Chapter VI
Zakhar Berkut had had an anomalous dream. It seemed to him in the dream that it was the anniversary of their festive holiday, The Sentinel. The whole community was gathered about the stone guard at the narrows of the entrance to the Tukholian Trail. The maidens carried wreaths, the youths musical instruments and all were attired in fresh, gala garments. And as befits the oldest member of the community, he was the first to approach the sacred stone, supplicating it with prayer.
A secret, disquieting dread seemed to have taken possession of his heart as he prayed, distressing him to the very depths of his soul. What exactly that fear was he could not explain. He prayed fervently, adding several words and phrases to the old, time-established litany, a new more impassioned prayer flowed from his lips. The people of the community were stirred by it and fell upon their faces while he did the same.
But the words did not stop flowing. It grew darker, the heavens became overcast with threatening purple clouds. It thundered and the lightning flashed across the sky, blinding their eyes; the ground shook under them and at the same time the sacred stone lurched forward from its place and with a terrible crash came falling down upon him.
“What could such a dream mean?” Zakhar kept asking himself over and over again. “Was it a good omen or bad?” But he could find no answer except that the dream had left in its wake an oppressive sense of apprehension which clouded Zakhar Berkut’s fine forehead with a somber expression.
It was not long before the cause for this feeling of foreboding manifested itself. Immediately after noon alarming and unexpected tidings were brought into Tukhlia. The shepherds from neighboring downs ran breathlessly into the village announcing that they had witnessed a battle in progress before the boyar’s house with a regiment of unfamiliar dark-skinned people and had heard strange blood-curdling yells.
Every Tukholian youth who could carry a weapon armed himself with whatever came to hand, rushed to the scene of the struggle and halted some distance away upon seeing the battlefield strewn with corpses and covered with blood and the boyar’s house surrounded by a swarm of Mongols. There was not the least doubt in their minds but that all the youths sent to demolish the boyar’s house had perished in defeat in the unequal conflict with the foreign assailants. Not knowing what to do, the Tukholian young men returned to the village spreading their shocking news on the way.
Listening to them old Zakhar shuddered and bitter tears rolled down his old face. “This must be the answer. The prophesy of my dream has been revealed!” he whispered. “My Maxim laid down his life in defence of his village. And that is how it should be! Everyone dies once, but the privilege of dying honorably, heroically, does not come to everyone. I should not grieve but rejoice in his fate!”
Thus old Zakhar tried to comfort himself but his heart ached intolerably. He loved his youngest son profoundly, with all the vast power of his great soul. But he bore it stoically. The community called to him, needed his counsel and wisdom.
A multitude of people, young and old, thronged to the narrows of the Tukholian Trail, a short distance beyond which their mortal enemy maintained its position.
For the first time in the history of the Tukholian settlement, the folk-mote gathered without the customary ritual, the summoning of the people by the town criers carrying the district banner, but amid the clanging of axes, scythes and uproar of the populace roused to take arms. Confusedly, the elders mingled with the youths, the armed with the unarmed, even the women moved about restlessly, seeking more news concerning the foe or noisily bewailing their fallen sons.
How should they try to defend themselves? How should they start? What should they do? buzzed the questions among the populace. One thought, however, was uppermost: The entire population must stand before the entrance to the trail and defend itself against the Mongols to the last drop of its blood. The youth, especially, favored immediate action.
“We want to lay down our lives in the defence of our country as our brothers did!” they vociferated. “Only over our dead bodies shall the foe enter our Tukholian valley!”
“Erect stockades at the entrance to the trail, first, and then assail the Mongols from behind them!” advised the more thoughtful elders.
When the hubbub had somewhat subsided and order was secured, Zakhar Berkut spoke: “Although it is a military matter and not in my line, nor for an old man like me to deliberate upon since I can take no part in it, nevertheless, I still think that we will be deserving little praise, if we rout the Mongols just from our village alone, especially when we take into account the fact that it won’t be so very hard for us to do this. Our sons died by their hands. Their blood has been spilled over our land and it is calling upon us to have vengeance. Will we revenge ourselves upon our enemies, wreckers and ravagers of our country when we merely rebuff them from our village? No, repulsed from our village, they will swoop down doubly wrathful upon other communities. Not just to repell then, but to defeat them, should be our aim!”
The folk-mote listened attentively, respectfully, to the words of their old sage and the youth, always eager for drastic action, was ready to agree to this counsel at once, considering all discussion ended, although it had no idea how all this was to be accomplished. But several voices from among the elders rose in disapproval.
“It is with no wish to offend, you, father Zakhar, or to disparage your respectful old age, that I disagree with you,” spoke up one townsman. “But your advice though wise and holding promises of glory, is not prudent for us to follow. Our forces are too small compared to the enormity of the Mongolian. We have not yet received aid from any other of the mountain top communities and even if it came in time, our numbers still would not suffice to even surround the Mongolian army, let alone defeat it in an open battle. And how otherwise are we to rout them? No, no! Our army is too inadequate! We will be lucky if we can defend our village and turn them away from our trail, but we shouldn’t entertain any false hopes of disbanding them!”
Though Zakhar was hurt he was ready to discard his youthfully zealous ideas in favor of the opinion of the majority and would have acknowledged the validity of their arguments when two unexpected occurrences boosted the spirit of the Tukholian townspeople and perceptibly changed the entire aspect of their decision on the problem.
From the other end of the valley, marched along the road, one after the other, accompanied by loud blasts of trumpets and wails of trembitas, three companies of armed youths from three different townships. Each town carried its ensign before it and their stout-hearted battle songs echoed far over the hills. This was the vanguard of aid promised the Tukholians from the mountain crest communities. Man after man, like a forest of full-grown maples, stood all three proud companies, in long, straight rows before the folk-mote and dipped their banners before the villagers in salute. It was a pleasure to gaze at the healthy red cheeks, warmed by manful courage and pride in the fact that the time had come for them to shield with their broad chests all that they held dearest on earth, that upon the might of their armed resistance everything depended, and that they held upon their shoulders the greatest responsibility of manhood.
An uproarious shout of welcome greeted their approach. Only the mothers who had just lost their sons wept piteously at sight of the country’s finest flower of manhood, which probably by tomorrow would also lie slain as those of their dear ones who had fallen today, their corpses mercilesslly crushed by the melée.
An unbearable ache seized old Zakhar Berkut’s heart also when he gazed upon those youths and thought how proudly Maxim would have stood out from among them. But what was the use in thinking! One cannot return the dead and only those who are alive can think living thoughts and perform living deeds.
Their elation had not yet subsided at the arrival of the needed assistance, the folk-mote had not had time yet to get started on any discussion or deliberation when there appeared from the forest depths on a sunny glade above the Tukholian narrows, a new and unexpected host. Lying close and holding on to his neck, in order to more swiftly and safely ride through the forest without getting caught on overhanging branches, rode some person towards them as swiftly as the foaming horse, bleeding from numerous cuts torn by branches and thorns, could carry him. Who this could be it was hard to guess at that distance. The person was dressed in a Mongolian sheepskin coat, with the fur side turned out, and wore a handsome beaver-skin turban. The youths took the rider to be a Mongolian scout and advanced towards him with drawn bows. But having left the forest and neared the bank of the precipitous bluff from which it was necessary to climb down into the Tukholian valley, the supposed Mongol dismounted from the horse, removed his sheepskin coat and revealed himself to all the astounded on-lookers as a woman, dressed in a fine, silk-striped, white linen coat with a bow slung over her shoulder and the gleaming blade of a battle-axe tucked neatly behind her belt.
“It’s Peace-Renown, the daughter of our boyar!” exclaimed the Tukholian youths unable to take their eyes off the beautiful, audacious girl. It was plain she hardly noticed them, but leaving her horse where she had dismounted, began to search about for a path by which to descend into the valley. Quickly her keen eyes discovered a passage downward almost entirely hidden by the wide pointed shoots of ferns and brambles of raspberry bushes. With confident step, as if she had been accustomed to it all her life, she let herself down this path into the valley and approached the gathering.
“Good day, estimable citizens,” she said, coloring slightly. “I hurried, to inform you that the Mongols are coming and will be here before nightfall, so that you might prepare yourselves to meet them.”
“We know all about the Mongols,” the voices rose from the assemblage. “That is no news to us.” The voices were harsh, unfriendly towards the daughter of the despicable boyar because of whom so many of their youths had perished. But she was not offended by their stern reprimand although she was fully conscious of it.
“It is all the better for me! Then you are already prepared,” she replied. “And now please direct me to Zakhar Berkut.”
“Here I am, young woman,” said old Zakhar, coming towards her. So great was the reverence he had won in her heart that Peace-Renown gazed upon him with deference and esteem for some time. “Let me inform you, venerable father,” she spoke in a voice tremulous with uncontrollable emotion, “first of all, that your son is alive and well. . . .”
“My son!” cried Zakhar, “Alive and well! Oh, thank God! Where is he? What is he doing?”
“But do not be shocked, father, by the news which I am about to reveal to you. Your son is in the Mongolian encampment . . . a prisoner!”
“A prisoner?” he exclaimed as if struck by a thunderbolt. “No! That can’t be true! My son would first be rent to shreds before he would allow himself to be taken prisoner. It can’t be true! You are trying to deceive me, wicked girl!”
“No, father, I am not deceiving you, it’s really so. I have come straight from the Mongolian camp. I saw him there and talked with him. They overpowered him by trickery and fastened chains about his ankles and wrists. Himself unhurt, he was covered with the blood of foes. No, father, your son has brought no dishonor upon your name!”
“What did he say to you?”
“He told me to go to you father, to cheer and comfort you in your grief at his loss and to become your daughter, your ward, because I, father,” here her voice broke, “I am an orphan, I have no father!”
“No father? Why, has Tuhar Wolf died?”
“No, Tuhar Wolf is alive, but Tuhar Wolf has stopped being my father since he . . . turned informer . . . and became . . . a Mongolian slave.”
“That was to be expected,” replied Zakhar sullenly.
“That is why I cannot consider him as a father any longer, because I do not want to be a traitress. Father Berkut be my protector! Take me for your own! Your unfortunate son implores you through my lips.”
“My son, my unfortunate son!” groaned Zakhar Berkut, avoiding Peace-Renown’s eyes. “Who can ever compensate me for his loss?”
“Fear not, father, he may not be killed, we may yet succeed in freeing him. Please listen to the message he asked me to bring to you.”
“Go ahead speak!” said Zakhar, glancing at her briefly.
“He advised the Tukholians not to try to stop the Mongols at the entrance to the valley, but to let them in. Here they could be encircled and killed off to the last one. If that proves not feasible, then starve them to death. Barricades must be constructed first on the trail by the waterfall and everything of value carried out of the village, all the stores of grain, bread, all the cattle, and then the Mongols closed in from all sides. Here or nowhere else will you defeat them, Maxim said.”
The assembled listened heedfully to Peace-Renown’s speech. A deep silence fell over them all when she stopped speaking. Only Zakhar, proudly and radiantly, straightened himself and approached Peace-Renown with outstretched arms.
“My daughter,” he said. “Now, I can see that you are worthy of being a daughter to Zakhar Berkut. These are truly the words of my son . . . from them flows his intrepid spirit! With these words you have re-awakened my paternal instinct. Now it is easier for me to bear the loss of my son when heaven has sent such a daughter as you to take his place!”
Laughing and weeping with joy, she flew to his embrace. “You mustn’t say that, father!” she said. “Your son will not be lost, but will return to you safely. He will return here this very night with the Mongol Horde and if with God’s help we defeat it, then we will also release him.”
At that moment from the entrance to the valley came the shouts of the Tukholian guards, “The Mongols are coming! The Mongols!” swiftly running towards the townspeople at folk-mote to warn them that the Mongol Horde with a countless army could be seen approaching along the Opir river.
They were forced to make decisions without delay as to the manner in which they would defend themselves. Zakhar Berkut repeated the counsel of his son to let the Mongols into the valley and there surround them and kill them off or starve them to death.
This time there were no dissenting voices raised against the scheme and promptly the people dispersed homeward to gather all their possessions and wealth for concealment in the forests. The youths from the neighboring villages who had come to lend their assistance swiftly hastened to the upper part of the valley by the waterfall, where they busied themselves constructing the stockades to barricade the pass and prevent the Mongols from getting through.
There was a great commotion in the village. Shouts, commands and questions, the bellowing of oxen and continuous creaking of two-wheeled carts resounded from all directions, reverberating and re-echoing among the mountain tops. Sorrowfully the Tukholians bade farewell to their cottages, yards, homesteads, and green fields which this very day were to be ruined and trampled under the terrible Mongol inundation. The mothers carried their tearful, frightened youngsters and the fathers drove the beasts, the ox carts loaded with household goods, including bags of bread and clothing.
Dust rose in huge, billowy clouds over the village, only the silvery stream foamed and burbled as usual. The archaic giant Sentinel at the narrows of the entrance to the valley stood desolate, mourning the departure of his children from the beautiful valley, leaning over the entrance as if to bar the way with his giant stone form.
The hoary linden likewise grieved after them, standing forlorn in the middle of the meeting place outside the village, and the roaring cataract reflecting the crimson glow of the setting sun like a liquid column of blood hung disconsolately over the deserted Tukholian basin.
The village was empty, the houses enveloped in the long, gloomy shadows of evening. The clouds of dust had settled on the roadways and the calls and shouts were stilled as if a primeval desolation had devoured all life within the valley. The sun sank behind the Tukholian hills, cuddling into its blanket of rosy clouds. The dark purple spruce forests around Tukhlia whispered softly, secretively, as if communicating to each other some portent of evil. Even the earth for some reason quaked and groaned. The atmosphere though pure and brisk, quivered, set in motion by a qualmish hum, weird enough to make even the bravest shudder. Far away in the distant forests in the deep dark gorges and ravines within the impenetrable and impassable primeval fastnesses, yowled the wolves, barked the foxes in their dissonant tones, lowed the stags and roared the bison.
Within the village it was quiet and dead; in the sky, bright and clear. But no! All at once the sun became obliterated from view by a black cloud which like a living wall pushed its way from out of the west to descend over Tukhlia, filling the air with wild, hoarse screams. These were the omens and inseparable companions of the Mongol Horde, the ravens, vultures and buzzards, moving in innumerable flocks, attracted by the prospect of food.
The evil foreboding birds flapped their wings in the air and the flock separated into fragments like clouds rent by storm winds. The dusky eaves of the Tukholian houses suddenly became covered with the black hosts, and their noisy tumult, like rapidly boiling water in a huge kettle, arose from the valley. Mutely and passively, standing on the precipitous banks of their kettle-shaped valley, the Tukholians watched the vicious birds, in their hearts damning these prophets of death and destruction.
But soon the scene changed. Like spring flood waters through a break in a dam, there began to hurl themselves, screaming wildly, other black hosts into the basin. Row after row rolled in, like a torrent beneath a waterfall, slowing down only after they had passed through the narrow breach, forming themselves into long lines moving ahead without check, inundating the deserted valley. In the lead on a white steed rode the redoubtable giant Burunda-Behadir and beside him another, shorter man, Tuhar Wolf.
Slowly they rode ahead as if waiting for the moment of precipitate attack by the villagers. But there was no attack. The village lay as if in slumber. With savage cries the first ranks of Mongols broke into the houses, as it was their custom, with intent to kill and plunder, but there was no one to murder and the houses were all empty. With shouts of rising fury the Mongols tore from house to house, breaking in the doors, tearing down fences, gates, bursting barrels, crushing reed baskets and wrecking the clay ovens. But all their wrath availed them nothing, no one showed himself in the village.
“The cursed dogs!” said Burunda to Tuhar Wolf. “They scented us and have hidden themselves. Until we meet up with them we cannot make our camp here safely overnight. Lead us to the opening of this hole! We must first make sure of our exit!”
“Our exit is assured,” Tuhar Wolf calmed him albeit he was himself puzzled as to why the Tukholians had vacated the village. And though he tried to soothe the behadir, he asked him to order the army to stop searching for loot and hurry to the outlet. Unwillingly the vanguard of the Mongol Horde marched forward while those in the rear were still pressing through the narrows, flooding the basin ever more deeply.
Now the first series of soldiers came out of the village and hastened to the corridor carved out of the rock. Within the valley, near the entrance to the passage, it was pitch dark. The unwary Mongols marched right up to it only to be met by an avalanche of rocks and stones, wounding and killing them.
The screams and groans of the wounded aggressors echoed to the welkin. The swift-flying birds crowed above their prey. The Mongols began to retreat and to disperse when Burunda and Tuhar Wolf, with unsheated swords, halted them.
“Which way, fools?” roared Burunda angrily. “There’s the opening to the corridor before you, follow after me!” And driving before him a whole troop of soldiers, he rushed them straight towards the dark entrance to the corridor. Here they were given a fine welcome. A hailstorm of stones rained down upon their heads and blood flowed over the eyes of not a few of Jinghis Khan’s soldiers, the brains from their shattered skulls spattering the rocky walls.
As if from hell, terrible wails arose from the dark corridor and above them all, louder than the rest, the voice of Burunda thundered, “Move along, rabbit-hearted! Come on with me!” And others, disregarding the renewed hailstorm of stones, pushed into the corridor.
“Go on, further, into the breach!” yelled Burunda, holding a shield over his head to protect himself from the falling stones.
In the meantime Tuhar Wolf, perceiving a group of youths on the top of the bank, ordered the Mongols who stood near the corridor, to fire a burst of arrows at them. Screams spread over the top of the bank and the Mongols loudly yowled their exultation. To avenge their wounded three the indignant Tukholian youths began to hurl down with increased violence immense slabs of rock on the invaders. All this would not have stopped the determined Burunda, if inside the corridor, where it curved outward, there had not appeared an unexpected hindrance; the passageway was obstructed to its very top by a mass of rocks. The Tukholians were assailing them with increased ferocity, the stones falling like hail, felling the Mongols one after the other so that Burunda finally realized his determination was useless, that they could not get through until they succeeded in driving the Tukholians off the top.
“Go back!” commanded Burunda and the few survivors of the vanguard, breathless, like pebbles hurled from a sling, flew out of the corridor.
“The corridor is blocked!” cried Burunda out of breath, to Tuhar Wolf, wiping the perspiration and blood off his face.
“Let’s leave them for now and let them rejoice!” advised Tuhar Wolf.
“No!” cried Burunda, giving the boyar an arrogant glare. “The warriors of the great Jinghis Khan, do not put off until tomorrow what needs to be done today.”
“But what can we do here today?” asked Tuhar Wolf, looking with a shudder towards the darkly yawning corridor from which there still escaped the horrible groans of mortally wounded Mongols.
“We must drive those dogs from their ambush!” shouted Burunda wrathfully, pointing to the ridge of the rocky bank. “Fetch some ladders here, men! The front line climb up the ladders and those in back hold the Tukholians at bay with shots! We’ll see who defeats whom!”
Ladders were brought from nearby houses and on Tuhar Wolf’s advice, nailed together with strips of wood laid horizontally across them to form a wide wall of ladders. The Tukholians looked down upon their work tranquilly. The Mongols raised their built-up ladder and leaned it against the wall of rock. The Tukholians greeted them with stones, arrows and javelins, but this did not discourage the Mongols, for as soon as one group fell wounded, others lugged the huge ladder further and the places of the wounded were quickly taken by fresh recruits. At the same time the rear lines of Mongols shot a steady stream of arrows, forcing the Tukholians backward. Fear began to grip the Tukholians.
Not far from the scene of battle, shielded from the arrow flights by an immense boulder, sat Zakhar Berkut on a pile of straw occupied with the wounded. He removed the arrows, cleansed the wounds with Peace-Renown’s assistance and was busying himself bandaging them, having first smeared the wounds with some carefully compounded salve, prepared beforehand from the sap of the balsam fir, when some panicked warriors ran over to him to inform him of their dilemma.
“How, my children, can I aid you?” replied the old man, but Peace-Renown jumped up from her place and hastened to view the cause of the danger confronting them.
“Don’t lose courage!” she said to the Tukholians. “We’ll soon fix them! Let them go on shooting. You arm yourselves with spears and crawl downhill. When the first series is half-way up the wall of rock, then strike at them all together! They will themselves shield you from the arrow shots and having knocked down the front ranks, you will knock down also the rear. The darkness is fortunate for us and having warded them off this time, we will have peace for the rest of the night.”
Without a word of protest the Tukholians got down on their hands and knees and let themselves down the steep incline, first having taken spears into their hands. The shots flew for some time yet and then ceased, an indication that the first row on the ladder had reached its top. With bated breath the Tukholians lay in wait for the foe. They heard the squeak of the ladder rungs, the hard rasping breath of the men, the clang of their weapons, and in front of the crouching youths, slowly, pusillanimously, bobbed up their furry turbans and under them the black, fearful heads with their bright beady eyes. Those eyes, fearful and attentive, stared ahead without blinking an eyelash as if they were of glass, past the crouching Tukholians, their heads rising ever higher and higher, now their shoulders showing and below them their backs covered with shaggy furs and now the full expanse of chest. With fierce cries the Tukholians flung themselves upon the Mongols plunging their spears deep into the broad chests of the aggressors. Shouts, groans, wails, shrieks, confusion, here and there spasmodic convulsions of death, here and there a short combat, curses, groans of the damned and like a heavy log, the foe tumbled down the ladder, knocking down subsequent rows of men. On top of that disorderly pile of bloody, moaning, groaning and roaring flesh, corpses and living men, heavy stones and missiles fell from above.
Above that hell of turmoil, half-veiled by the cloak of night, arose up the hill the triumphant shouts of the Tukholians, the mournful yowls of the Mongols and the thunderous, execrable curses of Burunda-Behadir, who paced up and down the meeting place raging as if he were mad, tearing at his hair. In the end without checking his wrath he swung towards Tuhar Wolf with his sword unsheathed. “You pale-faced dog!” he sprang to Tuhar Wolf’s side. “You, two-faced traitor,” he yelled, gnashing his teeth, “it’s all your fault! You led us into this ditch from which we can’t escape!”
Tuhar Wolf reddened hotly at these words which no Mongol had ever addressed to him before. His hand involuntarily grasped his sword, but at that same moment a deep and unendurable ache smote his heart so that his hand relaxed its grip and fell to his side as if it were of clay. He bowed his head and clenching his teeth, replied in a subdued tone of voice, “Great Behadir, your anger is unjustified towards the faithful servant of Jinghis Khan. It is not my fault that the “smerdi” are repelling us. Order the army to retire for the night and rest. Tomorrow morning you will see for yourself that they will scatter before our arrow shots like the dry autumn leaves before a strong wind.”
“So that’s it!” shouted Burunda. “So they might fall upon and murder the army sleeping in the houses!”
“Then order the houses to be burned while the soldiers sleep out in the open under the canopy of the sky.”
“Always you speak craftily and offer clever plans to avert my wrath and to absolve yourself of any blame! But not this time! You brought us here, now you must get us out and that the first thing in the morning without any more loss of time or men. Do you understand? You will live up to the bargain or suffer dire misfortune.”
All for naught Tuhar Wolf tried to convince the savage behadir that it was not entirely all his fault, that he had advised him as he thought it would work out for the best, that the Mongol council had accepted his proposals and agreed with his plans, that no leader could possibly give guarantees against an unexpected turn of events or be held responsible for hindrances which might occur on their march. But all his arguments were rejected by Burunda’s convictions to the contrary, as if they had been peas hurled against a stone wall.
“Very well, Boyarin,” he said in the end, “I will do as you say, but just the same tomorrow you must show us a way out of this hole or else bear the consequences. These are my final words. I am waiting for deeds and not excuses from you.”
Arrogantly and scornfully, he turned away from the boyar and went to his Mongols, shouting orders to them to set fire to the entire village at once and to clear the valley of everying that might serve the enemy as cover from which to attack them at night. The Mongols whooped with joy. They had been awaiting just such an order for sometime.
From all directions at once the fiery tongues of flames lapped the weird, pitch blackness which had settled over the Tukholian valley. The smoke burst forth in columns, rolling itself out like a thick blanket over the valley. The roofs crackled, shrunk by red streaks of flames sometimes leaping high into the air and at times, as if crouching, smoldering slowly, seemingly accumulating strength for another leap towards the sky. At another time, the flames buffeted by the wind, spread themselves into a glimmering, oscillating lake of liquid fire. The roar of toppling timbers and crashing walls echoed hollowly along the valley, the burning, piled-up sheaves of grain and hay glowed like coals, here and there ribbons of whitish smoke rising from their centers. The trees burned like candles, their leaves carried high into the air flitting about like swarms of fireflies. The entire Tukholian valley now resembled a fiery hell.
With savage screams and yells of delight, the Mongols danced about and ran about the conflagration, flinging into the fire everything that came to hand. With mournful groans the hoary witness of the folk-mote, the giant linden, toppled over to the ground, cut down by Mongolian hatchets. The air in the Tukholian basin became heated as in a real kettle and suddenly from the surrounding hills a fierce wind blew downward whirling the sparks around, tearing at the burning stacks of straw and the roofs, strewing them about like fiery shots. The Tukholian stream for the first time in its life mirrored such a brilliance and for the first time became heated in its chill rocky bed.
The conflagration lasted for perhaps two hours. The Tukholians, boundless grief expressed upon their faces, watched dumbly from the steep high banks of the valley.
Then the Mongols began to extinguish the fires by throwing whatever was not completely burned into the stream and busied themselves digging a fosse around the site chosen for their encampment.
In a moment in the center of their camp rose the tents for the officers. The rest of the army was to sleep under the open sky on the heated ground.
Again it was dark in the Tukholian basin. The Mongols would gladly have built themselves campfires, but that was impossible, too late they remembered that they had laid waste to the whole valley with the conflagration and everything in it that could be burned had been burned or washed away by the stream. The army was forced to sleep and to stand guard in the dark. Even the trenches were not dug as deep as they were required to be, for it had already grown too dark to finish them.
Wrathful and dissatisfied, restless as a black storm cloud, Burunda paced back and forth in the encampment examining the trenches and reviewing the guards set by them, calling together all the officers, giving instructions how they should guard themselves against an attack in the middle of the night.
It was nearly midnight before the encampment finally quieted down. Only the shouts of the guards and the roar of the waterfall broke through the reigning calm. However, in one spot within the Mongolian entrenchment there shone a light. This was the flickering flame of a torch in the tent of Tuhar Wolf. A whitish flame glimmered, crackled and smoked, devouring the melting tar, throwing an uncertain light over the interior of the tent. Empty and desolate it was in the tent, just as now in the heart of Tuhar Wolf. He paced back and forth absorbed in meditation. Burunda’s bitter reproaches burned in his proud soul. They were like a slap in the face, opening his eyes and making him realize on to what a slippery path he had blundered.
“Peta promised me a gracious reward from Jinghis Khan,” he grumbled, “and this barbarian treats me like a dog. Am I then the lowliest of their servants, comparable to a mere slave? Peta promised me all the cities and the entire territory of Carpatho-Rus, a great kingdom, while Burunda here, is threatening me with what I know not, without cause. And he could fulfill that threat, too, the damned devil! Should I give in to him, try to please him? I must! I’m in his hands! I’m a prisoner, a slave, as that lout Maxim said.”
“That reminds me, where is that Maxim? Could I not do what Burunda desires with his help? Could I not, for instance, exchange him for a way out of this hole? That’s a good idea!”
He called two Mongols to him who lay not far from his tent and ordered them to find and bring to him the prisoner Maxim.
Unwillingly, muttering something, the Mongols obeyed him. Apparently the air of the Tukholian valley was not conducive to sharp Mongolian discipline.
But where was Maxim? How did he fare as a prisoner?
Maxim sat in the middle of the Tukholian main road, shackled with heavy chains, as it happened, exactly across from his father’s homestead with his face turned to the yard in which he had danced as a child and only yesterday walked about freely, occupied with the daily chores and over which today moved crowds of hateful Mongols. They had brought him here on a horse and when the order had come to halt and burn the village they threw him off the horse into the street. No one touched him or guarded him but it was impossible to run away for throngs of Mongols wove back and forth about him, yelling, ruining and searching for booty.
Maxim was hardly conscious of what was transpiring around him. He sat there immovably, like a milestone by the roadside. His mind was a void. Thoughts refused to flow together or to shape themselves. Even his visual impressions declined to take definite form, flickering and glimmering before his eyes like frightened black birds. He felt clearly only one thing, that the chains pressed into his flesh like cold iron snakes sucking all the strength out of his body and all the thoughts from his brain.
All at once the flames had burst around him, the smoke spread itself over the roadway in thick clouds and enveloped Maxim, smarting his eyes and taking away his breath. Tukhlia was on fire! Maxim sat in the center of the conflagration and did not stir. The wind whirled the smoke, showering him with sparks and blew the heated air upon him, but Maxim, his tongue pasted to the roof of his mouth, his heart choking him, seemed unaware of it all. He would have been glad to die in the conflagration, to fly up like a golden spark and then die out, there in the clear cool sky, somewhere near the twinkling stars. But the chains, those insufferable fetters! How horribly they squeezed him, weighed upon him! There his father’s house caught fire! The flames burst out from under the eaves, twisting themselves like snakes across the windows and peered into the house through the door, driving from it a huge cloud of smoke in order to themselves occupy the Berkuts’ living quarters.
Maxim watched the conflagration in a stupor. It seemed as if something in his chest was being torn out of him, consumed by the flames and burned to ashes. When the flames died down, the roof caved in, the coals settled themselves on the scene of his birthplace, and there burst forth from the blazing mass a whole sea of sparks to the sky, Maxim cried out in anguish and jumped to his feet to run somewhere, to save something, but after taking just one step forward, he fell senseless to the ground.
The conflagration had died down, a hot bitter smoke blew over the valley, the battle-cries of the Mongols, who under the leadership of Burunda and Tuhar Wolf had fought with the Tukholians at the entrance to the corridor, had ceased. The night sky had cleared and the stars appeared over Tukhlia. All was peace and quiet in the Mongolian camp, but Maxim still lay as if dead in the middle of the road facing the charred remains of his house. The stars shone mournfully upon his pale, blood-smeared face, a faint rising and falling of his chest the only indication that here lay not a corpse but a living man.
This was the state in which the Mongols found him and at first had feared that he was dead, smothered by the smoke of the conflagration. Not until they threw some water on him, washed his face and gave him a drink of water, did he open his eyes and look about him.
“He’s alive! He’s alive!” the Mongols yowled happily and grasping the half-unconscious, weakened Maxim under the armpits, half-dragged him on the trot to the tent of the boyar.
Tuhar Wolf was alarmed at sight of the detested youth in such a pathetic state. His freshly washed face was bloodless, lips cracked from the smoke and eyes glazed from fatigue and emotional duress, his legs trembling under him as if he were a hundred year-old man for, having stood upon them a minute, he could no longer hold himself up but collapsed on to the ground. The Mongols withdrew from the tent.
The boyar gazed upon Maxim thoughtfully for a long time. What reason was there for him to hate the young man? Why had he brought upon his young head such horrible suffering? Why had he not ordered him killed at once instead of allowing him to undergo this slow, inevitable death, for it was certain that the Mongols would not release him alive and that as soon as they got tired of dragging him along with them, they would butcher him like an animal and cast him by the roadside. And for what had he come to hate this poor young man? Was it because he had saved his daughter’s life? Or was it because she had fallen in love with him? Was it for his upright, princely bearing and courage, his honesty and frankness? Or was it because he had considered himself his equal? Now they HAD become equals, they were both prisoners and both unfortunate. Tuhar Wolf felt his anger and dislike towards Maxim die down like the exhausted flames of a fire for which there is no more fuel. He had already, as soon as Maxim had been taken prisoner, tried to make friends with him, not from any real desire for his friendship but through craftiness. However, Maxim had refused to even speak to him. Of course the boyar offered him such advice as it was impossible for Maxim to accept. He had counseled him to go into the service of the Mongols and lead them through the trail over the crest of the mountains, promising him a substantial reward. If he refused, he threatened that the Mongols would kill him. “Let them kill me!” was the only answer the boyar had gotten from him. Strangely enough, even then those proud words which bore witness to Maxim’s staunch soul and his great love for freedom, did not anger the boyar but pleased him very much. He felt as if an iceberg had enclosed his heart and was now melting away. Upon the charred remains of free Tukhlia, he began to understand that the Tukholians had acted both wisely and equitably and his heart though blinded by greed for power, was not entirely deaf to the voice of his conscience which recognized their rights. The boyar had ruminated upon all this today and already looked with a different attitude upon the prone, half-dead, miserable form of Maxim crouching upon the ground within his tent.
He approached him, took him by the hand intending to raise him up to a sitting position on a bench.
“Maxim!” he said kindly. “What has happened to you?”
“Let me alone!” Maxim groaned, “And let me die in peace!”
“Maxim! Boy! Why should you think of death? I’m trying to find a way of making you free and here you talk of death! Get up and sit here on the bench. Pull yourself together, I have something to discuss with you.”
Though Maxim only half understood and only half-believed the words and sudden compassion of the boyar still his primitive needs, his weakness, hunger and fatigue were too strongly demanding for him to be able to refuse the boyar’s hospitality.
A mug of fiery wine refreshed him immediately, resurrecting his former vitality to renewed life; a piece of roast meat quieted the pangs of hunger. While he ate, the boyar sat opposite him inspiring in him with kindly words the desire and courage to live.
“Foolish youth,” he said, “fellows like you need to live and not die! Life is a precious thing and for no riches in the world can you purchase it.”
“Life as a prisoner is worth nothing,” replied Maxim. ”Death is preferable.”
“Well, of course,” said the boyar. “But I am telling you that you can be free.”
“By turning traitor against my people and leading the Mongols over the mountains. No, death is better than freedom won that way.”
“I am not talking about that now,” said the boyar, smiling. “I say that you can be free without turning traitor, as you call it, and tonight!”
“How?” asked Maxim.
“I thought you’d be interested,” smiled the boyar again. “Well, this is my scheme. Your Tukholians have surrounded us and obstructed the exit. Of course their resistance is laughable for they can’t really stop us. But we can’t afford to waste any more time. That’s the most important matter to us just now, time.”
Maxim’s eyes glowed at this news. “The Tukholians have surrounded you, you say?” he cried joyously. “And you can’t get out? Oh, thank God! You can expect you won’t get out either. The Tukholians are an ingenious people, whomever they once catch they aren’t likely to let out of their hands again.”
“Tut, tut, tut!” broke in the boyar. “Don’t rejoice too soon, my boy. Our numbers are not so small that a group of your Tukholians could so easily capture. I’ve been trying to tell you that it’s not so important whether we are detained here or not but it’s the time we have to consider. Every minute counts. We are in a hurry.”
“But what can I do?”
“Just this! I’m thinking of going tonight to your Tukholians for a parley. I want to promise to return you to them in exchange for our free passage through here. I expect you to . . . I hope you will . . . tell me the right words to use which will reach the hearts of the Tukholians and your father and win them over to our plan.”
“Your effort will be all for naught, Boyarin. The Tukholians will never agree to such a bargain.”
“Not agree?” cried the boyar. “Why won’t they agree?”
“The Tukholians will fight to the last man before they will allow you to pass over their mountain trail. Do you think they would turn traitors to their brothers in the mountain crest and beyond the mountain communities whose villages would be destroyed like our Tukhlia?”
“But they will be destroyed anyway, foolish youth!” replied the boyar. “Your Tukholian army is far too insignificant to stop us.”
“ ‘Don’t praise the day,’ Boyarin, ‘before evening has come!’ A large army isn’t necessary here when the barriers of rocky walls and steep hillsides provide natural fortresses to hinder you.”
“Well, anyway, tell me how I should talk to your father and the Tukholians to make them listen.”
“Speak to them from the heart, sincerely, truthfully, it’s the only way to influence them.”
“But it doesn’t work that way, boy, it doesn’t!” protested the disappointed boyar. “It’s not as simple as all that in dealing with your people. Your father is an experienced old sorcerer, who knows exactly what magic words reach into every heart. He must surely also have taught you these words. For instance, without those magic words you could not possibly have persuaded my archers to fight against the Mongols as doggedly as they would not have fought for even the best pay.”
Maxim laughed. “You are a strange man, Boyarin!” he replied. “I know no such sorcery, but frankly speaking, even if I knew the magic words, I would not reveal them to you so you could not persuade the Tukholians to assent to such an uneven exchange.”
The boyar reddened angrily. “Be careful, boy! Remember who you are and where you are!”
“Remember you’re a prisoner, that your life depends upon the good will of the Mongols.”
“My life isn’t worth anything!” replied Maxim quietly. “I don’t care whether I live or die! Whoever has known but a moment of imprisonment has tasted worse than death!”
At this juncture the flap of the tent was lifted up and with a quick movement Peace-Renown entered. She cast a swift glance around the tent and without even so much as a nod towards her father, she flew to Maxim’s side. “Here you are, here you are!” she cried. “Something seemed to draw me here. My dearest, Maxim, how are you? What has happened to you?”
Maxim sat as if paralyzed, without taking his eyes off Peace-Renown. She held his hand in hers. Her words rang like an Easter bell announcing that Christ had risen, or like a reviving dew falling upon a wilted flower. And she, the sweet darling, knelt down beside him bathing his weighty chains in her tears, washing away with them the dried blood from his wrists.
What a joy, what warmth entered Maxim’s heart at her nearness and the touch of her soft hands! How warmly the blood throbbed in his chest! How fiercely the desire to live re-awakened itself in him! And here the chains were pressing, squeezing him unmercifully, reminding him that he was a prisoner, that over his head hung a bloody Mongolian knife. That thought in this joyous moment twined itself around his heart like a snake and made the tears drop from his eyes and roll down his cheeks.
“Peace-Renown,” he said, turning his face away. “Why did you come here to add to my grief? I was ready for death and now you have re-awakened my desire to live!”
“My beloved!” replied Peace-Renown. “Don’t lose courage! I risked all kinds of perils to come here into the enemy camp and tell you not to lose hope!”
“What is the use of hoping? Hope won’t break these chains.”
“But my father will remove them!”
“Oh, your father! So he tells me, that he’s ready to do it, but first he asks me to do him a service which is impossible for me to perform.”
“What kind of a service?”
“He wants to go to the Tukholians and arrange with them for a clear passage for the Mongols through this valley in exchange for my freedom and asks me to tell him the magic words which would induce the Tukholians to favor his plan.”
Peace-Renown glanced at her father for the first time and her amazement increased with each moment to one of joy.
“Father,” she said, “is this true?”
“Yes,” replied Tuhar Wolf.
“Do you believe Maxim knows the magic words?”
“He must know them. How else, from the very first, could he have bound you to him. Without the use of charms this could not possibly have happened.”
Peace-Renown smiled, throwing Maxim a glance of infinitely tender love and then turning to her father, she said, “Have you obtained permission from your commander for such a parley?”
“Not yet, but it will take only a moment. His tent is not far from mine.”
“Then go now. In the meantime I’ll persuade Maxim to reveal those magic words to you.”
“You will persuade him?”
“You will see! Just go!”
“Bewitched girl!” the boyar grumbled to himself, leaving the tent. “Enchanted and no doubt about it! She actually forces herself upon him!”
“My sweetheart, Maxim!” said Peace-Renown, as soon as the boyar had left the tent, twining her arms around his neck, kissing his pale, chapped lips. Don’t worry! The Mongolians won’t get out. They will all meet their death here!”
“My little star, my precious darling, Peace-Renown!” replied Maxim sadly, “How glad I would be to believe this, but their numbers are too great and ours too small.”
“Reinforcements from the mountain crest communities and from the Hungarian side of the Carpathians have been sent to aid us.”
“Their weapons are inadequate.”
“Don’t worry even about this. Listen, one hundred axes are chopping away in the forest. In a little while, one hundred campfires will flame above the valley and by each campfire your carpenters will be making engines with which to hurl stones into the very heart of the Mongolian entrenchment.”
“But who thought of all this? Who showed our carpenters how to make these engines?”
“I did, darling. I often observed and examined such machines which stand on the top of the walls in Halich. Before the sun rises from behind Mt. Zelemenya fifty such machines will be hurling stones on the heads of the Mongols.”
Maxim hugged Peace-Renown, pressing her with fierce joy close to his heart. “Light of my life!” he said. “You will yet be the deliverer of our Tukhlia!”
“No, Maxim!” said Peace-Renown. “It is not I who will be the redeemer but your father. What are my engines but poor toys against such a foe? But your father will release a more potent power, which no enemy can withstand.”
“What sort of power?” asked Maxim.
“Listen!” said Peace-Renown. Unbroken peace reigned everywhere, only far off in the distance, muffled peals of thunder rolled along the Carpathian battlements, detonating.
“It’s thundering,” said Maxim. “So, what of it?”
“What of it?” replied Peace-Renown quickly. “It’s certain death for the Mongols! That is a more formidable destroyer than they and a destroyer that will aid us. Only listen!” and she glanced about the tent, though no one was there, as if she distrusted even its quietness and emptiness. Then she leaned towards Maxim’s cheek and whispered a few words into his ear.
“As if jerked up by a powerful arm Maxim sprang up so that the chains jingled upon him.
“Girl or jinnee!” he cried, staring at her half-fearfully and half reverently, expecting her to vanish. “Who are you and who has sent you here with such tidings? For now I see that you cannot be Peace-Renown, the daughter of Tuhar Wolf. No, you must surely be the spirit of that great Sentinel whom they call the guardian of Tukhlia.”
“No, Maxim, no, my beloved!” replied the amazing girl.
“It is I, Peace-Renown, the same Peace-Renown who loves you so very, very dearly, who would gladly give up her very life just to make you happy.”
“As if I could ever be happy without you!”
“Wait, Maxim, listen to one more thing I have to tell you, get out of this encampment, right away!”
“How can I get out? The guards are not asleep.”
“The guards will let you pass. You can see for yourself that they let me through. But you must change into my clothes and take this gold signet ring. It was given to me by the commander permitting me the freedom of coming and going among them. If you will show it to the guards they will let you pass.”
“And you?”
“Don’t worry about me. I will remain here with my father.”
“But the Mongols will discover that you let me free and then they will not spare you. Oh no, I don’t want it that way!”
“Don’t worry about me, I can take care of myself.”
“So can I!” replied Maxim stubbornly.
At this point the boyar re-entered the tent, sullen, red of face and frowning morosely. Burunda had shown himself even less kindly disposed towards him than before and greeted his proposal to exchange Maxim for their free passage reprovingly and in the end barely agreed to it. The boyar began to feel an increasing tension around him as if the iron bars of a prison were pressing themselves ever closer upon him.
“Well?” he said sharply, not glancing at either his daughter or Maxim.
A bright thought flashed into Peace-Renown’s mind.
“Everything is all right, father,” she replied, “only . . .”
“Only what?”
“Maxim’s magic words are such that they are ineffective unless pronounced by his own lips.”
“Well then, the devil take him!” muttered the boyar wrathfully.
“Wait, father and listen to my counsel. Order his chains removed and go with him to the Tukholians. Here is the signet ring Peta gave me, with it the guards will let him through.”
“Oh! Thank you my daughter for your very kind advice! ‘Take him to the Tukholians!’ And that means throw away my last chance of success. The Tukholians will take the prisoner and drive me away! No, I won’t do it. I will go myself and without his magic words.”
Peace-Renown saddened. Her brilliant eyes filmed over with tears. “My darling!” she said, kneeling down beside Maxim, again putting her arms around him. “Do as I ask you, take this ring!”
“No, Peace-Renown. Don’t worry about me!” said Maxim. “I have already planned what to do. Go and help our people and may our Sentinel aid you.”
Peace-Renown’s parting from Maxim was indeed difficult. Though she tried her best not to show it, she left him with the almost certain expectation that he would meet his death. Stealthily kissing him and pressing his hand warmly, she ran out of the tent after her father.
Maxim was left alone in the boyar’s tent his heart beating in a confusion of emotions, joy, fear and hope.