the attack, to do battle with the aggressors to the last. Keep in mind the sort of answer I have sent them. Come, let no one remain behind. The old and the very young, all will be found useful. Let us show those barbarians what a community can do!”
With a busy hum of voices the Tukholian elders arose and left enmasse the Glade of Light, proceeding to the edge of the cliffs to inspect the work of the carpenters, the trebuchets. These trebuchets standing at every campfire were almost finished, crudely put together, constructed of thick, raw wood, drilled and fitted together with wooden pegs, hurriedly, not for durability but for immediate use. But it was not for the viewing and examining of the engines that Zakhar had called the people. They paused there only for a moment and proceeded further in groups skirting the banks of the valley until they reached the place where the Tukholian stream squeezed itself through the crevice of the wall of rock down below, to flow out of the valley and where beside it, slightly tilted over it, stood the enormous square column of stone called the Tukholian Sentinel. The Tukholian townspeople hurried there, led by Zakhar and Peace-Renown, the youths carrying on their shoulders ladders and long thick timbers of fir, the girls huge wreaths woven of leaves and spruce twigs and the elders long rolls of rope and cordage. The campfires on that side of the valley had been put out so the enemy would not catch an untimely glimpse of what was going on there.
Slowly, carefully, noiselessly, like a quiet stream the assemblage began to wind its way down the steep paths into the valley, catching hold here and there of rocks and crags. A band of armed stalwart youths descended first and stood in formation at the bottom, three rows deep, about a thousand paces away from and facing the Mongolian encampment. Then came the youths with the ladders, ropes and fir timbers. The ladders were placed against the crags and the fir timbers
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