"The wolves of the wood came up against the mountain-bull, and thought to slay him, saying, We are fierce and daring, my brothers, because we live on blood; and this creature cannot resist us, for his food cometh up under the dews of heaven, and he slakes his thirst in the murmuring stream of the hills. Also, we outnumber him a hundred to one. Therefore will we encircle him, and leap on him, and pull him down; so shall we fatten on his carcass, and drain the warm life-blood from his throat. Let us go up against him without fear, in an open space, rejoicing that he has been delivered unto us for a prey.
"But a herd of wild deer were feeding in the plain, and when the wolves approached they took to flight; so the mountain-bull, grazing far above them, raised his head, and was aware of his enemy crowding and circling towards him, like the waves of the Northern Sea. Then he withdrew into a thicket, where he set his back against the solid rock; and when the wolves made at him, fiercely, but one by one, they dashed themselves to pieces in vain against his shaggy front, writhing under his feet, falling pierced and mangled by his mighty horns.
"Men of the Mountain and Sons of the Naked Sword, is not Armenia strong and tameless as the wild bull of her hills? Are not the sons of Ashur innumerable and pitiless as the wolves that scour the forest, leaving only bones white and bare where they have passed? Ye have learned by these messengers that our country has been entered and our honour assailed. The banner of Assyria is flaunting in Armenian breezes, the sons of the Mighty Hunter are trooping in by thousands from the south, to slay and ravage and destroy. Therefore I call on you at my need, therefore I bid you to council; not to deliberate on a question of peace or war, for the bow is already broken and the sword unsheathed, but to advise with your king and leader how best we shall rid us of our enemy, and drive the wolf back, cowed, mangled, halting, and howling, to his den!"
Wilder, fiercer, louder with every peal, rose the shouts that greeted the Comely King's harangue, while he paused and looked about him, stately and graceful, like a master-stag at bay. Brawny arms were tossed, and naked swords brandished aloft in very ecstasy of warlike defiance, nor, of all those manly russet-bearded faces, was there one that failed to express intense hatred of the stranger, implicit trust and confidence in the might of Armenia, with a fixed resolve to die, if need be, at worst, fighting hard to the very end.
When the council which Aryas had summoned took their places for deliberation, there seemed but one opinion—that, gathering all their forces without delay, they should pour down into the plain, like their own rivers in flood, and, overwhelming the foe in their onslaught, sweep him back to the place from whence he came. Who could stand before the hosts of the North? Were they not Men of the Mountain and Sons of the Naked Sword?
It was the king's bowbearer whose skill and experience tempered this bold resolve with a degree of caution, resulting from his own knowledge of the Assyrians' warlike resources. When it came to his turn to speak, though somewhat mistrusting his advice as an alien, none could gainsay the soundness of his argument, agreeing as it did with the half-expressed opinion of the Comely King.
Insisting strenuously on the countless numbers of the enemy, and their over-powering strength in chariots and horsemen, he urged that it would be the height of imprudence to meet them in the open plain, where they would too surely be encircled and crushed by their enemy in a resistless girdle of steel.
"The wild bull," said he, "in the words of my lord the king, hath his rock, and the Men of the Mountain have their fastnesses. The wolves of the wood may dash themselves to pieces against the one, and the sons of Ashur spend their might in vain against the other. Let them advance here to meet us in the heart of Armenia, and so, falling on them weary, impoverished, and exhausted, let us fight a decisive battle under the very walls of Ardesh, and so destroy them, once for all, never to bend a bow nor lift a spear again."
After much discussion, the stranger's advice was allowed to be sound and good. It was resolved, therefore, that the Armenian forces should be concentrated in the very centre of the kingdom, there to await the attack of Semiramis with her innumerable hosts; and the same decision seeming also good when discussed, according to Armenian custom, over the wine-cup, every man went home to sharpen his sword and fit his bowstring for the coming fray.