Out ahead of his forces, indeed even in front of his cavalry screen, hard by a settlement called Cherson, Flavius found the kind of battlefield he sought, a long narrow valley, not too steep-sided but heavily wooded and one that would require Zabergan to take a wide detour to avoid him.
‘Not that I think he will want to.’ This was addressed to the trio of leaders he had chosen to act with a degree of independence. There was not a general amongst them and for that Flavius was grateful. Instead of persuasion he had men who listened carefully and accepted without question that what he proposed must be followed. ‘We will be heavily outnumbered. The task is to take from our enemies the advantage they draw from that.’
Less sober were the peasant levies; if they had been full of braggadocio when setting out, a week of free food and mutual dares had raised their enthusiasm to a dangerous level and the risk from that was that they would become uncontrollable. On what he hoped would be their last night of camping, and before they were fed, Flavius had them gather so he could lecture them on what he required.
‘My fellow citizens,’ he bellowed, arms outstretched, raising a murmur of approbation, hardly surprising given these folk were more accustomed to insults from men of the Belisarius stamp. ‘Upon us rests the security of the whole state. We, and only we, stand between the barbarians and the gates of Constantinople.’
The response started as a couple of yells but ended up as a roar of bellicose defiance.
‘Do you know of me?’ he demanded when that died down. ‘I am Flavius Belisarius and I have beaten every enemy the empire has faced these last forty years. Persians, Vandals, Goths and even some Italians.’
That got a cheer; mostly Greek, these levies hated that race. Flavius then listed his victories; Dara, Carthage, Naples, Rome, Ravenna, even if most before him would never have heard the names and could certainly not place them in their narrow world.
‘But!’ Up went a hand that indicated restraint. ‘I have only been successful because I have been obeyed. No general can win a battle. Only the men he leads can achieve that. Do you before me wish to beat the Huns?’
That naturally produced an even greater roar as Flavius dropped his voice just enough to force those before him to lean forward to listen. ‘Do as I tell you, keep your eye on my standard and do not go far from it, and we will prevail. Now, I call upon you to fill your bellies, to see to your weapons and pray, for I believe it cannot be long before the Huns come to chase us away. What a fright we shall visit upon them.’
‘I don’t think I have ever heard you boast before.’
‘It makes me uncomfortable, Solomon, but the times require it.’
The only sign of the Huns the following day was scouts reconnoitring their camp. For all his attempts to fool them in darkness Flavius knew he could not do so in daylight, nor could he avoid it being seen that he was preparing a defensive ditch all around his position. Those scouts would be counting his numbers and from that Zabergan would draw a very obvious conclusion: an easy victory awaited him.
It was necessary to anticipate that he would move on the next day, so Flavius, in the pre-dawn, made his deployments. Two-thirds of his cavalry were despatched to hide in the woods either side of the valley while the remainder, under his personal command, stood at the head where it opened up into a wide area of pasture cut by a dry river bed. Part in and part out of that were his peasant levies under Solomon.
His hopes were rewarded by the sight of the glinting on armour and the men he had set out to watch for the enemy came back with the first bit of good news: the Huns’ numbers were guessed at around two thousand, which meant that Zabergan had not brought to the field his entire host.
As soon as they began to advance Solomon blew a horn that had those peasants yell at the top of their voices while brandishing with fury whatever it was they carried.
The next move had to place a question in Zabergan’s mind, even as he began his advance. Flavius led his small force forward, passing over the defensive ditch and filling the valley floor from side to side.
The Huns were eager for battle and in Zabergan they had a leader fully confident of victory, to Flavius a dangerous combination and he watched as his enemies acted exactly as he hoped. What had been a steady progress broke into a fast canter and for some a full-out charge as the Huns sought to close with the thin crust of fighting men they faced, not checked by the fact that the enemies did likewise, though in a flat and continuous line.
The bucellarii checked the leading elements of the Huns by arrow fire before they hooked their bows over the saddle horn and took hold of their spears. Behind them the peasants had set up such a cacophony of noise that it drowned out the sound of thudding hooves and yelling combatants and by stamping their feet they also sent into the air a huge cloud of dust which, on the wind, drifted down the valley.
As soon as the two opposing lines met, with the Hun advance momentarily checked, the men Flavius had placed in the woods emerged at full tilt to hit both the flanks of their enemies, which drove the Huns in on themselves creating a dense mass of horsemen most of whom could not get at the men attacking them for their own comrades. It was obvious that both in front and to the sides the experienced fighting men Flavius had deployed, better armoured and mounted than the Huns, were killing at will.
Flavius was in the heart of the central battle and he was rarely engaged against just one enemy. A sword stroke cut through his thigh but that had to be ignored. Another swinging blade hit his helmet and so dazed him he had to spin his mount away to clear enough space to recover, finding himself enclosed by his own bodyguards as he re-entered the fray.
A low blow from an axe got under his shield to dent his chest armour and he knew he had suffered a wound but that too had to be disregarded as the battle reached its climax. The Huns were penned in, milling around and mostly useless. The sound of horns struggled to be heard over the still yelling peasant levies and now the dust was among the fighting, making it hard to see anything.
That must have affected Zabergan, who would be unable to observe if those screaming peasants, who Flavius knew would look formidable at a distance, were about to push forward and get in among his horsemen. If they did the result could be a catastrophe and slowly at first, then with increasing pace, the rear elements of the Huns began to withdraw, soon followed by their comrades desperately trying to disengage from their personal contests.
Solomon had his orders and as soon as the fact was relayed to him – he could not see for the dust either – he ordered the peasants forward. If they were barely visible the rising sound of their stridency must have conveyed to Zabergan that he was in danger of being overwhelmed. Within a blink, all those at the front could see was the retreating flanks of the Hun horses.
Flavius had not felt pain until that point but it came upon him now, both from the wounds he had suffered as well as blows inflicting less damage. Yet he could not relax for he feared his own levies, if they got out of control and went after the Huns, would be massacred; such peasants could not face proper fighters in an open battle and he was now riding before them accompanied by his horsemen to block their desire to run after the enemy.
That it succeeded was only by a narrow margin, added to the fact that having shouted for so long many of the host were hoarse and only too eager to desist. Their general was thus able to convey that they had won a great victory and so replace the desire for pursuit with celebration.
‘One battle, Solomon.’ Flavius gasped as the mendicant monks worked to repair his wounds. The gash in his thigh had gone deep and he had several broken ribs, from armour so dented it had been a task to get it off without causing further harm. ‘If he comes again we will not beat him twice.’