“The mountains of the country I come from are nothing but gold and silver,” he added, hoping to entice him. Khosrow then gathered his marzabans and said, “What do you counsel concerning this man and the purpose for which he has come?”
One of them replied, “O King, in your prisons there are men you have kept awaiting execution. Send them with him: if they are destroyed, that is what you intended for them; and if they prevail, you will have gained another realm.”
So Khosrow dispatched the prisoners—eight hundred men in all—and placed them under the command of Wahriz, the oldest among them and the one of the noblest pedigree. They sailed in eight ships; two sank, while six made landfall on the coast of Aden. Sayf gathered to Wahriz every man of his own people he could muster and said, “Your foot beside mine until we either die together or triumph together.” Wahriz answered, “You have been just.”
Masrūq ibn Abraha, the king of Yemen, came out against them with his army. To test their mettle, Wahriz sent a son of his to engage them; the young man was killed, which only deepened Wahriz’s fury.
When the two forces faced one another, Wahriz said, “Show me their king.”
They replied, “Do you see the man on the elephant, a crown fixed on his head and a red ruby between his eyes?”
“Yes,” he said.
“That is their king.”
“Leave him for now,” Wahriz ordered. They waited a long while.
Then he asked, “Where is he now?”
[They answered, “He has moved to a horse.” “Leave him,” he said, and they waited again.] A little later he asked, “Where is he now?” They said, “He is on a mule.”
Wahriz exclaimed, “The son of a donkey—he and his kingdom are humbled! I shall shoot him. If you see his men remain unmoved, hold fast until I signal you, for then I will have missed him. But if you see them gather round and cling to him, I will have struck him—then charge.”
He strung his bow—so powerful, they said, that none but he could bend it—had his eyebrows bound, and loosed the arrow. It cracked the ruby between the king’s eyes, bored through his head, and exited at the nape of his neck. The king toppled from his mount; the Abyssinians wheeled about him, and the Persians charged. The enemy broke ranks: some were slain, others fled in all directions.
Wahriz advanced toward Ṣanʿāʾ. When he reached the gate he declared, “My standard shall never pass beneath a gate drooping—pull this gate down!” The gate was demolished, and he entered with his banner upright.
Then Sayf ibn Dhī Yazan said: