While Orgognez was advancing, Gonzalo Pizarro and Alonso Alvarado observed that his flank was uncovered, and accordingly made an immediate charge, by which above fifty of the Almagrians were overthrown.  Orgognez was wounded by a musket-ball in the head, which broke through his beaver; notwithstanding which he killed two men with his lance, and wounded one of Pizarros servants in the mouth whom he mistook for the general, as he was finely dressed.  For some time the engagement was extremely severe and the combatants were mingled together; but at length the troops of Pizarro forced the Almagrians to take to flight after they had a considerable number killed and wounded.

Almagro being sick, took no part in the battle, which he observed from a height at some distance, and on seeing his troops take to flight, exclaimed, “I thought we had come out to fight like valiant soldiers, not to run away like cowards.”  He immediately withdrew to the citadel of Cuzco, to which place he was pursued by Gonzalo Pizarro and Alonso Alvarado, and made prisoner.  Orgognez was taken prisoner by two of Pizarros horsemen, who were leading him away when a third came up who bore him a grudge for some injurious treatment, and cut off his head.  Several others who had surrendered were slain in this manner by personal enemies, in spite of every endeavour by Ferdinand Pizarro and his officers to protect them.  The soldiers of Alvarado especially, ashamed and irritated by the defeat they had formerly sustained at the bridge of Abancay, were eager for revenge, and put many of the Almagrians to death in cold blood.  Captain Ruy Dias had taken up a prisoner behind him on horseback, on purpose to protect him, when one of his own troopers run him through with his lance.

When the Indian servants of the two armies saw that the battle among the Christians was ended, they too gave over fighting, and fell to plundering the dead, whom they stripped of their clothes and valuables, even pillaging several who were yet alive, but unable to defend themselves because of their wounds; and as the conquerors were entirely taken up in pursuing their victory, the Indians had it in their power to do as they pleased, so that they entirely stripped everyone whom they found on the field of battle.  The Spaniards, both victors and vanquished, were so worn out and fatigued by their exertions in this battle, that they might have been easily destroyed by the Indians who were present, if they had dared to attack them according to their original intention; but they were so busied in plundering the killed and wounded, that they neglected the opportunity of avenging themselves on their oppressors.  This decisive battle was fought on the 6th of April 1538, in a plain called Cachipampa or the field of salt by the Indians, about a league to the south of the citadel of Cuzco, near a salt spring from which the inhabitants make great quantities of salt; and as these salt works are in the neighbourhood of the field, this engagement has been always known by the name of the battle of Salinas, or of the salt works[18].