arrows aimed at them. Swiftly noting the futility of their shots, they ceased and stood quietly watching.
High up on the edge of the cliff, stood Zakhar Berkut, eyes fastened on his son who stood among the foes, agilely avoiding the bursts of flying arrows and stones. Further away among those who did the shooting, stood Peace-Renown and her glances flew faster than her shots into the group of enemies among whom stood all that was most precious in her life, her father and Maxim. With each arrow shot released by the bow of a Tukholian, her heart almost failed her.
The youths upon the rafts soon tired of aiming from a distance without hitting their marks. They took courage and drew nearer. The Turkomen greeted them with their poisoned arrows and wounded several. But they soon noticed that the foes were all out of that deadly ammunition and with savage yells they closed in upon them, steering their rafts directly towards them. Silently the Turkomen, held together by a discipline as unyielding as iron, awaited their attack, tightly grouped together to resist the Tukholians and the waves. But the Tukholians, having come to within two rods of them, hurled their javelins which hung suspended from their wrists by long spiral leather thongs. Ten foes howled at once and ten bodies toppled over into the water. Again the youths threw their javelins and again a few more of the enemy fell.
“Damnation upon you!” Burunda yelled at them in a wild frenzy of blasphemy. “They will pick off all of us that way, the dirty louts!”
But his wrath now had the same effect as the gentle evening breeze which sighs in the pines but harms no one. The Tukholian youths, screaming like vultures, circled around the enemy, attacking from all sides, killing one here, one there, with well-aimed javelin throws. Further self-defence was made impossible for the Mongols. They were forced to stand quietly as if bound, awaiting their death.
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