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.
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 Nairi, 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.
Shorn of their chief, the fury of the Bactrians ceased, and, fearing the
day was lost, they wheeled and sought for safety in retreat. The
mountaineers of Nairi barred their path, but were ridden down as an east
wind sweeps a lake, though many a horse and rider fell before their
spears. Upward the Bactrians toiled, with Ninus and his riders hacking
at their heels, till the mountain top was reached, and a beaten army
fled like foxes to the plains below. Their King had made a valiant cast
for victory, yet Ninus stood, a conqueror, on the spine of Hindu-Kush.
And now came a swarm of fighting-men from out the bloody pass--exulting
horsemen, shouting charioteers, Menon and his men-at-arms who had run
throughout the night to shield the glory of Assyria and the glory of
Assyria's King.
The eyes of the monarch fell upon the Prince of Nairi who strode toward
him through the throng, and his heart grew warm with the old, strong
love that slumbered, but had not died. He was fain to forget the
follies of this youth, to take the hands of Menon into his own and lay
them against his breast; yet the smile of a sudden faded from his lips,
his brow grew clouded, and his outstretched arms sank slowly to his
sides. On the tongues of the multitudes a shout arose--a shout that
rolled across the trembling hills till its echoes bounded back from a
thousand crags; and the name it roared was not the name of Assyria's
lord, but Menon! MENON!--and the King grew cold in wrath. A serpent of
jealousy had coiled about his heart, and, striking, stung it to its
core.
"How now!" he demanded. "What manner of craft be this which bringeth
thee upon my heels? Perchance, when silent in our council tent, thou
knewest of this peril in our path, yet spoke no word, in the hope of
profit to thyself."
"Nay, lord," answered Menon, humbly, while he looked into his master
eyes; "too late to warn thee I learned from a captured spy of this trap
beyond the pass, so I hastened by a shorter path across the hills, with
as great a force as I dare detach from the army left on guard."
"A likely tale!" the angry monarch scoffed, though he knew in his heart
that Menon spoke the truth. "Go back to my wagon-trains which are left
as a tempting bait to our watchful foes! And mark thou this," he cried
as he clenched his fist, "bring down my stores and my engines of war
unharmed before the walls of Zariaspa, or account to Ninus for a trust
betrayed!"
Prince Menon flushed, then paled again as he strove to hold an eager
tongue in bounds.
"So be it," he answered, haughtily, and turned upon his heel; but Ninus
called him back, for it came to him that his words were hasty and
hurtful to the minds of those who heard.
"What wilt thou," he asked, "in payment of thy deed? Where Assyria
oweth, there Assyria will pay, nor boggle at the price. What, then,
wilt thou have at the hands of Assyria's King?"
"Naught," said Menon, looking on his master with a level gaze. "There
are mongers of fish who hawk their wares in the open market-place. A
warrior may buy; but a warrior selleth not--even to Assyria's lord."
Once more he turned upon his heel, and, commanding Kedah to collect his
men-at-arms, strode down the mountainside on the backward trail, while
the King gazed grimly after him and spoke no word.
A failure Ninus might forgive, but Menon's triumph galled him, even as
an ill-set bandage chafes a wound.