The Vandals were better prepared this time to receive the charge, but it made little difference. Again their ranks were burst to pieces by that avalanche of iron and horseflesh, and again only their raw, desperate courage prevented the centre of the Vandal army from total collapse.
“Damn them!” screamed Gelimer, clawing at my arm. For one awful moment I thought he meant to lead his reserves into the fight, which would almost certainly mean my death: my reins were tied to his via a length of silver chain, I had no weapons or armour, and my wrists were bound.
The Romans fell back a second time. Here and there among the corpses scattered about the plain lay the still, gleaming forms of a dead Roman horseman and his mount, but their casualties were minimal. By contrast, hundreds of Vandals had died, and I knew the bucelarii could happily launch after charge and charge until sundown. Their horses were of the finest, and the men that rode them had undergone years of training and conditioning. Many were hardened veterans of Belisarius’s Persian campaigns.
At this point the Moors decided they had seen enough. They turned their camels about and fled the field, pursued by Gelimer’s enraged screams.
“Cowards! Traitors!” he railed, “you have taken my pay and eaten my bread, and now you abandon me? Run back to your holes, then, you desert filth! May your souls be flayed forever in the pits of Hell!”
Gelimer carried on in this vein until the Moors were out of earshot. He seemed to have lost his wits completely, and effective command of the Vandal army devolved onto his brother. To give him credit, Zano was equal to the task, and did his best to shore up the broken lines and spirits of his troops.
The disparity in numbers between the armies was still huge, but the Vandals reminded me of a boxer I had once seen Felix defeat at the Hippodrome, struggling to rise despite the fact he was spitting teeth and both his eyes were swelling. One more punch from Felix had been enough to finish him, and here one more Roman charge would surely be enough to hand Belisarius the victory.
Zano’s best hope lay in the Huns. If they turned traitor and fell on the Romans from the rear, then he might yet be able to reverse the fortunes of the day.
The Huns, however, could see which way the tide was turning, and chose to return to their former allegiance. When the bucelarii launched another charge, this time with Belisarius at their head, they did so with squadrons of Hunnish and Heruli cavalry on the wings. They were supported by the Roman infantry, long lines of swordsmen and spearmen, which until now had stood idle. Belisarius had thrown his entire army forward in an all-out effort to break the Vandals.
By now I was utterly deafened by the noise of battle, and felt rather than heard the thunderous drumming of hoofs. The vibration came up from the ground, making my horse shudder.
If I had been a Vandal spearman in the front line, my fragile body protected by nothing more than a little round shield, an iron cap and a padded leather tunic, I would not have stood my ground in the face of that final onslaught for all the treasure in Constantinople. They were braver men than I, and so was their commander. Zano rode up and down the ranks, roaring at his men to lock shields and hold fast against the oncoming tide.
I averted my eyes just before the impact. There was a moment of dislocation, when the screams of men and horses and trumpets and the thunderous collision of bodies penetrated even my ruined hearing.
When I dared to look again, the Vandal battle-line was smashed beyond repair. The Romans had punched straight through it like an iron fist. Here and there small groups of Vandal warriors stood and fought to the end, but there was no longer any trace of organised resistance.
Zano’s standard was down, hacked from its staff, and the Vandal prince lay dying under his fallen banner. A Roman lance had impaled his belly and thrust out of his spine.
Once again the death of a brother completely unmanned Gelimer. He uttered a great shriek, as though the lance had entered his own body, and slumped in the saddle.
I thought his heart had failed. One of his officers reached out to touch his shoulder, and he jerked like a scalded cat.
“The battle is lost, Majesty,” shouted the officer, “but we shall not let the Romans take you.”
Mention of capture brought Gelimer back to his senses. “Taken?” he exclaimed in horror, “to be a prisoner — to be paraded like a wild animal before Justinian? Never!”
He turned his horse around and spurred away, so quickly it took me and his guards by surprise. I was dragged along in his wake, and just had time to turn my head and witness the death-throes of the Vandal army.
The worst moments of a battle are the last, when one side breaks and turns to flee. This is when the real killing begins. Tricamarum was no different. Belisarius had beaten the Vandals twice, and now he had to destroy their capacity to fight him a third time.
Normally he kept his troops on a tight rein. Now he unleashed them. His cavalry under John the Armenian set off in merciless pursuit of the fugitives, while his infantry overwhelmed and slaughtered those that were too proud to run.
The Vandal nation, that had conquered Spain and North Africa and sacked Rome, died by inches in the blood and dust outside Tricamarum. Its king escaped from the field, as he had escaped from Decimum, accompanied by a few guards and one hapless prisoner.
Chapter 20
I was at a loss to know where Gelimer could go. His capital was lost, and there were no fortresses he could take refuge in: when they conquered North Africa, the Vandals had deliberately destroyed all the fortified places in the province, so they could not be occupied by rebel garrisons. This policy now proved disastrous, for it meant Belisarius did not have to waste the limited strength of his army on lengthy sieges.
I had forgotten that there was one other major city in the province still held by the Vandals. This was Hippo Regius, some sixty miles south-west down the coast from Carthage.
That headlong gallop through the desert at night was one of the strangest experiences of my life. Thunder rolled in the inky depths of the African skies, and flashes of greenish fire played around the lance-heads of Gelimer’s guards. Some of them cried that this was a sign of divine displeasure, and that the Vandals no longer enjoyed the grace of God.
They also took it as an excuse to desert their king. The company steadily grew less and less as we rode westwards, until only the most loyal men remained with him — and I, of course, who had no choice in the matter.
Gelimer called a halt before the horses could founder. The thunder had faded away to the east, and the freezing tranquillity of the desert at night made for a stark contrast to the chaos and slaughter of the battlefield. I could hear the crashing of waves half a mile or so to the north, and thought longingly of the green homeland I could barely remember, hundreds of miles away across land and sea.
There was no sign of the Romans, though initially a squadron of foederati had come thundering after us in hot pursuit. Unknown to us, John the Armenian had somehow got into a fight with one of his soldiers, and the soldier had struck him a mortal blow. This farcical occurrence halted the pursuit, and the foederati turned back to carry their commander’s body to Belisarius.
“This is not the end,” panted Gelimer, “the deaths of so many of my kin, and of my brave soldiers, must be avenged. God wills it. We shall go to Hippo Regius, where I have stored a reserve of my treasure, and send emissaries to the King of the Visigoths in Spain. He shall give us troops to create a new army, one that shall sweep the Romans out of our land for good.”
His face looked haggard and ghastly in the pale light of the half-moon, and his words lacked conviction. The game was up. I knew it, and so did Gelimer’s guards.
“God has turned His face from us,” cried one of his officers, whom I had never previously heard utter a word of criticism against his sovereign, “and handed victory to the Romans, our ancient enemies, as a punishment for your heresy!”