“Names!” Oleg demanded. He twisted the enemy’s hand, the last gristles crunched, Ganim stopped twitching. His strength was drained fast with the blood loss. Oleg hit him by shoulder blade, heard a dry crunch, seized the fragments, as thin as bird bones, and started rubbing their blooded ends, with marrow flowing out of them. “Say it!” he demanded fiercely. “Say it now!”
Ganim wheezed of terrible pain, twitched, his lips foamed. Oleg seized his private parts with another hand and squeezed. The new pain made Ganim toss up, his pallid face went black, a wheezing voice escaped his lips. “I’ll say… It was… in person…”
He tossed up again, his body flinched, then stretched like a log, gave a last quiver, like grass in the wind, and froze. His face looked more awful than a strangled man’s one, his goggled eyes were full of terror. Oleg sighed, closed his eyes, folded his arms on his chest.
The crossbowman lay still. The blade had gone deep into his brain. Oleg pulled the hilt with caution, to overcome the resistance but avoid being spattered. He wiped the knives clean before putting them into covers. Both entered their nests reluctantly, like the swords of minstrels’ songs that screamed with joy (swords, not songs) each time when unsheathed and cried with grief when leaving the battle.
Searching the shelter of branches, he found a well-hidden leather bag with gold coins, weighed it in hand.
He hid the gold in a different place, went walking around the shelter in broadening circles. He saw lots of hoof prints. On the wet ground near the stream they were so distinct that he could easily count every nail and dent in the iron horseshoes. However, the sun rose high in the sky before he identified the horse of the mysterious employer, the one who had brought five thousands of golden dinars.
As Oleg ran, he looked at the tracks on the earth and patches of trampled grass, listened to the birds crying and grasshoppers chirring.
He made wide steps, his elbows stuck out a bit to let his chest breath deep and mighty in, without his heart being squeezed. In hundred steps on the left, a magpie flew out of a bush and screamed indignantly. At once, Oleg slowed his run down to a walk, his eyes fixed on the suspicious bush, his hand on the knife hilt.
His eyes were still on the veil of green leaves, trying to penetrate through the bush, when he heard a soft voice behind, “Here, slave!”
From behind a thick log, a dried-up sinewy man stood up, clad in a thin mail with wide collar. He had a curved sword on his belt and bow in hands, an arrow on the string. Oleg recognized Ternak, a slave hunter who had impeded his homecoming and had Abdulla bring him to the stone quarry of Baron Otset.
“Didn’t expect?” Ternak flung out, his eyes narrowed fiercely. His upper lip jerked up in a predatory smile, baring yellow teeth. “Was it you, with that blockhead knight, who raised the mutiny? Though it doesn’t matter anymore. The castle now has another master. I see you managed to kill Ganim and his man. I had little love for them, but even less I have for ones successful in killing such…”
He failed to find a proper word. In that time, his hands drew the bow string. He expected fear in the face of the runaway slave, desired it, but Oleg kept his expression as impenetrable as he could, despite his thoughts jumping like gudgeons on a hot pan.
“Was it you to hire Ganim?” he asked without a move.
Ternak smirked, his eyes blazed with malevolence. “In Hell, they know all. Ask them!” He aimed at Oleg, the pointed arrowhead shifting between his face and breast.
Oleg did not move. “Why does your partner hide? He might have come out now.”
“What partner?”
“In that bush. A magpie flew out,” Oleg pointed with his finger.
Ternak did not move an eye, replied with a smirk. “I’m no greenhorn to be entrapped that easy.”
The bow string clicked. Oleg jerked aside. He would have caught the arrow flying, but changed his mind at the last moment: what use of arrow in hand if Ternak draws his sword out? — so his hand reached the throwing knife.
Ternak appeared to know fighting ways. Oleg was late to grasp it. He felt a strike on his side, touched the hurt place: the arrow stuck out there! Ternak smiled, happy of his outwit, bow still in hands, but his smile seemed to be curved in wood: the knife was deep in his breast.
Oleg came up to him, kicked the bow aside. Pain spread in his side, blood trickled down his clothes, dripped on the dry ground. Clenching his teeth, he felt the arrow and flesh around it. With relief, he found out that the iron arrowhead had slid along his rib, scratching it. There was a swollen bump under his skin on the other side, like a nut hidden there.
Holding his breath, he pushed the arrow deeper in and almost broke his neck, trying to see the place where the arrowhead would come out. The bump swelled and stretched, glittering in the burning sun — and suddenly sank, pierced from inside by a sharp metal point, red with blood spurting out from that new wound. Oleg moved the arrow further quickly until its jaggy head was all out. Swearing quietly, he broke the wooden shaft, pulled it out from the other side. The blood was gushing, released, from both ends of the through wound. Oleg bent hastily over the dead man, to use the thin cloth of his turban as dressing.
A low voice, resembling a roar, ordered sullenly from behind, “Stand still! No dressing.”
Oleg turned round slowly. From behind the bush on his left — the one from which the scared magpie had flown out — Gorvel’s minstrel stood up. He was in travelling clothes, his pale malevolent face alerted, his eyes catching every move of Oleg, a small bow of aurochs horn in hands, a curved sword and long narrow dagger on his belt. Oleg cast a helpless glance on his knife, hilt-deep in Ternak’s chest. The singer caught his sight and nodded. “Leave it be. And don’t move. I love to watch the blood pour out. Even if I was not the one to shed it.”
He smiled malevolently. Oleg saw triumph and delight in his swamp-greenish eyes. The singer could have killed him by shot in back through the bush, but then the bloody pilgrim would have died unaware of his killer, in no torments — and now he’ll realize that, though he killed Ternak, Ganim and his man, there are even more strong and skilled ones. The strong and skilled minstrel will walk around while the pilgrim’s bones will be dragged by animals…
“Did you hire Ganim?” Oleg asked in a depressed voice. He staggered, blood trickled down his leg to soak into the dry ground. He felt hot and wet within his boot.
The minstrel did not reply. He bared his teeth, drew the bow slowly, looking straight in Oleg’s eyes. Several times he released the string and drew again. Despite the smirk, his eyes were guarded. They caught every smallest move of the pilgrim’s muscle. Oleg tried to swing aside but his side burst with pain, his legs gave way. He heard ringing in his ears.
“Did you hire him?” Oleg saw the singer’s smirk and glittering eyes, the rest blurred with hot haze. Suddenly he glimpsed a movement out of the corner of his left eye, looked there asquint. As Ternak had gripped the hilt of the knife in his chest, he was still holding it, his fingers weakening, losing touch with it one by one. In a moment, his hand would fall down into the grass. “Ternak,” Oleg said insistently, “throw the knife at him!”
The minstrel glanced there askew. Ternak’s hand fell with a noise, burying itself in the grass. The singer shot briskly. His arrow struck Ternak heavily under his thrown-up chin, went in almost feather-deep.
Oleg jumped back and aside once the arrow left the bow string. He fell into a gully, broke through bushes, rolled down in a ball until he reached the bottom. The thicket softened his fall. He hastened to climb above and aside, feeling giddy, big black flies rushing before his eyes, his blood dripping on the grass. Twisting, he pulled out his second knife, gripped the hilt. The minstrel was sure he had left his only knife in Ternak’s body. Oleg had made him think so while devouring that knife with eyes. Now he had a little chance to outwit the minstrel who proved out to be a skilled and experienced assassin, those three killers no match for him.
