CHAPTER XVI
THE PASS OF THE WEDGE
With the army of Ninus the night had passed without alarm, for in the lead crept a force of spies who watched the way and made report by signals that the road was clear of enemies. Following the spies came a mass of mounted spearsmen, armed also with swords and shields, a vanguard for the King who reposed in his royal litter borne by slaves. Then came another horde of close-ranked horsemen, nodding on the backs of their toiling steeds, or cursing at the steeps of their tedious ascent. Behind rolled a host of heavy chariots, their horses well-nigh spent by the labor of their climb and the need of water for their thirsty throats.
Slowly and more slowly still this mighty monster crawled upward on its way, through gloom more dense than night because of towering rock-walls which shut it in, deflecting icy winds that searched the crevices of armor-plate or the seams of leathern coats. Then the road became more difficult, for, as dawn approached, the mountain pass grew narrower in its cleft, till far above the riders' heads the cliffs leaned inward, leaving but a ribbon's width of star-stabbed sky between.
And now the gorge came suddenly to an end, as though rent apart by giants of some forgotten age. The ground still sloped toward the ridge of Hindu-Kush, but the hillsides sheared away on either hand, their faces scarred by black ravines, by twisting ridges, tangled root-dried shrubbery, and wastes of splintered rock.
This place was known to travellers as the Pass of the Wedge, because of its strange formation, resembling in shape some splitting instrument which forced two soaring mountain-backs apart. In its neck, at the narrowest point, six chariots might drive abreast, yet it broadened till its widest reach might hold a thousand horsemen standing flank to flank; and here the Assyrian vanguard spread as spreads a fan, rejoicing to be free at last from the gloomy gorge which had closed about their heads.
Here, too, the crafty Oxyartes laid his snare, for as each Assyrian spy came through the pass, a shadowy form rose up behind him, and in a moment more a noose would grip his neck, and his shout of warning died with his strangled breath. Then the Bactrians, themselves, stole backward down the trail with signals that the road was clear, luring a drowsy army on to a swift awakening of woe.
Thus, in the haze of dawn, the foremost Assyrian riders came against a barrier of high-piled stones whose crevices were filled with a hedge of planted spears. Too late the horsemen checked their steeds, wheeling to warn their followers. A torch flared out from the rocks above, and at the sign the battle broke with a deep, tumultuous roar, wherein the screams of men were intermingled with a rushing avalanche of stones, the hiss of shafts and the whine of leaden pellets hurled from slings. Great boulders, hurtling down the steep declivities, would strike the bottom, rending bloody lines through the mass of close-packed horsemen, or, bursting into fragments, hurl a score of riders from their steeds.
The last of the horses had passed the gorge's neck, and at the signal of alarm, long files of chariots came streaming out, to meet a heaving, backward wave of terror-stricken men, each seeking safety from the missiles of their unseen enemies, and finding death in a rush of wheels. The chariot horses reared and plunged beneath a galling hail of darts, fell and became entangled with their harness, while other chariots crashed into them and piled upon the wreck.
Another signal torch flared up, and blood-mad Bactria seemed to tear the very hills apart. A storm of stones was poured into the gorge's neck, till a mound of splintered chariots and dying warriors arose, choking egress, cutting off retreat, and locking Ninus with the flower of his force in a trap of death.