by Yury Nikitin
Chapter 4
The Baron turned his head quickly, took in the room with a tenacious glance. Thomas swayed his sword ominously, throwing crimson lights into the Baron’s eyes. On the wall behind Thomas, there hung a huge axe with fanciful hooks on the butt. The old man raked billets in the burning fireplace. He was shaking, despite sitting near the fire. He paid no attention to Thomas, nor to his master.
Thomas caught the Baron’s look and nodded: “Take it!”
The Baron stood upright: dark, massive, covered with hair like a forest animal. Thomas noticed something odd again, his heart was wrung with alarm. The Baron’s legs were too short, his arms huge and muscular, a strange head seated straight on his sloping shoulders… “And the rest?” the Baron bellowed.
Thomas glanced around. The Baron’s armor must be in another room. Send him for it – and he’ll bring a dozen of guards! “No,” Thomas said and lifted his sword.
The Baron roared, tried to run away through the smashed door, but Thomas brandished his sword and nearly slashed the enemy’s side open. With a creepy howl, the Baron snatched the axe from the wall, wheeled round abruptly to the armored knight.
He held the axe with both hands at the knee level, his eyes fixed on the unexpected foe. Thomas suddenly felt weak: the Baron’s eyes had no pupils, no irises, but they were not all white as a blind man’s – they were fiery red! Their blood-colored light was becoming brighter, blazing up as if Hell’s fire, from which this monster had emerged, shone through his skull.
“You die!” the Baron roared with an eerie move of his jaw: it was getting heavier before Thomas’s eyes, transforming, covering with a bony shell.
“All men die,” Thomas replied as firmly as he could, while his voice tried to break into a frightened squeal. “But you – now.”
He brandished the sword. The Baron raised his axe, parried a blow. The sword blade hit the axe handle. Thomas expected the sword to cut it as a twig, to slash the beast down to the waist, but the blade bounced off. Thomas’s hands were burnt with sharp pain. He heard a roaring laughter – the axe handle had only the look of wood – and fell on his back to dodge a blow.
In the host of Duke Gottfried, Thomas was the only knight who could, in his full armor, fall on his back, roll over his head and get up to his feet. This skill saved his life again. The dreadful axe blade cut the air so close to his face that Thomas felt the wind. The Baron stepped forward in haste to finish his enemy off while he was down. If he knew Thomas, he could have done it in time – but he didn’t, and Thomas stood upright, breathing heavily. His shield remained on the floor, and Thomas kicked it aside, gripped the long sword hilt with both hands. His eyes, also burning, were fixed on the Baron.
Their eyes met in a fierce duel: bright blue, burning with the bitter cold of icy North, against red inhuman… The Baron’s body was transforming: his shoulders got even broader and stronger, his mouth turned into dreadful jaws. They opened, four hideous fangs came out. The monster breathed heavily, as if he, not Thomas, had been running in heavy armor. Thomas heard ferocious shouts from the yard, steel clanking and clanging, horses neighing.
“Die,” the turnskin rasped. He went to Thomas, shifting his axe between hands. It had a long sharp double hook on the butt, a jagged spear blade on its back. They clashed. Thomas shuddered: the troll’s face, covered with black hair, was close, with its wide, wrenched nostrils and crimson eyes under the thick bone cornice. The turnskin’s sharp-toothed jaws opened wide. Thomas shrunk back and that saved him: huge teeth clanged near his visor, all but snapped at it. Thomas pushed away with the handle, felt muscle hard as wood under the troll’s thick hair.
The troll brought his axe down, aiming at the shiny helmet. Thomas parried, but his arms went numb from a terrible blow, he barely kept his feet. The woman sat up on the bed, her eyes wide open in silent astonishment, her gaze shifting between the armored knight and the troll, as though choosing the one on which to stake. Thomas retreated, struggling to parry the violent blows, each one almost knocking the sword out of his numb fingers. The troll howled, breathed heavily, his sharp-pointed ears moved like an animal’s.
The flames in the fireplace blazed up. The old man poked them, almost falling face first into the fire. Trembling, he shoved his hands now in his bosom, now straight into the fire. His flabby neck became covered with goose bumps. He never looked back, though Thomas and the troll all but stumbled over his hunched figure, cast mighty clanging hand-numbing blows just over his head.
Thomas clenched his teeth – it was shameful and dangerous to retreat – and lunged. The troll parried only half of the unexpected blow. The sword point stabbed his face near the eyebrow, slashed his cheek down in two. Blood gushed out forcefully, the troll started back, apparently stunned: the sword had slashed his thick eyebrow bone. The huge hand jerked up to wipe the blood. Hastily, Thomas struck twice. The troll staggered but blunted his attacks, the axe handle in both hands. Thomas slashed quickly, with all his strength, giving no time to recover – but the foe was recovering. The crimson blaze in his eyes turned acid yellow.
The troll snarled hoarsely, his breath stinky and husky, his enormous fangs glittering. Suddenly he gripped the blunt end of the axe with both hands. The flash of steel seemed to have lit the whole room. The blow was dreadful, irresistible. Thomas did not try to parry: he simply stepped to the left at the last moment. With a smack, the blade hacked handle-deep into the oaken floor. Thomas cast a mighty blow with the sword in both hands like a spear. The sword point pierced the troll’s skin, as thick as double-leather armor, the blade went two palms deep into the flesh.
The castle shuddered from the terrible roar. A shield dropped from the wall, huge antlers fell beside. The flames clung to the coals in fear, the woman stood straight. The troll bent with pain, the sword handle was pulled from Thomas’s hands.
Thomas backed away hastily, glanced around but saw nothing to use as a weapon nearby. The troll’s yellow eyes, blazing with fury, were fixed on him. The sword was stuck in his side as though in wood! The troll pulled the axe handle and twisted: it had stuck too deeply. He pulled with all his might. The thick black blood finally gushed from his wound, fizzing, foaming, slickened his thick hair as a wind falls trees. The axe was still there. The troll set his foot firmly, gave a dreadful roar. Monstrous muscles bulged on his back, the blade screeched, coming out from the thick wood, and the axe was in the troll’s hands!
Thomas backed up till his back touched the wall. He was shaking. The dreadful troll was coming for him, raising his axe for the final blow. The sword, still stuck in his side, leaned to the floor, barely staying in, blood gushed over the handle and down the blade. A trail of bloody inhuman footprints was left behind.
His dreadful eyes looked at Thomas, blazing with terrible white fire. Monstrous arms lifted the heavy axe overhead. Thomas sprawled on the wall. He could not take his eyes off the monster’s – and those suddenly darkened, red sparkles disseminating quickly in the black. The axe slipped off, hit the troll’s head with its butt, and thundered down on the stone. The troll reeled forward. Thomas had barely moved away when the huge bestial body collapsed on the wall. The troll’s claws scratched deep furrows in the stone; he slid down to the floor.
Thomas seized the sword handle briskly, his palm felt hot and sticky. He set his foot against the massive body and pulled. The sword came out easily as if pushed away by a hot spurt of blood. Thomas wiped the blade as clean as he could on the hairy back. The troll was still twitching, all four paws scratched the stone floor with a creepy sound.
Thomas heard an astonished voice: “I’d have never believed it!”
The woman jumped off the bed, a white kerchief with a golden monogram fluttering in hand, like a scared butterfly. Thomas stood like a statue, with the blooded sword. She shoved the kerchief into his trembling hands, threw her arms around his head, snuggled up to him, frightened, tender like a morning breeze, like a light cloud. Thomas dropped his sword, stood there like a fool, not daring to stain the
kerchief, though she gave it for him to wipe the blood off his fingers. He felt a keen regret that his iron armor was between their bodies.
Shivering, she clung to him so forcefully that she could have knocked Thomas down if he was not pressed to the wall. Hating his armor, Thomas muttered with embarrassment, “You are free, my lady!”
“Yes, yes, thank you very much indeed, my miraculous rescuer!”
“Please don’t look at the beast. Such a terrible sight for you.”
She embraced his neck with her sugar-white hands, raised her pretty head. Her beautiful face, shining with hope, was just before Thomas’s eyes; her eyes glimmered with happiness. Her voice was so tender and melodious that his heart ached. “It’s awful! I did not know he was mortal. When he slew my husband, Baron Otset, and took his appearance… A monster! False damned monster! He deceived me. I was always deceived, by everyone! Baron lied…”
“A monster,” Thomas muttered. The sword dropped from his hand again, his muscle relaxed. He embraced the tender woman’s shoulders clumsily, fearing to stain her golden hair with blood. “But now he’s dead.”
“My dear Baron,” she whispered. Her magnificent blue eyes looked into the narrow slit of his helmet with a plea. “I mean, my mysterious knight! You won’t leave a weak woman without protection, will you?”
“My honor can’t allow it!” Thomas replied with knightly ardor. “Just your word – and I’ll do everything for you not to worry!”
Her beautiful arms were still around him, her high breasts waved, being pressed to his steel armor. “Your nobility has… won me!” she exclaimed with emotion. “And my castle with its lands, stone quarries and slaves in addition. Behind Baron… the last and the one before him… I felt safe as behind a stone wall. But now I’m so afraid, so alone! You must become my new stone wall, brave knight! A wall behind which my faint scared heart will find refuge!”
Thomas opened his mouth and closed it, blood pounded louder in his temples. He heard a distant ringing in his ears. Her deep pupils were expanding, filling all the world. He felt dimly that her tender hands pulled the helmet off his head neatly, her deft fingers unclasped the broad steel plates, drawing the mighty but rigid knight out of his armor, like a shelled oyster.
Thomas tried to shake the overwhelming weakness off. He was not only weary after a hard battle, there was some strange sluggishness added to it. His thoughts were in a mess (maybe a consequence of the header). Her immense begging eyes screened all the world off from his thoughts. His lungs were crackling, he coughed, spat out a clot of blood. He felt a stitch in his side as if an arrowhead stuck there. Thomas had a vague memory of the hard blow landed there. His armor endured, but a couple of ribs might have broken like straws.
Far away, there were voices, the crash of the furniture turned upside down. The sound of heavy footsteps approached, the bedroom door cracked open on its single hinge. Thomas heard a loud indignant cry. “I thought him dead! And he’s – what a shame! – pleasing his insatiate lust!”
He caught a glimpse of the wonderer’s angry face in the mist. Oleg was grim as a black rock, his eyes unfriendly, his breath fast. He had a two-handed sword, as large as a beam, in his hands, its point rested against the floor.
Thomas stirred. Being very weak, he felt some unusual, scary lightness in his body. His foot stumbled over a heap of armor. With slack surprise, he recognized his breastplate, shin plates, his helmet… He found himself sitting on the floor, his head on the woman’s knees. The Baroness fingered his hair tenderly, stroked his head. The fireplace was bursting with flames, the air as hot and dry as a blow of simoom, the terrible hurricane of Saracen deserts. The shouts of fury and clang of steel were coming from outside, through the windows.
Thomas heard an icy cold voice over his head, an arrogant voice, full of great contempt. “Get out, slave! Or my husband, the lord of the castle, will rise and kill you!”
The wonderer looked with confusion at the motionless troll who sprawled his four paws in a huge puddle of blood. “I think he’ll rise when pigs get wings.”
“It’s the former,” the Baroness said coldly. “And the present lord is here! He’s fierce and merciless.”
The wonderer moved his heavy rocks of shoulders and backed away. “Well, if that’s the turn of it…”
Thomas gathered the last of his strength to rasp, “Sir wonderer… wait. Horses…”
The wonderer stopped in the doorway. The door was still swinging on a single hinge, squealing like a knife scratching a pan. “What?”
“Help!” Thomas moaned.
The wonderer came back, touched the knight’s forehead, gave an anxious whistle. Thomas felt his strong fingers behind ears, on the back of the head, then a stitch in the bridge of the nose. Suddenly he felt a huge load taken off, no more warm dampness inside. His eyesight cleared, he saw distinctly the alarm in the wonderer’s eyes, his compressed lips.
The Baroness seized his legs, trying to keep him. With great difficulty, Thomas drew aside her beautiful snow-white hands, for the touch of which other knights would give their lives. He got up, lurched. The wonderer watched, with a sullen approval, the knight climb into his rumpled armor like an old, ill turtle.
“My lord!” the young Baroness cried, her marvelous eyes filled with tears. “You’re exhausted. You’ve slain the monster…”
Thomas dressed as fast as he could, puffing and panting. The wonderer supported him by the shoulders, clasped his back, pulled, pushed and tapped – and Thomas found himself inside the armor. At once he felt clad and protected, comfortable with the heavy steel on his shoulders.
He heaved the sword up from the puddle of black blood. Compared with the sword in the wonderer’s hands, it looked like a dagger.
The wonderer waved to him from near the window: “We’ll have to go through back chambers!”
“Slaves?” Thomas asked dully. He shot an embarrassed glance at the golden-haired Baroness. “We can’t allow… They’ll rape…”
“The slaves are far. Guards are retreating to the gate. A dozen of those mugs will be there soon, and I hate it when people fight like animals.” He backed from the window, ominous crimson lights danced on his face. They heard shouts of triumph and screams of agony from outside, the crackle of burning buildings.
Thomas turned to the Baroness. “Where’s the cup?”
“Which cup?” she asked, her beautiful eyebrows raised very high. “I have many cups. Baron brought them from everywhere. And the previous Baron… And the one before him…”
The wonderer turned around. “This cup came by itself,” he snapped angrily. “Speak, woman!”
The Baroness straightened up with an arrogant look. Her long eyelashes flew up. “Am I not protected by a brave knight, a slayer of monsters? A knight, though he wears the collar of my slaves?”
Thomas coughed. “Sir wonderer. You’re speaking to a highborn lady.”
The wonderer winced as if he’d drunk some apple vinegar. “Sort it out as you like. I’ve left the horses near the tower wall. If you want to get out safe – come with me. Otherwise I’m leaving alone.”
Thomas trailed behind Oleg miserably. There was a fight at the stairs, a floor below: a rush of heads, glittering blades, stakes and axes. Men shouted, steel clanged, wounded ones uttered terrible screams.
The wonderer all but dragged the knight. Suddenly Thomas stopped, raised his visor. His face was pallid, eyes shone like stars. “It was not my life I wanted to save! You know.”
“A cup dearer than life?” the wonderer blurted in astonishment.
“Many things are dearer than life. Honor. Nobility. Fidelity. Even love. Run, sir wonderer! You’ve amazed me, I’d have never thought… I owe my life to you twice. I’m sorry I can’t pay back. I’m staying. Even if I die.”
“Honor and fidelity – I know what it is. But… a cup?”
“Not a plain cup.”
With a strange expression, the wonderer watched the doomed knight leave for the bedroom. The g
littering figure passed through the doorway and vanished, leaving a track of blood drops from his sword point. Oleg heard a mighty roar swell at the stairs. The last defender gave a plaintive cry, and slaves rushed up, their bare backs glistening. Few of them had swords or daggers – most brandished picks, crowbars, stakes, and hammers wildly. Even the handles were stained with blood.
The wonderer clenched his teeth, gave a heavy sigh. His legs moved apart into a fighting stance themselves. He took the sword with both hands and waited.
Thomas ran out, clasping a leather bag to his breast, the bare sword in other hand. His visor was down, so Oleg could not see the knight’s face. Blood was streaming down his armor. He jumped over dead bodies, stumbled over a wounded man who tried to crawl. “Slaves here too… They’ve broken into the bedroom from another side to rape the Baroness.”
“And you protected her with all your might?”
“Er… It was before I found the cup! I killed three…”
The wonderer winced. “Did you have to?”
“I slashed the third, then saw displeasure in her face and doubted… Where are the horses?”
“The castle is butchered and plundered all over. Some crossbowmen barricaded themselves in a tower. They shoot everyone. If we run across the yard, we’ll get set with their bolts as hedgehogs with spines. Can you climb down the wall in your steel?”
“Better than a monkey!” Thomas assured him and ran after the wonderer. Oleg rushed along the corridors, upstairs, and across the rooms briskly as if he knew the castle well.
Slaves tore expensive curtains, crushed furniture with axes. At one point the wonderer rushed across the burning floor, vanished in the smoke for a moment. Thomas sped up in fear of getting lost. When they ran out onto the wall top, the sky was shining blue, a lone small cloud blazing with orange, but the yard was lit by the crimson light of great fires burning the furniture and rich clothes thrown from inside. The servants squealed terribly, as the blood-mad slaves butchered them for being well-fed, sleeping near warm cauldrons in kitchens, spared of the draining work in the stone pit.
A rope fixed between the merlons hung down from the wall. Two horses stood tethered to a tree near the castle. Some half-naked men were running to them, attracted by the dense smoke and shouts from the castle.
Thomas swore, pushed the wonderer aside and started to descend. He caught hold of the rope deftly with his gauntlets and legs, slipped down quickly, slowed his slide before the ground. When Oleg descended after him – slower, lest he scrape his hands – the knight was rushing to the horses, shouting and brandishing his sword.
The common men stopped, took a fast council and rounded the dangerous knight, making their way to the castle gate. Thomas turned to the wonderer and pointed at the rope. “We’d better take it. A useful thing on a journey.”
“A thrifty man,” said Oleg with surprise. “Come on, I’ve fetched two. If you need one to hang yourself, let me know.”
Thomas untethered his horse. The stallion sniffed him and snorted happily. Thomas seemed to see the sparkles of pride in the horse’s eyes when he smelled blood on his armor. His destrier preferred the blow of war trumpets to the sounds of a lute. The blow for attack, for a heavy mass of armored chivalry to gallop forward, stirrup by stirrup, crushing all in its way!
Oleg jumped on the horseback easily. Thomas made a notch in memory, to find out where the wonderer had learnt to mount that way, touching neither the stirrup nor the rein. And where, in which cave or desert, what holy spirits taught him to throw a knife that accurately, to wield a huge two-handed sword? He did wield it, not simply brandished like a furious cook brandishes a knife. It took Thomas, a professional warrior, just a glance to tell a skilled fighter apart from… others.
The knight galloped, heavy and still, the lance in his right hand, as usual, his visor up. He looked askance at the wonderer who drove the horse with legs, as wild Scythians do, with no touch to the reins. He did not bend down to hide from the wind, his face motionless, his look vacant. Was he still searching for the Truth? Thinking of the High? Anyway, he had not forgotten to take both the lance for the knight and a fine lamellate bow for himself. Though the bow of English yeoman is no worse, it is tall as a man or even taller. And this lamellate bow can be shot from horseback – by the one who’s strong enough to draw it. That requires great strength indeed.
On the left of his saddle, the wonderer had a wide quiver stuffed with long white-feathered arrows, its silk laces shining in the sun. The covered axe hung near it. His boots held in the wide stirrups as though poured into them.
“Sir wonderer,” Thomas said. He reined the warhorse up, making him take a slower pace. “What else can you do?”
The wonderer looked confused. Thomas hurried to correct himself. “In the war craft, I mean. I see you’re thinking about the high, but the noble art of war is also ranked high in our world!”
“The world is cruel and stupid, alas. It still is.”
“What do minstrels sing about if not feats of arms?” Thomas cried in surprise. “If not battle and fight? What are heroes born to if not fight and die with glory?”
The wonderer shook his head and gave no reply. His stallion was as huge as the one under Thomas, but the knight remembered the great effort it took him to break the horse in, while the wonderer’s destrier walked as meek as a lamb. He only looked slantwise at his rider with fear. I heard Scythians can squeeze with their knees so forcefully that a horse falls dead with broken ribs. Can those rumors be true?
“The Hellenes,” Thomas began, trying to get the wonderer talking, “knew only chariots. The first time they saw men ahorse, they took those people, Tauric Slavs, for fairy creatures – half a man, half a horse. And gave them a name of centaurs, or riding Taurs… They were said to be good shooters at full tilt!”
The wonderer gave him a sidelong look. “Is there any food in your bag?” he asked.
“Nothing but the cup,” Thomas replied, upset. “What of it?”
The wonderer seized the bow from his shoulder instantly. The white feathering flashed. At once, Thomas heard a ringing click. The wonderer hung the bow back without expression. Only then did petrified Thomas look where the arrow had darted to.
In forty steps ahead on the roadside, a big hare was thrashing, its body pierced through. Still not believing his eyes, Thomas rode past the wonderer, picked the hare up with the lance point. The wonderer, with the same still face, stretched his arm. Thomas pulled the arrow out briskly, wiped it clean from blood and handed to him respectfully. “I’ll skin it myself when we halt, holy father! Er… sir wonderer! Christian faith is certainly the truest one, but Paganism seems to have some good things too…”
The wonderer smirked out of the corner of his mouth and said nothing.