The Grail of Sir Thomas

tubes, the thick smoke about to turn fire. He stood up, fingered the hilts of throwing knives. “I’ll go and see what they want.”

“Go to these devils?” Thomas cried in awe.

Gorvel watched him with disapproval. Marauders and villains, bunched in two close groups, argued with heat, cast suspicious glances at the pilgrim. The marauder who called himself Roland said loudly, “Are you going to sell us to those beasts?”

Oleg did not reply. “Keep your sword bare,” he told Thomas. “We’ll meet at the middle, and you… you and Gorvel show you are ready to come to my aid. You’ll have a shorter run down than Hazars — up the slope to their chieftain.”

“Do you expect an ambush?” Thomas asked anxiously.

“Just in case. It will come right if they see us at call.”

At the foot of the hill, Hazars were roasting meat, turning a huge spit with a whole saiga. Horses had been taken away. A tall barbarian was climbing up the slope. His body was covered from head to feet with drawings in colored clay. A pair of short leather pants made all his clothing. His thick wrists gleamed with massive bracelets, and armlets of the same metal embraced his arms just above elbows.

Oleg looked at him closer, slowed down his pace. The barbarian glanced above once or twice. As he saw his ruse discovered, he went up faster, in quick steps.

Oleg shuddered as he watched the leader of Hazars coming. To the waist he was naked but looked as though clad in bony armor composed of many fragments, with their edges covering each other. Joints were marked by swollen scars that had turned bone or even stone. On his belt of coupled iron plates, he had a huge Arabian sword and, on another side, an axe with curved blade.

The Hazar was heavier and more massive than Oleg. His legs resembled thick logs, he was all covered by a dark bark of his “bone armor.” No sword will slash through it, no iron arrow hit. Oleg remembered him as a fierce and fearless warrior, but as the years passed, his friends died, only few lived to be old and killed, in Khazarian way, by own grandchildren for being useless — this one was still riding fiery horses, making forays and bringing captives. In the best years of Khazar Kaganat, he became a warrior hero, scary in his might.

But ages passed since that. The Kaganat was shattered with a sudden blow of furious Svyatoslav. The few Khazar survivors scattered, dissolved among neighbor nations. Only this invulnerable warrior, whom the last generations called Karganlyk, gathered a hundred of the same implacable fighters as himself and continued foraying. Not on Rus’, where a sure death awaited, but on Pechenegs and Kumans. He robbed them, going farther and farther to the south.

Oleg looked in Karganlyk’s face, as motionless as a tortoise shell, with pity.

Karganlyk’s stone jaws came apart slowly. “You again, my Old Enemy?” he roared.

“I haven’t met you for ages, Karganlyk,” Oleg said instead of greeting, as he wished neither good day nor good night to such an enemy.

“Why did the Old Sorcerer come again to the land of Khazar?” Karganlyk asked him,

“The dog had a house,” Oleg replied gloomily. “Until the rain burnt it. Where do you see the land of Khazar?”

Karganlyk stamped his foot angrily. “This is our land!”

“The dog had a house,” Oleg said again. “The northern lands of the Khazar Kaganat were taken by the princes of North, the eastern lands — by Kumans and Pechenegs, and southern… But you came not to discuss old times, did you? I have much to recall with pleasure, but why should you re-open the old wound?”

Karganlyk glowered at him. The Hazar’s heart pounded, raising a hot wave. He had already been a field chieftain when he met that sorcerer. A sorcerer and hermit whose cave had been ruined, so he walked across Khazarian steppes to the south to become, as he explained, an anchoret in deserts. That was the time Obadia had just adopted the true faith and burnt the old tribal gods, declaring them to be idols. He ordered to capture the hermit and sacrifice him to the new god to mark his triumph. However, on the way to the nomad camp the sorcerer managed to free himself, slaughter the five strongest warriors, and steal the best horses. The numerous pursuers were killed by his arrows or drowned in a bog. Only on the fifth day did Karganlyk, with ten young daredevils, come upon him! And Karganlyk was the only one to survive, though his two arrow wounds still kept ached at bad weather.

“Leave others to me,” he said harshly. “And you may go. We are enemies but, strangely, I feel no hostility. You witnessed the grandeur of Khazar Kaganat, its glory! That’s why I don’t want to kill you.”

“Well,” Oleg agreed. He watched Karganlyk’s motionless face closely. “I leave them all. May I choose the horse and things for myself?”

Karganlyk nodded, his eyes were full of great astonishment, then he checked himself and added, “Not everything. You can take all the horses and things… save one small cup.”

“It’s no gold,” Oleg spoke slowly, his eyes fixed on Karganlyk’s face. “Neither silver… Why do you want it?”

Karganlyk moved his enormous shoulders heavily. “And you?”

“It’s important for my friend. A sacred thing of his faith. But your faith is different.”

“I strengthen it by throwing down the gods of others!” Karganlyk said sharply.

“I’ve heard much of that… When you defile the shrines of others, you throw mud into the face of your god. You flung down the gods of Slavs, Normans, Bagdad, and Byzantium… but destroyed only a god in yourself.”

“I’ll keep the cup,” Karganlyk snapped. “Take all the rest if you like!”

Oleg nodded, his eyes were sad. “I see. Tell me: who set you on two lone travelers? We are entrapped. You can speak bluntly.”

Karganlyk gazed at his old enemy. His painted face twitched, his lips stretched into thin lines, his sharp wolfish teeth flashed. He looked eager to say the dreadful truth, to fling it into his eyes, to see fear in the Old Sorcerer’s face — but Karganlyk might have recalled Oleg escaping in spite of bounds, or he was restrained by some other reason, but he only growled, “A dog is set on. And I’m a great chieftain! My life is guarded by gods.”

“Yes,” Oleg agreed with no hint of jeer, “you’re a great chieftain. Of a great tribe. Though not numerous, is it? Do you have hundred men? Ten years ago, you had thousand. And twenty years ago — ten thousand. How many will you have next year?”

Karganlyk clenched his stone jaws. He had barely retained from a strike, his fingers fumbling about his belt. “One hero is enough to give birth to a new nation,” he said in a dull voice. “You know it.”

“I know,” Oleg agreed. “A hero. Not a beast.”

Karganlyk’s eyes flashed. “Whilst I live, the people of Khazar lives!” he snarled.

“Even gods die,” Oleg told him.

Chapter 13

Karganlyk straightened up, his eyes blazing. Oleg put his hand on the sword hilt. For a while, they tried to crack each other with eyes, then Karganlyk turned away and ran down, jumping among the rocks sprightly. Down in the valley, Hazars stirred, rushing to meet him. Oleg hurried up the slope, saving his distance to Hazars, poor archers. No Khazars anymore. Those were splendid riders and marksmen, dangerous enemies. These are just a bestial gang: unable to build anything, and even out of their skill to destroy.

The northern end of the cleft was guarded by marauders, the southern — by villains. The helmets of two knights glittered over the middle of the ridge. Mortal enemies, they, however, felt more in common with each other than with other men, brigands and deserters. Chachar bustled among the three groups like a messenger among warring hosts. She was the only one welcome anywhere. Her cheeks flushed with happiness. That’s her paradise — only men around.

“How’s your trade?” Gorvel cried to Oleg, while Thomas breathed out with relief..

“As usual: no swindle, no sale. He offered us to leave the cup and get away.”

Ronald uttered a loud hem. “We need agree!” he expressed the common opinion of his comrades and also villains. “Even if cup is golden, our lives are golder!”