of a young face under the lowered visor. The shine moved swiftly together with the rider, while the beast was surrounded by darkness. Above him, black crows darted in circles, cawing ominously, flapping their wings, and impossibly big bats and flying hounds moved silently in the air.
The beast leaned forward, catching the galloping rider with giant paws. Thomas bit his lip and the wonderer swore loudly: the mysterious knight was dashing as straight as an arrow flies… The beast gave a triumphant roar, but the rider got through a moment before the huge palms came together with stone crash, his lance went with a terrible force into the left side of the chest.
For a moment it seemed to Thomas that the lance would shatter, as it used to happen in jousting: the beast’s chest was a real stone, but the lance broke through the bones, went in almost up to the handle. A fountain of dark, almost black blood spurted out of the wound, hissed, steaming with poison. The beast jerked his head up, uttered such a terrible roar that Thomas dropped to his knees and pressed his palms on his ears.
The mysterious knight should have left his lance to escape the giant paws cutting through the air blindly. The stallion bent his hind legs, backed, wheezed in fear. The knight, however, tugged his lance out with force, while his horse backed, stunned with the roar, so the lance went out with a squelch, blooded and smoking as though just from the hell’s fire.
Being skillful with reins and spurs, the knight made his stallion back until they were three score steps away from the reeling beast whose bellowing made both the ground and the sky tremble. His blood gushed out of the wound in a spurt as thick as a log. The stones below went black and smoking, some dark red flames flared up. Finally, the monster stiffened, half-hidden by the smoke, and collapsed with a crash, his outstretched paws all but reached the stranger’s horse.
The cloud swallowed the dying beastly god. They only heard a fading roar, groans, grinding of claws on the stone. When a blow of wind swept the smoky cloud away, tearing it to scraps, there were only black burnt stones on the ground.
The rider raised his lance to salute Thomas. His visor was lowered still but a pure unearthly light was coming through the thick grating: so pure that it made Thomas’s heart beat fast, with hysterical sobs. He barely retained from sinking down to his knees reverently. Instead, he jerked up his sword and, holding it vertical, put the handle to his forehead, then to his shoulders — left first, right second — and finally to his belly.
The mysterious rider turned his horse and galloped away. Oleg looked with great astonishment, still feeling stunned with the stranger’s sudden arrival and the miraculous rescue from the beastly god. The knight and his mount, as Oleg saw clearly, vanished in the thin air in their fourth jump.
Thomas sheathed his sword, crossed himself piously — with his fingertips that time. “I was honored!.. Like Sir Aragorn.”
Oleg stared in confusion at the spot where the Virgin had vanished.
“Stupid you,” Thomas told him with superiority. “When the sovereign accepts the oaths of his vassals, he in turn swears to protect them!”
“Oh, foxy you… Why your sword in? Let’s run, or we’ll be late!”
Their feet rang on the melted ground crusted with hot stone. In one place at the edge of dark spot there was a crunch, Thomas all but fell sprawled: his foot went in, breaking the crust through like thin ice. Oleg ran into the gap with his sword ready, Thomas rushed after with bare steel: a hope to return the cup flashed in his soul.
The cleft narrowed, vaulted overhead. The floor beneath their feet was even, scattered with stones sized from a fist to a ram that had rolled down from the walls. It darkened fast. When Thomas glanced back, there was a light slit with the sun shining in, while the way above reeked of decay, mold, rotten leaves, and also a sweetish smell of decomposing flesh.
Oleg glanced back and yelled, “Quick! Move your ass!”
Offended, Thomas rushed ahead like an elk, hitting stones off the walls with his iron shoulders, jumping over rocks, but still lagging back the wonderer who dashed like an arrow shot of a compound bow by a strong hand. Thomas got hot and puffing, gasping for air, choking with heat, when the passage made a turn. Bones, animal and human alike, crunched beneath his feet.
They burst into a big cave with a high vault where long icicles hung down, dismal and deathly pale, and a dark lake in the middle. The place smelled of mustiness, there were long grey manes of moss creeping down the walls, a glisten of mold, a smooth slime covering the walls.
Thomas heard the wonderer’s breath rattling and whistling, as though some bellows blown in, but the wonderer caught his sympathetic look and replied in a sullen grunt. “Listen to yourself!.. I can hear dogs barking in you.”
Thomas breathed fast and deep, trying to shake a faint feeling off. His hands were trembling, wet hilt slipping out of numb fingers. Oleg wheeled round to the dark passage from where they came: some voices were heard from there, a footfall, a clang of steel, the nasty smell grew stronger. Thomas saw his friend shaking his fists in fury, then Oleg calmed down suddenly and alerted.
The ground gave a shake, they heard a dull distant stroke. There was a strong blow of stink, the crash subsided, they heard stones that came rolling from above lying down. “A collapse?” Thomas asked, feeling creepy.
“Buried,” Oleg replied with strange satisfaction. His breast rose fast, a look of his bloodshot eyes sharp and furious. “No one will get out!”
“And we?” Thomas whispered.
“Off chance, Sir Thomas… He whom God helps nobody can harm.” He spat a grey clot of dust down on the stone floor, rubbed with boot sole. His face was twisted. Suddenly Thomas grasped in fright that was the first time he saw the wonderer, so humble and apparently drowsy, in rage.
“I’m tired of fighting,” Thomas said. “I want home…”
“Are you? And I’ve just began to rage! A Russian man harnesses the horse slowly.” He shot a sudden glance above, seized Thomas by arm and yanked away. Thomas fell down, felt dragged. There was a crash, stone splinters flew at his eyes. A huge stone icicle, the size of a warhorse, that had fell from the ceiling lay where he stood a moment before.
Oleg helped him up his feet quickly, dragged between the curving wall and the brim of the lake. Strange round heads looked out of the dark water. Their droopy whitish hair was dismal, they followed the running man with round frog eyes, unblinking. Once Thomas saw wet hands reaching for him: fingers webbed, like goose toes, but topped with sinister curves of long claws. He screamed and overran Oleg.
Chapter 40
Thomas ducked into the nearest cleft, without waiting for the wonderer. Strange creatures were coming out of the lake, water streaming off them, claws and fangs glittering in the semi-dark. The two men ran several steps bending, their heads touching the vault. Then the tunnel widened, they ran faster. Thomas was ahead, but suddenly he screamed and stopped so abruptly that Oleg came running into his iron back, hurt himself and hissed angrily, like a giant snake.
They were on the threshold of a colossal cave: its vault invisible high in the dark, walls separated by hundreds of steps. Something about that place reminded Thomas of Agathyrsian underground. In the middle, there was a colossal bloody-red stone slab, with writing on both sides in ancient lines and cuts, which, as Thomas knew from old legends, had been brought to Britain by settlers from Cimmeria or Scythia.[27] The slab had about seventy feet in length but Thomas grasped at first glance that was no rock but a giant tomb.
