Duels with the Flat-Foot.
Part 1. Chapter 3
The rider rode along the rocky ledges,
Galloping to his native camp
For forty days and forty nights...
But wherever he turns his eyes,
Everywhere is a military camp... But whose?
And some strange speech,
And faces that are not right.
Braids fall to their shoulders,
Eyes shine in the dark...
Flags flutter among the tips of spears...
And any animal here
Is ready to be turned into shashlik in an instant.
Here on the spears — a tethered horse,
And beneath it, in a hurry, in five minutes,
They light a fire,
The askers roast the meat and eat.
Here one of those tough guys
Swallows a frog alive.
Two are sharing a snake — from both ends
They pull its flexible body together.
This one scooped a handful of ants
And chews them under the shade of a rock...
You can hear the crunching and crunching, the round-cheeked,
And his eyes round with delight.
Shocked by all he has seen, his gaze
Would rather turn away... But here —
A man is thrown into the fire
And torn apart with a growl!
At that moment the moon rose,
Illuminating the herd.
Chilten rides up to the herd,
Hiding in the night’s darkness.
A lament reaches through the silence —
It is an old blind man mourning:
“Oh, Almighty, for what reason, answer,
Did you deem death unworthy of me?!
For what sin must I grieve,
From where such wrath against me! -
The evil Peri’s armies have come,
Taking everything for food.
Will I find my son here!..
And our protectors are dead,
Deprived of hands and heads!
Filling the heights and the lowlands,
For two years this filth has raged here...
Too thin, I am not fit for food,
That must be why I am still alive!”
The young rider, pale with rage,
Fixing his gaze on the fires,
Moved closer to the old man
And started this conversation with him:
“Listen! I am a son of man,
Tell me, father, where is the people,
Who lived in that memorable, distant year
At the foot of these peaks?”
— “People in search of better places
Have all gone to the other side of the river... The move
Shook the heart with parting...
They left us with the old woman.
Our son got lost, and he
Was told to wait six months for us,
But now we have no one.
We waited for our son again and again
For over a year here, in this pit.
And the mother offered her neck
To greedy Death, to its axe...”
And Chilten exclaimed: “Father!”
And the youth embraces his father.
Oh, only now at last
He mourned his mistake...
And the tear that rolled down
Fell into the old man’s eyes.
And the blind, dim pupil
Became, like the sky, pure and deep.
And having regained sight, he seemed to resurrect...
Having saddled a swift steed from the herd,
The son and father rushed into the forest.
The land hides them in its thickets...
“Here lies the dust of our kin,
The bones of ancestors — in these layers.
The tribe that has gone on a distant path,
What has become of it and where is it?
Has it all scattered to slip away,
Or has it been completely exterminated?
Oh, not an army — these are the enemies,
This is a pack of hungry wolves.
Hey, dear tribe, run!
Thick lava of wolves is flowing...”
Addressing such words
To the people he meets, raising the crowd,
Drawing his sword against the enemy,
Brave Chilten rushes forward.
In the echoing forges, the blades are hot,
And the master blacksmiths hammer away,
Like leopards, the swords are fierce,
This steel of theirs is sharp as a razor.
In the red coals, the fires bubble,
And the boiling heat is great.
For thirty days they temper the spearheads,
And now they are —
On straight fir shafts...
They have taken the fire horses,
Prepared them for battles.
They temper the arrowheads,
Dipping them in snake venom.
Skins have been taken from a hundred camels
And securely wrapped in them
Is the warrior Chilten’s camp...
And there is no end to the iron of the horseshoes
For all eternity.
Chilten’s chest is all in iron,
His head in a forged helmet,
And the warrior set out on his way,
To return home with victory.
Chapter 4
The bandits had a leader —
Flat-footed — Zhalpak-Taman.
Before the warlord, he walked, shuffling,
Chest like a mountain, and a bloody palm.
He was treacherous, gloomy, wild
And possessed a great secret
Of forty transformations — a villain...
Under the first mask of his,
He lulled people with conversation,
He relaxed, weakened them,
Drowning them in a deadly sleep...
Hiding under the eighth mask,
He would emerge as a poisonous snake,
As soon as the splashed poison ignites —
Your eyes will boil...
And some twentieth double
Would attack you like a butcher.
Unclear from where he arose,
Only he would cut your belly, like with a sword.
And the last was a man-eating tiger,
Claws sank into the body and fangs,
Breaking the spine,
He greedily drank from the bloody river.
Chapter 5
A difficult struggle lies ahead.
But testing the enemy,
He sent eight hundred warriors...
Here they are being chopped, and all too quickly,
Only crunching and groaning can be heard.
Like kindling, brave Chilten
Cuts them down, the earth is crimson...
The flat-footed, in place of the slain,
Sends a hero.
Already, a strong one is pierced by a spear,
The hero hangs like a sack
For the amusement of the large crowd...
He would have wounded the enemy at least!
Cutting through eighty layers
Of camel hides
But the spear did not reach the body,
And the giant puffs heavily,
Trying to extract his spear.
And Chilten — only his sword drawn —
The head rolled off the shoulders.
The headless giant lies...
Zhalpak-Taman was horrified,
He mounted his horse, cutting the tether,
And rushed to Chilten’s camp,
And, bending obsequiously,
He pours sweet words:
“My golden head
Has seen heroes
Of various strength and beauty...
But the hero of heroes is you,
There is no one like you in the world, I swear!
Where are my fighters? Piles of bones!..
The hero flew head over heels
And hung on your spear...
You cut the giant’s throat with your sword
As if it were a sheep!
So what do you want, tell me?!
If this land is yours,
We will leave your lands...
And we will go beyond their borders.
If you want, we will turn our horses,
If you want, in your detachment
We will be, faithful servants henceforth...
How would you like to command?”
He spoke without stopping,
The long flattery stretched on,
His eloquence began to slowly
Lull Chilten to sleep.
Only buzzing nearby, buzzing
A fly the size of a fist...
It stung Chilten in the nose, so much,
That the young man woke up, came to his senses.
He sharply drew his saber,
But the flatterer turned into a snake,
With sorcery, he summoned darkness,
Began to gather poison in his mouth,
The evil lips turned black...
Then the descendant of Kambarata
Whose horseshoes are like moons,
Karager, the legendary steed,
Reared back, as if from a knife...
The earth buzzed, trembling.
The light of Chilten’s eyes is fierce...
He must not lose his head,
If not for the heroic horse saving him,
And Karager’s eyes are dead,
And the pupils leak poison,
And the snake crawled into the bushes...
But the enemy is already here,
Only the evil has increased...
He is already charging like a boar.
And then, struck by an arrow,
He transforms into a tiger.
The roar went from the earth to the stars.
The tiger's tail elongated,
It twists, stretches, like a lasso.
The muscles bulged like ten hills,
The greedy gaze, like embers, crimson.
The tiger is getting closer — within eight steps...
Here it is time for Chilten to remember
The gifts of the tiger family:
Just as he took these gifts,
Just as he cried out — thunder sounded,
The depths of the mountain opened,
And water burst forth.
The air became heavier than lead,
In a hot struggle, the two fighters clashed,
In a duel, two forces met...
Who is extraneous — go away!
Make way! They retreated before fate
Friend and foe, and stranger and kin.
Chilten seized the tiger and lifted him,
Tore him from the ground
And smashed him against the cliffs.
Time for Flat-Foot — to die,
The count is over for masks and faces...
An innumerable enemy horde
Soared up, turning into birds...
But Chilten’s horsemen are accurate,
Their arrows fly in all directions
Sharp and fearsome
And the last arrow soared,
And the last bird fell,
Spreading its wings on the cliff...
At that moment the rock trembled,
Bending, the ridges shook,
And the living began to spring forth,
Fiery rays sang,
The voices of bright birds were warm,
The beasts frolic in games to their heart's content
The black Peri’s power has ended.
To be continued...
Beginning: The Tale of Brave Chilten. Chapters 1-2