inside the gigantic air creature for a long time, in search of an exit — and found it under the shaggy tail, dropped out, shone brighter, cleaning itself, but was swallowed by a darker cloud at once. That was how they rode in the night until Oleg pointed at the fading stars for Thomas. The knight replied with a majestic bow of his iron head.
Oleg was the first to dismount, unsaddle, and water his horse from a skin carried by a remount. Oleg’s mount, worn out by the journey, almost drained it. Oleg took him to a glade with rich tall grass. The villains, seeing the knight and the pilgrim that confident, also unsaddled their horses and let them onto the glade.
Once Oleg made a fire, villains collapsed on the bare ground and fell asleep. Thomas wrinkled his nose in disgust: he despised any creatures so fast to pass from malice to absolute trust.
Though villains believed them while awake, they cried in their sleep, twitched anxiously, woke with goggled eyes and big beads of sweat on their faces. Once they made sure of being not captured by Hazars yet, they fell back like dead, snorted, twitched again, gritted their teeth.
Oleg observed the light stripe of the skyline closely. As the sky began to turn blue, the eastern edge of the earth got red, as if it were shed with blood.
Thomas walked around the fire, his bare sword gleaming, but then he got tired of it, sat down on a stump aside, took the whetstone out of his saddle bag. As villains heard the horrible swish of metal in their sleep, they flinched and groaned. Thomas whetted the blade of his huge sword painstakingly, touched it with his nail to check for razor-sharpness. The whetstone in his hand screeched again, grits sprinkled over the sleeping Black Beard’s face. The brigand writhed, cramped, howled in terror, but he was too tired to wake up.
Oleg sniffed the air, kicked the Black Beard awake mercilessly. “You are the leader? Carry the fire to that gully. And make it as small as you can.”
The Black Beard went pale. “They can attack now?” he asked in a constrained voice.
“A bit later.”
“We’ll carry it,” the Black Beard promised hastily. His suspicious eyes followed Thomas who rose and went to his stallion. “Where’s the knight going?”
“We shall ride ahead.”
The Black Beard pushed his gang awake. They grabbed their arms and surrounded Oleg and Thomas hastily. “You won’t leave without us!” the leader claimed fiercely.
“We pursue a man,” Oleg told them harshly. “It’s very important for us. And you… make your camp. And don’t hide under those trees.”
The Black Beard glanced back. “Can they creep up from there?” he asked suspiciously.
“Gods often throw lightnings in trees,” Oleg explained coldly. “Especially in a plain land. A thunderstorm is coming!”
The six villains shifted their gazes between him and the clear, cloudless sky. Aside, Thomas saddled the second horse but got thoughtful about the third one, lingered and hesitated.
“You won’t leave alone,” the Black Beard snapped. “I don’t know what that knight took from you but it
Thomas pulled his gauntlets on, took the huge sword he’d sharpened elaborately. The ground trembled of his heavy steps. His visor was down, face hidden behind the iron grate, only his blue eyes looked through the slit, dooming and merciless. They could read in his cold eyes that he was about to show the softhearted pilgrim how a man should talk to villains.
Oleg raised his palm, holding the knight back, spoke gently, “It’s no treasure. The lord of the castle in south from here stole from our knight — that’s him and that’s his sword — a nail of Christ, their god… or prophet, other people say. And for you, nonbelievers, it’s a plain nail. You won’t get a single silver coin for it. Even in the countries where Christ is worshipped you won’t, as you can’t prove it’s truly his nail, not some fake thing. It has value only for Sir Thomas… See? The lord insulted the good sire by stealing the nail. It’s a matter of honor, not wealth!”
The villains pulled long mugs slowly. Malice and suspect were darting in their eyes, but the pilgrim’s sad face looked absolutely honest. The woman took a dagger, looked defiantly. Suddenly. Oleg said, “Would you like us to give an inviolable oath? We pursue the runaway knight for no treasure but justice and vengeance. When we kill him, we’ll take nothing but a bag of oat, a wineskin, and a copper cup to make a couple of good gulps from it!”
Thomas shifted the sword to his left hand, raised his right one to the sky. “I swear it on Holy Relics! I swear it by Christ!” he thundered through the visor.
The villains lowered their weapons impotently, exchanged spiteful glances. Thomas mounted heavily, took his lance, a red banner trembling under its wide steel blade, like a flame. Oleg gave a brigand whistle, his horse came running, obedient, shaking the bag on his snout as he galloped, reaching for the last mouthful of oat.
The Black Beard remembered he was a leader and asked anxiously, “What must we do? We’re no Saracens but strangers here.”
“Always post sentries, two of yours. Keep your horses close. Watch them. They’ll be the first to smell the horses of others. Should they snort, move their ears, knock with a hoof or neigh… But if Hazars get you, it is best for you to die fast. To take own lives. We are going to be back by night.”
“What if you don’t come?” the Black Beard called after him in a shaky voice.
“Go north,” Oleg replied. “Hills turn mountains there — a good hide. Hide your tracks if you can. The mountains are your rescue: they have more caves than cheese has holes. Look around while you go. There are caravan roads, the famous route from Vikings to Greeks ends here. Many merchants and caravans passing, many brigands around — your own sort — many marauders, Ottoman riders, but beware of the Hazars most. That’s all.”
In the bright blue sky, straight above the skyline, a cloud sprung up and started to grow rapidly. Thomas nodded at it. “That’s the storm!” he flung out with scorn. “The rain will wash our tracks off, but sir wonderer and I… we’ll find you.”
The knight’s destrier was prancing, gnawing at the bit. While he was not to show his tiredness, the pilgrim’s sly horse pretended to be dying. He sagged his back so that his belly all but touched the ground, breathed with death rattles, almost coughed. Oleg poked the stallion’s belly, he breathed out noisily. Oleg hastened to tighten the girth. The horse looked askew with an innocent eye. He didn’t seem to be sorry for his failure, as if he made very little effort to do it.
Oleg mounted and they galloped, heading the strengthening wind. The cloud was spreading out and concentrating. Once as white and curly as a sheep, it went dingy grey, then coal-black, heavy, flashing with brief evil lightnings. The heavy menacing storm cloud moved onto them like an avalanche: thundering, spark-emitting, crushing down the blue of the sky and getting bigger at every moment. Its dark belly was illumed continually by flashes of white light.
The road went down, between rocky walls. The wind grew stronger and howled, squeezing through the narrow canyon. Then the walls came apart and became lower but the path kept winding. Oleg glanced at the dark sky, urged his horse on.
Horses trotted along a tall sheer wall when Thomas cried in excitement, “I see fire!”
In three or four hundred steps ahead, a faint smoke was rising from a slope. They could not see the fire: it was hidden artfully behind rocks. Thomas vaulted off and craned his neck, peering there. Oleg hold his horse in. He felt anxious but could not detect the threat.
Thomas threw the rope hastily round the stallion’s forelegs. “You go with me?” he called to Oleg.
Oleg dismounted slowly, shifted the bow from the saddle to his shoulder. Thomas adjusted his sword baldric and started up the steep slope. In his gleaming armor, he looked like a metal statue. Stones cracked under his iron body, burst, crumbled. Oleg barely had time to dodge boulders falling from under the knight’s feet.
They could see the fire burning out, its burnt crimson coals, when there was a thunder of stones above. Oleg grasped it at once, bellowed for Thomas to look out and jumped away, under the shelter of a stone ledge.
A colossal boulder was rolling down. On the go, it bounced and kicked down two more huge stones. The
