“I will sooner die!” replied Maxim.
“But you will not die!” cried the boyar.
“Hey there followers,” he addressed the Mongols in their tongue, “to the attack! Spare none but that one, him we must capture alive!”
He blew the signal to start the battle. Hills and forests reverberated with the thunderous blast. Silence reigned in the boyar’s court, but it was an ominous silence. Like the venom of a snake, the Mongols’ arrows shot into the boyar’s courtyard. Of course the attackers were too far removed as yet to score any direct hits on the defenders, or having hit, to wound them seriously. That was the reason Maxim commanded his friends not to release their shots yet but to save their ammunition for use at closer range when they could inflict more serious damage to the enemy.
To prevent the foe from advancing too rapidly and too close to the house, Maxim, with a select detail of comrades remained in the yard about twenty paces away from the entrance to the house, behind a thick, wooden partition, part of an unfinished fence. This wall of fence was just high enough to hide a man and so the arrows of the Mongols did not reach the youths. That was why their few, though well-aimed shots scored death blows on the Mongols and held them back.
Tuhar Wolf, enraged by these tactics, cried, “Advance upon them!” and hastened to lead the Mongols running towards the fence.
Behind the fence it was as quiet as if all had died there. The Mongols rushed towards it, almost it seemed they would fall upon it when all at once, as if they had sprung out from the ground, rose a row of heads over husky shoulders, and numerous steel shots whistled through the air, finding their marks among the enemy. The stricken screamed in pain. Half of the front line of Mongols dropped like grass mowed
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