Gorvel and Thomas said nothing. Chachar grasped Oleg by hand, her eyes glittered with tears. “You refused? Why?”
“After he takes a cup, he will take us.”
“What’s the point for him to lose his men?” Gorvel said warily. “We’ll kill much of his, and he’ll gain only the same thing he hopes to get for nothing!”
“He doesn’t need the cup,” Oleg replied. “He needs us. He was told that Sir Gorvel carries all the family jewels with him. They cost enough to hire a small army or build a medium-sized fortress. Sir Gorvel, you may find it hard to believe that your masters have set him on you, but it’s in the spirit of progress. Hazars can’t be commanded in the way you were, but these base creatures are easy to be manipulated by playing on their greed, envy, and malice!”
Gorvel turned pale, his hand darted to the sword hilt. At once, Thomas and Roland, the leader of marauders, drew their swords and covered the wonderer. “And the cup…” Oleg continued. “Karganlyk will give it to those who pointed at the rich prey, as a gratitude for their hint. Who needs that plain cup, Sir Gorvel?”
Gorvel sheathed his sword with a thud, turned away. The marauders and villains exchanged suspicious, unbelieving glances. Kings, basileuses, and sultans were legendary creatures. Just as gods, demons, and peries. None of those is to be encountered by ordinary men, so forget them and only rely upon your own strength, fortune, and lucky star!
“What will we do?” Roland inquired. He stepped out of the group of marauders. “Holy father, we see you definitely have met these devils before. And those meetings might have been hard, as you know their military habits. That horned devil was talking to you respectfully, we all saw. And he’s the kind of demon to escape no censer but a hard fist. And he kept glancing, other men say if I lie, at your fists, not your charms!”
Oleg fingered absent-mindedly the charms on his breast. “We’ll have to wait. We can’t leave without horses. The mountain must have been surrounded, but they won’t attack at night. I know it.”
“We ran short of water,” Roland reminded. He licked his dry lips. “And they’ll pour it over selves in the morning! A spring half a mile from here.”
Oleg shook his head sadly. “We have no other choice. The roads are busy here. The forces of Barons and Saracens often ride through this valley. If any of them comes, the wild Hazars will be driven away. They are hated by everyone.”
Roland stepped back but his eyes were doubtful. The marauders took a quiet counsel, and the Black Beard, who had kept silent up to that moment, roared, “If! Your ‘if’ brought death to all of mine! Let the pilgrim have his ways, and we’ll have ours. Once it’s dark, we try to break through. Some of us die, but others live. Or we all die with this fool!”
Thomas blushed, his hand darted to the sword hilt. Gorvel puffed up, stepped closer to him. Oleg flung his fist swiftly. There was a muffled tinkle of helmet. For a moment, the Black Beard stood with goggled eyes, then his knees bent, he collapsed face first. The dumfounded villains watched his iron helmet, which had fell to the ground, and a dent in it, then shifted their gazes to the bare fist of peaceful pilgrim.
“You… killed him?” Gorvel asked.
“It would have pleased Hazars. He’ll soon come to.”
Gorvel breathed out with relief. “I’m glad that
Thomas bent his head and said nothing: he’d also have killed the villain with great pleasure. The Black Beard groaned, turned on his back with effort. A marauder who was smirking malevolently from ear to ear kicked the empty helmet to him, left it in the position for the dent to be well seen.
The Black Beard’s hair on the left side of the head was matted with blood. He moaned and sat up, resting both hands on the ground. “Take your cut-throats,” Oleg told him mildly. “The watch before midnight is yours. Then these brave soldiers of imperial guard change you.”
The Black Beard touched his badly-hurt head, stood up and left without saying a word.
At night, Oleg and Thomas crawled on their bellies on the bare ground, peering at the rocks shimmering in the starlight. The silence was broken by rare howls of jackals. In the valley far below, a red fire could be seen. In times it disappeared, as a vigilant sentinel walked past.
Gorvel had a long talk with Roland, glancing back at Thomas and Oleg frequently. They seemed to have reached a consent at last, as they covered themselves with cloaks and lay down to sleep. Villains stood the first watch. Chachar sat with them for a while, staring in the dark with resent for Thomas for his paying her too little attention. However, she was almost the first to fall asleep.
Oleg fingered his charms. A wooden figure of hare was caught frequently. If he got the right meaning of that sign sent by his eternal, all-seeing and all-knowing soul, someone was going to run away, trying to save his skin.
The Black Beard, with his bandaged head, was lying at the other end of the cleft. Next to him, Oleg saw the heads of his survived villains. One of the marauders, a taciturn beastlike man, sat beside them, exchanging some quiet remarks with them.
Thomas and Oleg looked at each other. Thomas alerted, pulled his sheathed sword towards himself. “Is there a way out?” he whispered hopefully. “I must get out!”
“I see. The Holy Grail–”
“Krizhina waits for me! If I linger, brothers will make her marry!”
“Oh, that’s serious, I see. But we have to wait. For some host to pass by, for something else to happen… This land is no wild steppes for Hazars to invade without being seen! Someone somewhere is already blowing trumpets, saddling horses…”
“They’ll be late,” Thomas sighed. “We have to set hopes upon a miracle.”
Oleg heard a heavy sigh in the dark, as if one were carrying the whole cleft on his back. He smirked sadly. All the way, the knight had been telling with ardor about the miracles made by first Christians at the least occasion.
Far below, on the left side of their crevice, a stone tapped lightly on stone. As the man saw himself spotted, he dashed across the moonlit area and vanished in the shade, only his hard soles stamped hastily on the rocks.
Oleg glanced back at the sentinels. The Black Beard was in place, one of his villains with him, a sullen marauder sitting nearby and grinding his dagger, but another villain had disappeared. The Black Beard shook his fist angrily after the runaway.
Gorvel swore. “I’d rather expect it of their leader! That scum is going to those mountains. And Hazars are far. The bastard must have robbed us! And he’s leaving!”
“Will he leave?” Oleg asked with doubt. Thomas shifted his gaze between the wonderer and the red-bearded knight.
“I stake my arms and armor,” Gorvel said sharply, “on his successful leave. He walks light and far from Hazars. See their fire?”
Thomas looked at the far fire, far even from the foot of the hill. His face darkened.
“I bet my head to your armor, sir,” Oleg told Gorvel sadly. “Hazars have made fires there deliberately for us to see. In fact, two score of warriors lay in ambush among those rocks, in half a hundred steps from us, and listen, trying to guess what we do, what we are going to do, what we hope on. That’s a common tactics of Hazars! I’m surprised to find you, Sir Gorvel, a man of war, that easy to be dece–”
They heard a scream in hundred steps in the dark. A heavy body hit against the stone, pebbles clattered down the slope. A scream again: muffled, as if the man was silenced while uttering it. Dead silence fell, broken only by distant sounds of fast feet running away.
Thomas turned to Gorvel briskly, with his eyes shining like lynx’s and a wide smile from ear to ear. “You armor, Sir Gorvel!”
“Not now,” Oleg interfered hurriedly. “He’ll need it to fight.”
Gorvel fidgeted, as he forced himself to speak with great embarrassment and displeasure. “Sir Thomas, I’ve lost my armor. It belongs to sir wonderer. I, a knight, made a mistake. You and your friend know the ways of filthy barbarians better. That’s no surprise for me…”
Oleg saw Thomas’s face darkening in the faint moonlight and put his heavy hand on the knight’s shoulder to
