The Grail of Sir Thomas

small yellow teeth in a malevolent grin. Everything was as he’d reckoned: the knight would do no harm to the unarmed, and the northern barbarian was only to accompany the iron-headed, not to fight instead of him.

“What about fairness?” Thomas demanded angrily. “Do magicians live in other world?”

The magician sent his servants upstairs with a casual gesture. “I leave the slave work to slaves,” he jeered. “No evil shall pass where I stand.”

“Neither it shall where we stand!”

The magician sized him up derisively. “You are just a woodcutter. I have nothing to do with wood.”

One of the sulky guards (their horses were shifting legs near the door) grew bold enough to speak in a timid voice. “O great and illustrious magician! Our city, our splendid Merefa, is plundered by cruel enemies, barbarians of desert. Wouldn’t it be better for you if the city remained in hands of good queen?”

The magician’s eyes sparkled. He puffed, as though going to kill that insolent man by a spell, but then caught a warning look of the northern barbarian and replied through gritted teeth, “I don’t mind on which horses my firewood is brought: on bay or light brown ones. If you do, then drive the men of desert away.”

The other bodyguard, who had his ear pressed to the door, cried out suddenly, “Barbarians came from other side! If they shatter…”

“Nothing on earth…” the magician began proudly but stopped short as he glanced at Oleg who had opened that door not long ago.

Thomas breathed fast, his chest heaved wildly. At one moment, he gripped the sword hilt, ready to force the magician who was definitely no noble man, but at another, he remembered the Christian virtues, along with the magician’s being unarmed and far past the age for fighting…

Oleg listened to the barely audible shouts and clang of steel. “Sir Thomas, we must go. We’ll be back! The great magician still thinks his tower is above the fight. Let him see it isn’t. That will make him more compliant!” He rode up to the entrance door, tucked a blade of grass into the slit. The bodyguards pulled the reins and bared their swords. The door flung open. The barbarians who were pounding on its outer iron surface recoiled in surprise.

The grim bodyguards were the first to burst out. They landed violent blows sideways, in a hurry to do as much damage as possible, their horses knocked the foes down. Oleg’s stallion made a heavy long leap out onto the sunlit square. The wonderer slashed with sword in all directions, knocking down both mounted and pedestrian soldiers in fur caps. After him, Thomas flew out like a steel demon of death: each strike of his sword clove the enemy down to the saddle. The tower door banged shut behind the knight, so they only heard the clang of steel and screams of dying men.

“Let’s get out of city!” Oleg shouted. “Or the whole bloody tribe will come here!”

When the dozen of foes was reduced to a couple of backing men, Oleg prohibited to chase them and drove his horse first, in gallop, to the eastern gate. Behind him, there was a thunder of hooves of three horses: one heavy and two light ones. The bodyguards galloped at their heels without meddling in fights. Thomas guessed it right: the queen commanded only to protect the strangers.

They darted along the street as a whirlwind, their horses trampling on marauders, their swords reaching the robbers who ran across their way. Several times Thomas tried to stop and rush to the aid of the offended, but either of bodyguards seized the bridle of his horse and dragged him along after the Hyperborean.

The road brought them to a tall wall of white brick. The huge gate lay on the ground, the gape of it being webbed by a giant spider, even bigger than the one killed by Thomas. Another spider of the same size gorged itself on the dead and wounded men who lay around the broken gate in scores. There was a fierce fighting.

Three furry-capped warriors were shifting the corpses. They kept away from the spider’s long legs, jumped aside in fear should the vampire drop a drained body and reach for the next one. They were filling their big sacks with adornments, rings and earrings, pouches of coins.

Thomas nodded at the marauders. “Will you do them?” he asked the bodyguards. “And the insects are ours. As a child, I hated spiders!”

“You only hated,” Oleg said angrily, “and I was afraid of them!”

They drove horses in gallop again. Thomas, with faithful lance under his arm, rushed to the corpse eater, while Oleg rode up to the giant webbing the breach in the city wall. The spider was as large as a fat bull, not to count its enormous legs, each the size of a log — but an easily bent hairy log, with knife-sharp thorns hidden in the thick hair. Each of eight legs ended with a sinister curve of a long claw, which resembled a Persian khanjal, though too curved one.

The huge hairy belly had four twitching pipes that looked like goose necks, set close to each other, dripping with saliva-like liquid setting at once and making a viscid glue. The spider pulled it on with two legs, twisted into a single rope, as thick as a ship one, hooked it up to the stone slabs hastily, ran aside, stretching the thread, and hung it on the other side of the opening. The rope had sticky sparkling drops on it: the spider would put those all over its web, with a step interval. Should the thread be sticky all, Oleg thought involuntarily, as the ignorant common folk thinks it is, the spider would not be able to run on his web: he’d get stuck himself!

He pulled out the knife, sawed the load-bearing thread with difficulty: it was the thickest, framing one. It’s easier to saw silk, he thought gloomily, hemp, or even a rope of iron threads! A cobweb is hundred times that tight. One could subside the whole city of Merefa, with its walls, towers, palaces, and kennels, on this single rope!

The spider dashed about, as it felt something wrong. Faster, Oleg cut the rest three ropes. The construction collapsed, blocking the gap with a grey tangle of cobwebs, with sticky beads gleaming on it very close between. The spider darted up to its web. Oleg made several steps aside, stopped dead. The spider started shoveling the silvery ropes up to itself, the forelegs tucked them, in disorder and hurry, into the mouth breathing out hot stench. The insect almost choked but kept swallowing its precious thread. Its dark unblinking eyes were fixed at Oleg but the wonderer did not stir: as a sorcerer, he knew that spiders can barely distinguish light from dark and even the most sharp-sighted ones of their kind are unable to see farther than their noses.

Behind Oleg, there were still crashes, shrieks, grinds of steel, scary neighs of scared horses, clanks of swords. He did not look back. He waited until the spider picked the last thread, thrust it into the jaws and went backing along the city wall. Eight dark eyes on the top of its hairy head seemed to be looking in all directions. Oleg gave himself a word that some time he would find out what those huge eyes served for. They see not a damned thing, but still each new generation of spiders comes into the world with them, again and again!

Finally, the spider got away to find another crack. Oleg turned his face to the fight. The knight had landed such a mighty blow that pierced the spider through but also threw Thomas into its hairy legs. The agonizing creature gripped him with all the eight of them, rumpled, tucked into the monstrous mandibles, trying to crack the steel shell of armor. Bathed in sticky saliva, Thomas struggled out, keeping his limbs pressed to the body, lest the spider break them away. His empty-saddled horse had run aside and stood there, crouching, shaking all over.

The bodyguards had killed two marauders. The third one was backing, trying to parry their blows. One grim warrior left him to his friend, ran up to the spider, struck it on the lower, bearing leg with all his might. The blade cut a sinew. The leg gave way, some viscous whitish blood came out. The spider flinched, dropped Thomas. With a terrible thunder, the knight collapsed on the stones. The shaggy carcass of the spider fell noiselessly on top of him.

The three men tried to drag the monster away, but it seemed to be stuck to the ground, pressing down the motionless knight. One guard fetched both heavy horses, the knight’s and the pilgrim’s one, belted a spider’s leg round and drove the horses away, brandishing his sword. The other one stood with bare sword in the middle of the alley, shielding the spider and the knight: some barbarians had emerged at a distance.

They managed to shift the spider a bit. Oleg reached Thomas’s leg, pulled him out. The steel armor grinded on the cobblestones, leaving deep scratches. Altogether they lifted the stunned knight on the horseback. The bodyguard hugged his shoulders, got soiled with sticky yellow saliva and whitish blood at once, and they rode out through the gape, now free of cobwebs.

They saw a big party of barbarians riding towards. About a hundred furry-capped warriors. With a heavy sigh, Oleg took the bow, put an arrow on. One guard bared his sword, clasped the reins. The other one who supported Thomas cried suddenly, “Tilak! Waiting for us!”

They saw red-cloaked soldiers, also about a hundred, rushing to them at full tilt from the crest of the hill.