Chapter 531 The king who lost his crown is like a fat sheep to be slaughtered
Northumbria suffered a huge defeat and suffered a very embarrassing defeat.
Those who were alive abandoned their armor and fled toward the woods like crazy, then fled straight towards Bamburgh.
Behind him, the Viking army was already counterattacking regardless of priority.
The kingdom's cavalry suffered a disastrous defeat, and the living people thought that the king had died in the battle. They didn't care too much and just wanted to escape for their lives.
But King Aenred was not dead. He was crushed to death by his dead horse. The cavalryman who was escorting the kings to evacuate held the reins of the king's horse and was forcefully pulled off by the dead horse.
When he regained some energy, he saw the king who was suppressed and unable to move.
"Your Majesty, I will pull you out..."
The soldier tried, but he couldn't accomplish this feat on his own.
At this moment, Eynred endured crying, and his eyes were seeing the enemies catching up, like countless demons coming towards him.
"You! Soldier!"
"His Majesty……"
"Go quickly!" Eynred suddenly ordered, "Leave me alone, go quickly."
"Your Majesty, I must..."
"May I have your name……"
"I'm John, John of Stockwood."
An unknown person? No. Just a lowly aristocratic talent with no merit and eager to make meritorious deeds.
Aynred smiled and said while holding his breath: "John, please leave quickly? You must return to Bamberg alive and inform everyone that I will give the throne to my youngest son Ella! You take off my
"Flee back and give the crown to Ella. Tell everyone that you must persist in resisting the barbarians."
John's heart was about to burst, and the barbarians were about to rush up. He could assassinate the king and prevent the king from falling into the hands of his enemies and being humiliated, but faith prohibited this.
It is because of his faith that Eynred intends to seek death. However, he cannot bite his tongue and commit suicide. He should not even take any measures to commit suicide. Because he is convinced that those who commit suicide will go to hell.
The king's crown was taken away, and Eynred watched as the cavalryman named John ran away.
It was the first defeat in my life. This defeat was a huge defeat.
Eynred opened his eyes, thinking only of using his mouth to provoke the enemies who were catching up and stabbed him to death with their swords.
Soon, Geiger led his brothers to kill him.
Logically speaking, if they caught up with the fleeing enemy, they would kill him to death. Seeing the unlucky guy being crushed by the horse, the Viking warrior resolutely raised his axe.
One of the brothers was about to chop him, but Geiger bravely knocked him aside.
"Brother, what are you doing?"
"Calm down!" Geiger opened his arms to signal the brothers not to be impulsive. "Look, this man is dressed gorgeously and even rides a horse. He should be a Northumbrian noble, or even their biggest leader."
Geiger's explanation immediately reassured people. Capturing the opponent's leader was more honorable than killing him directly.
"Come on, brothers, drag this guy out."
Aynred was quickly pulled out, and people saw his gold-rimmed belt, which made them even more sure of his noble character.
This person was yelling some incomprehensible words, and from the look on his face, Geiger and the others knew they were dirty words.
Geiger hit him on the head with a fist, and Eynred passed out immediately.
"Brothers, keep chasing. Here are two brothers. Let's tie this man up and drag him back to Rurik quietly. Maybe Rurik from Rus can know this man's identity."
A large number of Vikings rushed into the forest, and the fleeing Northumbrians paid no attention to anything, even if the priests stationed in the forest appealed to everyone to stay calm.
But the priests in the forest couldn't see the situation clearly. When they saw the danger coming, it was too late.
Clergymen, including the noble Bishop of Bamburgh, were killed indiscriminately.
In the past, these noble people just stood there, and the poor farmers would nod and bow down when they saw them, or kneel down to lick the mud off their leather boots.
The Vikings did not recognize their faith at all. Odin's warriors chopped them all down, and then robbed the gold and silver instruments that the priests carried with them. The silver crosses around the necks of the deceased were also robbed.
The trees gave the escapees cover, but the tired Vikings lost patience as they chased them.
Covered in the enemy's blood, they walked back to the open battlefield on the coast where corpses were strewn one by one, panting.
There are corpses of the enemy everywhere here, but the losses among our own people are really not small.
The Balmok Vikings took the things they grabbed and sat around breathing heavily, not caring about the dead bodies around them for the time being.
The battle lasted for nearly a morning, and the sun was setting on the expected battle, and Rurik won the victory just as he expected.
With the army under his control, Rurik felt that victory was inevitable, and even the loss of the army was within his expectation.
Rurik had already prepared for the worst. If he lost the opportunity to make a surprise attack and had to fight the enemy in a positional decisive battle, the Vikings would lose many advantages, so it was okay to kill 500 people in battle.
Obviously the situation is not that bad at all, but the layoffs are real.
After all, these Balmoks have been fighting continuously these days, and their divisions are exhausted. I am afraid that after this battle, the army will have no more strength to continue fighting.
Rurik thought that because of this victory, they had obtained a batch of trophies and gained the great glory of an unprecedented victory, so they would be satisfied and determined to return home.
He felt that he had shot the king of Northumbria, who must have been chopped into pieces by Viking warriors in the rebellion.
The result was a huge surprise.
The depressed Eynred was thrown under the platform, and Geiger looked happy in the audience.
"Brother Rurik, we probably captured a noble."
"Surely he is this person?" Rurik jumped off the platform in a hurry, stared at it and murmured, "Is this person their king?"
"How do I know?" Geiger continued to laugh, "If he were their king, I would have done a great job."
Biyongni, who was watching, came over at the right time and patted Geiger on the shoulder, "It was Rurik who hit this man. Unexpectedly, you still pulled him back. I thought you chopped this man into pieces."
"
"Ah? Is that so?"
"Of course. Otherwise this guy would have escaped."
Rurik was very happy and asked, "Is he dead?"
"No. It looks like death is not far away."
"Give him a bandage first. I see that his broken arm will not be healed until all the blood bleeds out."
"Bandage? Why?" Geiger thought it was quite ridiculous, "According to our custom, I should chop off this head and take it back to my hometown and hang it up to show off."
Headhunting? Rurik’s intuition is not necessary.
Then he stood up and signaled to Gage Biyongni, "This man should be a high-ranking noble. Look at this gold belt. I even suspect that this man is the enemy's king. But he doesn't have a gold crown, so I can't judge his true identity. You guys
Don’t worry, I’ll let Paul ask.”
"That captured grain officer? Do you really think it's a treasure?" Biyongni shouted disdainfully.
Rurik shook his head and raised his hand, "That Paul is a hunting dog, we can use it now. Don't hurt this person. If he is a high-ranking noble, we can use him to blackmail him."
"Is this necessary?" Biyongni asked again.
Rurik cleared his throat, looked at the southern forest, raised his hands and said, "We still have enough troops, the enemy is defeated, we take the opportunity to attack Bamburgh. Our goal is gold and silver wealth, if we can use this noble to blackmail
If we pay the ransom, the brothers will not have to risk their lives to attack the city."
Their greed for wealth is insatiable!
Biyongni suddenly became enlightened, and Geiger shouted out his wit.
"He's the best king."
"probably."
Rurik looked at the two people talking and laughing again and said: "If this is a fake, we will kill him. I estimate that this man is a king who has lost his crown. Indeed, after this defeat, their king has lost his crown."
You should commit suicide to apologize."
The poor Balmoks actively cleaned up the battlefield. Because of the agreement, any trophies obtained by the survivors on the battlefield would belong to themselves. In a short period of time, these guys had a lot of equipment.
Variety.
They pulled the leather boots from the corpses and put them on their feet, and pulled out the blood-stained mails and put them on their bodies. They seized iron swords one after another. If they were bent during the battle, they would step on them a few times until they were almost straight.
Use this to replace your own hand axe.
Some people even use axes to smash the heads of dead bodies in order to obtain excellent teeth as special decorations.
Those who had not taken any property after the attack on the monastery got more or less spoils this time.
However, people's greed is still insatiable. Those who have obtained a lot of loot want to continue plundering, while those who feel that the loot is small will quickly get more opportunities.
As for those who died in battle, everything was over for them, and the spoils they retained were divided among their subordinate families.
There were more than 160 Balmok corpses collected from the battlefield, which was naturally much less than the number of enemy corpses.
Among them, the desperate charge of the enemy cavalry in the final stage actually caused the worst casualties of the Vikings. What's worse, the dead in this regard were almost all the fishermen and herdsmen from Washobi, and they were all Geiger's brothers.
Since entering Britain, this battle can be said to be the third and largest battle fought by the brothers. The brothers have lost three hundred people.
Faced with such heavy losses, the Vikings still maintained morale.
Just like what Rurik said to his brothers when he faced the nobles who were suspected of being the enemy king. The brothers still have the opportunity to expand the results and gain wealth, but everyone must be smarter and never forcefully attack the city unless necessary.
Even though everyone is still enthusiastic.
The Vikings spent the entire afternoon cleaning the battlefield.
The enemy's corpses were swept away until they became an eye-catching pile of white strips.
The Balmoks are not man-eating monsters, but they are not noble enough to bury the corpses of their enemies.
They found all their own corpses. Considering that they had to cremate so many dead brothers, God knows how long the fire will burn. Some long boats simply carried the corpses into the sea. They were all brave men on the sea, and their souls had already gone to Valhalla.
, just give this mortal corpse to the ocean.
The sky is getting darker, but there are still nearly 700 Viking warriors. They roast horse meat and cook wheat in pottery pots. Although the corpses of the enemy are attracting crows, no one feels bad or scary, just like those
Corpses are just ordinary things in nature, no different from trees and rocks.
After a period of rest, King Aynred of Northumbria regained consciousness after his wound was bandaged.
His awakening immediately attracted a crowd of people, including Rurik, to watch.
The setting sun shone on the haggard face of this middle-aged man. With great trepidation, Paul was ordered to serve as an interpreter to deliver information to the two groups.
No, Eynred, who had come back to his senses, did not hesitate to claim his noble identity. He spat and accused Paul of being a traitor to the kingdom, pointing out the viciousness of the onlookers barbarians who destroyed the Holy Land and killed the people.
But what's the point?
"My guess is good, this man is indeed their king." Rurik pinched his waist, pointed at the sad and angry Eynred and smiled.
Geiger was overjoyed. He faced all the family leaders with his chest high and said, "Even if this man was hit by an arrow from Rurik of Rus, it was our brothers from Vashobi who captured him in the end. You have all seen it, I
It’s a great contribution.”
Biyongni nodded: "Brother, no one will deny your contribution. But to be fair, the person who led us to win this battle was Rurik of Ross, my brother-in-law."
"Of course I have the greatest contribution. Without my command and my powerful weapons, you may not be able to defeat them." Ryuk didn't say what he was saying in his heart.
He raised his head and looked at everyone, pretending to be humble: "We are all brothers, we are allies, and we all contribute to this victory."
Everyone reached a consensus and agreed, and no one denied that Rurik was the greatest contributor.
At this moment, Eynred is a huge treasure. Since this person is the king, everyone fully agrees with the decision to take the enemy's king to Bamburgh in exchange for ransom.
Eynred is not a fool. He can see that these guys don't want to chop off his head. He can also guess almost what the barbarians want to do. That is to ask for the ransom himself. This is in his knowledge.
It's so normal here. Of course, it's also common in Britain for a king to lead a charge and die suddenly, causing a kingdom to immediately go into civil war or find a new king (many Northumbrian kings died in the war against Mercia).
The King of Northumbria struggled to twist his tied body. He found that his left arm had lost all feeling. If he looked carefully, his left arm was also badly ulcerated.
He continued to curse, especially Paul, the grain official in Edinburgh who worked for the barbarians, and said that he would go to hell for betraying his faith.
However, a king who stood proudly in the palace of York is now as lowly as a sheep being tied up for slaughter. How can he still speak harshly when he is already in such a state?
Paul had been a serf all his life, and he felt that he had found a good job with the Vikings. With the support of the Vikings, he suddenly strengthened his will.
He took a very bold step and knocked down the scolding king.
"Hey! Paul, what are you doing?!" Rurik was shocked.
Paul bared his teeth and bowed to report: "Master, this man is swearing. Very vicious."
"Even so, I can't kick him. I have to exchange this person for money."
"It's... it's my fault."
Rurik pinched his chin and looked at the king's unruly face, always feeling that this man's insults were seeking death.
Seeking death? Since you don't dare to commit suicide, you want me to do it for you? What can you do? If you kill this person, the brothers will have to attack the city by force.
Rurik signaled to Paul: "This king is too arrogant. Go and find a way to humiliate him."
Paul understood it, and his humiliation methods were really disgusting. He lifted up his robe, farted loudly in the king's face, and forced him to go to the toilet without any shame in his face.
The stench of this move prompted Rurik to push Paul aside, and all the Vikings watching were laughing wildly.
This was not over yet. Paul quickly squatted in front of the king's wet and stinking face and said viciously: "In your kingdom, I am just a slave. With the Russians, I will live a good life. God has not blessed you.
Kingdom, you are a tyrant, you killed thousands of people, God let you be destroyed!"
Ross?! This was the first time Eynred heard the word "Ross".
The Rus? What kind of barbarian people are they? Are they related to the Picts?
Until now, Eynred still didn't know what the enemy he was fighting was. He quickly understood the three words "rus", "norrse" and "vikingr". In short, the words were enemies from the sea, and even
One thing frightened him even more.
Because Paul arrogantly said it very clearly: "It was they who destroyed Lindisfarne forty years ago, and now they are here again. This is the fate of Northumbria, and this is God's punishment for you."