The allies feared Constantine’s weakness, remembering that he had not come very promptly, that he had delayed at the outset, and might even now join his brothers. But Constantine gave the oath asked of him, and was first on the battle-field. In his regiments [[194]]trumpet calls did not cease all that night, which was passed in alarm and preparations for battle. In the morning, however, it was seen that the princes who had challenged had evaded. Instead of being at the spot agreed upon for action Yuri and Yaroslav had moved in the night to another position. They had selected a place with a deep gully stretching in front of it, while near by was “Widow Hill.” They had strengthened this camp with palisades, and their wagons. Mystislav and his allies occupied a height close to Yurieff. Constantine disposed his men toward Lipetsk. To get at the enemy now, Mystislav would have to cross the gully.
Yuri and Yaroslav, feeling safe at Widow Hill, did not think of fighting, no matter how Mystislav challenged. To reach the hill through the gully was impossible. So Mystislav sent three men to parley, and again proposed peace as an end to the quarrel. “If ye will not make peace, then come to the field, we will meet you; or if ye choose we will go to Lipetsk and ye can attack us.” “We will not give peace, and we will not abandon our position,” replied the two brothers. “Ye have crossed our whole land; can ye not cross this small gully?”
Mystislav commanded his men then to advance at all hazards. But no matter how he approached Widow Hill, he could not entice the two brothers to leave it. He then decided to march on Vladimir directly, and seize the town if possible. He commanded to raise the camp quickly. At once Yurieff Mountain was seething, and soon the army marched down, and moved off on the road to the capital. The Pskoff prince now joined the main body. But Constantine delayed yet at Lipetsk, where doubt and dissension seemed evident. He feared “the desperate move,” as he called it. He said that his men were simple villagers, unaccustomed to battle; he feared that they might disperse on the march. It was better, he thought, to remain on Yurieff Mountain. Mystislav answered with passion: “The mountain will give neither victory nor defeat! In the cross and in truth lies our triumph.” Aided by his brother and cousin he at last convinced Constantine that it was necessary to march on Vladimir, and he commanded his forces to advance.
As soon as the regiments were moving on the road toward Vladimir, and before all had reached the road, a stir at Widow Hill was observed, and directly the army of the two brothers left its position. Both armies turned now toward the same side. [[195]]There was an encounter at Lipetsk. Mystislav halted and the men of Smolensk and of Novgorod faced the enemy. They stood without moving: Constantine was at Lipetsk on one flank, Mystislav with Novgorod warriors held the center; on the other flank was Vladimir, son of Rurik, with Smolensk men. Between him and the center was Mystislav’s brother with Pskoff troops. The whole force of the enemy moved against them directly. Yuri and Yaroslav were confident and smiling. Yuri’s warriors rushed straight at the Novgorod regiments, to whom Mystislav had said already: “Brothers, we have come to the heart of our enemy’s country, and that enemy is powerful. If we flee, not a man of us will escape. Look not back in this battle. Forget homes, wives and children. Fight to the death. He who is not killed will be living. Hit hard! God is in truth, not in numbers. Forward like men! Hit hard! Forward on foot or on horseback, but forward!”
The Novgorod men remembered the fight of their great-grandfathers when they were led by the great-grandfather of Mystislav, and the blood rose in them. “We will not fight on horseback,” said they. Steam was rolling now from the oncoming enemy. The Novgorod men threw off their boots and upper clothing and rushed to the fight with axes and clubs, vying with the men of Smolensk in their valor. Each man was bound to surpass every other, and no crowd of men would stay behind any other crowd.
The first standard cut down was a standard of Yaroslav; the second that fell was his standard also. The battle became very soon a great slaughter. The Pskoff prince stood at the side of his brother, and both watched the battle before them. All at once, Mystislav said to Vladimir: “May God not permit us to abandon good men,” and he rushed to the combat. Through the whole mass of his warriors did he ride, encouraging them, saying that the moment for victory had come. He made his way through all the ranks to the front, took from his shoulders the cord securing his battle-ax and swinging the ax plunged, at the head of the warriors, into the thick of the fight. Men saw how he hewed to the right and to the left. His warriors followed him with desperate venom. In a short time the field was a scene of unpitying slaughter. Three times did Mystislav go back and forth through the ranks of Vladimir, cutting down men right and left with his terrible broadax. [[196]]The Smolensk prince and he of Pskoff broke through the ranks before them till they reached the camp in the rear, now abandoned by Yaroslav and Yuri.
Those princes, who had boasted of having a hundred warriors to one of Mystislav’s, now found that for each one of Mystislav’s men killed or wounded, ten or even more than that number had fallen on their own side. The groans of the wounded and the dying reached Yurieff from the battle-field, as the people said afterward; and of corpses on that field they counted nine thousand, not reckoning those borne away earlier.
Then the defeated fled, and all their camp fell to the victors. Mystislav forbade his men to touch anything. “Leave the camp,” said he, “and finish the battle, or they will turn back and defeat you.” The Smolensk men could not refrain from plundering, but the Novgorod warriors obeyed and rushed in pursuit of the enemy. Constantine was the first man to stop fighting; when the tide turned to his side he fought no longer. He pitied his brothers and did them no subsequent injury. Their army was terribly defeated; whole regiments had been destroyed.
Both Yuri and Yaroslav fled without looking behind them, the first to Vladimir, the second toward Pereyaslavl Beyond the Forest. Yuri raced into Vladimir on the fourth horse; he had ridden to death the other three. He had thrown away on the road all his upper clothing, and even his saddle cloth. Yaroslav fled still more fiercely. He rode four horses till they fell, and reached home on the fifth. The wounded and maimed flowed into Yurieff and into every village around it. Many men were drowned in crossing rivers, others died on the road. Every man cursed Yaroslav as the one cause of evil; on him alone did they fix all the error.
When in Vladimir people saw from the walls a horseman rushing toward the city, they thought him a courier with glad tidings from their prince, but when he came nearer they recognized Prince Yuri himself, in shirt and trousers. “Strengthen the town! Strengthen the town!” shouted he, from a distance. Instead of joy, there was wailing. During all that night broken remnants of the army were coming in; some of the warriors almost dead, others wounded. If the victors had chosen to follow, neither Yuri nor Yaroslav, nor any other man, could have escaped them. They might have taken the city without resistance. But they remained [[197]]all the following day on the battle-field, and drew near Vladimir only in the morning on Sunday.