Rise of Rurik

Siegfast, the commander-in-chief of the Gotland army, ran away with the remaining hundred soldiers.

Those who were the fastest had just reached the camp in the woods, and in an instant they were shot with precision from the dreaded crossbow bolts.

Arik stood like a pine tree, and the sword clenched in his right hand pointed directly at the enemy.

Without any slogan, he just made this action, and the Ross soldier who was waiting for his work was shooting with a crossbow. Although the light wooden crossbow has poor power storage, it is also good for light targets.

More than a dozen Gotland soldiers fell to the ground with arrows, and the rest waited in astonished eyes to see the Russ troops who had already lined up the shield wall.

Look at these enemies, they're in complete uniform, there's a blue-and-white wall in the woods, they're indestructible.

"Receive the crossbow! Swordsman! Attack!"

Arik gave the order, and his warriors, chanting to the same rhythm, advanced like a wall towards the fleeing Gotland army.

Siegfast was so overwhelmed that he dropped his sword to the ground.

He staggered down to pick up the sword, but he didn't want to stand up after lying down.

The defeat of this Gotland army was inevitable. There was an unshakable wall in front and a large group of Rus pursuers at the rear. The Gotlanders completely lost the chance to break through and escape.

Are you going to run about in the wild grass? That would be a moving target for Ross shooters again.

Grund's knees were directly on Siegfast's back, and he yelled in the Danish Norse dialect: "Brothers! Don't give them your life! We're doing the opposite!"

The boss said so, and the sword that the living Danish mercenary clenched suddenly stabbed the Gotland in front of him.

Siegfast saw that his subordinates were unexpectedly backstabbed, and the perpetrator was actually his own trusted mercenary? !

He gritted his teeth and tried to get up, but he couldn't get up at all. He yelled, "Grund, you're a traitor. You're betraying the king, you're betraying me. You're... a Russ dog!"

"That's better than dying in vain." Grund felt a little guilty, and he could only go all the way to the end.

"You! Don't you care about honor? How can a mercenary betray the gold master."

"Do not,

I did not betray. I didn't betray the people of Denmark, that's not betrayal. Now, my brothers and I are looking for Ross people to continue making money. "

The Danish mercenaries were motionless, they were in a completely defensive stance. As for the Gotland warriors, their futile resistance quickly collapsed under the attack of the Rus army.

"No mercy! Brothers, it's time for revenge!" Arik ordered loudly, and his warriors knew what to do.

The Gotland army soldiers present were all mortal enemies, and the Russ quickly annihilated this group of enemies with their absolute superiority in force.

However, the people holding the raven-patterned shields actually formed a ring of defense. Look at how they don't look like they're going to attack or defend. It was as if the fight in front of them had nothing to do with them.

A Russ soldier who rashly attacked rushed up. After a fight, the Russ soldier was just kicked out with big feet. The armored soldier with the raven shield obviously had no killing intent.

Several of the challengers were expelled, unscathed, and their blood was from fallen Gotland soldiers.

It stands to reason that the 300 elite Ross soldiers should wash over these dozen people like a mudslide. Everyone did not do this, but kept a distance of about ten positions from the enemy, waiting for no reason.

Arik was squeezed out of the ring and scolded: "What are you doing? Destroy all the enemies, hurry up!"

Afterwards, he ordered his subordinates to move out of the way and enter the ring formation.

Look at the uniform raven shield, and the trusty chain mail the warrior wears.

"Ah! I know you! Elite fighters in the Gotland army, you beat me so badly!" As he spoke, Arik almost bit his lip, and the order to gather and kill them came out.

At the critical moment, Grund stepped out of his array.

He knelt down on one knee in front of Arik, put his sword and shield on the ground, and finally took off his iron helmet.

This is the surrender of a warrior!

The enemy's elite was like this, and Arik immediately changed his tone: "You... are you going to surrender? Who are you?"

"My name is Grund, Grund of Vatel, Denmark."

"What? Are you... a Dane?"

"We are indeed Danes." Grund looked up, his bearded face unchanged. He describes the location of the Vatel settlement, in a small bay called the Land of Jutland, where the tribe was indeed part of the Dane Confederation.

Arik's face was full of blue veins, and he said fiercely: "If this is the case, you all deserve to be damned."

Grund is not afraid, or the fear of the current situation is meaningless. He looked calm: "If death in battle is my destiny, we can accept it. It is meaningless to escape and fight, you Rus people are powerful opponents. I have no intention of making you enemies, everything is just to obey the orders of the gold master! Now, I decided to take my brothers to join you."

"What?" Arik looked up to the sky and laughed, and then scorned the guy on one knee: "You want to rely on us? Are you worthy?"

"We are willing to be warriors under the strong, and..." Grund hinted to his subordinates that the unfortunate Siegfast anthology was taken out and held by the Danish mercenaries.

During the daytime battle yesterday, Arik never saw the face of Gotland's commander, but the clothes he wore were very gorgeous, which made him remember deeply.

The guy who was pinned to the ground was the idiot who made a rude speech yesterday.

"This thing isn't dead yet! It's great." Arik was overjoyed, and he stepped directly on Siegfast's face with his sword in hand.

Such an insult made the man angry and cursed: "Arik from Russ, you are not only a coward, you are also a despicable coward. And you, Grund, you are a filthy traitor."

Siegfast could still curse now, but soon it was a piercing scream.

It was Arik, who followed through on his word that the leader of Gotland had to be tortured to death.

The tendons of Siegfast's hands were cut off, and although he didn't bleed much, with the current Nordic medicine, he would not want to connect the tendons, and his hands holding the sword had been scrapped.

"What is it! Stupid! In the end, you will be turned into a blood eagle!"

As soon as he heard the word blood eagle, Siegfast trembled, and then everyone present smelled a stench.

The leader of the Gotland was so frightened that he made the Ruth warriors laugh.

The leader of the enemy had today's remnant, and the elite of the enemy knelt down and wanted to surrender, and Arik's resentment disappeared instantly.

A Russ soldier made a key reminder, and Arik temporarily stopped: "Okay! You Danes, I am Aric of Ross. You have been captured, now lay down your weapons and wait for our Duke of Ross. You have caught it. The leader of the Gotlanders, everyone will survive because of this credit. If you can give detailed information on Visby's side, maybe the Duke will admit your refuge."

Listen, the Danish mercenary soldiers disarmed.

Grund was betting that the Russ would listen in a crisis.

The opponents are uniformly dressed, and their combat methods are meticulous and effective, and they have a bit of the meaning of the Frankish army. Grund heard many legends of Charlemagne in his hometown, especially the Saxon refugees who crossed the border wall. .

The geographical limitation is that there are only a very small number of ponies in Gotland, and horses do not exist in the rest of the island, and even if they do, they cannot be ridden.

The Rus had no horses, they were well-trained in combat, and with this army, Visby was only a few days away from being broken.

Grund won the bet, the Russ are fierce but reasonable, and all the Danish mercenaries are currently spared from death, and at the same time they have not been humiliated.

The main battlefield of this outpost was already covered with the corpses of Gotland soldiers, and those who were dying were killed by the Russ army.

The warriors had already begun to collect the corpses of the enemy, although everyone felt that Rurik's order was superfluous.

It is the right way to gather the bodies of our fallen soldiers and cremate them. But the corpses of the enemy are all over the huge battlefield, do you deserve the victor's toss? The corpse is stopped in the wilderness!

Rurik still gave orders, and the people who did it were mainly Kovins and Slavs.

At first glance, the current Medvitt is clearly a Varyag warrior, but his Slavic language is revealed. The Slavic warriors from Novgorod have tasted an unprecedented victory, the Slavic wall of spears has killed a large number of Gotland Varyags, and now they are collecting corpses for their opponents!

The bloody corpses with hideous faces were dragged away and began to be piled up into small mounds.

The arrows on the corpse and the weapons of the enemy were recovered. Leather boots, blood-stained sackcloth, torn armor, and even the crucial iron helmet, chain mail, useful cowhide belt...

The Slavic and Kovin warriors took care of everything, taking everything that was available to the enemy. Those stacked corpses, like the white sand dunes on the grass in the forest, are so dazzling and strange.

Rurik himself pardoned all Danish prisoners who should have been executed.

Is there anything more miraculous than being pardoned by a pretty blond boy?

Grund and his brothers lined up on one knee to accept the pardon, while they also had to face the fact that Siegfast's Gotland army was defeated by such a brat's army .

He slowly raised his head and looked at Rurik's beautiful face: "Could it be that you are the Duke of the Rus?"

"Yes! No. Not for the time being, the future is." Rurik's words were a bit ambiguous. Seeing the other party's doubts, he explained: "Duke Ross is leading the follow-up 2,000 troops. Soon, they will enter This battlefield. I am the duke's son, Rurik blessed by Odin, commander of the armies of Rus, and Visby is destined to be at my feet. You hold the raven shields? Now, I am their proper Master. Because, I am the one loved by Odin."

This is really domineering, and it really shouldn't be something a child can say.

But the reality is unreasonable, and Grund has to accept the reality of this - the Ross army does have 3,000 soldiers. When they landed on the island, the Gotlanders had already been defeated.

For Rurik, the Danish defectors can be described as a pleasant surprise.

In general, Rurik had a strong resistance to killing prisoners. The elite among the prisoners, or those with the strongest will to resist, should be killed. As for ordinary prisoners, as slaves, it was the most cost-effective to work for ten years to redeem themselves. .

But these Danes are different!

In terms of feelings, Rurik himself had no hatred for the Danes, but just followed the trend against them. The entire Swea tribal alliance is against the Danes, and now the alliance has become a Swedish kingdom dominated by the Melarens, so it will directly go to war against the Danish forces.

Are the Mellarens considered reliable allies? Do not! Just a business partner. Forcing the Rus people to move from Lake Mälaren to the current Roseburg, these guys are the main initiators.

A long time ago, the Rus would also go to the Uppsala Temple (controlled by the Uppsala tribe, offering sacrifices to Odin, Uber, and Sora, and the names of Uppsala are also derived from the gods they worshiped) to make sacrifices , After being expelled, the Russ entered the land of bitter cold, and any faith gave way to the worship of Odin. Only Odin can bless everyone to resist the blow of the cold.

After so many things in Melalen, Rurik really didn't have much affection for the nobles of Melalen. He was greedy for the oats, linen and wool of the Melalen.

Since these Danes were meant to be mercenaries with money. OK! This group of people can take advantage.

It is only used.

They betrayed and captured their master as a sign of surrender, and were more willing to report everything they knew about Visby. These guys just betrayed their financial masters. With the first time, wouldn't there be a second time?

They can never be cronies, but they can be the intelligence tools that the current Russ army needs.

Based on these ideas, the raven shields of the Danes were confiscated, they would not be slaves, but they would not have any weapons, and these people would not enter the battle line in the future decisive battle.

Rurik needed them to provide key information, and after Otto led the large army, the Danes would explain the situation of Visby clearly.

As for that sigfast...

Most of the Rus army soldiers had already rested on the spot. The Slavs and Kovins who carried the dead gathered together with the field spoils they had obtained, and sat together happily chatting and laughing.

According to the old rules, the soldiers take the common weapons, equipment and property seized on the battlefield, and hand over the valuables to the commander-in-chief.

The Slavs and the Kovins, the soldiers themselves are fellow villagers. Since they are fellow villagers who know each other, the villagers in the village will exchange the spoils they have captured internally. There is no need to leave Riktor to intervene, such as the Slavs, these warriors relied on capture, not only did they improve their weapons and equipment, but now they all put on leather boots, and washed their blood-stained armor, mail, and sackcloth in the stream. Defense also increased.

There are no warriors in commoner clothes and some warriors in chain mail. The equipment level of the Slavic warriors is highly unified, and the combat power level of the entire flag team has been comprehensively improved. The same is true of the Kowens, but they care more about archery, so they cleaned up the equipment of the archers of the Gotland. Look at the brothers! Everyone's stringing hands were wearing very finely stitched leather gloves (an excellent product of Viking craftsmen), and the deerbone fingers for hooking the strings were also put on the gloves. Archers no longer have to worry about bruising their palms.

In this case, Siegfast, the commander of the Gotland, does this guy still have any meaning?

Have! Of course there is.

A noble guy beheaded hastily, or Arik threatened to be a blood eagle to be executed, the action is too hasty.

I won't kill him for the time being, but the pain of flesh and blood is indispensable.

Siegfast was knocked out of his front teeth and bruised by the Ross warriors. He was hung from a tree, lost all his ornate clothes, his upper body covered in hair, and the words spelled in bloody runes pierced by Aric with the tip of his sword.

The Ross soldiers onlookers applauded for this savage venting of anger. If Arik hadn't asked him to vent his anger, he would have done it himself.

The battlefield was basically cleaned up, and a lot of bloodstains could be clearly detected on the collapsed grass.

Those white sand-like corpses have been covered with a large number of newly felled pine trees, and the surrounding weeds have also been cleaned up by the Rus and stacked on the "wooden tower" that needs to be burned.

The so-called pit killing, one description is to pile the battlefield dead in a large pit for mass burial, and the other is to stack up and cover the soil to make an open-air mound.

In Jutland, which is the main gathering area of ​​the Danes, most of the Danish tribes practice the open-air mounds to make mounds, and the noble chiefs' tombs are almost piled up into "pyramids" made of soil. Soldiers who died in tribal battles were treated the same way.

Is this the building of the capital? Rurik was unaware of the Danes' sacrificial and burial customs.

According to the custom of the Rus, he cremated the dead. Dealing with so many dead bodies would take a long time to burn.

None of the cremated dead were from the Ross Army.

Using the right tactics and attacking at the right time, it is normal for the Ross Army to hit such a crazy loss ratio.

Rurik is not proud, he will not be excited by the blood of the enemy, he just wants to win the decisive battle as soon as possible and take away what he really needs-all kinds of materials that enrich the Ross tribe, and a hegemony.

The main force of the Ross army finally arrived at the battlefield. At this moment, the firewood-piled mounds were already on fire, sending out a lot of terrifying smoke.

The soaring smoke column became the best sign, and Otto's Ross follow-up troops arrived at the battlefield slowly and leisurely.