The Danish Viking army enjoyed their feast. Early in the morning, thousands of warriors lay scattered on the beach. They caroused until late at night. Now that the sun has come out, they are still sleeping soundly.
Finally, people gradually woke up.
The first thing they did when they woke up was to throw firewood into the nearly extinguished bonfire, and then slaughter some cattle and sheep to eat fresh barbecue.
Some people picked up the stiff corpses of prisoners and threw them directly into the sea to let them float.
Those prisoners who were still alive, disheveled and in a daze, awaited a terrible fate.
In contrast, Ragnar was angry that he could not see his men enjoying pleasure on their captives. Because of his determination, the lives of the handful of captives controlled by his people are now guaranteed.
The worse ones are the prisoners controlled by Oslo mercenaries. There is no language barrier in the entire region in this time and space, and the people of Oslo have promised to take them back to be wives and start a new life. The situation of this group of prisoners was not bad.
As for other tribes, it was a disaster.
The day before departure, the main task of the army on the beach was to count the loot. Regardless of whether there are enough ships, each tribe participating in the battle will hand over part of their cattle and sheep as tribute to the leader Hafgen, and the rest will be their own.
At this time, the small group of traveling merchants accompanying the army carried out transactions with various troops on the spot.
Even if all the captured ships were used, it would be impossible to bring back the captured cattle and sheep.
It is also impossible to rely on the mouths of an army to eat cattle and sheep in a short time.
The current situation can be described as miraculous. The number of cattle and sheep seized far exceeds the number of troops.
The Gotlanders' proposal was to spend money to buy cattle and sheep and let them drive them to the Götaland Highlands in the south. After all, many of the Gotlander families participating in the war had family members working as herdsmen in the Götaland Highlands.
Some cattle and sheep were quickly traded, and many were skinned. As for the beef and mutton, they were roasted on a large scale and used as food rations for a period of time in the future. Their logic is that if they spend money to buy leather, the money will be made by treacherous leather merchants. When you get the opportunity to peel the skin, act immediately, quickly dry and tan it, and make a leather jacket to keep out the cold. Beef and mutton are also rare and good food.
In this way, Bullock Bay began to be dyed red with blood on a large scale, and the air was filled with fishy smells, burnt smells, and even the aroma of barbecued fat.
In fact, Ragnar hoped to take back all the cattle and sheep that his people had captured, but it would be a big deal if he could bring back only twenty sheep. After this battle, ten of his men died and more than thirty others were injured. After calming down, Ragnar felt that if the so-called defenseless Ostara tribe really made them fully prepared for a war, he would suffer a lot.
Even so, he has never forgotten the idea of going north to expand the victory, but due to the current situation, it is impossible for him to take more than a hundred people to challenge.
There was some room on the ship, which was suitable for the few captured women and a handful of captured sheep.
Ragnar also began to do the same thing as his allies, which was to eat beef and leave the hide behind. Luxury is luxury, and when he saw the happy faces of his subordinates, he felt much relieved.
Even the captured women began to eat the beef that belonged to their own tribe.
Her husband and father were dead, and she should have been martyred, but instead she was controlled by the Danes. At least, this small group of Danes seems to be a little gentler than the crazy people over there. The women's mood softened slightly.
Ragnar indeed gathered the captives under his control and promised them that each of them would become a member of the "Stonewall" tribe and start a new life.
Is there a better option?
If you don't want to commit suicide and be martyred, you can only live as a Dane.
However, Ragnar seemed to have forgotten Hafgen's terrifying determination.
After another carnival night, the sun became angry again, and another group of dead captives were thrown into the sea. Hafgen did not restrain his direct subordinates, let alone the cruel revenge that the Gotlanders spontaneously carried out.
After all, the Ostara tribe needs to be wiped off the ground. Only a layer of charcoal and the corpses of the enemy should be left here. He felt that his determination fully explained the power of the Danish leader.
So, there is one more thing to solve before setting off.
Early in the morning, Hafgen's envoy approached Ragnar's camp and announced the alliance leader's decision.
"What? Put them to death? Why?" Ragna was shocked, "I have declared them to be ours."
The messenger couldn't listen to Ragna's words at all, and ordered: "This is the order of the alliance leader! Do you want to disobey the order?! Hand over all the prisoners now."
"But!"
"Please carry out the order immediately. We don't want to wait long."
Just a messenger, pretending to be powerful here? Ragnar was not one to be intimidated.
He raised his chest and shouted: "Then let the alliance leader come in person! Anyway... I don't have many prisoners in my hands anyway."
"Okay! I remember what you said. Let's wait for the thunderous wrath of the alliance leader!" After saying that, the envoy left temporarily.
Ragnar learned that the leader of the alliance did not even spare a group of women. Is this a thing done by a man? Just a lunatic.
But in the current situation, if he really wants to protect those prisoners, he is clearly going against the alliance leader. Of course you have to do it! It's just that you need to do it secretly.
Ragnar quickly gathered the thirty prisoners under his control, picked out five obviously older ones, and placed them aside.
The remaining twenty-five people...
Ragnar saw that many women had special wounds and blood stains on their arms. This is just a trick played by his subordinates to carve words on the slaves. If he had time, it would be tattoos. With these markers, he felt things became easier.
"Brothers, you all have new slaves. Now obey my command and shave their heads."
Suddenly, the tribe was in an uproar.
Ragnar gritted his teeth: "Didn't you hear that? Shave all their heads."
A strong man couldn't stand it anymore, so he stepped forward and asked, "Sir, what's the matter? Even if she is a slave, she is still a woman. Shaving her hair will kill her. I want to take the woman back as a slave." Two wives.”
"You!" Ragnar, who was furious, suddenly grabbed his subordinate's neck with one hand and said viciously: "You think I don't understand? Now that Hafgen wants to kill all the prisoners, and that guy doesn't want to live. Listen, The only thing that can save your second wife's life now is to shave her head. Then, put her in men's clothes and a man's helmet. They are mixed in with our team, and Hafgen will not count us personally. how many people."
As Ragnar informed his men of the truth, the confused warriors immediately began to deal with their women.
Due to the urgency of the situation, the methods used by these strong men were extremely rough.
The strong man just now grabbed his woman and dragged her aside, grabbed her neck with one hand and squeezed her face, and held the dagger directly against her scalp with his right hand.
The woman was screaming desperately and kicking her legs.
"Shut up! If you don't shut up, I'll cut your throat right now!"
Being frightened like this, the woman immediately became quiet. She closed her eyes and couldn't stop the tears from flowing. Her long golden hair was cut off one after another, leaving basically only her cyan scalp.
It can be said that even this strong man has never seen the appearance of a woman's scalp.
As the women cried heartbreakingly, each of them became bald, and many of them even suffered scalp injuries. Compared with the bleeding wounds, their hearts are also bleeding.
On the battlefield, it is very reasonable to take away the enemy's helmets, mails, axes, and all other weapons as captured items. Ragnar's men only got a few cattle and sheep, but confiscated a lot of weapons and armor.
Now these weapons and armors have unexpected uses.
Those poor, soulless women put on men's leather armor, and then restrained their waists with belts, and finally hung an ax on the belt. They also put a pair of bronze helmets on their heads that could cover half of their faces. In order to be realistic, all the women were forced to wipe away their tears and then had their faces painted with a layer of charcoal.
Losing all their hair, their helmets covering most of their faces, their leather armors and men's robes, all of the above completely concealed their female features.
In a critical moment, Ragnar could only sacrifice part and save the majority. He felt that what he had done was perfect.
After a while, just as the messenger said, Hafgen really came in person.
Today, Hafgen is wearing mail and his beloved ferret coat. He also had a gold ring on his helmet to show his nobility. ,
He came here arrogantly, and he came just to raise an army to hold him accountable.
Seeing that more than thirty people had arrived at once, Ragna winked at his subordinates and pulled over the five old women he had selected.
Hafgen raised his chin and looked at people with his nostrils so arrogantly: "The messenger told me that you refused to hand over all the prisoners."
"There is no such thing." Ragna responded with a dull face, and then snapped his fingers, and five old women with the same dull faces were pushed over by his subordinates. "As you can see, we are very sorry to have captured just this few prisoners."
"What? Just this?!"
Five old guys with wrinkled faces, Hafgen instinctively felt that Ragnar was lying.
"Yes, that's it."
"That's not right!"
"Oh, you can come to my camp and have a look. You see, my people are all here. If there are other women inside, how can they escape your eyes."
Hafgen took a few glances and saw only some people dressed as warriors. Every one of them was full of traces of fighting. He felt that these guys were not castrated monks, and they would be as crazy as the bulls in April if they caught a young woman. Ragnar probably wasn't lying about this.
Seeing that the situation was good, Ragnar deliberately complained: "Compared to other tribes, we captured the least."
"Is this really true?" Hafgen looked into Ragnar's eyes: "Ragna, son of Sigurd, you have received real honor, and all the gods have seen it! The gods are fair, so you just caught Take these five old women." After that, he ordered his subordinates: "Take these five people away."
Look at the five old women. They had dull faces and did not resist at all when they were taken away.
Because everything has been discussed.
Compared to other Danes, this group of Danes seems to be different. In order to protect the remaining twenty-five tribesmen, these five old women decided to sacrifice themselves. Even if the Ostara tribe is destroyed, there will still be a small number of women surviving, so why should we continue to hope?
Finally, Hafgen finally said: "Soon, all the prisoners will be executed. You should also prepare, we are about to return."
Many tribes did not have Ragnar's quick wit, and those commanders did not dare to rashly disobey the leader's orders. They handed over the captives under their control one after another, and the captives were forced to gather at the seaside. They basically knew the fate of death and fell into complete despair.
Hafgen also ordered the Gotlanders to hand over all the prisoners. Although it was a pity, since the leader of the alliance had spoken, everyone could only do it.
There is only one group of people who resolutely refuse.
That's the mercenaries of Oslo.
This group of Norwegians came up with the agreement they made before sending troops. The so-called Oslo people's trophies do not need to be turned over.
Thinking that he had indeed made such a public promise, and thinking that future trade with the Norwegians would still require the Oslo people to bridge the gap, Hafgen only let go of the slaves captured by the Oslo people.
What happened next was just a brutal trick played by a barbaric guy, and Ragna had no intention of observing or supervising the execution site.
Because he is really not ashamed of what the leader Hafgen is doing.
They have wiped out other people's tribes, but they still want to completely wipe out the surviving captives? ! We all live in this sea area, do we have to be so ruthless in doing things?
In fact, Hafgen himself did not want to watch the execution. He issued orders to his subordinates and stayed in his tent afterwards.
Screams were heard outside the account, and those poor people, the survivors of Ostara, were all killed by the Danish army.
Unlike the Ostara warriors who were cremated, the Danish army threw the bodies of the executed directly into the sea, and the seawater had already been dyed red with the blood of cattle and sheep.
The whole world turned scarlet, everything was so magical.
Even the Danish soldiers and Gotland soldiers who were watching the execution felt in their hearts that the leader had made the wrong decision.
Many people began to silently give the leader Hafgen another nickname of "Woman Killer".
This is really not a good nickname.
"Sir, the matter is done." A subordinate broke into Hafgen's tent.
"Done? Okay! It's time to return. Let's go."
As soon as Hafgen came out of the tent, he was startled by the sight in front of him. I saw that the executed prisoners were thrown into the sea, and some had begun to float.
In this situation, he couldn't help but start to wonder, maybe he had gone too far?
At this moment, the sun was high again. He subconsciously opened his eyes to the sun and shouted suddenly: "Hey! Gods of Valhalla, you have all seen it! It was not my cruelty. It was them who destroyed Sikkenborg first. It's their fault! That's why I destroyed Ostara today."
He felt much better after roaring.
Like other tribes, Ragnar's army began the final preparations before evacuating. A large amount of captured supplies were thrown on and put on, as well as the captured women disguised as soldiers, their helmets covering their sorrow.
They were ordered to sit in the boat, and once it set sail, they were also required to take part in the oars.
Ragnar indeed put twenty sheep on the boat, and he also sent someone to cut some grass urgently. This was food for the sheep floating on the sea. For the rest of the group, the meal during the voyage was a large amount of roast beef prepared in advance.
The huge coalition army killed more than a thousand cattle and more than 500 sheep in a short period of time. Almost all the rest of the captured cattle and sheep fell into the hands of the Gotlanders.
The coalition forces also paid the price of more than a hundred deaths. The vast majority of the dead were Gotlanders, and it was they who captured the most during the war.
The Gotlanders are very satisfied with the gains after the battle, but this place must be dangerous and evil, and the ghosts of the captives who were deliberately executed by the alliance leader will surely wail forever. Some Gotlanders began to drive cattle and sheep to the south, looking for their relatives in the south. More people took the lead in returning with fresh cowhide and sheepskin.
Following closely behind are the Oslo mercenaries.
It can be said that when they came, the Danish coalition organized a mighty and orderly fleet, and when they withdrew, they really went their separate ways.
Ragnar saw that the sea water turned red, and it was only this guy Hafgen who could dye the world like this.
The ships were pushed back into the sea, and Ragnar gave the order, and a small fleet began to evacuate.
"Damn, it's like we're rowing in the underworld."
"No! We are not dead, this is not the underworld."
"But the sea water is red. Where else can you see such a scene?"
The people on the flagship were talking about it. They had never seen blood and water soaking the sea of film.
More terrifying things are yet to come!
The oars picked up some suspicious floating objects, and upon closer inspection they turned out to be headless corpses, specifically the bodies of women. In an instant, everyone understood what was going on.
Especially the women who were disguised as men, they couldn't help but burst into tears knowing that the people floating around were all members of their own tribe.
Only then did they realize that it was better to have their hair cut off than to have their heads cut off by another group of people and float in the sea.
The fire in my hometown of Ostara has been extinguished, leaving only the charred remains of the bustling fishing village and the bay of Yinhong. It's all over, and Ostara has become a terrifying underworld.
They rowed hard in pain, disrupting the rhythm of the boat they were on. They just want to leave here quickly and never come back.
The Danish army's raid lasted only three days, and with the time they spent wandering at sea, nearly two weeks had passed when Ragnar returned to his hometown. The large Danish army led by Hafgen brought too much loot and returned to their home port one day later than Ragnar.
Ragnar returned to his tribe's port on May 25th in the Julian calendar. When he came ashore, he didn't even bother to wash his face, let alone greet his newly pregnant wife. He went straight to the leader's longhouse to look for his father, and couldn't wait to explain what he had witnessed.
Sigurd the Ring was also shocked.
"A woman killer? I really can't believe that Lion Hafgen is like this."
"Dad, that man does not deserve the title of lion. He is not a great warrior, but a despicable woman killer." Ragnar emphasized angrily.
"how about you?"
"Me? I killed the leader of the Ostara people and captured the leader's sword." As he said that, he motioned to his men to hand over a sword with a gemstone hilt but that was incomplete and bent.
Sigurd knew at a glance that its owner had a noble status and a bloody battle. "Oh, it seems that you have killed another noble warrior. You are the hero."
Ragnar continued: "The leader begged me before he died to spare his two granddaughters."
"You did it?" Sigurd asked hurriedly.
"I let them go. Whether the two children can survive depends on God's will. I also rescued twenty-five captives. I was against Hafgen's determination. The Ostara people are very brave, but they We were defeated by the alliance army before we were ready. I led my brothers to fight the most dangerous battle, the female killer Hafgen. He only landed when the battle was basically over. He thought that the glory of victory belonged to him. I have protected twenty-five young women who will join us. They will, I think, give birth to some brave men for us."
"You did a good job." Sigurd sighed, filled with relief. He patted his son on the shoulder: "Now I want to go out and see how many good things you brought back to me.
