Bayan had eyed the plain of Moesia,…

Bayan had eyed the plain of Moesia, just south of the Lower Danube, what would become northern Bulgaria, as his promised land, but, as Constantinople is adamant the Avars should not in any case cross the river, Bayan and his horde in 563 ride around the northern Carpathians to Germany, where they are soundly stemmed along the river Elbe by the Frankish king Sigebert I of Austrasia.

This defeat induces them to retrace their path to the Lower Danube region.