I think that the holidays feel like frozen noses. I love walking with the dog for long periods of time.

Hopefully it's snowing and you've got to wrap up warm. So I think a frozen nose is

then sweaty armpits because like you're wrapped up so warm but then you're climbing hamps

and heath and you get to the top and you're like and then you can see the breath

but then your nose is still freezing to touch.

Joy in every sip with red carp snout back at Starbucks.

It is early morning on the 21st of December 1237 in the city of Rizan in what is now central Russia.

A young archer jogs through the city streets pulling his heavy tunic tight around his

shoulders to keep the chill wind out. He reaches the perimeter and climbs the city's great stone

walls to where he's been summoned by his general. As the soldier reaches his post a knot of dread

tightens in his stomach. It is five days since the city fell for earth rumble beneath the thunderous

clatter of hooves, a stampeding Mongol force under the dreaded Batu Khan.

They swiftly surround the city and have been shiring it with arrows ever since.

But this fifth day under siege the soldier sees now might well be the last.

Since it started he and his comrades have been powerless to do anything but watch as the Mongols

chopped down trees from a nearby forest. Now the huge fence they've been building around Rizan is finished.

The Mongols have changed the terms of the engagement. The arched and his fellow defenders

are sealed within the city by both wall and fence. They can't escape and they can barely fight back.

Right now no arrows fly and an awful silence gathers. It's the surest sign that an attack is coming.

There's an uneasy hush among his compatriots as they listen hard for movement behind the fence.

The archer draws his bow, his fingers quivering on the string as he awaits the inevitable.

And then it begins. A cloud of arrows emerges from behind the new wooden wall.

...