Part 49 (1/2)
Then, while spears went down and bridles shook, a shout rose from the warriors in blue raiment that was caught up by the whole a.s.syrian army, and every man called l.u.s.tily on Baal, swearing a mighty oath that he would fight to the death for the Great Queen.
Aiming, as was her custom, at the heart of the enemy, Semiramis broke furiously through the opposing long swords, now deprived of their leader, with the view of first extricating the Anakim from their perilous position, and afterwards directing all her force against the Armenian king in person.
a.s.sarac too had done his part like a practised warrior. The deep array of spears, a solid column many furlongs in length, strong in its front of a thousand marching men, was nearing the conflict every moment, with that smooth and even step, that mechanical regularity of approach, which seems the very impersonation of discipline and power. Concealed behind its ma.s.ses, betrayed only by an unceasing jar of iron and roll of wheels, came on those formidable war-chariots, so irresistible by an enemy who had sustained a check that caused the slightest confusion in its ranks; and wielding the whole array, governing at once each element of the storm, drove a.s.sarac the eunuch--he of the cool brain, the steadfast courage, the pitiless heart, who could be moved but by one sentiment on earth--his mad infatuation for the queen.
Aryas marked it all, and knew that now the end was very near. Glancing towards Sarchedon, he beheld his bowbearer, scarce ten spear-lengths off, in the hottest of the struggle, defending, as it seemed, from stroke and thrust some object at his side. The Anakim gathered about him; while the long swords, shouting ”Aryas! Aryas!” were making desperate efforts to approach, believing, no doubt, they were rallying round their king.
Semiramis neared her object with every stride. Aryas had stooped to take another arrow from his quiver, and, as he raised his head again to confront his enemy, looking boldly over his s.h.i.+eld, behold! for the first time, he stood face to face with the Great Queen.
Deceived by the likeness, duped by her own wild heart and reckless longing, she called on him she loved by the name she had learned to whisper in her dreams; but the hoa.r.s.e shriek that cried ”Sarchedon, Sarchedon!” was so different from the full soft tones in which she was used to doom a culprit or direct a battle, that her guards pressed fiercely in, thinking their leader must have been stricken with a death-hurt.
Casting down horse and rider in the fury of her career, she urged Merodach towards the chariot, every consideration of war and policy, all care for herself, her army, her people, lost in a fierce thrill of triumph that the desire of her eyes had not escaped her, and she had found him even at the last.
Surrounded by the chosen hors.e.m.e.n of a.s.syria, over-matched, out-numbered, and now at his sorest need, Aryas shouted to his bowbearer for help; and Sarchedon, still struggling in the strife as a swimmer fights and reels amongst the breakers, answered l.u.s.tily to the call.
The Great Queen, making, as she believed, for another, was now within ten paces of Aryas the Beautiful himself.
In that hideous din of battle she neither heard his cry nor the voice that replied to it; but the white horse with the eyes of fire had a truer memory and a sharper ear. Recognising his master's accents, he swerved aside to reach him, but meeting the wrench of the queen's practised hand on his bridle, reared high with tossing head, and plunged blindly forward against the king's chariot, struck himself and his rider heavily to the ground.
As the good horse rolled over a maimed Armenian, the dying mountain man shortened the sword he grasped fiercely even then, and buried it in the animal's bowels.
Agile as a panther, Semiramis extricated herself, and was up like lightning; but when she saw the beast she prized so dearly dead at her very feet, her heart burned, and her eyes blazed with a fury wilder, fiercer, madder, than the rage of any beast of prey.
Baffled, stunned, bewildered, she only knew that Merodach lay slain beneath her; that an armed enemy stood above with s.h.i.+elded face and javelin raised to strike; that here across the body of her horse was the turning-point of battle, and that she held a bow and arrow in her hand.
Unconsciously, she fitted the one to the string, and drew the other at a venture, as it were, in self-defence.
It was the Armenian arrow, cut in Armenian forests, tipped with Armenian steel. It had travelled to Babylon and back as a symbol of dignified remonstrance and royal self-respect; now the white cruel arm impelled it straight and true, to find its home in the heart of an Armenian king.
Stricken below the buckler, he felt his life-blood oozing down to wet its feathers, drop by drop.
”Turn thy hand out of the battle,” murmured Aryas to his charioteer, ”since I am hurt even unto death!”
But he never spoke again; for the Great Queen's men of war, making in to aid their leader, hurled him from his chariot, gas.h.i.+ng with pitiless sword-strokes the comely face so fair even in death, crus.h.i.+ng under trampling hoofs the stately form that, maimed, bruised, and mangled, was grand and kingly still.
So the hors.e.m.e.n of a.s.syria triumphed; her spears made victory secure, her chariots rolled over the slain. The blue mantles smote and spared not; the Anakim extricating themselves, not without considerable loss, departed in good order; and the pursuit rolled on till the sons of Ashur sacked the town of Ardesh--to burn, pillage, and destroy, even unto the going down of the day.
But men looked in vain for her who had led the attack and achieved the victory, asking each other with eager looks and anxious faces,
”What tidings of the Great Queen?”
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”SHE KNELT BESIDE THE BODY OF A DEAD HORSE.”]
Her armour lay, piece by piece, beside her; there was dust on her l.u.s.trous hair, the pride of her royal garment was rent from hem to hem, while bowed down in anguish, with fixed eyes, white face, and rigid lips, she knelt beside a dead horse, over the body of a dead king.
CHAPTER LIII
SHARING THE SPOIL