Prince Asharal went backward, whispering to the chieftains of his line who in turn passed down the purport of command to every follower, then in silence the march went on.
They came at last to the mouth of the passage-way which was guarded by a double gate of brass, and beyond, through its massive bars, could be discerned a vaulted chamber, where the city cisterns lay, stretching away in impenetrable gloom. Behind the gates sat a full-armed sentinel drowsing at his post, yet an arrow in his throat brought deeper slumber to the man; then Huzim raised his hammer and, grunting, struck the gates. Thrice fell his mighty blows, with a clanging crash that sent the echoes rolling down a hundred passage-ways, and from out the murk came running other sentinels, trumpet-tongued in the flush of dread alarm.
"Strike, Huzim!" shrilled Semiramis. "Strike in the name of Bêlit—and in mine!"
So Huzim once more raised the hammer head above his own and, with a heave which drove the blood from out his nostrils, struck; the brazen gates fell inward, smitten from their hinges, and Semiramis sprang over them. Upward her warriors pressed toward halls of Zariaspa's citadel, and where a doorway barred their path, there Huzim smote it, till wood and metal gave before his strength; then into the central hall burst a raging imp of war, with the wolves of Babylonia baying at her heels.
Within the inner court were gathered many women, the wives of nobles, the children of King Oxyartes and his spouse, huddled together in the fear of death, but these Semiramis harmed not. Her work was laid among the warriors who manned the gates of the outer court, holding them for the inrush of the Bactrians fighting in the streets, for every man who might be spared from the citadel's defense was flung against the invading hordes of Menon and the King. So it chanced that within the citadel were, in all, three thousand men-at-arms, and these Semiramis attacked as a hound may leap at a lion's throat; yet ill it might have gone with her slender force had Menon not sent another thousand warriors to follow down the hidden river course. They came at the turning point of fate, the mountaineers from the land of Naïri, wild, hairy men who sang as they fought, or died with a broken song upon their lips; thus their strange, barbaric tongues gave heart to Babylon, even as their swords brought woe amongst the enemy.
The gates were won; the victors pursued their quarry from hall to hall, through winding passageways and on stairs that dripped with blood, while Semiramis, with Kedah and Huzim, worked ever upward toward the highest battlements. Two stairways led to an opening on the roof, the one upon the right, the other on the left, and these they mounted, while from without came the roar of battle raging in the streets.
When the Bactrians, pressed by Ninus, sought refuge in their citadel they came upon fast-locked gates, and so a tangled swarm of defeated warriors were squeezed against the walls, while into them drove Menon and the King, cleaving a pathway to the goal of their hearts' desire.
From the press King Ninus looked upward to the summit of the citadel and marvelled at what he saw, for a shepherd dog—the first to stand a conqueror thereon—looked down and barked and barked; then Semiramis sprang beside him, her red locks tossing from beneath her helm. She, too, looked down, on a caldron of murder seething in the pool of Zariaspa's walls; then she raised her round young arms, and, even as the conquering eagle screams, so screamed Semiramis, in a vaunting battle-cry.
In the streets below that cry reechoed from the thirst-parched tongues of a raging multitude that thundered at the fast-locked gates and trod on a floor of slain; then the bolts were drawn and the halls of the citadel were gorged with the inrush of a conquering horde. In the van ran Ninus, and close beside him Menon came, each intent on mounting to the battlements, each watching covertly lest the other gain some vantage ground; thus it came about that the two contrived a separate road. The King advanced to the stairway on the right, and with sword in hand looked backward, in a grim, unspoken vow to slay the man who followed him; but a Babylonian whispered in the ear of Menon who was straightway swallowed up amongst the throng.
Now the followers of Asharal, according to their pledge, made way for Menon, opening a path toward the flight of stairs upon the left, while the right was barred by the fighting-men of Babylon. Here none might mount and live, yet at the coming of the King—this black-browed warrior-lord of all the world—the blood of Babylon was cooled; their sword points fell, and they suffered him to pass—to pass across the wounded, senseless form of Asharal.