In a composite simile, a comparison marker such as kamā can align one entire scene with another, rather than setting up only separate one-word comparisons.
For the dust-and-swords image:
Dust contributes the dark backdrop corresponding to night.
Gleaming swords correspond to bright stars.
Yet the point is not simply two independent equations. It is the relation, motion and total visible arrangement shared by the two scenes.
Explaining a single element in isolation therefore cannot fully account for the force of this rhetorical comparison. The overall image must be reconstructed.