At the critical moment, Mechasta didn't care so much. He saw that his son was still on the tower trying to shoot the enemy soldiers who hit the door.
He shouted at the tower: "Telavis, you go shoot the enemy archers, pay attention to the strange people, and eliminate them!"
Terravis heard his father's call. He raised his head from the tower and soon saw a group of strange people standing upright. Because, he saw with his own eyes strange guys shooting strange arrows, and the tribesmen on his city wall suffered new casualties.
Rurik's mercenaries have fired seven rounds in a row, and the Gray Squirrel tribe has suffered very heavy losses.
Rurik was very curious. Could it be that the damage caused by the crossbow arrows was too weak? Someone was always defending the enemy city, making it impossible for his own people to climb the wall and succeed.
In fact, there were as many as forty corpses under the city wall, and each of the dead had weird and terrifying crossbow arrows embedded in them.
Tyravis on the tower picked up an iron-clustered arrow, but there were actually not many arrows left in his hand, especially since there were only five iron-clustered arrows left.
He noticed that the small figure who looked like a child seemed to be the commander of a group of weirdos.
"Maybe if I kill him, my people will feel better."
The tower where Terravis is located has never attracted Rurik's attention, and now he has to pay the price for it.
An arrow flew towards Rurik without any warning, and then hit him at a high angle less than half a meter from Rurik's feet.
Rurik, who was already holding the crossbow, suddenly broke into a cold sweat and dropped the injured crossbow.
"Damn, someone is attacking me! Who is it?!"
Rurik shouted while looking for cover, and he thought of the shield.
Immediately afterwards, another arrow landed in his crossbowmen formation. It was obvious that it landed where Rurik had just been.
"Danger!" Jevro threw down his crossbow and rushed towards Rurik with a shield. He protected his master in a lying posture, and a whole cluster of iron arrows appeared behind the shield.
Seeing this, Rurik, who was well protected by Jevro, broke out in cold sweat.
"Master, I told you, it's very dangerous here." Yevluo said calmly.
Rurik was trembling all over, feeling that death was so close to him: "The enemy, want to kill me?"
"I'm afraid so. But it's not a serious problem now."
Rurik rolled his eyes and was pleased to see his mercenaries picking up their shields and forming a shield wall.
"Have you seen the enemy archers?" Rurik asked nervously.
"Probably in that damn tower."
"Damn it, why didn't I pay attention there?"
Jevro smiled optimistically: "Maybe you only focused on shooting turtle doves and ignored the bigger prey."
"Then shoot that owl down, quickly!" Rurik said fiercely.
"As you command!"
With only the last iron cluster arrow left, Tyravis noticed the enemy's abnormal reaction and thought he had succeeded.
After a while, the counterattack came.
More than a dozen crossbow arrows were fired at the tower, and the relatively thin wooden boards were penetrated. The sudden attack frightened Telavis into curling up into a ball, and he was crying loudly. This curling up also allowed him to save his life.
Jevro led the team to fire two rounds. To be honest, everyone's arms were already quite sore. Even though the steel arm of this crossbow is deliberately made very long, it is a steel arm after all, and the archer still needs all his strength to wind it.
Yevlo withdrew and told Rurik: "Brothers are very tired, next... we need to rest our arms."
"No!" Rurik said loudly, holding the three arrows that almost killed him, "We have the pulley rope with us, use it to wind it up."
"But it will be slow."
"Hurry up and do it! Before we break through the enemy's wall, we must provide cover for our brothers." After saying that, Rurik also pushed Yevro.
Jevro was very moved by his master's request. The master was indeed a brave man, and when he grew up, he would definitely be a king that everyone could trust.
Jevro yelled: "Have you heard the master's order? The battle is still going on, and we still have a lot of arrows! Go get the pulley ropes, and we will continue to fight!"
Taking this opportunity, Terravis, who was so frightened that he wet his pants, climbed down from the crumbling tower, then obeyed his father's order and evacuated with his sister. There were a large number of corpses killed by arrows within the city walls. They fled to the wooden house with fear and fled to the tribe's shaman.
Now, the refugees can only pray to the wizard for some psychological comfort and pray for a miracle to happen.
Otto, who led the troops to attack the city, was busy hitting the city gate. He had no way of understanding how much damage the archers had caused to the enemy.
Otto felt that he was simply fighting a useless battle. Why couldn't the battering ram open the enemy's gate when it should be useful? In fact, the city gate has been severely deformed. Because there are a lot of heavy debris behind the city gate, such as a lot of ice, and these obstacles exist, it is indeed futile to hit the door.
However, the entire wooden wall has become loose, many of the hemp ropes binding the tree trunks have broken, and some of the tree trunks that make up the wall have serious cracks.
As long as we continue to hit it, there will no longer be a problem with the city gate, but with the collapse of the entire wall.
Otto could not estimate that he could break down a wall, and he became increasingly impatient, as if this siege was about to fail again.
On the other hand, the gray squirrel tribe is only one step away from psychological collapse.
Because they were the defenders of the city, their heavy casualties had rendered eighty of them incapable of fighting, and those who continued to fight were almost running out of arrows.
Once all the arrows were used up, all Mechasta could think of was to use their short spears to make a final stand against the enemy.
It was at this critical moment that a low clarion call came from the distance.
The sound of the horn is like the dawn piercing the darkness.
Both sides of the battle heard the trumpet sound!
The attacking Ross army was taken by surprise, but the struggling Gray Squirrel tribe warriors suddenly became energetic.
The frowning Mechasta suddenly became excited: "Brothers! The mountain gods and river gods have protected us! Reinforcements have finally arrived!"
Otto clearly realized that the enemy had cheered up, and the sound of horns kept ringing in his ears.
Almost out of instinct, Otto realized the huge crisis, and he did not hesitate to suddenly order a retreat.
The order to retreat was so sudden that it even puzzled a group of soldiers.
Kawei was shocked: "Big leader, we are one step away from success, why are we retreating?!"
"Idiot! Are you deaf?"
"What?!"
Otto hit Kawei's helmet with the hilt of his sword: "It must be enemy reinforcements! We don't want to attack this turtle shell anymore, we have to fight their reinforcements."
After that, Otto shouted again: "Brothers! Don't hit the wall again, save some strength, their reinforcements are coming, let's destroy them!"
In this way, many puzzling warriors understood, and everyone began to retreat in a more organized manner. During the evacuation, they also tried their best to pull away the injured. As for the deceased, let's not care about it for now.
Of course Rurik also heard the sound of the horn, and the continuous dull sound caused the entire forest to tremble.
"Yevlo, what happened? Do they have reinforcements?"
"It's very possible! My master, kill them?" Jevro smiled deliberately.
Although the situation was not clear, and the enemy's phantom could not be seen.
Rurik clearly saw that his tribesmen who were attacking the city were retreating towards the camp, thinking that his father had already made a plan. In line with everyone's dignity as Vikings, Rurik believed that the only people who could escape here were the servants of the Salmon Lord tribe.
Rurik immediately assigned Yevro a task: "Take two brothers, restrain the guys who catch salmon, and tell them that no matter what happens, they must fight for the Rus."
After a while, Otto returned to the camp with the siege army and all the equipment. When they came back, they still tried their best to pick up the arrows on the snow. They said they would need them later.
"Dad, does the enemy have reinforcements?" Rurik asked knowingly.
Otto didn't waste any words: "There can be no mistake. Next, we have to kill new enemies."
Otto retreated based on intuition. He found the servant Kejas and learned an important piece of information. He also understood what the guys on the wall were saying.
"My master, maybe the tribes in the southeast came together because the horns are only sounded for the decisive battle. It is the horn sound that represents the joint battle when we Corvin people resist the Tavastians."
Otto nodded, looked at the survivors showing off their power on the city wall with disdain, spat and said viciously: "We will continue to deal with you after we have eliminated your reinforcements."
To be honest, the casualties suffered by the Russians in the siege were very minimal, especially the heavy infantrymen who attacked the city. Their leather armor and chain armor gave them a huge combat advantage. And this combat advantage will be fully demonstrated in frontal slashing.
Otto took all the warriors, including the servants, out of the forest, and everyone began to rush toward the frozen river simply because it was an open space.
Otto believed that since he had come all the way along the glacier, the so-called enemy reinforcements must also have followed this path. Since Kejas's men performed well in the battle, Otto became more convinced of this man's words, that is, reinforcements would come across the glacier for the purpose of admonition for action. Kejas even claimed that the reinforcements were likely to drive reindeer sleighs.
On the other hand, a reinforcement of up to 800 people came in reindeer sleighs.
Four reindeer pulled a larger sleigh, on which were crowded a dozen or three or four people. In all, as many as a hundred reindeer sleighs were coming.
Although these tribes who live near Lake Oulu are dissatisfied with the Salmon Lord tribe's monopoly on "salmon tides" and squirrel hunting, they actually don't particularly like the gray squirrel tribe.
The tribes are in a competitive relationship, and they maintain close relations with each other only because they oppose the attacks of the Tavastians.
So everyone knows the truth of lip death and teeth cold, so the three tribal leaders spent some time negotiating and finally decided to send troops.
After all, the Messenger wouldn't make such a joke.
It must be true that the Varyags invaded.
The reinforcements heard shouts of killing on the glacier approaching the gray squirrel tribe, and the army suddenly became nervous.
After all, very few of the Kovin tribe living in the interior have seen the local tribes in Narvik Port and know that the locals know how to smelt iron. Maybe the Varyags are similar to them? The legendary Varyags are a people who use a lot of iron.
To fight such an enemy, a single warrior will inevitably feel terrified, but once the number of people increases, the situation changes.
The three tribes went out in full force, and most of the young and strong men joined them. Many of them hoped that through a counterattack, they would prove that they were brave men who could defeat the Varyags and make themselves prestigious in front of the villagers. honor.
It can be said that the army of 800 people is an unprecedentedly powerful force assembled by the three tribes. If everyone defeats the Varangians, the next step is to actively find the Tavastians to counterattack and regain their lost land.
The number of people supports their self-confidence.
But for the Rus, it was all in vain.
After all, the Ross army here is extraordinary. Four hundred Rus warriors dared to attack a settlement of 2,000 people that also belonged to the Vikings, and they won. What does a mere 800 scientific and cultural reinforcements mean?
Here, I am afraid only Rurik is more cautious.
In a sense, Rurik's cautious plane is somewhat redundant. He still has as many as a thousand crossbow arrows, which is enough to support the terrifying combat effectiveness of his mercenaries.
As the mercenaries gasped in triumph, everyone's strength was also recovering.
As the Russians encircled the servant troops, more than three hundred warriors gathered on the ice.
In the distance, a large, dark crowd appeared.
"It's the enemy! They are here to die." Kawei said excitedly, holding up the steel sword.
Otto frowned and said impatiently: "I saw it! Boy! Get ready to fight!"
Otto immediately ordered the troops to set up a traditional shield wall. Those heavy infantry wearing chainmail were the backbone of the front.
On both sides of the shield wall are warriors with slightly worse equipment. Of course, the "slightly worse" here is only compared to other Viking tribes, but it is still a huge advantage for the Kovin people.
All archers are required to be behind the shield-wielding warriors. Otto already understands the tactical advantages of using a large number of bows and arrows, but the next step will be a fierce frontal battle, and the archers may not be of much use.
Everyone's leather boots are non-slip, and everyone's postures holding swords and shields are indescribably powerful.
Rurik gave his father new advice.
"What? Your mercenaries want to shoot arrows outside the formation?"
"Of course! This is the true value of my crossbow." Rurik said confidently.
This self-confidence reassured Otto, but he held his son's shoulders firmly: "Let Jevro go fight, you stay."
"Dad! You...are you afraid that something will happen to me?"
"Yes!" Otto said bluntly: "There are many enemies, and the next step is our killing. You kid must retreat."
Rurik, who recognized the reality, knew that it was not his turn to go into battle and kill now, but he still had new ideas.
Jevlo had already left the formation with his crossbowmen, and not far away, people got off the sleds one after another, consciously forming a group of enemy reinforcements that were advancing steadily.
Rurik rushed to the side of the servants, stood next to Kehas, and shouted in a language that the locals could understand: "Now, you are all free!"
Suddenly, everyone shouted in confusion.
Kejas didn't even know what his master meant.
Rurik put on a serious face: "Didn't you understand what I said? We fight side by side! If we win, you will be free! From now on, your Salmon Lord tribe is no longer my slave, but my ally .Your women and children will also be free!"
"Fight for freedom?" Kejas asked excitedly.
"Yes! Fight for freedom." Rurik said firmly.
The slaves never dreamed that the Russians decided to free them, of course, on the premise of completing the battle and winning the battle. Although Otto was dissatisfied when he learned of this situation, since it was Rurik's decision, he had no choice but to agree.
Otto's only relief was that the morale of these servants seemed to be at an all-time high.
Morale! With morale, the Russians will be invincible!
