Gorvel struck Thomas forcefully on his face. The knight’s head jerked, but he kept his feet, made no step back. With a heavy scuff, Gorvel made a broader swing and smote with great force, trying to smash lips with his gauntlet. Thomas shook his head slightly again, glanced askew at the wonderer who told him sadly, “You revive?.. I’m brimming over… as I had a chew before…” He could hardly move his tongue.
Rocambole, with his beastly senses, felt something wrong. “To the torture chamber!” he cried anxiously. “There we’ll know all.”
Guards gripped the wonderer from both sides, hung on his shoulders. He gave a terrible, inhuman roar. the ropes cracked, then flew up, like thin supple snakes. In two giant leaps, he got on the topmost stair, struck with his fist, and Rocambole made a long arch in the air, fell on the ground before the stunned guards and remained there. motionless.
Thomas strained, tore his chains. The iron endured, but he felt violent might, made a stronger jerk, and his arms flew apart! He stooped hastily, seized the chain on his legs. A ringing crunch, and the end of the crumpled chain remained in hand. With no stop, he crushed the guards who tried to drag him into the cellar, trampled over someone and squashed, rushed after the wonderer.
The rest ran after him, screaming. Gorvel urged his horse upstairs, hooves slid on the smooth marble, the frightened horse stopped and backed.
“Too late!” Oleg cried in a thundering voice. He struck his whole body against a snow-white pillar. Cracks ran down the shiny stone, the pillar bent in the opposite direction, two or three heavy boulders fell out, as though battered with a ram, thundered down the stairs with a thunder, knocking and maiming the guards who ran up.
Thomas gripped another pillar, shook it, imitating the wonderer, but the marble column endured: the roof kept it. In three steps Oleg fell down to dodge the thrown spear, rolled over his head, struck another pillar in his jump. There was a crash above, the colored mosaic started to fall down with a ringing of glass. In place of the pillar, a broad stone stump remained. Heavy boulders rolled in all directions, knocking the guards down, but the heavy castle roof endured, only subsided a bit, showering with no more rain but a colored hail of small pieces of glass and stone.
Oleg ran into the third pillar, knocked it down and reached the fourth one when there came a terrible thunder, a heavy stone slab fell near him, small broken fragments flew sideways. He heard shouts of crushed people, and a stone avalanche came on.
Oleg felt a painful hit on his shoulder. Boulders and slabs were collapsing on him, bas-reliefs, flying nymphs, and headless satyrs darted past. Through a cloud of sparkling dust and fine stone crumbs, he saw the mighty figure of Thomas who snatched, squeezed, threw aside, and snatched again. Then the mass of falling stones and the collapsed roof hid the knight. Oleg dashed there, jumping over the heaps of marble, seeing nothing in the dust cloud. “Thomas!.. Sir Thomas!.. Sir Thomas, where are you?”
Slowly, it grew lighter, the thunder died down. Oleg saw there was no more roof, the sun rays burning the dusty cloud through. It subsided very quickly: that was the dust of marble. “Thomas!” he shouted again. “Where are you?”
The colossal palace was reduced to ruins. Oleg stood waist-deep in white broken stone. The stamps of pillars stuck out, like giant’s teeth, huge boulders had rolled about the green yard. The cloud of heavy marble dust had subsided, forming a silvery coating on the ruins and the grass in the yard.
A small stream of blood came out from under ruins near Oleg. In fear, he threw the stones about and saw two guards lying crisscross. Both looked like toads squashed by a cart wheel. “Thomas!.. Sir Thomas!”
A moan came from the left. Oleg started to throw away the boulders, broken fragments, found protruding legs. Before he could remove the last stones, the whole heap gave a stir, then scattered, and Thomas stood up straight. His eyes were mad, he swayed, grabbing at the air. The torn pieces of chain were ringing on his wrists.
“Were you socked on head?” Oleg asked in his ear.
“I saw the Virgin…” Thomas whispered madly. “First some lightnings flashed, then stars came raining down, then a Pagan god seemed to have socked on the back of my head with his hammer… Sir wonderer, why does everyone strike at the same place?”
“All people are the same,” Oleg muttered. “The prophet of yours said: there is no Gentile or Jew. It means everyone is the same, like planks in a fence. You should have chewed the overcome grass, not swallow it like a hungry duck!”
Two warriors were running from the gate: all the rest of Rocambole’s guard. They yelled with goggled eyes, their swords dangled on belts. The first one saw Thomas and Oleg among ruins, pulled his sword out in the run.
Oleg picked up a huge stone, as large as a horse, threw towards the warriors. It hit heavily against the ground in front of them, loosened the earth, jumped and rolled on, its edge knocked one of the guards down, then the rock smashed the gate and rolled out on the road. The guard remained lying, his healthy hand clutching the injured shoulder. The second one stopped, looked at the strange guests, then at his injured friend, and backed.
Thomas limped heavily across the yard to the utility outhouses. Frightened horses neighed in the stables, the gate cracked. Oleg got out of the ruins and hurried after Thomas. His head was strangely light.
Thomas knocked the gate out, chose horses. Oleg examined them and approved: the knight knew horses better than he knew men. He kept the frightened horses easily, though he had very little of overcome grass, as Oleg had chewed the rest. “Sir wonderer, how long is the effect of overcome grass?”
“The sun is setting,” Oleg replied heavily. “By midnight, it will end…”
“So little?.. We have to take the Holy Grail before midnight! And then we can die, as good Christians…”
“I’m Rodian,” Oleg reminded gloomily.
They rushed out of the gate like a whirlwind, but to Oleg they seemed as slow-moving as freezing snails. Thomas also kept urging, with no real need, the frightened horses who still could not recover from that terrible thunder.
Oleg glanced back at the white heap of stones. “Too good sepulcher for your friend!” he said sulkily.
“Christ told us to forgive,” Thomas sighed insincerely. “Devil will have a long digging in the ruins before he finds the scoundrel’s soul pressed under… Surely, it’s disgusting to take in hands, but he will need to take it to Hell.”
“He can put it straight into his bag,” Oleg advised.
Chapter 30
The sun sank behind the horizon to a half when their road brought them up a hill, from where they could see a high massive castle towering on the hill that had evidently been erected for that very purpose, surrounded by a stone rampart and encircled with a moat of water. A broad drawbridge was thrown across the moat, its thick iron chains glittered in the light of sunset.
“Are you sure,” Thomas asked nervously, “the cup was taken there?”
“No other castle nearby,” Oleg replied without much conviction. “And my charms say your cup is there.”
Thomas glanced slantwise at the wonderer. Ragged, bashed, and worn out, he managed to keep his charms. Though Kite’s hirelings had touched them (Thomas saw it), they were not tempted by a wooden necklace, especially this one: carved roughly, without proper skill.
Horses, wheezing and dripping with foam, brought them up to the gate. By that time the plain was striped with reddish-black shadows. Only a crimson edge still stuck over the skyline, then it sank too, and the dusk fell.
A head in glittering helmet rose over the castle gate. The man was sullen, his face irritated, his eyes under swollen eyelids looked with malice.
Thomas, still ahorse, knocked on the iron-riveted logs of the gate. “Hey, over there! Open!”
“Who you are?” the guard inquired in a voice viscous like old syrup.
Thomas glanced at Oleg’s rags, at his own torn remnants of clothing that hung on him like on a scarecrow. The iron bangles glittered dimly on his hands and legs, the fragments of chains rang. “Don’t you see, numskull?
