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. 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.