grew denser while the Mongolian shots did no damage to the Tukholians.
Tuhar Wolf, observing the position of the enemy, noticed that by the biggest engine, which unceasingly hurled either heavy blocks of stone or whole bushels of pebbles down on the Mongols, stood his own daughter, Peace-Renown, among several Tukholian elders and directed all the workings of that machine.
Maxim had noticed her sometime before and did not take his eyes off her. How happy he would have been to stand there by her side and listen to her courageous, intelligent commands and to injure the enemy at her direction! But alas, that was not his fate! There he stood himself among these foes, without chains but still powerless, a prisoner, wishing that a stone thrown by her hands might end his torture and his life.
Tuhar Wolf tugged at his sleeve.
“It’s no use staring up there, boy,” he said. “My daughter’s gone completely crazy. Look what she’s doing! Nontheless, for us it’s getting worse and worse. Do you have such floods as this very often?”
“Like this? Never!”
“What do you mean ‘never’?”
“Because this is not a flood. You can see yourself the water is clear.”
“Not a flood? Then what is it?”
“Haven’t you already guessed, Boyarin? The Tukholians have blocked the outlet of the stream in order to flood the valley.”
“Blocked it up!” cried the boyar. “That means . . .”
“It means the stream will continue to swell until . . .”
“Until what?”
“Until it drowns all of us, of course!”
The boyar pounded his head with his fists. “And you knew this all along?”
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