falling, in howling wind and cries of frightened birds. Thomas felt cold, dead, he already saw the spot on the stones where he would plop down, like a frog dropped by a stupid flying heron, with only a clang of armor… But then, suddenly, he was pressed on the bony plate with such force that his eyes popped out, his body got heavy, his jaw dropped (suddenly he imagined himself in the age of seventy).

He collapsed prone on the dragon’s back. The wind stopped swishing in ears, and Thomas heard another sound: mighty, broad flaps in the air, as though a storm wind blowing in a ship’s sail. Thomas closed his eyes and offered the Holy Virgin an ardent prayer for the sail enduring, as the loss of it is almost always fatal to sailors…

He was sprawled on the bony plate, shabby and scratched, whitened with rains, wind, and snow. The flapping stopped abruptly, as though cut away. The heaviness was gone, he heard a soft voice near his ear. “Just look…”

The blue sky was ahead, on the left and on the right, even behind them. Perplexed, Thomas looked at the white hill of wadding that floated in half a mile on the left, then realized with fear that was no wadding but a cloud! He turned to the right: a whole scatter of clouds and sharp rocky mountains far below. He saw thin strips of roads, tiny groves that looked like high grass — and the steppes beyond, scarily flat and deserted!

On the dragon’s both sides, huge leathery sails were spread, the thick skin on the bridges stretched as tight as on battle drums. The flying dragon looked like an old giant lizard with a bat’s wings. Thomas had once seen such a creature in his far journeys: that lizard leapt between trees, spreading its leathery wings, but it was the size of a pigeon while the dragon resembled a flying granary of a rich seignior.

Oleg prodded anxiously with dagger, searching for a weak spot. “Sparrows flap their wings often,” he said reluctantly, “and the bigger a bird, the more time it spends soaring. Eagles flap seldom.”

Eagles to this dragon, Thomas thought uneasily, are flies to a swallow. With his weight and colossal wings, he should ascend in several flaps and then soar for half a day with his wings spread out! “Will we fly where we need?” he asked in a shaky voice. “Or where the dragon likes to?”

Oleg shrugged. He was inspecting closely the gaps between bony slabs on dragon’s neck and withers. The wind ruffled the wonderer’s hair but his green eyes looked intently and seriously. “Once men raced on dragons. And combated! Until new gods came…”

Suddenly he gave a terrible scream. His face turned white as chalk, he fell on his back, twitching in convulsion, shaking, his eyes went mad. With a shout, he jumped off the dragon but ropes kept him on. The wonderer wheezed, his teeth bared in a beastly way. He started to untie hastily.

Thomas seized him by hand. “Sir wonderer! Sir wonderer!” Oleg flung him aside, growling. He had undone two knots, only the last one remained. Thomas gripped his friend with both hands, pressed to his own breast. “Sir wonderer!” he shouted in despair. “What happened? What’s the matter with you?”

With no word, the wonderer struggled away, growled, his lips foaming, his eyes mad. He tried to jump down again but the knot kept him, then he started to pull the ends, snarling. Thomas, seeing the death to both, seized him across his body, brought down, pressed on the bony plates, shouting in his face, “Sir wonderer! What’s on you? Tell me what to do!”

There was a brief glimpse of human mind in his mad eyes, a quiver of lips. Thomas heard his whisper. “The Seven…” Then Oleg growled again, wriggled, pushed Thomas aside with force that all but dislocated his shoulder. Thomas recoiled, the wonderer’s fingers dug into the last knot. Clenching his teeth, Thomas pulled out his sword, brandished overhead, brought the flat side down on the back of the wonderer’s head. Oleg collapsed silently, face first, into the slit in bony plates. Thomas tied his friend up quickly, hands behind, lest Oleg reach them with teeth, tied his feet tightly to the comb and protruding spikes on the dragon’s back.

The wonderer came back to himself, started to flutter. Thomas moved away with a sigh of relief. The dragon flapped twice, Thomas collapsed prone, but the leathery sails stretched out at once, crashing and rustling, and the world got still again. Thomas felt his stomach in his throat, his feet icy with terror. He glanced back timidly at the wonderer: Oleg roared and twitched in his bounds. The comb cracked menacingly, threating to rub the rope through. Thomas reached the wonderer, tied him with one more belt along his back, lest he take a firmer stand. He has monstrous strength. It will do to tear any rope. And those possessed are given strength by Devil himself!

Suddenly he felt the sun on his right cheek, though it had been on his left one before. The dragon seemed to have turned. Why not? He’s not longing for Krizhina, just soaring in search of a herd of fat cows to come down on them with a roar, to gobble those he snatches, to burn down the shepherd if that muddler fails to run away. “Sir wonderer,’ Thomas called in a shaky voice. “Oleg! Dear friend!”

The wonderer dropped saliva, his body contorted and writhing. He gnashed his teeth creepily, beat himself against the dragon back. Thomas clenched his teeth, trying not to look down: under the dragon’s belly, as white as a frog’s, there was a terrific abyss and the flat steppes floated in two or three miles below!

He drew his sword out, put it clumsily into the slit between plates, held his breath. The dragon made a full circle, with no move of wings, just rocking slightly in the warm rising flows of air. Thomas pressed cautiously on the hilt, ready to pull it out and recoil at every moment. Dragon kept soaring in the same idle way, in the warm summer air clean of dust and annoying flies, even the clouds under his belly as white as it was.

The sword got stuck, whether in gristles or small bones, so Thomas struggled to take it a scale closer to the neck, to the place where the wonderer had stabbed with his dagger. He had to redo the ropes. In times, the dragon started to flap wings, all of a sudden, jumped swiftly up into the sky, the cold wind made Thomas’s fingers numb and eyes water.

When he put the sword blade into the narrow slit between bony blocks, shabby, with broken edges, the dragon turned his head suddenly to give Thomas a close look. The knight’s hands got cold, fingers unclenched. Fortunately, he had the sword hilt tied to his hand, otherwise he’d have lost it. The dragon’s eyes were slowly becoming bloodshot, his breath puffed out of nostrils more often. In terror, Thomas realized the flying dragon could reach own back, as well as the tip of tail, with those awful jaws. No place to hide!

The dragon looked back again. With open jaws, he reached for Thomas, his neck bent creepily, bony scales screeching. Thomas backed in panics, the ropes stretched, keeping him in place. He felt a puff of stinky heat, as though fat carcasses were burnt in a huge stove.

He touched his sword helplessly, his fingers found some hairy thing. He pulled it, tore the rope off, flung the bundle into the mouth that had covered half the sky. The skin, with slices of meat rolled inside, plopped straight on the dragon’s tongue. The beast shut his jaws, moved them heavily to the right, then to the left, stretched reluctantly into a likeness of flying duck, soaring lazily, spreading his enormous wings that would do to cover any peasant’s field.

Thomas sobbed. His fingers trembled, heart pounded like a sheep tail. He sat like a mite on the back of most huge dragon… if even he swears it, no one would believe!.. flying over the clouds, his possessed friend rattling and wriggling in ties behind… What’s next? If the dragon wanted to gobble him, he would throw meat instead: that is what the wonderer prepared it for, but how long would that suffice? What if the dragon won’t land?

Thomas shrugged with a shiver: the constant head wind was really cool. Should I make the