Chapter VII
“What is that thudding noise resounding from the forest?” the boyar asked his daughter who walked beside him through the Mongolian encampment.
“They’re chopping down trees” Peace-Renown replied briefly.
“Now, at night, in the dark?”
“There will soon be light.”
Hardly had Peace-Renown said this, when atop the steep cliffs which walled in the kettle-shaped valley, here and there glimmered points of light; the Tukholians were striking sparks with flint and building campfires. It was not long before the banks of the entire valley were studded with rows of blazing campfires which gleamed in the pitch darkness like the bright eyes of giant wolves crouching for a leap down into the valley to devour the Mongolian forces.
Beside each campfire stirred groups of silhoutted figures. The sound of wood chopping echoed with re-doubled intensity.
“What are they doing now?” the boyar asked his daughter again.
“They’re trimming and scraping the wood.”
“What for?”
“When you get there you’ll find out.”
They continued on their way through the camp. Every so often the guards stopped them when it was necessary to show their credentials from the commander in order to be allowed to pass.
The guards, watching the bonfires fearfully, awakened their officers, but they, observing that the Tukholians were going about their business peacefully, ordered them not to create a disturbance but to remain alert at their posts. The fact that they started so many campfires, they were told, was all the better for the Mongols, it meant the Tukholians would not try to attack secretly in the dark. As long as those fires burned, they could sleep in peace and recuperate their energies for the arduous undertaking awaiting the army the next day.
Tuhar Wolf and his daughter left the entrenchment and having crossed a short stretch of plain came to a precipitous wall of rock. They searched a long time before Peace-Renown finally located the path among the brambles and ferns which would lead them to the top. They began toiling upwards.
“Who goes there?” shouted voices down from the nearest campfire.
“Friends,” answered Peace-Renown.
“What friends?” shouted the Tukholians, barring their path. But they soon recognized Peace-Renown, who led the way.
“And who is behind you?”
“My father. The Mongolian behadir sent him for a peace parley with your elders.”
“What the deuce do we need a parley for? As soon as it’s daybreak we’ll talk to them all right, but it won’t be of peace!”
“How brave you are!” Tuhar Wolf laughed sarcastically. “Well, well, well, we won’t have to wait very long for that pleasure! Only we don’t know whether it’ll be such a pleasure for your mothers, to see your young heads stuck on Mongolian lances!”
“The devil take your speech, noxious raven!” the Tukholians expostulated, surrounding the boyar.
“Now, now,” Tuhar Wolf calmed them. “Of course I don’t wish that upon you, I wish only to point out that it wouldn’t be very nice if it happened. It is for this special reason, to protect you from just such a fate, that I’d like to negotiate for peace with your elders. I feel sorry for you, hot-blooded, inexperienced youngsters! You are ready to go to your death blindly without stopping to think whether it will benefit anyone or not. But your elders ought to be able to give the matter a less emotional and more objective consideration.”
As he talked the boyar drew closer to the campfire by which some carpenters were planing the freshly cut pieces of timber, while others were making grooves in the planed logs and still others drilling holes and sharpening wooden pegs to fit into them.
“What is this you’re making?” the boyar questioned the workmen.
“Guess if you’re smart!” they gibed, fitting together frameworks of wood resembling gates, joining a pair of them together horizontally at the top and bottom with split halves of timbers.
The boyar watched these operations a moment and then slapped his thighs in astonishment. “Trebuchets!” he exclaimed. “Men, who taught you how to make such machines?”
“Oh, there was someone who showed us how,” replied the carpenters, noncommittally. And taking hold of a strong beech stump, they chipped out a hollow to form a huge ladle to the handle of which heavily woven ropes were to be fastened and wound tightly on two windlasses attached to the front posts of the framework. An immense wooden basket filled with stones was to be attached to the other end. The force of its prodigious weight, released by the wound-up ropes, was to hurl stones from the ladle far out upon the Mongols in their encampment.
Tuhar Wolf glanced around him. Beside each campfire worked other craftsmen (in Tukhlia every man knew carpentry) making other such machines. The youths, women and children were occupied plaiting the necessary ropes.
“Well, I see our Mongolians will have a difficult time of it under these circumstances, trying to find themselves an outlet from this hollow,” thought Tuhar Wolf, following his daughter further into the forest, along a beaten path, towards the glade in the middle of which an enormous campfire burned and where the council of Tukholian elders had gathered for deliberation.
“Peace-Renown,” Tuhar Wolf asked after a moment’s silence, “did you teach them how to make the engines?”
“Yes, I did,” she replied, watching her father intently, expecting a wrathful outburst. But to her amazement there momentarily passed a look of satisfaction on the boyar’s face.
“Very good, daughter!” he said tersely.
Peace-Renown was surprised, not understanding what that change in her father’s stand signified. She did not realize that his belief in the fortunate outcome of the Mongolians’ march and especially in the ability of the Mongolians to keep their promises had become very shaky and that in this new turn of events the boyar was forced to turn to the people while the action of his daughter stood in the way of accomplishing his purpose.
They neared the clearing where the Tukholian wise men sat wakeful, engaged in conference. It was a spacious glade turned somewhat to the south, from the north closed off by an impregnable bluff of crumbly Carpathian slate. A belt of giant spruces encompassed the glade from the east, south and west, so that the sun only at its zenith could peer into it.
In ancient times, the entire surface of this glade had been paved with immense flag-stones which were now covered with a downy growth of moss and clusters of prickly fern. Only one path in the center was well trodden, leading to a deep cave within the wall of rock facing directly south. The inner walls of the cave were a dull grey, free of any embellishment except for benches and recesses hewn out of the rock. Here the rock was red, burned by the fires on the hearths, of which traces still remained. Only the ceiling had a single ornamentation carved out of the rock in the shape of a hemisphere as large as a loaf of bread and incrusted with a thick, gleaming rim of gold to resemble a corona. This was an ancient Tukholian sanctuary where members of the younger generation came to offer up their prayers to the highest creator of life, the sun-god Dayboh, whose gold-encircled image was carved on its ceiling.
Although the Tukholian people had long ago been baptized by the Christian monks and went to pray to the Christian God at the Catholic church in Korchenia, still they never quite completely neglected the god of their forefathers, so that the path to the Glade of Light never became entirely grown over and the everlasting campfire in the center of it was never allowed to die out (it was called the “Glade of Light” because of this perpetual campfire) and before the small side altars of “Ladi” and “Did” there often smoked the fragrant balsam fir and jerked spasmodically the sacrificial doves provided by the youths and maidens.
However, as time went on, the people gradually began to forget and neglect the old gods and the old customs until only a few of the elders clung to the liberal and purely communal precepts of their ancient, benevolent religion which did not frighten the people with threats of punishment and suffering after death but considered the greatest punishment to be death itself, the physical and spiritual deterioration of perfidious individuals, disbelievers in a Benevolent God.
The new religion originating in the East and brought to our lands united itself with our old religious beliefs and only in this combination was it able to survive peacefully in the hearts and minds of the people. Gradually the elders with their belief in the ancient creed died out and the few who remained did not dare to follow it openly or teach it to the younger generation but practiced it alone in secret, hiding it within their hearts with the sad conviction that it would also die and be buried with them.
One of the last known avowed adherents to the old religion in our land of Rus, was Zakhar Berkut. The astonishing fact was that he had carried out this creed from the Scythian monasteries, from the old monk Akenthia. Whether the miraculous old healer had only related to his pupil everything about that ancient religion or whether in his own heart he felt it was closer to the forces of nature and the Truth and was therefore drawn more to it than to the Byzantinic Christianity, the fact was that Zakhar, after his stay within the monastery, brought out with him a greater love for the old religion, vowing to be true to it until death.
He knew about the Glade of Light in his Tukhlia within which long ago the perpetual campfire had died out and where the fragrant balsam fir no longer smouldered before the altars and which the Korchenian priests had denounced as a cursed and evil place. No matter how forsaken this Glade of Light had become, still no one up to that time had dared to touch the image of the sun or the gold leaf with which it was incrusted. That image still shone in the middle of the cave’s ceiling awaiting the mid-day sun to reflect its rays in a thousand beams.
Of his own free will, Zakhar Berkut had taken upon himself the care of this ancient sanctuary. The path which showed itself across its center became well trodden by his feet every spring for more than fifty years. On his annual trips in search of medicinal roots and herbs Zakhar spent a week alone within the Glade of Light in prayer and meditation and after each such session returned to the village encouraged and strengthened in spirit, with clearer and purer thoughts of wisdom.
Many times during his stay there, the Tukholians, observing from down in their valley how the blue wreaths of smoke from the balsam fir swirled over the tops of the spruces which surrounded the Glade of Light, remarked among themselves, “That must be old Zakhar praying to the ancient gods.” They said this without malice, and without intent of poking fun at him, for Zakhar, though he did not attempt to teach anyone the old religion, nonetheless strove all the more earnestly to teach everyone to respect the religious beliefs and convictions of others.
Here in the Glade of Light the Tukholian elders had assembled to keep vigil in this portentous night. A great campfire burned in the center of the Glade. Surreptitiously the ancient spruces whispered as if recalling old times. From the flare of the campfire the golden image glittered in the ceiling of the open cave shooting out crimson-colored rays. The elders sat in meditation listening to the thump of hatchets within the forest and the tales of ancient times recounted by old Zakhar.
A strange spirit had possessed the old man today. He, who had never liked to talk about the old beliefs, today grew loquacious and talked with such tender pathos as he used only when speaking upon matters dearest and closest to his heart. He spoke of the creator Dayboh, of the defeat of Svitovid, how the three sacred doves, Dayboh, Svitovid and Perun created the earth from a grain of sand; how Dayboh searched for three days in the bottom of the ocean until he found three grains: one grain of wheat, one of rye and a third of barley and gave them to the first man, Did, and his wife, Ladi; how Perun gave them a spark of fire and Svitovid a hair from which, with his blessing, there sprung a cow and a herdsman for it, whom they called Volos (hair). Zakhar went on relating further about the life of the first people on earth, about the flood from which the people fled to the hills and caves, about the ancient giants and their king, the Tukholian Sentinel, who released the enchanted waters of the Tukholian lake.
The Tukholian elders listened to these tales as if to news of some new, unheard of world. Many things about which they had talked and of which they had sung without understanding them, were now clearly defined in vivid word images and Zakhar Berkut himself seemed to them to be the last of those benevolent Tukholian giant sentinels or guards around whose remarkable exploits the succeeding generations would also weave legends.
Suddenly there was a snapping of dry twigs on the path and Peace-Renown accompanied by Tuhar Wolf appeared from the forest blackness. Peace-Renown came straight towards old Zakhar while the boyar stopped by the campfire.
“Father,” said Peace-Renown to Zakhar, “I saw your son!”
“My son?” replied Zakhar Berkut quietly, as if speaking of the dead.
“Yes. With the help of this ring I passed by the Mongolian guards and talked with him. We can expect, father, that he’ll soon be free.”
“It’s very hard, daughter, very hard! But who is this that came with you?”
“It is I, old man,” said Tuhar Wolf stepping forward, “do you remember me?”
“I remember your face . . . you were the boyar, Tuhar Wolf. What brings you here to us?”
“I came to you, Tukholian elders, as an emissary of peace from the great behadir Burunda, the commander of the Mongolian army.”
“What does Burunda-Behadir want from us?” asked Zakhar.
“Burunda-Behadir commands me to say to you that his army is legion and unconquerable. It is useless, therefore, for you to put up barricades on your trail and useless to build engines for hurling stones, all of which will prove fruitless against his superior forces.”
“Evidently your Burunda is beginning to fear us if he has thought of trying to frighten us. It’s a good sign. Go on, tell us what else he told you to say to us.”
“No, elder, you must not consider the words of the Mongolian commander so lightly. His threat is half the punishment and his punishment is terrible, like the punishment of God! Please heed the rest of what behadir Burunda commands me to say to you. The goal of his march is Uhri, the kingdom of the Magyars which had submitted to the rule of the great Jinghis Khan but now rebels and refuses to recognize his sovereignty. To punish this insurgence the great Jinghis Khan sent his army to the West. Should it be your concern to check its progress?”
“Behadir Burunda, the commander of a part of that vast army, wishes to depart from here amicably. He holds prisoner one of your own men, your son, elder Zakhar. This is all he wants you to do: Raze your barricades and allow the Mongolian army to get out of the valley. In exchange for this, he will return the prisoner to you alive and well. Think how advantageous for you is Burunda’s benign proposition. Your resistance is useless, no matter what you do, the Mongols will eventually level your fortifications and will go their way. But they don’t want to lose any more time in your valley or to spill any of your blood and are ready to give back your man for their passage through. If your decision is unfavorable, it’s understood that certain death by horrible torture awaits him and for you also awaits a bloody massacre in which, despite your best efforts, you will be crushed and destroyed utterly. Choose then for yourselves what is best!”
The Tukholian elders listened attentively to Tuhar Wolf’s speech and upon some of the points it was apparent they agreed. Observing this, Zakhar said, “Honorable brothers, do you want to hold a council to consider Burunda’s proposal seriously or are you unequivocally agreed in favor of accepting his proposal at once as it stands?”
“Let’s deliberate upon it first!” the elders replied. Then Zakhar asked Tuhar Wolf to withdraw for a few minutes.
Imperiously, the boyar retreated in the company of his daughter.
“Zakhar,” said one of the townsmen, “this is definitely a question of life or death for your son. Wouldn’t it be better for us to forego an uncertain battle and save the boy?”
“You’re wrong, this is not a question of my boy’s life at all,” remonstrated Zakhar Berkut. “If it were really a matter concerning my boy, I would say to you, ‘I have no son, my son died in battle.’ But this is a question of loyalty to our neighbors, those living on the mountain crest and on the other side, who are depending upon our defence and who, unprepared, would all have to perish by the hands of the Mongolians. That is why I am telling you, don’t consider my son, but proceed as if he were already buried!”
“Nonetheless, Zakhar, the outcome of a war with a preponderate Mongolian force is problematical.”
“Well then, every last one of us will die in the battle. After that, over our corpses, the Mongols can go wherever they please. But to negotiate an agreement with them now on such unequal terms as the exchange of the life of one youth for the death and destruction of our neighbors would be shameful, treason. But who can predict in advance whether the outcome of the war with the Mongols is indefinite? Our position has every advantage, the Mongolians are locked in a rocky basin. With comparatively small losses to ourselves we can go on resisting their most determined attacks. But I doubt we will need to lose even that. This very night we will unleash our strongest ally which no human power can withstand, even if it’s ten times stronger than the Mongolian.”
“Then you advise us to reject Burunda’s proposition?”
“Absolutely.”
“And give your son up to inevitable death?”
“Don’t remind me of my son!” cried Zakhar agonizingly. “Whoever reminds a father of his son in such a situation as this acts contrary to the dictates of common sense. My better judgment tells me to reject the proposal. What my heart tells me is no one else’s concern but mine!”
“Well then, have it your way!” said the elders. “If God has willed that he should die, there is nothing we can do to prevent it. If not, then he will be saved from the clutches of the brutal foe.”
They summoned the boyar and Zakhar stood up to deliver the council’s decision. Her heart threshing with a dreadful fear, Peace-Renown watched his face, still hoping that the Tukholians would want to ransom her Maxim.
“Logically, as you understood it, you presented the proposal for the agreement desired by your commander very well. We do not blame you, it was your duty to the man you serve to make his proposition sound as desirable to us as possible. Please now harken to what the common peasant intellect of our community replies to your proposal: If it were purely a matter between me and your behadir, I would gladly give him everything that I own including my own grey old head for the release of my son. But you are proposing to us an unfair exchange by which only I and my family will benefit, with a consequent loss not only of one township but all the communities through which your army will march. Is it right then to make such a sacrifice? Of what use is my son to the mountain top and beyond the mountain communities? If we let you out of this valley, it will mean the destruction of those other neighboring townships with whom we are in concord. We promised and undertook to defend them against the attack and upon this guarantee they sent us their aid, five hundred select young men. Plainly our duty is to hold our own to the very last and we intend to do this. It’s possible God has willed that you will defeat us, in that case we shall not stop you. But remember, that only over the dead bodies of the last Tukholians will you be able to get out of this valley. But then who knows, perhaps the conquest is to be ours, then you can be sure that having come into our valley you have all entered your graves so that even your corpses will never again be carried out of it. Either we will all die or you will, there is no other choice. This is our answer.”
Zakhar Berkut’s face flushed with a strange fire while he pronounced these terrible words, so that the boyar, gazing at the tall old man with his hand outstretched, could find no adequate reply to make. He saw plainly that it was useless to argue any further and silently he turned about and walked away.
A gloomy silence hung over the council, only the fire crackled and spluttered and the unceasing felling and scraping of wood being made into engines with which to kill the Mongols resounded within the glade.
“Father!” cried Peace-Renown in a tortured voice. “Father, come back!” She ran after him and caught him by the hand. Filial love once more overpowered her with an undeniable force. “Father, come back! Stay here among your own people! Face the aggressors with them in battle like a brother at the side of his brothers and they will forgive you for everything in the past. But there . . . what can you expect from them? They will deceive you, will intoxicate you with promises and then murder you! Father, please don’t go back to the Mongols . . . there only death awaits you!”
The boyar stood undecided, lost in thought, but only for a moment. Then he embraced Peace-Renown and said half-gently and half-reprovingly, “Foolish girl, it’s not time yet for me to die! The Mongols have not yet lost all hope for escape. It will be necessary to make the most of what we have. But if matters don’t turn out well there . . .”
“Please, dear papa,” whispered Peace-Renown through tears, “forsake such thoughts! How do you know it won’t be too late for you then!”
“Fret not, it shan’t be too late. Stay here and befriend the Tukholians for my sake . . . but I must return. Don’t forget, daughter there also . . . is . . . your Maxim and who knows, perhaps we can be of some assistance to each other. Farewell!”
Tuhar Wolf disappeared into the forest of saplings, hurrying along the path to the campfire above the cliffs by which he would find the path leading down into the Mongolian entrenchment. He examined the almost completed engine by the campfire, tried the ropes and shaking his head remarked, “It’s too weak!” and then, accompanied by Tukholian guards, he made his descent down the steep, narrow path into the valley.
In the meantime over the Glade of Light brooded an ominous silence as if within its center lay the body of a dearly beloved comrade. Only Peace-Renown sobbed audibly wiping away the tears which rolled down her face. Finally she moved nearer to Zakhar and said, “Father, what have you done?”
“That which it was my duty to do. It would not have been right to do otherwise,” replied Zakhar.
“But it’s your son, your own son! What will happen to him?”
“Whatever God wills, daughter. That’s enough, please don’t cry any more! We have work to do. There you see the starry wagon rolling down to the west and the quail in the thickets is announcing the approach of dawn.”
“Come fellow citizens, let us go to the defence, rather to 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 quietly slid down. The girls handed their wreaths to the youths . . . it was not absolutely necessary for them to descend all the way into the valley where any moment the enemy might attack. Last came the elders with Zakhar Berkut and having reviewed the position of the armed youths and all their preparations they hastened to the narrows through which the Tukholian stream foamed and rolled in crystal waves out of the valley.
Zakhar paused before the Sentinel and began to gaze up at him intently. Peace reigned everywhere. Zakhar prayed: “Our great Guardian! You whom our forefathers regarded as their protector, whom we have reverenced until now with yearly festivities, night after night, three times in succession now, you have appeared to me in my dreams as if you were falling on top of me to crush me. I believe that you are benign and merciful and if you are calling me to yourself, then I take joy in your summons and will gladly follow you. But if you are weary of your everlastingly upright position, then destroy, oh Master, with your great weight this vicious enemy, the children of Morsanna who again today have overflowed your blessed kingdom, the Tukholian valley! Break once more her evil power as you did before when with a forcible blow of your mighty arm you cracked this solid wall of stone, allowing the waters to seep through it, and gave this beauteous valley to the people! Dam it up again and let the brutal conquerors, who are now abusing us, perish!”
At this juncture a fiery flash rent the dark heavens from south to north and far away in the mountains echoed a hollow roar of thunder.
“Yes! That was your mighty voice!” cried Zakhar joyously.
“Come children! For the last time let us crown this sacred stone.”
Four youths climbed up a ladder to the top of the column of rock and entwined it with green wreaths. Again it thundered to the south.
“It is his will, children!” said Zakhar. “Wind the ropes about him! And you others, quickly, take the spades! Dig around the base and place the timbers. Quickly, children, quickly!”
Rapidly, noiselessly, toiled tens of pairs of arms by the Sentinel. At the top it was being entwined with cordage and at the bottom spaded up at its foundation. In this ditch fir timbers, which were to serve as levers, were placed at right angles to help loosen and knock the stone column down across the corridor. Swiftly the efficient youths made all the necessary preparations, took away the ladders and placed thick blocks of stone beneath the wooden levers.
“Take hold of the ropes all of you who can reach them! The youths take hold of the levers!” commanded Zakhar and at once a hundred hands were set to the task.
“Come, all together, pull!” cried Zakhar. “Pull! Pull!”
The people grunted with the effort, the levers of solid timber squeaked and creaked but the stone did not even budge.
“Once more! Pull harder!” shouted Zakhar and himself laid hold of the rope. The huge stone swayed a little.
“It’s moving, it’s moving!” the people cried exultantly.
“Again! Pull with all your might!”
Once more the people grunted with the effort and all at once the pull of the ropes slackened, the huge stone swayed at its foundation a moment and then with a deafening crash fell across the stream of water, blocking the entrance. The Tukholian valley groaned and trembled from the force of the blow, the pearly drops of water splashed high in all directions and the joyous outcry of the Tukholians filled the air.
The Mongolian army peacefully sleeping in its camp was rudely wakened, the guards screamed, the officers barked commands, weapons clanged, but in a moment all was still again. The Mongolians, expecting an attack, stood ready to defend themselves, but the Tukholians did not even dream of attacking them. They were busily preparing an altogether different sort of offensive.
Zakhar, nimbly as a youth, examined the position of the reclining stone. It had fallen as well as if it had been fitted there for ages past. It wedged its sharp points between the jagged crags which formed the opening of the corridor and with all its enormous mass, bridged the stream. It is true of course that it did not dam up the waters of the stream entirely as they flowed in a deeper bed, but some of the Tukholian youths were already lugging big slabs of rock while others cleared the bottom of the stream of sand and cobble-stones in order to seal the stream’s outlet completely; while still others were building a wall with the thickest blocks of stone within the corridor, along the other side of the fallen column, about six yards across. That wall with the mighty Sentinel as its base could safely withstand the strongest possible pressure of the stream.
“Faster, children!” urged Zakhar, standing by the stream, lending aid to the work now with his hands and now with advice. “Block up the stream before the water gets too deep. High up in the mountains there seems to have been a severe rainstorm. Soon the flood waters will come, then it will be too difficult for us to finish our task. The wall must be built up even with those overhanging crags. Now we’ll see how effective the power of Jinghis Khan will be against the force of the water!”
The work proceeded speedily. In a short while the course of the stream was entirely checked. Wrathfully the blocked-up stream whirled around in its bed as if it did not understand why its flow should have been stopped. Time after time it dashed itself furiously against the wall of stone, gnawing at the blocks of rock fitted at the bottom, searching for a vent between them, but it was all in vain, everywhere stone was piled upon stone, firmly pressed and fitted and knocked together into a solid, impenetrable bulwark. The water gurgled. It pressed all its might against it then ceased, astonished, outwardly quiescent, but boiling with fury within its crystal depths. Like a bison who, preparing for a charge, stands with his head lowered, horns turned towards the ground, quietly awaiting the opportunity to make a sudden charge upon the enemy, the Tukholian stream, unaccustomed to being prisoned, halted for a moment, calmed itself as if it grew weary and napped in its shallow banks, meanwhile gathering sufficient force and boldness for a renewed and more resolute attack, at first only gently pressing itself against the wall as if trying out with its shoulders whether the barrier suddenly put in its way would not yield. But the wall stood firm, cold, smooth, disdainfully impervious in its impregnability.
The busy, attentive hands of the Tukholians kept on strengthening it laying down stone after stone block upon block cementing them together with sticky-smooth, impervious clay. Like a new mountain raised up out of the ground by an infinite power the dam of rock rose ever higher and higher under the hands of the Tukholians. The armed youths had long ago abandoned their position within the valley facing the Mongolian camp and exchanged their bows and battle-axes for cross-bars and adzes with which to trim the slabs of rock for fitting them together.
Happily Zakhar watched the progress of their work and in his eyes there glowed the certitude that they would defeat the enemy.
In the east, over the Mongols’ entrenched camp, the clouds were flushed with pink. It was dawning. The rosy glow enveloped the peak of Mt. Zelemenya extending its sparkling rays ever lower downward. The clouds parted a little more, then slowly, timidly, the sun rolled out into the sky and peeped at the Tukholians occupied with their task. Glancing up at the rising sun, Zakhar’s heart filled with joy and with outstretched hands and upraised voice he greeted it.
“Oh Sun, great and brilliant ruler of the earth! Everlasting protector of all those who are pure of heart and soul! Look down upon us! You see, we have been assaulted by a barbaric foe who has ruined our homes and ravaged our country and murdered thousands of our people. In your name we have stood in mortal combat with the enemy and by your light we vow to go on fighting until we draw our last breath. Help us in that fierce struggle! Give us courage, skill and unity. Let us not crumble under their bombardment or be frightened by their preponderance in numbers, but let us believe in our strength and ability! Inspire in us the spirit of harmony and cooperation and give us the intelligence to apply strategy to defeat the marauders. Oh Sun, I bow as our forefathers bowed before you and pray to you sincerely, with all my heart, give us victory!”
His prayer was done. His passionate, potent words quivered in the clear, fresh morning air. They were heard not by the Tukholians alone but the hills heard them and passed their echo on from peak to peak. Also they were heard by the waves of the dammed-up stream and, as if it had reconsidered the matter, it stopped hurling itself against the stone barrier and instead began backing away from it.