At the critical moment, Mechasta couldn't care less. He saw his son still on the tower trying to shoot the enemy soldiers who hit the gate.
He shouted at the tower: "Telavis, you go and 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 the strange guys shooting strange arrows, and his own city wall
The tribesmen above 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 that 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 away 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 roared and looked for cover. He thought of the shield.
Immediately afterwards, another arrow fell into his crossbow formation. It was obvious that it landed at Rurik's position.
"Danger!" Jevro threw down the crossbow, held a shield and rushed towards Rurik. 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, was sweating all over his body.
"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 the problem is no longer serious now."
Rurik rolled his eyes and saw with relief that his mercenaries picked up their shields and formed a shield wall.
"Did you see 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-clustered 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 Taravis and curled up into a ball. He was howling. This huddle also allowed him to survive.
life.
Yevluo led the men to fire two rounds. To be honest, everyone's arms were already quite sore. Even though the steel arm of this crossbow was deliberately made very long, it was a steel arm after all, and the archer still needed 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 a pulley rope with us. Use it to wind it up."
"But it will be very slow."
"Hurry up and do it! Before breaking 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. When he grows up, he will definitely be a king that everyone can trust.
Yevluo 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, followed his father's order, and evacuated with his sister. There were a large number of corpses killed by arrows within the city walls, and they fled to the city with fear.
wooden house 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. How could a battering ram that was supposed to be useful fail to break open the enemy's city gate? In fact, the city gate had been severely deformed because there was a large amount of heavy debris behind the city gate, such as
Talking about the large number of ice blocks and the existence of these obstacles, 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 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 going to fail again.
On the other hand, the gray squirrel tribe is only one step away from psychological collapse.
Because they, as the defender of the city, had suffered serious casualties, eighty of them had lost the ability to fight, 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 last 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 gained energy.
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 evacuate in a more organized manner. When evacuating, they also tried their best to take away the injured. As for the dead, they were ignored for the time being.
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 said with a deliberate smile.
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. It seems that his father had already made a plan. Based on everyone's dignity as Vikings, Rurik believed that only the Salmon Lord tribe could escape here.
of servants.
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 Russians."
After a while, Otto returned to the camp with the siege army and all the equipment. When they came back, they also tried their best to pick up the arrows on the snow, which they said they would need later.
"Dad, does the enemy have reinforcements?" Rurik asked knowingly.
Otto didn't waste any words: "There can be no mistake, the next step is to kill new enemies."
Otto retreated based on his 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, then looked at the survivors showing off their power on the city wall with disdain, and 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 definitely be on the front.
It is vividly displayed in the hacking and killing.
Otto took all the warriors, including the servants, out of the forest, and everyone began to rush towards the frozen river simply because it was an open space.
Otto believed that since he came 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 his words.
, that is, reinforcements must come across the glacier for instructions on 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, with more than ten, or three or four people crowded on it. In total, as many as a hundred reindeer sleighs rushed towards the place.
Although these tribes living near Lake Oulu are dissatisfied with the Salmon Lord tribe's monopoly on the "salmon tide" 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.
Therefore, everyone understood the principle of lip-destroying and teeth-shattering, 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 Varangians invaded.
The reinforcements heard shouts of killing on the glacier approaching the gray squirrel tribe, and the army suddenly became nervous.
After all, these Kovin tribes living in the interior have very few people who 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? According to the legend
The Varangians are a people who use a lot of iron.
To fight such an enemy, a single warrior would inevitably feel frightened, but once the number of people increased, the situation would change.
The three tribes simply mobilized 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 Russians, it was all useless.
After all, the Rus' 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 also won. What are the mere 800 Covin reinforcements?
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 gathered the servant troops, more than three hundred warriors gathered on the ice.
Just 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. The 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-bearing 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 made Otto feel reassured, but he firmly held his son's shoulders: "Let Jevro go to 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 their 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: "Did you not 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 release them, of course, on the condition of winning the battle. Although Otto was dissatisfied after learning of this situation, since it was Rurik's decision, he had no choice but to agree.
Otto's only comfort was that the morale of these servants seemed to be at an all-time high.
Morale! With morale, the Russians will be invincible!