Heir of Aurelian

Chapter 123 Mostly Peaceful Negotiations Part II

After failing to blackmail Marcellus into giving him a massive fortune. Yazdegerd and his forces began the long march back to the city of Constantinople, completely unaware that, throughout the length of their journey, they were being stalked by a vicious predator.

They were careless in their diplomatic defeat and kept their heads low. Thus, they did not see the threat to their very lives until it was all but too late. At the moment, the eastern roman regent, and his forces had entered a dense thicket of woods, which were completely surrounded by fog. Obscuring their view of what lies within the treeline.

Yazdegerd was more occupied with his failed negotiations and how he had overlooked a crucial detail which led to his current situation. He did not know who it was that gave such an important piece of evidence to Marcellus, but Yazdegerd knew that when he found out that man’s identity he would stop at nothing to claim his life, and that of his family.

While the eastern roman regent was cursing beneath his breath. Enraged by the loss he had suffered this time. The gepids had already surrounded him and his forces, and the eastern romans were none the wiser. The gepid horde strung their bows and knocked their arrows as they aimed towards the unsuspecting eastern roman forces who carelessly marched forward through the woods without the slightest inclination that they were being hunted by a vicious predator.

Without warning, a rain of arrows descended from the sky, and down upon the unsuspecting eastern roman forces. Though Yazdegerd was struck in the calf, he was relatively unscathed, at least compared to his soldiers, many of which were riddled with arrows and lie dead after the initial onslaught. He could hardly believe he had come under attack. Had the Huns betrayed him? Or had Marcellus anticipated his plan and enacted a dastardly scheme of his own?

The eastern roman regent was struggling to find an answer to this question when he heard the voice of his commander bark orders to those lucky few who had survived the initial volley.

“Enemy attack! Tetstudo formation!”

While the Romans prepared to form a tortoise shell of shields, another volley rained upon them, dwindling their already feeble ranks to an even lesser degree. Yazdegerd was in shock as another arrow pierced through his mail shirt and embedded itself in his chest. However, the wound was not deep enough to cause him severe harm, and because of that, he merely snarled in pain before making a prudent decision to flee.

Judging by the amount of arrows that had fallen from the sky, the enemy had a severe advantage in numbers, and he was unlikely to survive the encounter if he stayed and fought. Thus, like a coward, he snapped the reins of his horse and rushed out of the woods as fast as he could manage. All the while, his army gazed in disbelief at the sight of being abandoned by their leader.

If these men weren’t so busy fighting off a Gepid horde which rapidly surrounded their position, they would have cursed Yazdegerd to the depths of hell. Whether the cowardly Sassanid king would survive the barbarian’s pursuit had yet to be seen. Especially after he witnessed a contingent of heavy cavalry rush after him.

—

While Yazdegerd had fled from his battle with the Gepids as soon as it had begun, Marcellus was sneering with disdain at the sight of the Hunnic horde which rapidly approached his direction. He had brought with him 1,000 members of his most elite cavalry. These men were armed with lances and bows, and were trained in the use of both. If the Huns wanted to play a game of tag, he would be happy to oblige, but he had another strategy in mind, which he quickly hollered out to his forces.

“Charge!”

The soldiers beneath the western roman emperor’s command immediately followed their orders. Despite the seemingly suicidal order. After all, the huns numbered in the thousands, while they were limited to a fraction of that number. Despite these concerns, a thousand lancers were enough to put a serious dent in the enemy’s ranks.

The Huns were lacking in heavy cavalry; they were mostly skirmishers, and they were also lacking in one critical piece of technology that could entirely change the outcome of this battle. That’s right, stirrups. This critical piece of technology gave the western roman heavy cavalry a significant advantage on the field of battle. Which they made use of.

Thus, a thousand horsemen lowered their lances and couched them beneath their arms as they rushed towards the Huns with their heavily armored steeds. The Huns did not expect the enemy to rush forward at them, and thus continued on their path, launching their arrows at the western roman cavalry. However, the armor on the romans and their horses was multilayered, and because of this, the projectile weapons were not doing as much damage as they expected.

Upon seeing their arrows fail to break through the lamellar armor of the western roman cavalry, the huns instantly maneuvered their horses into a full retreat, but would Marcellus so easily allow them to escape. The western roman empire had accurately predicted his rival might do something similar to his own plot and had thus brought his Gothic Foederati disguised as regular barbarian war-bands as reinforcements.

While Marcellus was negotiating with Yazdegerd, Sarus had sat back with his forces and scouted the region, looking for any sign of a potentially hostile force. They spotted the huns long ago, and had already set up their positions, cutting off their escape. When the Huns finally realized they were about to run into a wall of spears, it was already too late.

Caught in between the Gothic Foederati and the roman heavy cavalry, it was a complete and total massacre as the Huns were skewered by lance and spear alike. Marcellus had a wicked grin on his fate as he realized his trap had worked expertly. He collided at full speed with his lance which effortlessly pierced through the body of the Hunnic King. The barbarian gazed in disbelief as a lance head potruded through his chest before dying on the spot. Marcellus quickly took advantage of the situation to unsheathe his spatha, and claim the man’s head for himself.

Marcellus could hardly believe how this battle had ended up. While he did not know the fate of the eastern roman Regent, he had taken out the Hunnic king and a sizeable chunk of his elite warriors. Now all that was left was to march his forces east where the Gepids were engaging the eastern roman troops and put an end to yet another threat to his borders.

He would be absolutely amazed if he could claim the head of two barbarian Kings in one day. However, he was very much enjoying the idea, thus he was quick to rally his forces after they had finished slaying the Huns and march them east.

“We can’t allow Yazdegerd to escape, nor can we allow the Gepids to continue to thrive on our borders. With the Hunnic King dead, we have already achieved a great victory, but I will not rest until we cut off the heads of all three of our enemies!”

With that said, the western roman forces erupted in cheers before embarking east, towards the scene of the Gepids crime. When they arrived, they would find the eastern roman army massacred, but the Persian Snake had seemingly escaped from the net. An outcome which would greatly enrage Marcellus.