Chapter 1 (Fragment)

Not until this day did Maxim Berkut assume the full responsibility of the expedition. He neither hurried nor tarried, nor did he neglect to oversee every detail of the preparations. Everything had its time and place. Whether among his fellow mountaineers, the older and more experienced boyars, or the servants, Maxim moved about calmly, unobtrusively, giving orders confidently as if he considered them all his equals. His friends were just as free with him as he with them, laughing and joking with him at the same time carrying out his instructions promptly and happily as though they were doing everything on their own initiative without being told. The company of boyar warlords, accustomed to sly, derisive laughter on the one hand and to toadying servility on the other, were in their ways neither as free nor as readily given to jollity, nevertheless, they respected Maxim’s guidance and judgment and carried out his instructions without question.

Although the proud and arrogant boyars may have resented the presence of a common peasant “lout” who ordered them about as if they were his equals, it was demonstrated to them almost at every turn that his instructions were both sensible and necessary.

The sun had not yet risen when the huntsmen left their encampment. The mountains slept, wrapped in their blanket of hushed tranquility; dreamy mists enveloped the dark green, pointed crowns of the pine trees. Drops of dew hung like acorns among dense, many-pointed leaves; on the ground trailing garlands of climbing vines twisted and twined themselves around the roots of storm-uprooted trees, among the brambles of wild raspberry and blackberry bushes and intertwined themselves with the thick and fibrous shoots of wild hop vines. From the steep, darkly yawning gorges, rose a thick, grayish vapor, indicating that at their base flowed swift mountain currents. The air was oppressive with the mist and pungent odor of pine cones forcing their lungs to expand to their fullest capacity to catch a breath.

Wordlessly, the company of huntsmen pushed their way through the pathless jungle growth, over fallen timber and treacherous ravines. Maxim Berkut led the company followed by Tuhar Wolf, his daughter, the other boyars and the Tukholian youths in the rear. They proceeded cautiously, ears alert to every sound.

The woodland began to awaken to daytime activity. A woodpecker perched on the top of a giant pine a moment, slid down and pecked upon its bark his announcement of the sunrise. From a distance came the roars of bison and the yowls of jackals. The bears, having fed upon their kill, were drowsing away lolling on the soft, mossy beds of their dens at the bottoms of ravines and gorges, hidden beneath the screens of forest debris. A tribe of wild boars grunted at the bottom of a gulch, no doubt cooling their snouts in some icy torrent.

The company had made its toilsome way for an hour or more along the tangled thickets of the primeval forest. Their breathing was labored and difficult, they wiped their brows constantly of the trickling rivulets of perspiration, doing their best to keep up with their guide, Maxim, who kept glancing backward. At first, he had objected to allowing Tuhar’s daughter to accompany them on this most dangerous trip, but Peace-Renown was firmly insistent. It was the first time she had been on such an extensive hunting trip and so she was unwilling to give up her plans to accompany them on its most exciting expedition. None of Maxim’s arguments concerning the difficulties to be encountered on the way, the perils of the undertaking, the ferocity and cunning of animals maddened by shots that failed to hit their mark, availed to dissuade her. “All the better! All the better!” she had replied to everything, showing Maxim the intrepid ardor in her eyes, smiling up at him her sweet and utterly disarming smile so that Maxim, as if bewitched, ceased to press the matter further. Her father too, had at first opposed her wishes but in the end, as usual, gave in to her pleas.