Slowly turning his horse, Attila rode back towards the centre of the Hunnish cavalry, and then, with a voice so clear, so distinct, so powerful, that its deep rolling tones are said to have reached even the Roman lines, he exclaimed, "Unconquerable race, behold your enemies! I strive not to give you confidence in me or in yourselves. Here is no new leader, no inexperienced army. Well do you know how light and empty are the arms of the Romans. They fly not with the first wound, but with the first dust of the battle! Fearing to meet you unsupported, and remembering that where Romans have encountered Huns the Romans have fallen like corn before the reaper, they have called to their aid degenerate tribes, who have taken shelter in the vicious provinces of Rome, after having been expelled from among the native Goths, from the Gepidæ, the Heruli, the Alani. These, whom we have driven from among us--these, weak, corrupted, degraded as they are--form the bulk, supply the strength, afford the courage of the army before you. Behold them as they stand! are they not as one of their own fields of corn, which we have a thousand times trodden down beneath our horses' feet? We are no weak husbandmen, that we should fail to reap such a harvest as that. On, warriors, on! Pour on upon the Alani! Break through the degenerate Goths! At the sound of our horses' feet, the Roman eagles, as is their custom, will take wing and fly; and yon dark multitude shall disappear like the mist of the morning! Why should fortune have given unto the Huns innumerable victories, if not to crown them all with this successful day? On, warriors, on! Drink the blood of your enemies! Let the wounded, in dying, strike his javelin through his foe, and no one dare to die ere he have brought a Roman head to the ground. I tread before you the way to victory; and if any one follow not Attila, he is already dead!"
A loud acclamation burst from the nearer ranks, and ran along all the line of the Huns, while even those who had not heard poured forth their own clamorous applause of the words which they fancied had been spoken; and the clang of arms dashed violently together, mingled with the deafening shout that rose up from the barbarian host.
"Seize on yon hill, Valamir!" cried Attila, while the roar continued: "it should have been done before."
The monarch of the Ostrogoths hastened to obey; but scarcely had his troops been put in motion, when a corresponding movement was seen upon the part of the Romans; and the terrible strife of that day--the most fierce, the most sanguinary that Europe ever has seen--was commenced by the struggle for that low hill, between the two rival tribes of Goths.
For a time the rest of both armies remained unmoved, as if spectators of the combat; but rage and emulation increased in their bosoms every moment as they gazed, and at length it became impossible for the leaders on either part to restrain in their troops the burning thirst for battle. On poured the Huns upon the Romans: on rushed the Romans on the Huns. The whirling masses of the Scythian horsemen, enveloped in a cloud of dust, from which shot forth a hail of arrows, passed through and through the ranks of the enemy, casting themselves in vain upon the firm legions of Ætius, scattering the Franks and the Sicambres, sweeping down whole ranks of the Alani and the Goths. On, in heavy line, with their long spears lowered, poured the multitude of the Gepidæ, bearing slaughter and confusion wherever they came.
But still Theodoric and his Goths maintained the hill; still Ætius and his legions fought unconquered on the plain; still the Franks and the Alani, knowing that valour could alone save them, continued the combat against the Huns. Hour after hour passed by; rank after rank was mowed down; the rivulet, late so pure and clear, flowed onward one unmingled stream of blood; and the feet of the Hunnish horses, as they charged again and again the confused but unsubdued masses of the Romans, splashed up a gory dew from the pools that lay unabsorbed upon the loamy soil. So great, so terrible was the slaughter, that the horses could scarcely keep their feet among the bodies of the dead and dying. Each waving sword dismissed some erring spirit to its last account; each footfall trampled on the writhing limbs of some mangled fellow-creature.
In the foremost ranks of battle, wherever danger was pre-eminent, wherever the foes remained unbroken, wherever the carnage was most intense, there was seen Attila; and wherever he appeared, there for the time was victory obtained. Through the whole of that day, too, Theodore was by his side; and for the second time he saw upon him what his followers not unaptly called "the spirit of the battle." Though prompt and clear in every command, keen and ready to seize every advantage, the calm and moderate sternness of his demeanour was gone; and, fierce as the lion of the wilderness, rapid as the leven bolt of heaven, remorseless and unsparing as the hurricane, he swept on. No one stood before him for an instant; no one was struck a second time; but, wherever an adversary crossed his path, there was left, at a single blow, a disfigured corpse upon the ground, or else his horse's feet trampled out the faint sparks that his sword had left.
Death seemed to march before him against his enemies, nor ever turned to approach himself; and only twice, when surrounded almost on every side by the foe, could Theodore interpose to parry with an iron truncheon, which was the only weapon that he bore throughout the day, the blows of a spear and a javelin, which were aimed at the monarch's throat. The young Roman knew not that he had seen the service rendered; but at length, when the day was far spent, Ellac, his eldest son, crossed the path of the monarch, saying, "Ride not in the battle with the Roman, oh my father! He is of the country of our enemies, and may kill thee when thy back is turned. Let me slay him even now, lest the traitor destroy thee!"
"He has saved my life twice this day!" cried Attila, urging forward his horse. "Out of my way!" he continued, seeing that his son still stood before him. "Out of my way! or, by the god of battles, I will send thee to the land of spirits! Out of my way!" and he raised his sword over his son's head as if about to cleave him to the jaws.
Ellac saw that the moment was not his; and, reining back his horse, he sought another part of the field, while Attila pursued his career, and strove, but strove long in vain, to obtain possession of the hill. At length, as the closing day waxed faint and dim, and the gray shade of evening falling over the whole bloody scene, announced that the battle must soon close or be prolonged into the night, Attila for a moment gained the summit of that long-contested eminence, and slew with his own hand the last of the Gothic warriors, whose especial charge had been to defend that post. Up to that instant he had rushed on like a devouring flame, leaving nothing but ashes behind him; but there he suddenly paused, gazed forth upon the confused and mingled masses of the Huns and Romans, that, with equal success, and very nearly equal numbers, were seen spread over the plain for many miles around. He then lifted his eyes towards the sky, marked the dim gray that mingled with the blue, and the bright star of evening betokening that the brighter sun was gone; and with a sudden calmness said, in a low, tranquil voice, "It is too late for victory to-night! It is too late! Let the trumpets be sounded!" he continued, to some of those who followed--"let the trumpets be sounded, to recall all men to the camp! Gather together the ten nearest squadrons upon this slope! The Romans, I think, have had enough of strife to-day, and will not seek it further; but they have fought well for once, and Attila must defend his own, while they seek a place of repose for the night."