Beyond, in the centre of the press, the King, aroused from sleep, sprang from his litter and seized a passing steed; half clad, unarmored and unhelmed, he rose to Assyria's stress. Here was no weakling, cowering at a grave mischance of war, but a King who conquered nations, teaching them, like dogs, to lick his hand; and when they snarled he walked among them with a whip. What recked it though his foes were hidden among the heights, his army writhing in a pit of gloom? A King was a King, and peril ran as mothers-milk on the lips of the lord of men.
In the half light Ninus towered above his followers, his bare arms raised aloft, his great voice rolling forth commands, till those who had lost their wits in the sudden fury of attack, plucked courage from their master's fearless front. Where tossing, disordered troops ran riot among themselves, balking defense and fanning the torch of panic into flame, they now pressed backward from the valley's sides and the zone of plunging rocks, raising their shields to protect their heads from showers of arrows and smaller stones. Where horsemen proved a hindrance, the riders dismounted, and while one force was sent ahead to tear away the spear-set barrier, still others charged the hillsides, scrambling up by the aid of projecting roots, in a valiant effort to dislodge their foes; but the Bactrians beat them back with savage thrusts of javelins and of spears. So soon as an Assyrian head arose above some ledge, a wild-haired mountaineer would cleave it with an axe and laugh aloud as the corpse went tumbling down, itself a missile, thwarting the progress of its scuffling friends.
Again and again the assault was checked, till the climbers faltered and then went reeling down the slope, while the Bactrians shrieked their triumph from above, and the wrath of Ninus knew no bounds. He raged about him, striking with his sword at every flying warrior within his reach, cursing their cowardice and leaping from his steed to lead one last mad onslaught on his enemies.
There were those who fain would save their King, so they flung themselves upon him and clung in the manner of wriggling eels; yet even as they struggled a louder shouting rose among the rocks, and the strugglers paused in awe. Commingled with the shouts came cries of sharp alarm, while the Bactrian shafts were aimed no longer in the valley's bed, but upward at the crags. King Ninus looked and marveled. The gloom of dawn was thinning rapidly; great coils of mist, that swam among the peaks, unwound and disappeared, scattered by shifting winds, or sucked into thirsty, deep defiles. The red sun shot above a ragged spur, flinging his torch of hope into the death-strewn pass, for upon the heights on either hand the warm light lit the arms of Menon and Kedah as they led their men.
As Bactria had pressed upon Assyria's force below, so now Prince Menon galled the Bactrians from his vantage point above, destroying them with arrows and with slings, with down-flung stones and the trunks of fallen trees. With Kedah came the Syrian hillsmen, silent, pitiless, while Menon led the loose-limbed mountaineers from the land of Naïri, to whom a fray was as a feast of wine. They sang as they swept the cliffs, jeering, mocking while they slew, seizing their fallen foes where other missiles failed and flinging their bodies on the heads of those beneath.
In the gorge the King's men once more scrambled up the slopes, snatching at the foemen's legs and feet, dragging them from rifts and crevices. Anon two foes would grapple on some narrow ledge, totter, and plunge, still fighting with nails and teeth, till the shock of death released them from the fierce embrace. The Bactrians who sought to fly were caught below on the points of spears with shouts of vengeful joy, while those who held their ground in the courage of despair, were slain where they stood, for mercy they begged not nor received.
A breach had now been torn through the barrier of stones which stretched across the gorge, and the King, to relieve the press within, led three score thousand horsemen out and breasted the gentle slope beyond; yet scarce had he cleared the opening when Oxyartes, with a cloud of riders, swept into view and came thundering down the hill. They far outnumbered the Assyrian horse and held a marked advantage by reason of their whirlwind rush; yet the heart of the King arose. Here was no unseen enemy hurling stones from shrouded heights, but a foe to charge on even ground, sword to sword and shield to shield—a foe to conquer in the glory of his strength, or to free a royal saddle of its weight.
"At them!" he cried and loosed his bridle rein, while his followers with a shout of joy came streaming after him. With a clangorous roar the riders met, their horses rearing to the shock, battling with hoofs or toppling backward upon those who pressed behind. For an instant Bactrian and Assyrian both recoiled, then drew their breath and fell to the work of war—a struggle, deadly, fraught with fate, for victory gave the whip-hand unto Ninus or the brave King Oxyartes; and so the leaders vied in their deeds of arms. They met at last, the sword of Ninus clanging on the Bactrian's blade; and for a space they glared across their shield-rims silently, then rose in their saddles for a scepter-stroke that would mark a kingdom's fall.
Yet fate had written that this stroke was not to be, for the chiefs were swept apart by a surging rush of men, and each was forced to steep his blade in the blood of meaner foes, while the tangled, battling mass was moving once again, downward, when the weight of Oxyartes's force began to tell. Slowly, foot by foot, the Assyrians gave ground, in spite of Ninus and his mighty arm, till the rearward riders backed into the barrier of stones, or struggled vainly, in its narrow breach.
Of a certainty the King was in a grievous case, yet now from the hillsides Menon and Kedah stung the Bactrians' flanks, taking them with flights of shafts that pierced their armpits, sank into their necks or unprotected backs, while the Syrian slingers marked their own and grunted in their toil. A leaden pellet smote King Oxyartes full upon the helm. He reeled and would have plunged beneath his horse's hoofs, but a warrior leaped behind him, clutching the drooping form and guiding the good steed rearward on the run.