battle, then joined the ranks of the Azd, who greeted him with hostility: their standard-bearer is reported to have told him "If we win, it will be for your benefit; if we perish, you will not weep over us. By my life, if we win and I survive, I will never speak a word to you." Al-Tabari reports that this man and seventeen successive bearers of the same standard were killed during the battle, indicative of the fierceness of the fight. The Arabs initially met the Türgesh attack on horseback, but as their casualties mounted, Junayd's herald ordered them to dismount and fight on foot, crouching down behind the trenches and forming a spear wall. This measure helped the Muslims hold their ground. Eventually both sides wearied, and the battle ceased for the day. The most grievous casualties among the Arabs were suffered by the stragglers and baggage train, who gathered under Abdallah ibn Mu'ammar ibn Sumayr al-Yashkuri near Kish; they were virtually annihilated. The next day, the Türgesh launched renewed attacks on the Arabs, but these were repelled. The Arabs engaged in vigorous counterattacks whenever the Türgesh drew near, and the ordered his troops to besiege the Arab camp instead of attacking it. Having persevered through the initial onslaught, Junayd sent messengers to Sawra in Samarkand, ordering him to come to his assistance with a diversionary attack. Sawra and the Samarkand garrison were initially reluctant as they were aware that this was effectively a suicide mission, but Junayd's threats forced Sawra to comply. Leaving behind a small garrison, Sawra led 12,000 men out of Samarkand and with the help of a local guide managed to reach within a (roughly ) of Junayd's force by crossing over the mountains. There he was confronted by the Türgesh, who, reportedly on the advice of Ghurak, the Sogdian king of Samarkand, set fire to the dry grasslands. Sawra's lieutenants advised a slow infantry advance fronted by a spear-wall (the standard Umayyad anti-cavalry tactic) but Sawra, knowing his troops to be weary and desperate, decided instead to launch a cavalry charge against the Türgesh in the hopes of breaking through with at least part of his force and reaching Junayd. Sawra's troops, "maddened by heat and thirst" in the description of H.A.R. Gibb, charged the Türgesh and broke their front, but the battle soon became a confused affair with both sides hindered by the