started climbing it. His limbs moved swiftly, as if he were a spider on the web.
Oleg sneaked slowly to the wall. The crossbowman was climbing a rope but Oleg had to make it on the bare stone, gripping at the smallest cracks and ledges. When the man screened the stars over the wall for a moment, Oleg was in the middle of it. When he reached the top himself, he heard the clatter of hooves and a muffled neigh in the dark beneath. A horse with a rider in flapping cloak burst out of the shade and galloped away from the castle.
Oleg jumped down from the very top, fell on the edge of the moat, rolled down the slope, reducing his speed. He heard crackles and crunches under his body, felt his bare feet pricked, as if some fish and bird bones had been thrown down from the castle walls for ages. The clatter of hooves was fading away fast. Oleg rushed after, unfastened his jacket at once. The earth beneath his bare feet was pleasant cool, the morning air chilly and sharp as a Damask saber. He’d get warmer in his run, so it was the cold, not the warmth, he needed to preserve. The crossbowman drove his horse in an even gallop, evidently sparing its strength for a long ride.
Dust rose over the road as a subtle cloud. As Oleg ran, he glanced at either the fat-lightening sky or the distant sparkle of metal plate on the crossbow stock. The clatter of hooves was distinct in the night silence: even birds had not roused yet, no songs, and Oleg’s bare feet raised the dust without a sound.
Finally, the sound of hooves died away, but the pale light of dawn enabled Oleg to see the tracks, dim and dark on the road ahead. The far edge of the land was going pink. If the crossbowman turned aside, into the thickets, he would be easy to trace. Hoof prints, broken branches, trampled grass — all the signs for an experienced eye to know the rider’s way.
His breath burst out hoarse and hot, his throat overdried. Oleg realized he was going tired like a huge fish thrown onshore. His cave was not much for running about, so he broke off the habit to exercise. And the advantage of his previous experience would not suffice alone…
Panting of the run, he thought suddenly the crossbowman might have experience too. And there were many other dangers: a snake lurking in the rotten leaves, under a log, or within an empty horse skull…
The traces turned off the road suddenly, Oleg had barely run past but, however, he broke into the shrubs at once and saw deep hoof prints in the damp ground. He felt the coolness of stream ahead. By that sensation, Oleg could draw the twists of it, tell its depth, and name all the grasses and flowers on its banks. He heard the clatter of hooves again. The horse’s pace was even, thick blades of juicy grass crunched in its teeth.
The clouds blazed up in the sky, the dawn came down to the ground from them. The sand turned orange and shining, the rich grass sparkled with all the tints of green.
In a two or three hundred steps ahead, in the curve of the stream, a shelter of newly cut branches stood. It was made skillfully: Oleg could barely single its sloping walls out in the surrounding greenery. The rider, with a crossbow over shoulders, trotted straight to the shelter. When he was in ten steps from it, a small man in long green oriental robe went out of the bushes on the right. He had a simple bow of ash stick, with a tightly stretched string, in hand.
The rider waved his hand reassuringly from a distance. “I’m friend! You are hard to be taken by surprise, master, aren’t you?”
“How was it?” the man in green robe interrupted.
“I’ve pinned him like a toad, to the back of the bed. This Frankish crossbow makes a terrible strike! But it takes so long to draw the string with a winch… And this bloody double traction!” He vaulted off, clapped his excited horse by neck, took the saddle and harness off and shouldered them. “Good horse, fast as wind… Chukan and Gexah still there?”
“Their job is harder,” the man in robe replied. “The knight is brave, his armor always on him, even as he shits in the bushes. He has to be caught. That’s not shooting down a weaponless pilgrim!”
The rider kept his hot horse from rushing to the cold stream, slapped and patted the animal. “That pilgrim is more like a bear!” he said with displeasure. “I smelled danger, though he had no armor nor arms!”
Oleg took his throwing knives out, estimated by eye the distance to the crossbowman and his master. Oleg’s heart beat like mad, protesting against a sudden stop of the run. Big beads of sweat ran down from his forehead, broke through the dams of eyebrows to bite eyes. His fingers felt wet, he wiped them on his knees.
The man in green robe glanced with a sullen approval at the crossbowman who was leading his horse round to cool it and keep it, steamed, from drinking icy water. “It’s done. I hope it is! Chukan and Gexah never missed before… Just think: five thousand dinars for a cup! That’s fantastic!”
“In silver?” the crossbowman asked, grinning.
“In gold, you fool. A single shot earned you a thousand golden dinars! See it? Where else could you have earned that much?”
The rider shook his head in astonishment. “A thousand in gold?!”
“A thousand. Chukan and Gexah will get each that much. And two thousands are mine, for I’ve planned it all and directed you three, skilled with knives and arrows but weak at brains.”
“I don’t object,” the crossbowman said hastily. “You always had a bigger share. But we’ve never got that much… That seems queer. When we set a king with arrows, after we passed three lines of his bodyguards, we received less. And here — kill a knight and a pilgrim, take a cup… And that’s all?”
“Why should it matter? Do what they want but don’t ask why. In fact, I’ve grasped it was sufficient to take the cup only but they once had it go wrong. Either stolen or taken back…”
“I see. Dead won’t come to take it back. A thousand in gold, Ganim! For this money I shall…”
The heavy crossbow, with a long polished butt, was fidgeting on the rider’s back. Oleg waited until he turned face while leading the horse round. The knife slipped off Oleg’s hand like a silver fish. He took the second knife at once, flung into the back of the green-robed man whom the crossbowman called Ganim. The crossbowman jerked his arms up as if he wanted to fly, fell on his back, dropping the reins, and stayed motionless: his mouth wide open in a silent cry, his right eye a gurgling bloody mess, with the knife hilt jutting out of it.
The green-robed man stood with his back turned to Oleg, but some beastly feeling made him wheel round. He drew his bow at once, shot. Oleg jerked aside, caught the arrow with hand. The robed man, with his teeth bared in fury, scratched the handle of the knife sticking out in his chest: the blade had crushed through the breastbone. He started drawing his bow again. In ten steps, Oleg alerted. Ganim drew it and put down several times, seizing a moment: if the pilgrim could catch an arrow with his left hand, he could manage it with his right too…
Finally, Ganim’s fingers unclenched, he fell to his knees, half dead. The bow dropped out. His eyes flashed and faded, he fell on his side, his arm bent clumsily. A puddle of blood was spreading from beneath him. His other hand scratched the ground for a while, then stiffened.
Oleg came from aside, stopped in three steps. “You’re not dead,” he told Ganim, “leave the hilt of my knife. Turn to me.”
Ganim did not move. His quivering fingers straightened. Oleg came from his back, turned him with a knock and recoiled. Suddenly, Ganim jumped from the ground. His left hand flung a handful of earth into Oleg’s face, his right one pulled the knife out of his chest, struck, with lightning speed, the spot where Oleg was to stand. But the earth flew past Oleg, he elbowed the knife away, seized Ganim’s hand and twisted it fiercely. Ganim screamed, fell to his knees.
Oleg twisted it further. He heard bones cracking, tendons bursting with a crunch. Ganim’s face hit on the ground wet with blood. The red spilled out from his chest in an uneven trickle, pulsing in time with his quivering heart.
“I have not missed,” Oleg told him pressingly. “I wanted to ask, that’s why you are still alive… Who paid five thousands in gold?”
With effort, Ganim turned his face. It was caked in bloody mud, his eyes and mouth closed up. “You’ll be destroyed both…” he croaked. “No one can stand up to their might!”
