Page:Zakhar Berkut(1944).djvu/215

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

the Tukholians annihilate post after post of the Mongolian army.

With clenched teeth, squatting on their rafts, the Tukholians rode the waves, steering towards the Mongols. At some of the posts they were met by an obstinate resistance. Blood flowed, groans and wails rose from both sides, corpses fell from the rafts and the stone heaps but the resistance of the Mongols was of short duration. Like a blazing fire that sweeps over a field of mowed hay and devours stack after stack of dried hay, the Tukholians swept the dwindling Mongols off their heaps, one after the other, into the water and into the chill embraces of death. Soon there was not a trace left of the little black islands in the center of the lake. Further away towards one side of the valley, not far from the banks, there stood the last remaining group, like the last black rock, lifting its peak above a flooded area. This was Burunda’s personal contingent, one hundred select Turkomen, Tuhar Wolf and Maxim, all that remained of the once prodigious Mongolian army, which was to have marched over the Tukholian trail to the kingdom of the Magyars and which had found here among the mountain ranges a chill grave in the icy mountain streams though it had successfully crossed the Ayka, Volga, Don and Dnieper rivers. This intrepid group of men who stood surrounded by water without hope of being saved, with but one desire, to sell their lives dearly in battle, was the last sacrifice to Mors.

The entire population of the Tukholian township had assembled before this last enemy stronghold. They lowered two additional rafts in order to encircle and harass the enemy from all sides. The foe was bombarded from the top of the bank by a barrage of heavy missiles and arrows. Most of these did not reach Burunda’s post, others even though they reached it, did not harm the Turkomen. However, the Tukholians were afraid to come too close because of the volleys of poisoned

206