Then Afridoun the Great King
commanded to depart; so they set out from Constantinople and
ceased not to defile through the city for the space of ten days.
They fared on till they reached a spacious valley, hard by the
salt sea, where they halted three days; and on the fourth day,
they were about to set out again, when news came to them of the
approach of the army of Islam and the defenders of the faith of
the Best of Men.[FN#94] So they halted other three days, and on
the seventh day, they espied a great cloud of dust which spread
till it covered the whole country; nor was an hour of the day
past before the dust lifted and melted away into the air, and its
darkness was pierced and dispersed by the starry sheen of
lance-points and spear-heads and the flashing of sword-blades.
Presently, there appeared the banners of Islam and the Mohammedan
ensigns and the mailed horsemen surged forward, like the letting
loose of the billows of the sea, clad in cuirasses as they were
clouds girdled about moons. Thereupon the Christian horsemen rode
forward and the two hosts met, like two seas clashing together,
and eyes fell upon eyes. The first to spur into the fight was the
Vizier Dendan, with the army of Syria, thirty thousand cavaliers,
followed by Rustem, the general of the Medes, and Behram, the
general of the Turks, with other twenty thousand horse, behind
whom came the men of the sea-coast, sheathed in glittering mail
as they were full moons passing through a night of clouds.
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