A WIND FROM THE SOUTH
Day after day the friendship of these congenial spirits grew closer and
more familiar. The Assyrian had related his own eventful history to his
new lord, and Aryas seemed never weary of listening to the tale. Bold,
enterprising, and imaginative, he loved to hear of the conquest of
Ninus, the prowess of the sons of Ashur, the splendour of Babylon, the
wealth of Egypt, and the many adventures through which Sarchedon had
passed in his long journey from the tents of the Anakim to the mountain
fastnesses of his own northern kingdom. He would inquire minutely
concerning the evolutions and tactics of the Assyrian armies, the number
of their chariots, the strength of their cavalry, the weapons of their
men of war, and the proportion in which they made use of sling, bow, and
spear; but he could not be brought to take any interest, apart from her
warlike skill, in the character of Semiramis, paying little attention to
the other's glowing description of her lavish state and luxurious
magnificence, least of all caring to hear of her beauty, her
attractions, the glory of her apparel, the lustre of her personal
charms.
Even when Sarchedon poured his heart out freely on the subject of his
beloved Ishtar, the Comely King listened, indeed, with a certain show of
kindly interest, as due to the emotion of his friend, but obviously
failed to appreciate the importance of the subject, or to comprehend the
enthusiasm which could thus set up a pair of soft eyes and a fair face
for the aim of a man's whole energies, the reward of his perils and
toils. He did not understand how a woman's smile could possess such
attraction as the bray of a clarion, the flaunt of a banner, or the
managed leap of a horse.
Beautiful exceedingly, formed to be the delight of the other, as he was
the admired of his own, sex, love to the Comely King seemed but a
foolish riddle, not worth the trouble of solving, an irksome study
interfering with the pleasures of the chase, unmanly, untoward, but,
above all, tedious and out of place when other affairs were on hand.
"Show me a woman," said he, smiling at his bowbearer's rhapsodies, "with
an eye like my falcon and a heart like my dog; so will I too drink
myself drunk with this folly as with wine, to get sober again as surely,
if not so soon. Till then, give me horse and hound, bow and spear. I
tell you, Sarchedon, the whitest arm that was ever thrown round a man's
neck could not yield me such a thrill of triumph and rapture as the
lion's claw that tore me from loin to shoulder over my buckler while I
stabbed him to the heart with my short sword, ere we carried him, you
and I, up the mountain-side, and skinned his tawny carcass under the old
oak-tree!"
Sarchedon sighed.
"I love the chase well," said he, "and warfare better, and Ishtar best
of all."
"Warfare!" repeated Aryas, catching and kindling at the word like a
war-horse at ring of steel; "talk to me of that till sundown, if you
will! Ah, war is something to live for, something to die for, something
on which to wage sceptre and kingdom and all, if only the foe be worthy
of the venture. Could I but see the sons of Ashur drawn out fairly
before me in battle array, I would fall willingly in their midst, and
hold my fame was crowned since I had lived to measure swords with the
conquerors of the South. But what do I say? These are dreams and unreal
visions. Too many ranges of impassable mountains, too many leagues of
scorching desert, lie between the gaudy pinnacles of Babylon and my rude
towers here in Ardesh. I have not power to go to _him_; and I think,
with all his courage, all his lust of conquest, the fierce Assyrian dare
not come to _me_!"
They had spent the morning since sunrise in the chase, and had been so
successful as to regain the palace in Ardesh by noon. After a rough but
plentiful repast, the king and his bowbearer were sitting over the
embers of a brazier, each with an untasted cup of wine beside him,
conversing as above. Scores of warriors and retainers, shaggy, tall,
athletic, clothed in furs and skins, crowded round a huge wood fire in
the outer court under the open sky; for although the sun was fierce and
powerful, a storm of sleet had lately swept across the heavens, and
these hardy champions laughed while they wrung their beards to dash the
frozen drops away. There was a shade of despondency on the young king's
brow, and he shook his comely head, while he reflected on the remote
position of his kingdom, and suggested the impossibility of an Assyrian
invasion.
Sarchedon started to his feet and listened.
"It is the tramp of a horse at speed," said he. "For good or for evil,
there comes a messenger bringing tidings in hot haste to my lord the
king."
Even while he spoke, a stir in the outer court denoted some unusual
excitement, while the fire was deserted for the gate, where a crowd had
already gathered round a travel-worn horseman, dismounting from his
reeking beast, panting and jaded with fatigue.
Sarchedon's face fell, and there was at least as much of self-reproach
as of gratitude in his tone while he exclaimed:
"Cursed be my day, and oh! that I had never been born! Something tells
me I have brought evil to the hand that fed and the roof that sheltered
me. I know too surely that the enemy is at the gate, that the sons of
Ashur are bending their bows against the safety of my lord the king."
Aryas smiled, and his eyes glittered like a hawk's.
"Bring in the messenger," said he in calm sonorous accents; adding in a
lower tone to his bowbearer, "When, in return for fair words, costly
gifts, and a dishonourable demand, I sent two arrows to the land of
Shinar, the one a headless shaft, the other barbed and pointed, it was a
token that Armenia, though desirous of peace, would never shrink from
war. Had a dog sought my protection, he should have been safe behind a
nation of horsemen. Shall I deliver up my _friend_ at the whim of a
proud lascivious woman, though she be twenty times a queen?"
"Alas," replied the other, "my lord knows not the might of Semiramis.
She is immovable by pity, she is insensible to fear. All the hosts of
heaven could not turn her purpose, nor thwart her desire. I will be the
bearer of an embassy speaking words of peace from my lord the king. I
will go back to put my neck under her foot, and abide my doom."
"Let her come and take you!" was the gallant answer. "By the sword we
worship, she shall find the task a hard one!--ay, if for every bodkin
she looses from her head-gear she can set in array a hundred thousand
men!"
The messenger, a rude and hardy horseman of the north, had now arrived
in the king's presence. Prostrating himself but once, and with scanty
ceremony, he stood erect to deliver his tidings in frank bluff tones.
"I have ridden night and day from the southern frontier," said he.
"Thiras the governor sends greeting to the king. He bids me tell him the
south wind has brought up a flight of locusts, that darken heaven and
cover earth with their swarms. Shall I speak yet farther in the ears of
the people who throng the gate?"
Aryas shot one glance of intelligence at Sarchedon.
"Say on," he exclaimed; "I have no secrets from those who sit at meat
with me in the city, and stand beside me in the field."
Thus adjured, the messenger proceeded:
"The sons of Ashur have come up in their might from the land between the
rivers. Their war-chariots shake the mountain as they pass, their horses
drink the streams dry where they ride through. Thiras cannot count their
numbers, and what could he do but offer earth and water for tribute,
seeing that they muster under the banner of the Great Queen?"
Aryas started as if he were stung. The comely face flushed dark red, and
rarely as he lost his self-command, some outburst of anger would surely
have followed, but that another messenger arrived on the heels of his
predecessor, if possible more hurried, more jaded, more travel-worn than
the first.
He, too, scarcely prostrated himself in the royal presence, and through
the shaggy locks which fell across his brow his eyes shone with the
terror of some wild forest creature hunted by the wolves.
"From Sambates, governor of Beznun," he stammered, "to the king
greeting. They have cast a bank against Betlis, they have surrounded the
great lake, and called it by the name of their queen. They have overrun
the province, taking fenced cities, burning villages, laying waste
cornland and vineyard, slaying men, and carrying into captivity women
and children. They are swifter than the south wind that brings them,
fiercer than leopards, more terrible than the lightning, and numberless
as the stars of heaven. What could Sambates do but offer earth and water
for tribute, seeing that they muster under the banner of the Great
Queen?"
Once again Aryas winced and coloured, but controlled himself the more
effectually for the emergency of the situation. In the same instant he
realised his peril, resolved to meet it, and calculated his powers of
resistance. His first aim was to inspire his followers with confidence.
Filling his scarcely-tasted goblet to the brim, he advanced to the outer
court, and standing in their midst, bade them follow his example, while
he drank the national pledge--"To the Men of the Mountain and the Sons
of the Naked Sword!" Then, taking his bow from Sarchedon, he broke it
across, and cast the fragments at his feet in token that war was
declared, while he thus addressed them:
"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.