A peculiar report mentions that Stephen himself was captured by the Hungarians on 14 December, but that he convinced them to release him. On 15 December, when dusk was approaching, Stephen sent smaller detachments that set the town on fire from three different places: thereafter, noise and confusion set in. Stephen ordered his men to dismount and soon after they launched their attack and made battle until dawn. Descriptions of the battle say that the fire made the night equally light as the day and that many Hungarians were consumed by the flames. The two armies started to butcher each other at the gate of the city; then the fighting continued onto the streets "with such a wrath, that nothing could be seen as more horrible than this." The Moldavians got the upper hand of the battle and launched another attack against the royal guard, which consisted of 200 heavily armed knights, the aristocrats, and Corvinus. Many Moldavians were killed in the tumult that followed, as Báthory and the rest of the knights defended the entrance to the market. Corvinus was wounded and, allegedly he had to be "carried from the battlefield on a stretcher, to avoid him falling into the hands of the enemy." For Moldavians, it was a victory because they could retreat, leaving only 14 of their battleflags in the hands of the Hungarian army, and Stephen was able to write a letter to the Polish king, stating that he won the battle. The captured Moldavian battleflags were suspended in the Boldogasszony church of Buda, as sign of victory over the vassal, the Hungarian bishop of Pécs, Janus Pannonius, and pot dedicating three epigrammas to them.