Thomas muttered a curse. Assuming the risk to be taken unarmed by the bear’s sudden attack, he lunged quickly, jabbed the forepaws, both of them, with the charred end. He hoped to make the animal rise on its hind paws.
The beast gave a terrible roar but did not stand up. In a flash, he snatched the pole with his large mouth, shook his head. Thomas screamed with pain: his arms were all but torn off the joints. He heard a crunch and saw a broken piece, shorter than an axe helve, in his hand.
He cast a frightened glance around in search of the wonderer. Oleg had just seized the reins of the knight’s horse, in half a mile from the fight. “Run!” Thomas cried to the girl. She watched him with eyes goggled in terror. “Run, fool! To that man with two horses!”
Suddenly, the bear stood up. Thomas strained his shoulders, stretched his arms out. A great heaviness came down on him, as though a mountain collapsed, his throat cramped with noisome breath. He felt his spine cracking, his vertebrae bursting, his ears were ringing of the deafening roar. The bear kept crushing and breaking, the steel armor caved in. The air burst out of Thomas’s chest with rattling, his ribs brushed painfully against each other.
They took a firm stand, grappling each another, but Thomas only tried, without success, to join his fingers on the animal’s broad back, while the roaring bear clawed the steel plates of his armor. There was terrible grinding, as strong claws broke, like fish scales under a knife, steel pieces fell to the ground, claws stuck into the small rings of mail. Thomas twisted with pain: the bear’s long claws reached him through the thick sweater, dug into the muscle on his back.
He stopped trying to join his fingers in the lock — the bear was too broad — but squeezed the animal with all his might. His breath rattled, the bear roared, growled, and spat. Thomas got weaker, pressed with the last of his strength. Suddenly the bear loosened his grip, tried to release himself, to push the iron knight away. Thomas pressed on, surprised at keeping his feet still. The bear’s mighty roar turned into squealing, doggish whine. The beast wriggled, tried to push free again. Thomas took a deep breath and a tighter grapple on the bear (he now seemed smaller) and squeezed him with all the force he could gather. He heard a crunch under his arms, then a gurgle. A warm liquid rained down on his helmet, poured over his eyes.
Thomas released his grapple, stepped away quickly. Blood came gushing from the huge jaws hanging over him. The eyes of the colossal bear, as red as coals, died out. The animal collapsed on his back, the ground shook. Thick paws gave a twitch and stretched out.
The girl was sitting under the tree with terrified expression on her dirty, soiled face.
The wonderer was leading unhurriedly the destrier with moving ears. He glanced Thomas over with disapproval. “You always get dirty as a pig… Get into the stream, or you’ll fail to rip it off when it dries.”
Thomas breathed heavily, with rattling and piercing within his chest at every deep breath. He had no strength to reply. He only turned his head to the stream but did not trust himself to walk there, in fear that his weakened legs fail him.
Oleg dismounted, came to the girl. She moved aside in fright, her eyes still full with horror. “Silly you,” Oleg persuaded. “It’s not
He felt her ankle, took it in both hands, kneaded, stretched, then moved it abruptly. The girl gave a thin squeak, like a small animal in its burrow, but even Thomas grasped at once that there was no displacement anymore, only a slight pain that would pass in a day or two.
Thomas dragged his feet to the stream, doing his best to keep a serene face and not to limp. The bank moved under his iron boots, he fell and slipped down on his back into the ice-cold water, raising a sparkling spray of water. The stream was small: his feet reached the other side, while his head remained on this one. Cold water flowed among the pieces of armor, soaked his knitted clothing, cooled his bruised body. Thomas felt like a solid bruise with protruding broken ribs and jagged fragments of bones.
He lay in the stream, chilled but enduring, though his teeth chattered. The sun was scorching and ruthless, the torrid heat made flies drop dead. Should one slip out from under a leaf, it snatched something in a flash of mica wings and hid again at once. The grass on the bank shrank and lay down in exhaustion, despite its roots reaching the ice-cold water.
He heard a strong voice above. “Sir Thomas! It’s no good. We have guests, and you keep fishing! Have you caught many?”
Thomas heard the voices of others. Earth crumbled under his iron elbows until he managed to stand up in the middle of the stream, With water spurting out of all the slits in his armor, he looked like a fountain in the royal palace. He felt a move in his bosom, put a hand there involuntarily. When he took it out, there was a small silvery fish jumping on his palm, with red fins and angry goggled eyes. Stunned, Thomas unclenched his fingers, and the fish leaped into the stream with a gurgle.
“That’s for half a day?” Oleg accused. “Oh… You meet the guests.”
“And you?”
“They crave for you.”
On the bank, three tents had appeared under the trees. People bustled about them. By the road, a whole string of decrepit carts was coming, pulled by docile horses and loaded with poor chattels, followed by some gaunt, ragged, almost unarmed pedestrians.
A stocky shaggy man, in a torn shirt and some old pants, stepped ahead to meet Thomas. The man had a short sword with wooden hilt on his rope belt. He was followed by two men of even poorer and plainer looks and the girl whom he’d rescued. Now she had a clean face, a burning red flower in her combed dark hair. She was all eyes watching Thomas, while whispering something briskly to the men.
The shaggy man gave Thomas a bow. “I’m a chieftain of the tribe. My name is Samoth. This is my grand- niece, lazy and sly, but we love our people and want no one dead… Thank you, mighty warrior! Please honor us by your presence. Be our guest.”
Thomas lifted his hands in dismay, glanced back at Oleg, seeking support. “Thank you. We’d like to, but we must go.”
“To the sea?” the chieftain asked.
“Yes.”
“And then? Constantinople?”
Thomas got surprised and anxious. “How do you know?”
“Everyone goes to Constantinople,” the chieftain replied calmly. “All the roads in the world go through this capital city. You are Frank. You came here through Constantinople — and have no way to escape it in your return.”
“True,” Thomas admitted. “But I have no time to lose.”
Samoth turned round to his assistants for a quick counsel, then spoke to the knight again. “If you leave today, you’ll stay ashore till next noon. There are no ports along this road, and the ship of Gelong — he’s my blood! — will not leave until holiday.”
“Which holiday?” Thomas asked.
“Of the Great Fish that saved our land,” Samoth answered solemnly.
Thomas opened his mouth to tell what he thought of Pagan customs but bit his tongue as he caught the wonderer’s mocking glance.
“Thank you,” he replied, frowning. “But tomorrow we set out at dawn. What’s the name of your relative whom you mentioned?”
“Gelong. We’ll write him you are a friend of ours, and he’ll do his best to make your journey pleasant.”
Thomas glanced at their rags, gaunt faces, bare feet. “You can read and write?” he said with doubt.
The chieftain laughed, baring his yellow dented teeth. “All of us can! Only two nations in the world have to be literate to please their gods: we, great Uryupins, and those, what’s their… some Jews.”
People put their carts in a ring and stretched chains between them. As Thomas was explained, it was their protection against sudden attacks of brigands whom the roads and caravan ways, in the aftermaths of the war, were swarmed with. In the middle of the cart ring, they made fires, put up two scores of tents, poor and dirty,
