Rise of Rurik

The crows hover over Bridge Village. They are the messengers of the gods. When the warriors are reduced to ashes in the fire, their souls will surely go to Valhalla under the gaze of the messengers.

A hearty battle, some warriors died, and those who survived were not sad or lost.

Because, there is still a big battle waiting for everyone.

In fact, these crows were aiming at the corpses of cattle and sheep that fell everywhere. They came smelling the blood, and gathered to peck at the cattle and sheep just after Arik left.

Arik decided to evacuate with his brothers and inform the army of the news. They consumed a lot of physical strength during the battle, and now these people are resting in Qiaocun, intending to recover and continue tomorrow.

Those Gotland warriors who had fled frantically fled towards Visby, and soon fled back to the harbor.

The people who went to inquire about the news were actually defeated? ! The bad news spread rapidly with the backs of the defeated soldiers fleeing.

At noon, the exhausted and thirsty people returned to the court in Gotland.

There were as many as twenty high-ranking people gathered in the council court. They were the heads of all the great families in Visby, and the chiefs of all the fleeing villages.

The fact of failure challenged everyone's nerves, even the face that was round because of wealth, now has wrinkles full of sorrow. Oh, these people who were fighting, jumping, or fleeing yesterday were all terrified now.

The defeated people sat on the ground in front of the court, listlessly waiting for the honorable ones to gather.

The Bliss North family, maybe it is the richest business family in Visby, or Gotland.

The head of the family, Harken, hopes that he can become a generation of heroes, and can essentially dominate the entire Visby and the entire island, so as to become a powerful force on the sea. The reality is, he doesn't have the ability to do this. His family has always kept a group of private soldiers, and his sons are also smart and capable. The family has accumulated a lot of wealth and can recruit many warriors.

The Bliss North family is not yet overwhelmingly powerful, and Haken and its traditional allies in business have a strong say in the court, which has been the end of it for a long time.

They are the representatives of the main combat faction! It was also this group of people who encouraged everyone to join the Danes on the island for the greater good.

Obviously, the news about the fugitives is completely correct, the Ross people have already hit the door!

Suddenly a man in luxurious clothes stood up, holding his legs to suppress the trembling of fear: "The Ross people are so fierce, they are just to the east of the mound! Let's go now,

If you want to live, you have to go! "

As soon as the words fell, the people gathered in the court, and even the nobles present, stared with contemptuous eyes.

Harken was old and his white beard, plaited, was trembling.

This is Harken the Whitebeard, who was known as Harken the Golden Beard when he was young, but is no longer youthful now. He was destined not to be a warrior in his life, but became a very wealthy fur trader.

If the Ross people just fought with the fishermen on the sea in the north, the Bliss North family would have no loss. Now the Ross people have entered the cattle and sheep pastures in the middle of the island. ! They can no longer just sit back and watch fishermen suffer losses indifferently.

"Svella of the Stoke family, is your mind full of suet? Or have you become a fat sheep cowardly?" Haken rolled his eyes and said in disdain.

"You! You are mocking me." Svella yelled and pointed at me, "Now the Danes and the guys from the north are fighting in the south. We only have 10,000 people, and we are going to fight the Ross alone? Can we fight?" Win?!"

"You...you really are a docile sheep." After finishing speaking, Haken laughed in public.

He began to interrogate the people who had withdrawn, and was shocked to find that the elite under his command had never been there since LaVine? A bad idea buzzed in his head.

Someone hurriedly wailed: "Lavin died, his head was cut off by the Ross people. Hundreds of brothers died, what a tragedy!"

"what?"

Haken, who was taken aback, hurried down the stone steps, knelt down and strangled the messenger's neck: "Say! Who killed him? He is a warrior!"

"Yes...it's that guy. Arik! Arik of Ross!"

"Huh? Unexpectedly..." Haken let go of his hand, and all the nobles present became alert.

It was only three years ago that Aric first unleashed his terror on the Gotlanders. He deliberately told the fugitive enemy his name, and in the following years he led troops to plunder Gotland fishing boats at sea, and deliberately released some prisoners, bringing news of the Gotland man "Aric of Ross".

The Gotlanders don't know much about the Ross people, mainly because of the old calendar decades ago - the losers of the Svealan competition were forced to go to the bitter cold land in the north.

Of course, the current islanders have paid a positive integer three years of non-stop looting, and Arik of Ross has become synonymous with terror, as if that person is the leader of the Ross people.

Haken admires Arik as a warrior, but it is a pity that he is an enemy who threatens his family. If he does not die, the whole island will not live.

Now the peace faction has completely shut up, and many people who were still arguing last night are now standing around Harken.

However, there was a group of cowards called "runaways" in the crowd.

Wisla of the wealthy Stoke family is one of these escapees. He himself doesn't care about cowardly behavior, and there are indeed people who follow him for a reason.

Knowing that the Ross people sent a butcher, this strengthened Svela's will to escape: "If you want to fight, you fight! I will take my family to evacuate. I will go to Denmark and leave this unfortunate island."

"What did you say? Unlucky island?" Harken stared angrily.

"What? Haven't we experienced little in these years?"

"This is clearly a blessed land, we are all rich." Harken retorted.

"However, we will be finished soon. Brother, listen to me, there is still time to evacuate."

Svela no longer wants to talk nonsense, he has made up his mind to go. He is very sure of one thing, although the news is not yet conclusive, the Ross people must be invading on a large scale. The Gotlanders have always been a mess. In recent years, the Bliss North family has grown rapidly, and the raids of the Ross people have suddenly become more frequent. The Gotlanders, who have always been active, have now become passive.

The Ross people dared to invade the interior of the island this time, so they must have come prepared.

He had already turned around and was stopped by Harken's guards.

"What? Don't let me go? Force me to fight?"

"No. You can leave! But hand over all your private soldiers." Harken said viciously.

"Why? That's mine."

"You? You think you can leave The Thing alive if you don't hand over people now? Listen, the cowards in Gotland will be killed by everyone. No one will sympathize with cowards."

Svela stared at all the noble people, and he was surprised to see that those who wanted to run away after being frightened by Haken said to stay and fight. Everyone seems to be united around Harken? Do not! Everyone just huddled together to keep warm.

The subtle atmosphere infected Harken himself, not just the thread. Harken suddenly shouted: "Visby is at stake, the wealth of every family is here, and the Ross people have dispatched everyone to take it away. Our wealth. We can only fight them desperately, now I hope you all recognize that I am the leader, let me lead everyone, gather everyone's strength, and defeat the Ross people."

"Huh?" Svela was taken aback, and asked angrily, "In the end, you want to imitate the Danes as kings?!"

"Why not?" Haken laughed slowly, and drew out his sword again, "I'm going to the altar in the south, I want to sacrifice Odin with blood, let God grant us victory, let God grant me the king of Gotland .”

"Just you? Are you worthy of being king?" Svela didn't go any further. He turned around and stood straight in front of Haken and said contemptuously, "I can be a coward, but you are arrogant. You are only a little richer than everyone else. Why do you..."

"That's it!" Svela said half of his words, and a sharp dagger pierced through his chin.

It was Harken, who pulled out the meat-cutter knife from his left hand in an instant, and dealt a fatal blow to Svela, which surprised everyone.

Blood splashed all over Harken, Svela died on the ground with his eyes open, blood still gushing from the wound...

Haken still didn't give up, he bent down and spat: "This is what happens to cowards who run away."

Originally, the majority advocated fighting. After all, the islanders are mainly fishermen. The Ross people have plundered wildly in the past three years. The root of all evil is the Rus! They don't die, everyone will starve to death sooner or later.

Haken raised his right hand that was holding the long sword tightly, and threw away the bloody dagger, "Brothers, I am the king of Gotland now! I will go to the altar today, and I will sacrifice ten slaves to God. I will use myself Pray for Odin's blood to grant victory. The Ross people are indeed terrible, but we can defeat them with the strength of all of us!"

People in fear need a political strongman to stand up and bring them a bright future.

Was Harken like that? Maybe so, at least the man's decisiveness is credible.

Visby is a large settlement built around a stone ship altar.

Today, a huge longhouse has been built on the place where the original altar was located. Each wooden door has exquisite carvings, and the columns inside are also wrapped in sheepskin and decorated with dark green pine branches and crystal amber. The longhouse was filled with incense all the time, and a group of priests who used red-hot daggers to destroy all the hair follicles so that their hair would no longer grow. They were bald and wore plain robes, and they worshiped their gods with pure white to represent absolute piety.

The news of the defeat was quickly replaced by the fact that Harken became king.

Everyone needs a hero in their hearts to lead everyone through this disaster. Everyone knows that the distant Danes cannot relieve their urgent needs immediately, and now they must rely on themselves.

The rich and the poor all support Harken, even the skeptics, in order to avoid the end of Svela, they instead clamor that "war" is the happiest.

The mighty people surrounded the longhouse of the stone boat altar and made it impossible to get through!

Ten slaves of the Bliss North family were beheaded in horror by the priest with a large ax plated with gold patterns.

In the longhouse, a roughly cast bronze statue of an old face is the image of Riodin in the eyes of the Gotlanders. The eyes of the god witness the death of the sacrifice.

The cultural environment of Gotland is a bit strange. Only the statue of Odin is erected on the altar, and the statue of Frey, which symbolizes wealth, is placed in the merchant family.

Now at the time of life and death, merchants have turned into warriors.

With his eyes closed, Harken cut his hand with the knife and spilled the blood on a plate of pure gold.

The slave whose head had been cut off was hung upside down, and the blood of the slave completely stained the altar of the stone ship in the room.

Wealthy merchants and village leaders knelt together in the longhouse. They were the participants and witnesses of the whole bloody sacrifice.

Likewise, a male High Priest of Gotland who was blind in one eye and wore an antler helmet (the antlers were smaller than those of the priests of Ross, but rimmed with solid gold), solemnly declared after a strange convulsion that Two things:

As long as the men and women of Gotland unite, the Ross people can be completely defeated. The great Odin announced that Harken of the Brinos family became the king of Gotland and led the people to defeat the enemy.

No one has any objection to this arrangement, because time is limited, they are not allowed to have any objection at all!

Haken, who became king, did not have any pleasure. He became the king he dreamed of, but he was also very sober.

The reason why the families support him is entirely because he needs to fulfill the responsibility of the king and lead everyone to defeat the enemy. Similarly, for future battles, Wang's family must also spend a lot of money, which has made the islanders dare to fight desperately.

That night, the Stockers were ransacked by the locals of Visby!

Because the king said, the cowards who betrayed the brothers on the island have no right to live.

Svela of Stoker was slain, and his sons also died tragically. Although his female relatives resisted, they were all slaves who could be disposed of at will. However, the private soldiers and former slaves raised by the family themselves became the subordinates of King Harken.

The wealth of the Stoke family was robbed, and not only the Visby people joined the plunder, but also the strong villagers who had fled, and even the Danes who purely lived on the island.

There are some silent Danes who have witnessed the big events these days. They are the Danish leader, or the subordinates of the Danish King "Lion" Hafgen. They hid their identities and silently monitored these Gotlanders. They said that once these guys betrayed the alliance, the news would soon reach Hafgen's ears, and then the Danish army would land and attack.

How can Haken, who is called the king, not know this, he took out ten slave blood sacrifices at once, on the one hand, it was for the "silent watchers" of Denmark to see, and as for the decisive battle with the Ross people, of course, it was mainly for the Goths Orchids, on the other hand, this is another form of voting certificate.

Since the noble priest said that the Gotlanders would win a big victory, after defeating the Ross people, the Gotlanders' position in the Danish forces should also rise significantly.

Under the auspices of the family Zhang Haken, the Bliss North family decided to take a big gamble of failure or destruction.

His five sons, at various ages, must immediately suspend their status as merchants and put on chain mail and become warriors, whether they like it or not.

Of course he wouldn't dream that his son could become a warrior on the battlefield, that was absolutely impossible. However, they can passively gain honor as commanders, leading mercenaries, slaves, and armed peasants into battle.

He lied that his sons would never be in any danger, because the main force in the war was not himself.

As night fell, Harken distributed as much as a hundred pounds of silver to support the warring farmers, herdsmen, and fishermen in the king's name. Plus people looted the Stokers, and many got rich that night.

In the splendid longhouse of House Bliss North, all five of Harkon's sons braved.

The eldest son, Siegfast, had greater ambitions in an instant because of his father's self-proclaimed king. He is the oldest, and he was supposed to inherit the family's main business, so he will naturally inherit his father's throne now.

However, the brothers are all eyeing each other.

Siegfast didn't want to kill his own brothers to eliminate future troubles, so he mainly used his strength to suppress the ambitions of his brothers.

At the meeting within the family, Siegfast made a bold statement: "Father, I will continue to take people to see the situation. If we want to fight the Ross people, we must at least find them first."

Haken Dayue: "Okay! Two hundred people are obviously not enough, and the villagers in those bridge villages are also idiots. I will give you five hundred people, and take these elites to explore the way."

"OK!"

Haken stretched out his hand and patted the eldest son's shoulder vigorously, then untied his long sword inlaid with amber, and handed it to the eldest son, the meaning of which was self-evident.

Siegfast holds the sword in both hands, as if holding absolute power.

He swore with a tight mouth: "I will find the Ross people, attack them proactively, and take revenge on them."

"No!" Haken shook his head: "I want you to be smart. Five hundred warriors are present, and the Ross people will not attack rashly. You! I want you to try to find that Ross' Arik and tell him that the Gotlanders want Fight against the Ross people for all grievances. Tell me that the Gotlanders are ready, if the Ross people don't come, they will be utter villains and cowards, and they will be dung spurned by God."

"Yes. I... I will." Siegfast nodded, but for a moment, Haken saw the flicker in his son's eyes, as if this kid still had his own little plan?

Harken couldn't think too much. His immediate priority was to reorganize the army so that farmers could become warriors, and young women, too, had to take up arms and become female warriors.

As for Siegfast, 500 soldiers in leather armor (partial chain mail) will follow him, and they will go to the mound to investigate by force tomorrow.