into fire! There will be no more Merefans if we leave. All of us will be chased like wild beasts. We shall die all, perish with no fame. But the gods heard us. They sent two great warriors to our aid. Though both are Franks, but, as you see, even their far North can sometimes, at the will of gods, born heroes to serve our great nation! These two Franks have slain two monsters and drove away the third one. They will lead us for the battle if we find enough strength to follow them!”
Thomas towered on his huge black stallion, like an iron mountain riding the stone one. He also jerked up his arm that looked like an iron-bound log for knocking castle gates away. “Warriors of Merefa!” he roared in a thunderous voice. “I speak as a professional warrior, a veteran to many battles. Believe my great experience: the best time for attack is now! Their bellies are heavy with food, their minds befuddled with wine, and instead of swords, they carry bags of plunder, as they can’t trust each other. They are dispersed in the city: the biggest parties number no more than five or six men, as that’s enough to break the strongest gate. Though their total number is much larger than ours, but we Franks win wars by no numbers but skill. I advise you to try it too.”
Three hundred warriors volunteered to go with the iron knight, whose superiority was recognized unreservedly even by Tilak and other generals. Determined to win or die, the party burst into the city through the broken gate. Just as Thomas had predicted, there were no guards on the gate, nor in the streets. Dead bodies were everywhere. Narrow streets and alleys were encumbered with the furniture and dishes thrown out of the windows. In some places they saw houses on fire, heard terrible howls of dogs. Sometimes they bumped into barbarians loaded with loot and slashed them on the go: Thomas was leading his party to the palace.
At full tilt, shaking the earth and the city with thunder of hooves, they rushed to the palace square. Drunken, befuddled barbarians started to drop out of houses. Those who got onto the way of the galloping party fell down, with their heads cleaved, or simply trampled by hooves: the knight did not allow to stop and muddle in fights.
Thomas galloped at the head, bending to the stallion’s neck, his long lance looking for a prey. Two grim guards rushed after him, glancing at the mighty Frank without former aversion. He slew monstrous spiders, killed many barbarians and was now leading Merefans to save their own city!
A short skirmish broke out at the entrance to the square: they bumped into a small party of newcomer barbarians. Thomas left some of his soldiers to the fight and galloped to the palace with the rest.
One guard cried out, pointed at the windows with anger. Thomas saw human figures darting there above: only few had furry caps of barbarians on. “The treasurer?” he asked quickly.
“In person,” the guard uttered fiercely. The knuckles of his fingers gripping the sword hilt went white. “And his traitors!”
“He’s yours,” Thomas allowed. “Tilak, surround the palace! Let no bloody dog slip out.”
The warriors dashed into the wide open gate with blood-curdling screams, galloped ahorse up the broad marble stairs. In a brief fight at the door, they crushed the defenders and burst into.
Thomas followed the red cloaks with approving eyes. “They went wild… Good! And I thought no people in the world are as strong as we, Angles… Do you think they’ll cope?”
Oleg moved his shoulders. “I always thought so.”
“Oh, sir wonderer…” Thomas said, upset.
At once, they turned their horses and rode by a narrow street to a smaller square, with the skyscraping magic tower on its edge. “Can you open the gate again?” Thomas asked tensely.
“It’s easier now,” Oleg assured him.
Thomas looked into the wonderer’s tranquil face with suspicion. “Why? Do you have stronger herbs?”
“No. The tower has no gate anymore.”
At full tilt, they stormed into the tower through the gap. Steel horseshoes rang against the broken iron door. On the stone floor inside, the clatter became dry and muffled. The furniture had been reduced to scorched splinters, the walls speared through in search of hidings. There was a strong smell of burning. The magician’s servants lay dead on the stairs.
Thomas vaulted off and ran upstairs. His iron soles banged on the floor, he breathed heavily and swore. Oleg also left his horse, rushed after the iron champion of justice. Three barbarians dashed towards them. Thomas was ready. He slew two of them with mighty blows, and the third fell with a knife hilt in his eye. Thomas jumped over him, darted into the room. Oleg pulled the knife out of the bloody socket, wiped it thoroughly, tucked into the cover on his go. The sword was dangling on his back, reminding importunately of itself, but Oleg hoped he would not have to unsheathe it soon.
The strange room probably belonged to the magician. It was crammed with magic things, the floor strewn with pieces of broken glass and crockery, scraps of clothes and old books and manuscripts. The naked magician was crucified violently on the wooden wall. His wrinkled senile body bore huge swollen blisters and black charred places where his flesh had been burnt with hot iron.
Thomas hastened to cut the bounds and put the magician carefully down onto the bed. Oleg covered the old man’s tortured body sympathetically with a cloak bearing comets and Cabalist sigils. “Do you hear me, magician?” Thomas called insistently. “It’s we again! Franks!”
The magician’s eyelids flickered but his eyes remained closed. “The same… I tell… nothing…” his dry lips whispered.
“We are friends!” Thomas cried more loudly. “We don’t need your dribbling treasures! Even those in the base of your tower!”
Oleg came out onto the observation desk, shouted from here, “Tell him we drove away the enemies! Those who were roasting him like a quail!”
The magician listened. “Foes still in city…” he said in a faint voice. “I feel… Drive them away, then…”
“Fool!” Thomas yelled in a helpless fury. “
The magician opened his eyes, senile and lackluster, with effort, whispered in a choking voice, “You can torment me, burn, tear with pincers… I say… nothing…”
Thomas clenched his fists, gritted his teeth. His eyes narrowed until they turned into slits flashing with blue lightnings. Suddenly, a wide palm fell on his shoulder, a mighty voice roared in his very ear, “Let’s go! The old man takes stubbornness for persistence. Worse, he takes it for being steadfast. Let’s get back to the sub… to our soldiers.”
“He’s
“A magician. So what? A skill to make spells does not make one smart or kind. Or simply good!”
Oleg pulled the furious knight out into the hall downstairs, where their frightened horses strolled among the broken furniture. Thomas took a running jump into the saddle, imitating Oleg. His stallion reeled, moved his legs apart.
Shoulder to shoulder, they galloped out of the tower and across the evening square. On the far side of it, some houses were blazing, crimson smoke went high into the darkening sky where the first stars had emerged. Shouts and clang of steel were heard from the palace.
A crowd of drunken barbarians was coming towards them from the plundered market. They made much noise, cried out wild songs. Many of them carried sacks or were dripping with necklaces they’d torn off women, small pockets in their wide belts filled to burst with coins. At the sight of two huge riders, the robbers who walked ahead got sober in a flash, their hands gripped saber hilts.
“A timely meeting,” Thomas gasped out with great relief. “Without it, I’d have exploded with rage!”
Oleg sighed, looked at the enraged knight askew with his sad green eye, adjusted his quiver with a move of shoulder: that put the feathered ends of arrows just beneath his fingertips.
With a roar of fury, Thomas burst into the middle of the crowd, trampling over the first rows. His long sword glittered scarily in the glow of fires, red with both the fires and fresh blood. The barbarians surrounded him, screaming wildly. Thomas cleared the space around himself with three violent blows, flung his stallion ahead, leaving the slashed corpses behind. He roared with laughter, his destrier snorted, knocked with hooves, kicked and bit, as though infected with the rage of his rider.
Thrice Oleg drew the bowstring, but Thomas slashed with such a fury that barbarians crumbled like wooden chips. The darts they threw from a distance slid on his armor with no harm done. An arrow hit it with a ringing click, broke into splinters. Paying no heed to saber blows, Thomas span in the saddle, as though on hot coals, his sword seemed to slice in all directions at once. The air was full with rattles, shouts interrupted on half a sigh, and terrible
