A/N:Hello again, dear readers! After a small break, I'm back with another chapter. This time, we'll be checking on those out of the sea. I hope everyone enjoys the latest chapter.
Back at Sea
Whilst Majorian and Geiseric waged war on land, the Roman fleet of roughly 2,000 and the Vandal fleet of roughly 10,000 played cat and mouse. The Vandals had been trying to keep the Roman fleet off their trail. They were more concerned about trying to get back to Carthage than dealing with the small fleet, but they knew this fleet needed to be kept away. Because of this, they had tried to send out a small portion of the army to stall the fleet, but the fleet had been clever. They had taken advantage of their more densely packed boats in order to ambush and take over the some of the Vandals boats, giving them even more firepower to harass the Vandal fleet.
The days and weeks dragged on, and they were beginning to be starved out by the Roman fleet. The Vandals had hoped that with the denser size of the Roman army compared to their boats would deplete their resources first, but Majorian had been smart, about it. He had put extra stock into the boats, especially these raiding boats. Because of Majorian's decision, combined with gaining control of some of the Vandal ships, it was the Vandals who would starve first.
A Vandal commander named Gunthur had had enough of the Romans raids, and so began preparing to use the full remaining Vandal army to destroy the fleet. It wasn't ideal, as it would delay the effort to get back to Carthage, but at this point it was better than the alternative.
He ordered his fleet to wait, let the Romans come to them. After several long minutes, the fleet came towards the rear of the Vandals. Once they had gotten in range, Gunthur ordered the fleet to turn and advance. The Vandal fleet crashed into the Roman front, destroying 11 ships in the chaos. They were however, too slow to react to most of the other ships, which were able to retreat. Of the 65 ships the Romans had ( 27 ships from before departing, 38 captured Vandal ships, 13 were lost in total (11 in first attack, 2 more shot down in retreat). This in turn, cost 350 lives of the Roman fleet. The initial attack had been a success for the Vandals. Gunthur ordered the fleet to persue the Romans; he was going to make sure the problem was eliminated. The Vandals could taste victory over the pest that had plagued them.
It was at this moment, when the Romans seemed helpless, that the Eastern Roman fleet had arrived. They crashed into the Vandal fleet right side, taking them by surprise. Hearing the commotion, most the the Western Roman fleet turned back, although a few continued to retreat.
A battle had broken out, one that the Vandals had swam right into. Gunthur cursed himself, he had been overzealous, now his army was faced with a devastating ambush and it was his fault. He led the charge against the Romans. The battle turned to chaos as Vandal and Roman ships crashed into each other. Gunthur concentrated a portion of the army on attacking the Western Romans. Fortunately for him, it was successful, the size of the fleet combined with the chaos on the battle broke the Western Romans, they quickly retreated, with the group in hot persuit.
The 8,000 remaining Vandals battled against 7,000 Eastern Romans, the fighting was fierce on both sides; Eastern Romans boarded several vandal ships, meanwhile many of the Vandal ships blasted the Eastern Romans at a distance.
After more than an hour of intense fighting, the tables finally turned in the Vandals favour when the group of ships sent to battle the Western Romans came charging into the Eastern Roman fleet. But the Eastern Roman held strong intending to cause as much damage as possible. After another hour of intense fighting, the Eastern Romans finally routed. The Vandals had won.
But they had been too damaged to continue persuing the Eastern Romans. Of the 9,700 Vandals at the battle, 4,000 were killed, another 2,000 were severly injured. The Eastern Romans lost 3,700 of their soldiers, whilst the Western ones lost 1,000. It had been a Vandalic victory, but in the grand scheme of events, it was a hollow one.
Following the battle, Gunthur ordered the Vandals to sail to Sardinia. He knew it would delay efforts to get to Carthage even further, but there was no other choice. His men were starving, injured and exhausted, they were in no condition to fight against the Roman army in North Africa. If they could get to Sardinia they could have more time to recover, as well as stock up on fresh supplies. Gunthur and the rest of the Vandal fleet only hoped that the capital could hold out long enough.
A/N: And that is Chapter 6 done, next part we will return back to Majorian and his escapades in North Africa. Thank you for reading, and let me know of anything I can improve, especially when it comes to sea warfare, since I don't know much about naval warfare in Late Antiquity. See you next Chapter!