under his eyes. He was fingering the cup anxiously through the thick leather of the bag.
“All five of ‘em dead,” the storyteller specified. “Each at just one touch!” The rest nodded silently, their thoughts written clearly on their faces.
The gloomy bank was approaching fast. The men started to stir, to elbow their way to the border, striving to be the first walker off. The ferryman’s helpers pushed them away, swearing. The ferry hit heavily against the thick logs. The two lads jumped on the mooring, fastened the ropes quickly to fix the ferry, covered the slit with the trampled gangplank. The crowd streamed ashore after them: hurrying, elbowing, pushing the ferrymen aside.
Oleg and Thomas waited until everyone, including the carts, got off the ferry, then led their horses onto the wooden mooring, mounted with an air of doom. The crowd broke apart, heading to the left and to the right — and they drove their horses straight ahead, where the yellow-walled cloister of warrior monks could be seen over distant hills.
On the way, they met strange oxcarts: with huge wheels, higher than their wooden sides, loaded with firewood and hays of fragrant stack, pulled by strange furry bulls, which were called
At the road turn, Thomas reined up. The walls of the monastery towered in half a mile ahead. Some green branches and bunches of grass were dried on its flat roofs. The road went past the gate.
Over the monastery roofs, yellow banners with grinning dragons, lions, and tigers quivered at the light breeze. A two-wheeled oxcart rolled through the distant gate, the drowsy driver urging his slow-paced yaks on. The gate was flanked by men in long orange robes. They stood motionless, their clean-shaven heads gleaming at the sunshine.
Oleg made a move to ride on, but Thomas stopped him with his arm stretched. “Just look what they do!”
From the top of the hill where they stood, they had a good view of the green field behind the monastery wall. Three scores of men in the same clothing jumped, somersaulted, brandished long poles. The tall wall around prevented any stranger from spotting their fighting ways from a close distance. and from the hill, one could barely make out their tiny figures. A monk, definitely one of those great warriors of whom that man on the ferry spoke with terror and awe, jumped up to a stout tree, started thrashing it with his bare hands. Pieces of bark flew sideways.
Thomas breathed out with a heavy groan, his stallion trotted down along the road sadly. Oleg moved his shoulders to adjust the quiver. Thomas rode with no look back, straightened and staring ahead. The monastery approached slowly. Its walls kept being seen as a whole, instead of breaking apart into huge stone slabs, and Oleg realized they were made of yellow clay mixed with straw.
Their horses were in half a hundred steps from the gate when a score and a half of men came out of it to block their way: all shave-headed, in the same orange robes, all sturdy, lean, and muscular. All the monks were much smaller than Oleg and Thomas but sinewy, and their posture and accurate moves could only belong to skilled fighters.
The monk who stood in the middle raised his hand imperatively. Thomas and Oleg pulled up. Thomas checked anxiously whether the sword hilt was in place, his fingers tightened their grip on the lance, his left elbow with a shield on it moved slightly to cover half of his breast.
“Stop!” the senior monk cried in a thin, clear voice, which would have sounded childish if not the ringing of metal in it. “Who are you?”
“Sir Thomas Malton of Gisland,” Thomas replied, trying to keep his voice firm. “Coming home after the triumphant conquer of the Holy Land. This is Oleg, a peaceful pilgrim. He comes from the land of Hyperborean, also known as the Great Scythia.”
“Why are you crossing our lands?”
“It’s the shortest way,” Thomas explained. He cast a warning look at the wonderer. “The host marched around your country in a wide arc, but we know that no harm is to come from two peaceful riders!”
The senior monk watched them suspiciously. “Peaceful? Why do you have a lance and a long sword then? And your companion, a
“The roads are dangerous. Villains, robbers, night murderers…”
The monk glanced back at his silent companions. “If you tried to cross our lands without arms, you’d have a chance. Though a little one… We tolerate no strangers. And kill they who come armed.” He sounded stern and dooming. Other monks did not stir, but their muscles bulged and stiffened. “You’ll have to fight!” the senior monk said with a malevolent smirk.
Thomas glanced back at the silent wonderer. “We’d rather not fight…” the knight begged. His voice gave a quaver.
Ghosts of smiles appeared on the still faces of monks. “If you win — ride on!” the senior said coldly. “If you lose…” His slanting eyes glittered coldly, his face remained stony.
A sturdy, sinewy monk stepped out of the line. He joined his palms by his breast, made a low bow. Thomas tilted his lance slightly: every man of civilization should respond to a greeting, and a man of culture all the more. Oleg pressed his palm against his heart in reply, bowed his head.
The monk made a swift move with arms, took a strange fighting stance.
Chapter 16
“He calls for fisticuffs!” Oleg realized. He started to dismount reluctantly, groaning.
“May I do it?” Thomas suggested, with a quaver in his voice.
“You need half a day to take your steel off.” Oleg dropped the reins on the saddle, spat loudly on his palms, took his stand against the fighter. While high in the saddle, he had spotted something strange about the whole line of shavepates. Now that he dismounted, he grasped that the sinewy monk’s head, with his face of a skillful and ruthless fist fighter, was on a level with his breast. The monk’s thin arms with tiny fists looked like switches.
With a terrible shriek, the monk dashed forward. Oleg stepped back involuntarily under the hail of his blows, shielded with arms in fright: it was like being attacked by a furious she-cat in a dark barn, as he once was when he’d bothered her kittens. He heard guttural cries of monks, then Thomas yelling. Oleg waved away once and again, each time hitting the thin air. The yellow robe flickered before his eyes, then he felt a hard blow on lips, pain and salty taste in the mouth. He roared with fury, his fists began to move faster, but he missed every time, punching the air, while the monk wriggled around like a loach, showering him with swift frequent blows from all sides. Oleg stopped backing, stood in place for a while, his fists darted forward menacingly, as he targeted the monk’s concentrated face that glistened with big beads of sweat.
Suddenly the monk flew up, gave out such a terrible shriek as if he got under a loaded oxcart, and hit Oleg’s breast with both feet. Oleg lurched, made a step back to keep his balance, waved his hand and gripped the falling monk by ankle. The adversary had bent, ready to somersault, but now, being caught by leg, he struck against the ground forcefully with his face, choked with nasty fine dust.
Oleg still held the foe’s ankle, guessing what to do now, when the monk thrashed in his arms, hit his breast with the other heel and squeaked with pain, then hit lower but the wonderer’s belly was not much softer, so the monk squeaked again, arched his back like a cat, gripped Oleg’s hand with both of his, digging his nails deep into flesh. Oleg’s fingers unclenched hurriedly, jerked his hand away. The monk fell down but jumped up at once, as if his bottom were pierced with an awl. Standing with his back to Oleg, he started raising his leg for a sider, but Oleg got cross and kicked him forcefully below his back.
The monk was sent flying. He collapsed into the dust in several steps and remained there, sprawled like a frog squashed by a wheel. “He shouldn’t have scratched me!” Oleg said loudly, as an excuse for himself. “He could
