After this, the King
returned to Baghdad and Sherkan commanded the officers to draw
out the troops in battle array. So they mustered them and the
number of the army was ten thousand horsemen, besides footmen and
followers. Then they loaded the beasts and beat the drums and
blew the clarions and unfurled the banners and the standards,
whilst Sherkan mounted, with the Vizier Dendan by his side and
the standards waving over them, and the army set out and fared
on, with the ambassadors in the van, till the day departed and
the night came, when they halted and encamped for the night. On
the morrow, as soon as God brought in the day, they took horse
and continued their march, nor did they cease to press onward,
guided by the ambassadors, for the space of twenty days. On the
twenty-first day, at nightfall, they came to a wide and fertile
valley, whose sides were thickly wooded and covered with grass,
and there Sherkan called a three days' halt. So they dismounted
and pitched their tents, dispersing right and left in the valley,
whilst the Vizier Dendan and the ambassadors alighted in the
midst. As for Sherkan, when he had seen the tents pitched and the
troops dispersed on either side and had commanded his officers
and attendants to camp beside the Vizier Dendan, he gave reins to
his horse, being minded to explore the valley and himself mount
guard over the army, having regard to his father's injunctions
and to the fact that they had reached the frontier of the land of
Roum and were now in the enemy's country.
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