Siegfast, the commander-in-chief of the Gotland army, ran away with the remaining hundreds of soldiers.
Those who ran fastest had just arrived at the camp in the forest, and were instantly fired upon again by the precise fire of the terrible crossbows.
Arik stood like a pine tree, the sword he held tightly in his right hand pointed directly at the enemy.
Without any slogans, he just made this action, and the Russian soldiers who were waiting for work held their crossbows and fired. Although the lightweight wooden crossbow has poor power storage, it is also effective against lightly armored targets.
More than a dozen Gotland warriors were hit by arrows and fell to the ground. The others waited in astonishment and saw clearly the Russian troops who had already lined up the shield wall.
Look at these enemies, they are all uniformly dressed, the woods are a blue and white wall, they are indestructible.
"Hold your crossbow! Swordsman! Attack!"
Arik gave the order, and his warriors shouted chants of the same rhythm, advancing 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 couldn't stand up as soon as he fell down.
The defeat of this Gotland army was inevitable. With an unshakable wall in front of them and a large group of Russian troops chasing them behind, the Gotlanders had completely lost the chance to break out and escape.
Do you want to run around in the wild grass? That would again be a moving target for Ross's shooters.
Grund's knee pressed directly on Siegfast's back, and he shouted in Danish Norse dialect: "Brothers! Don't sacrifice your life for them! We are rebelling!"
As the boss spoke, the living Danish mercenary suddenly stabbed the Gotlander in front with his sword.
Siegfast watched as his men were stabbed in the back in an incredible way. The perpetrator was actually his trusted mercenary? !
He gritted his teeth and tried to get up, but he couldn't get up at all. He yelled: "Grund, you are a traitor. You are betraying the king, you are betraying me. You are... the dog of the Russians!"
"That's better than dying as a coward." Grund felt a little guilty. At this point, he could only go all the way to the end.
"You! Don't you care about honor? How can a mercenary betray his sponsor?"
"No, I didn't betray. I didn't betray the Danish people, so that's not betrayal. Now, my brothers and I are looking for the Rus to continue making money."
The Danish mercenaries were motionless, they were completely defensive. As for the Gotland warriors, their futile resistance quickly collapsed under the attack of the Ross army.
"No mercy! Brothers, the time for revenge has come!" Arik ordered loudly, and his warriors knew what to do.
The Gotland Army soldiers present were all mortal enemies. With their absolute superiority in strength, the Russians quickly annihilated this group of enemies.
However, those people holding raven-patterned shields actually formed a circular defense line. Look, they don't look like they want to attack, nor do they have any intention of defending. It was as if the fight in front of them had nothing to do with them.
A Ross warrior who attacked rashly rushed forward. After a fight, the Ross warrior was kicked out with a big kick. The armored warrior holding a raven shield obviously had no killing intention.
Many of the challengers were expelled. They were not injured, and the blood on their bodies came from the fallen Gotland Army soldiers.
It stands to reason that the three hundred elite Ross warriors should have washed away these ten people like a mudslide. Everyone did not do this, but kept a distance of about ten bodies from the enemy and waited inexplicably.
Arik was squeezed out of the ring and cursed: "What are you doing? Destroy all the enemies, hurry up!"
Then, he ordered his men to clear a path and enter the ring formation.
Look at the uniform raven shield and the trusty chain mail worn by the warrior.
"Ah! I know you! Elite soldiers of the Gotland army, you beat me so badly!" As he spoke, Arik almost bit his lip, and the order to gather and kill was about to come out.
At the critical moment, Grund stepped out of his own formation.
He knelt down on one knee in front of Arik, placed his sword and shield on the ground, and finally took off his iron helmet.
This is an act of surrender from a warrior!
The enemy's elite was actually like this. Arik immediately changed his tone and said, "You...are you going to surrender? Who are you?"
"My name is Grund, Grund of Vatel, Denmark."
"What? You...are Danish?"
"We are indeed Danes." Grund raised his head, his bearded face unchanged. He described the location of the Vattel settlement in a small bay called Jutland, where the tribe was indeed part of the Danes' confederacy.
Aric had blue veins on his face and said harshly: "In this case, you deserve to die even more."
Grund has no fear, or in other words, fear in the current situation is meaningless. He looked calm: "If death in battle is my fate, we can accept it. Running away and fighting are meaningless. You Russians are powerful opponents. I have no intention of being your enemy. I am just following the orders of my financial master!" Now, I have decided to bring my brothers to join you."
"What?" Arik looked up to the sky and laughed, and then looked down on the guy kneeling on one knee: "You want to surrender to us? Are you worthy?"
"We are willing to be warriors under the strong, and..." Grund gave his men a hint, and the unlucky Siegfast Anthology was escorted out and held tightly by the Danish mercenaries.
During yesterday's daytime battle, Arik never saw the face of the Gotland commander clearly, but the clothes he wore were very gorgeous, which impressed him deeply.
The guy who was pushed to the ground was the idiot who made the rude remarks yesterday.
"This thing is not dead yet! It's so good." Arik was overjoyed. He held his sword and stepped directly on Sigfast's face with one foot.
Such an insult made the man angry and cursed: "Arik from Russia, you are not only a coward, but also a despicable coward. And you, Grund, you are a dirty traitor."
Sigfast could still curse now, but soon he was screaming heartbreakingly.
It was Arik, and he fulfilled his words. The leader of Gotland must be tortured to death if he caught him.
The tendons in Siegfast's hands were severed. Although he did not bleed much, the current witchcraft-like Nordic medicine would not allow the tendons to be reattached. The hands holding the sword were already disabled.
"Shout! Idiot! In the end, you will be made into a blood eagle!"
Upon hearing the term "blood eagle", Siegfast trembled all over, and then everyone present smelled a stink.
The leader of the Gotlanders was actually scared to death, making the Russian soldiers laugh.
The enemy leader looked like he was today. The enemy's elite knelt down and wanted to surrender. Arik's anger disappeared instantly.
A Ross soldier gave a key reminder, and Arik temporarily stopped his hand: "Okay! You Danes, I am Arik of Ross. You have been captured. Now put down your weapons and wait for our Duke of Ross to be punished. You have caught Leader of the Gotlanders, everyone will survive because of this credit. If you can tell the detailed information about Visby, maybe the Duke will admit your surrender."
Hearing this, the Danish mercenary soldiers disarmed.
Grund was betting that the Russians would listen to him in times of crisis.
The opponents were uniformly dressed, and their combat methods were meticulous and effective, and they actually looked a bit like the Frankish army. Grund had heard many legends about Charlemagne in his hometown, especially those Saxon refugees who crossed the border wall. They described the Frankish army as wearing iron helmets and blue gowns, fighting uniformly, and making good use of cavalry and archers. .
The geographical limitation is that there are only a very small number of ponies in Gotland. Horses do not exist in other places, and even if they do exist, they cannot be ridden.
The Russians had no horses and were well-trained in fighting. With this army, Visby was only a few days away from being breached.
Grund won the bet, the Russians were fierce but reasonable, and all the Danish mercenaries were spared death and were not humiliated.
The main battlefield of this outpost battle was already filled with the corpses of Gotland Army soldiers. Those who were dying were killed by the Ross army with last-minute blows.
The soldiers had already begun to collect the enemy's corpses, although everyone felt that Rurik's order was a bit redundant.
It is the right way to collect the bodies of our fallen soldiers and cremate them. But the enemy's corpses are scattered all over the huge battlefield. Does the winner deserve to be tortured? Just stop the body in the wilderness!
Rurik still issued the order, and the people who did it were mainly Kovans and Slavs.
At first glance, the current Medvet is obviously a Varyag warrior, but his Slavic language reveals the secret. The Slavic warriors from Novgorod tasted an unprecedented victory. The Slavic spear wall stabbed a large number of Gotland Varyags to death, and now they are actually collecting the corpses of their opponents!
The bloody corpses with hideous faces were dragged away and began to be piled into small mounds.
The arrows on the corpse and the enemy's weapons were all recovered. Leather boots, blood-stained linen clothes, damaged armor, and even key iron helmets, chainmail, and useful cowhide belts...
The Slavic and Kovan warriors worked meticulously and took away everything available from the enemy. Those stacked corpses were like the white sand dunes on the forest grass, so dazzling and weird.
Rurik himself pardoned all Danish prisoners who should have been executed.
What could be more magical than being pardoned by a beautiful boy with blond hair?
Grund and his brothers knelt down in a row to accept the pardon. At the same time, they had to face the fact that Sigfast's Gotland army was defeated by such a young boy commanding the 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, but in the future." Rurik's words were a bit ambiguous. Seeing the other party's confusion, he explained: "Duke Ross is leading the follow-up army of two thousand. Soon, they will enter This battlefield. I am Rurik, son of the Duke, blessed by Odin, commander of the armies of Rus, and Visby is destined to be at my feet. Do you hold the raven shields? Now, I am their proper Master. Because I am the one loved by Odin."
These words are really domineering and should not be said by a child.
But the reality is unreasonable, and Grund had to accept this reality-the Ross army did have three thousand soldiers, and when they landed on the island, the Gotlanders had already been defeated.
For Rurik, the Danish surrender was a surprise.
Generally speaking, Rurik has 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, it is the most cost-effective to be promised to work as slaves for ten years in order to redeem themselves. .
But these Danes are different!
In terms of feelings, Rurik himself has no hatred for the Danes, he just follows the crowd and resists them. The entire Swayian tribal alliance was against the Danes. Now that the alliance has become the Kingdom of Sweden, dominated by the Mellaren people, it will directly go to war against the Danish forces.
Can the Mellarens be considered reliable allies? No! Just business partners. These guys were the main initiators of forcing the Russian people to move from the north of Lake Mälaren to the current Rossburg.
A long time ago, the Rus would also go to the Uppsala Temple (controlled by the Uppsala tribe to worship Odin, Umber, and Thora. The name Uppsala also comes from the gods they worshiped) to make sacrifices. , after being expelled, the Russians entered a bitter cold land, and any belief gave way to the worship of Odin. Only Odin can bless everyone to withstand the blow of the cold.
After experiencing so many things in Melalen, Rurik really didn't have much affection for the nobles of Melalen. He was just greedy for the oats, linen and wool of the Melalen people.
Since these Danes originally intended to be paid as mercenaries. OK! This group of people can take advantage.
It's just use.
They betrayed and captured their master as a token of surrender, and were more interested in reporting everything they knew about Visby. These guys just betrayed their sponsors. After the first time, wouldn't there be a second time?
They can never become confidants, but they can become the intelligence tools that Ross's army currently needs.
Based on these thoughts, the Danes' raven shields were confiscated. They would not be slaves, but they would not be armed in any way. These people would not be on the front line of the battle in the future.
Rurik needed them to provide key intelligence. After Otto arrived with a large force, it was up to these Danes to explain the situation in Visby clearly.
As for that Siegfast...
Most of the Russian soldiers had already rested on the spot. The Slavs and Covins who were carrying the dead bodies gathered together with the field trophies they had obtained, and sat together happily talking and laughing.
The old rule is that soldiers keep the common weapons, equipment and property they capture on the battlefield, and leave valuables to the commander-in-chief.
The Slavs and Kovins, the warriors themselves were fellow villagers. Since they knew each other, the loot they captured was exchanged internally with the fellow villagers. There was no need for Rurik to intervene. For example, the Slavs, these warriors relied on capture. Not only did their weapons and equipment improve, but now they all wore leather boots and washed their bloody armor, mail, and linen in the stream. Defense has also been improved.
There is no such thing as some warriors wearing cloth and some wearing mail. The equipment level of the Slavic warriors is highly unified, and the combat effectiveness level of the entire flag team has been comprehensively improved. The Covin people were the same, but they cared more about archery, so they stripped the Gotlanders of all their archer equipment. Look at it brothers! Everyone's string-controlling hands wore very finely sewn leather gloves (an excellent product of Viking craftsmen), and the deer-bone wrenches used to hook the strings were also put on the gloves. Archers no longer have to worry about palm abrasions.
In this case, is there any point in keeping Siegfast, the commander of the Gotlanders?
have! Of course there is.
It would be too hasty to kill a noble guy hastily, or for Arik to threaten to be executed as a blood eagle.
I won't kill him for the time being, but the physical pain will be inevitable.
Siegfast had his front teeth knocked out and his nose and face were bruised and bruised by the Russian soldiers. He was hung on a tree, losing all his gorgeous clothes, and his upper body was covered in hair. Arik stabbed the word with bloody runes on the tip of his sword.
The onlookers of the Ross warriors applauded this barbaric venting of anger. If Arik hadn't requested that this venting of anger should be done by himself, Sigfast would have had all his skin cut off alive with one knife at a time.
The battlefield was basically clean, and a large amount of blood stains could be clearly detected in the crushed withered grass.
Those white sand-like corpses had been covered with a large number of newly cut pine trees, and the surrounding weeds had been cleared by the Russians and stacked in the "wooden tower" that needed to be burned.
One description of the so-called pit killing is that the corpses on the battlefield are piled up in a large pit and buried collectively. Another description is that the corpses are piled up and covered with soil to make an open-air tomb.
In Jutland, which is the main gathering area of Danes, most Danish tribes practice mounds made of earth in the open air. The tomb of the noble chief was simply piled into a "pyramid" made of earth. Soldiers who died in tribal battles were treated in the same way.
Is this considered a view of building the capital? Rurik did not know the sacrificial and funeral customs of the Danes.
He cremated the deceased according to Russian customs. It would take a long time to burn so many dead bodies.
None of the cremated dead were from the Rus' army.
Using the right tactics and attacking at the right time, it is normal for the Ross army to achieve such a crazy battle loss ratio.
Rurik is not proud, and he will not be excited by the blood of his enemies. He just wants to win the decisive battle as soon as possible and take away what he really needs-the various materials that make the Ross tribe rich, and a hegemony.
The main force of the Russian army finally arrived on the battlefield. At this moment, the large tombs piled with firewood were already on fire, and a large amount of terrifying smoke was rising.
The soaring smoke column became the best symbol, and Otto's Ross follow-up troops slowly arrived on the battlefield.
