The ambush and sneak attack was like a storm, and it ended in a very short time. Arik wanted to survive, but his brothers were too violent and killed all the Karelian envoys.
The enemy's corpse was cut into pieces. The Vips who had made a pledge of surrender were further asked by Arik to do the trick. Twenty heads were impaled on wooden sticks. In a horrifying scene, all Vips, men, women, and children were shocked.
see it clearly.
The bloody scene aroused the aging heart of the female leader, and everyone trembled when they saw the masterpieces of the men.
Without bothering to preach, the Vips could only advance and retreat together as a family on the Russian warships.
No, twenty more Vips warriors who participated in the killing were recruited.
These twenty people were purely Arik's choice. They were relatively strong and had seen blood. They all knew the precise location of the "Bear Altar" in Karelia and were indeed excellent guides.
Tyravis has taken away the peace of mind of the girl, Hayasta, the granddaughter of the female leader. This girl will follow Tyravis as a bargaining chip for surrender.
It was Terravis, as the only son of the leader of the Coven Gray Squirrel Tribe, he had a nobler status and had experienced too many bloody battles. It was quite appropriate for him to command twenty more Vips warriors at such a young age.
The strength of the Russian squadron has increased. Most of the 550 troops are veterans. They may only appear to be small in number, but in fact their combat power is astonishing.
Killing the messengers is tantamount to undeclared war on Karelia. Those heads are stuck on wooden poles and they will be thrown to the bear altar and become the so-called "Headhunters Monument" to shock and provoke the Karelia people.
Arik, he is not so arrogant that he can annihilate the three major tribes of Karelia with just his men.
Even what he knew about that place was still only the description of the Vips people. What was the enemy's situation like?
Just like when a bear catches suspected prey, it will bite it tentatively first, and then eat it when it finds it is meat, and remember it forever.
The Russian army used swords and axes to conduct an armed reconnaissance of the Bear Altar!
They took a little rest after slaughtering the messengers, ate grilled seabass on wheat cakes, and made some extra cooked reindeer meat and dried seabass jerky. Then the whole army boarded the ship and took the twenty men with them.
With Vips' new servant army, the fleet continued northward along the lake shoreline.
It is believed that as long as you walk along the lakeshore, the first settlement you will find is the Target Bear Altar.
Mercy? No!
Attack! Yes.
It was the first time that the Vips boarded a boat larger than a canoe. They were excited and nervous, and had no fear of war at all. Instead, they regarded this as a boating trip on the Great Lakes.
They were all concentrated on the largest flagship, and the tall triangular sails rustled under the sun and the south wind. They had never even seen such a huge piece of cloth, and they couldn't help but suspect that it might be made by gods.
But the Rus are clearly not gods! They are humans, a more powerful force than the Karelians.
Those stories and stories became true, and I was standing on an illusory ship.
As the Veps gradually became familiar with them, their unusual and strange expressions quickly dissipated, and they quickly settled into their new roles.
Looking at Arik again, there is no obvious significance in adding more or less servants to the team. Just expect these 20 people to kill the enemy. At most, make an atmosphere group.
They acted as guides very well. They all stood overtime, gazing at the familiar yet unfamiliar lake shoreline and pointing in the direction, thus prompting the flagship to keep correcting its course.
The whole day's drifting on the lake was very calm, with people taking naps out of boredom, and only the sailors of each boat stood guard.
The short night finally came, and the Russian troops ate and defecated on the boat, just like they did when fishing at sea.
The army continued sailing for another day, and the soldiers were shocked by how huge the lake was.
Maybe tomorrow will be another fruitless voyage, and the entire fleet will land on a nearby island in the lake with the intention of spending the night there.
Many people picked up wild duck eggs in the grass nests, which added some fun to the boring voyage.
There are some small trees on the island, with reeds and mugwort stalks being the most numerous. The large area is filled with astonishing mud. There are not many reliable footholds on the entire island, so many people have returned to the boat after landing.
The weeds were cleared and some bonfires were lit under the setting sun.
It has just arrived in August, summer has bid farewell to Lake Ladoga, and early autumn has arrived. The gentle sunset encourages people to sleep soundly, and the cool lake breeze adds a touch of coolness.
Arik did not doubt that the Vips guide had pointed the wrong way, he was just surprised by the hugeness of the lake. The Russians colonized New Roseburg and built a huge city on the barren coastal grassland. They have been active near the Neva River for several years.
Although it is adjacent to a large lake, I have no experience of exploring the lake area at all, and I have no understanding of the hugeness of the lake.
When people began to relax, when the afterglow of the setting sun basically gave way to the brilliant night sky, visions in the distance appeared.
That is a coincidence, but also a necessity.
There was a small problem with the mast of the flagship Mercury. The pulley at the top of the mast that controls the raising and lowering of the sail was stuck by a cable. There was no time to repair it when the ship was moving forward. Now that the anchor was anchored, the sailors climbed to the top.
The brilliant starry sky was wonderful and ethereal, but the sailor saw fluorescent lights appearing on the dark shore of the lake in the distance.
That's a bonfire! It's not like a bonfire!
As the night becomes deeper, a considerable number of yellow light sources gradually appear on the lake, and the light sources on the lakeshore become denser.
Gradually, more Ross warriors noticed the anomaly, and their instinct as warriors drove them to stand up. The news that "we discovered the bear altar" spread instantly.
Arik was standing on the shore, his heart full of excitement.
When he asked a group of vips guides whether the light source was the bear altar, he received a complete affirmation.
"That's great. I caught the prey."
Arik muttered a few words to himself, and then shouted to the laughing brothers: "You have seen it! Those are their bonfires and their fishing fires. The Karelian people have exposed themselves, you go to bed early, we will launch an attack at dawn
!Remember! Everyone will see blood and show no mercy!"
Everyone knows the meaning of the boss's words. The Ross army will have the right to enjoy a feast of killing. They have done this kind of thing too many times and don't need to be nervous.
Originally, the bonfires of the Russian army were not strong and well hidden. Now they extinguished the bonfires one after another. After eating the dry food, most of them moved to the ships so that they could move quickly when they set off for the expedition tomorrow morning.
The short night ended quickly, and half of the people did not sleep well.
This is not a big problem. They are about to participate in a bloodthirsty flames. The warriors who claim to be the bravest hope to prove their power and ferocity to Odin under the rising sun, and the Karelians have become a prop.
They ate cakes, pieces of bread and dried fish, and when they were too dry to choke, they drank a pottery jar of lake water.
Arik stood at the commanding heights of the stern deck and looked down at the entire fleet. Suddenly, the scene of the first attack on Gotland that year was about to reappear.
The sky is still dark blue now, and only the soldiers who have been watching all night are huddled together in the cabin to take a nap. The timing is completely on the side of the Russians, and even the fire of the Karelia people on the lake has not yet dissipated.
He raised his arms and shouted: "Now! Let's go!"
The wind was generally weak at night, and the Mercury's human-powered propeller pushed her away from the island and into the wide water. Then two long boats caught the dropped cable and tied it securely to the mast.
The entire squadron moved forward in the most traditional human-powered rowing mode. With the assistance of the towing boat and its own propeller, the Mercury was like a reindeer sleigh running on the lake. Each ship rode the waves and rowed out regularly.
The water splashes, leaving behind them dim track lines.
They made some water splash noise, which was blocked by the weak lake breeze and the sound of water waves hitting the shore.
A group of dark shadows became more and more conspicuous in the increasingly clear world. The Karelian fishermen who fished at night did not notice it until the Ross fleet approached. What was very strange was that they did not seem to feel terror, but stood on the canoe as if they were dumb.
, quietly watched this strange fleet leave, and watched directly as the fleet headed towards the Bear Altar.
Want to annihilate those night fishermen?
Of course you can kill, but it's not necessary. The task of the army is to rush to the shore in the shortest time before killing. The road to attack shouldn't be hindered by something.
Those fishermen are both lucky and miserable. As the saying goes, what does destroying you have to do with you, and what does it have to do with pardoning you?
The sky is already blue, just like the blue lines of the "Oar Flag of the Principality of Ross" flying on the mast.
The phantom of the squadron was clearly visible, and the Karelian market at the Bear Altar also entered their morning market. People who got up early and walked out of their tents to trade leather, small animals, deer, fish and other goods gathered on the shore to watch.
This is an unprecedented sight.
The tsunami does not seem to be a threat before it hits the coast. There will be people who make wrong predictions and stop at the mast. Until the big wave approaches and turns into an overwhelming situation, everything is already too late.
Hundreds of people gathered at the lakeside. On one side was the sun that was about to break through the lake level, and on the other side was a huge fleet with a deliberate image. They were more concerned about the latter. Some even thought it was a trading fleet. Not only was it not dangerous,
On the contrary, it can bring wealth.
The people who made such predictions were not completely wrong. The Russian ships would naturally do business honestly when faced with the strong. When facing the weak, whether they choose to go to war purely depends on their mood.
Arik didn't know what the group of people gathered on the shore was doing. The Vips guides were all afraid of the Karelia people, and they decisively claimed that their opponents were already on guard.
Terravis spoke in Norse: "The Vips said that the enemy must have known through divination that we killed their envoy. The Karelia people already knew, they..."
Arik smiled: "They want to have a decisive battle with our army by the lake? By coincidence, I am about to chop off their heads. They are so brave."
"It's reckless." Telavis said calmly.
"It's brave! These people dare to confront me head-on. I respect them as warriors. No matter what, I will deal with them with the strongest force, and prepare my torque slingshot!"
All six torsion slingshots on the Mercury have entered the elevation launch state. They have completed charging and are all equipped with spiral feather javelins.
Arik personally pointed his thumb at the gathering crowd to estimate the distance. Feeling that the distance was appropriate, he calmly issued the launch order.
Six javelins flew instantly, and the Vips were dumbfounded amidst the whirring sound.
The javelin was made of spiral feathers. The buzzing sound caused by violent friction with the air when rotating quickly attracted the attention of the Karelia people on the shore. Then the black rod-shaped object fell down and hit the ground hard.
One unlucky guy was stabbed straight through the chest and nailed to the dirt.
Although only one person died, the Karelian people who were watching the excitement finally lost their illusions and understood that the approaching enemy was an enemy they had never seen before!
Unfortunately, when they started to escape, the arrows from the entire Ross Squadron had already arrived.
The Korvin longbowmen fired first, followed by the Ross crossbowmen.
Relying on the momentum of the fall, the light arrow hit the Karelian civilians covered in animal skins like iron hail.
The Karelians who were attacked were indeed civilians now, but they would not be if they picked up their own iron spears. After all, they had hegemony over an area, and they had constant fighting with their old neighbors, the Tavastians.
, people who realized it was an enemy attack ran back to their tents, called on their sons to take up arms and prepare to fight the enemy attack, and ordered the women to take care of their belongings.
This also includes the resident priests of the Bear Altar. They call on the altar guards in bear skins to stand up. Although they don’t know who the attacker is, for the sake of this sacred sacrificial center, they must defeat the attacker before the chief comes back.
Can as many as fifty altar guards protect the sanctity of the sacrificial center?
Arik's team is equipped with as many as 150 crossbows. Since the Russian army has repeatedly enjoyed huge benefits in the use of long-range weapons, to hell with the idea of "cutting each other head-on in an upright manner", it would be a fool not to use advanced weapons.
The arrow strikes brought horrific carnage, the likes of which the Karelians had never seen on the battlefield.
People were running away frantically, many with arrow wounds, but it was too late.
The first longship rushed onto the soft shore of the lake. The Russian warriors holding crossbows aimed and fired with their weapons, covering the sword and shield bearers as they jumped off the ship steadily.
Some people had expected that they would encounter obstacles when landing on the beach, and everyone would land in the face of the enemy's arrows. Indeed, the Karelia people were shooting arrows in counterattack, but this could only be regarded as a symbolic resistance.
The Mercury faced the enemy with its broadside. She completely became a kind of nearshore arrow tower. Terravis organized his men to stay on the ship and continued to provide arrow support to the brothers fighting on the shore. All six torsion slingshots hit
On the side facing the enemy, all cast-iron projectiles were loaded, and a rough attack was carried out on the running target.
Going ashore to fight in person? Arik felt itchy, but it wasn't the right time yet.
The soldiers of the entire flag team basically rushed ashore, slashing with swords and axes, killing anyone who was not in white robes and blue stripes, without mercy, but they did not lose their minds in the blood. They were a group of efficient killing machines.
, just kill and do nothing else, just like lava flowing through the forest and burning everything.
Looting the property will wait until after the war. All the brothers have to do is to kill like crazy on orders.
This is one of the reasons why Aric stood on a high ground to observe the battlefield. He wanted to supervise the actions of the army and determine the battle status of each centurion by paying attention to the blue feathers on the centurions' heads.
The whole situation has opened up, and the whole so-called bear altar is in chaos.
At this moment, the sun was rising, and the lake fog was beginning to evaporate. Arick had just seen clearly that the Bear Altar was not a large settlement, and the fog made the world begin to become a little blurry.
He ordered all the archers to obey the fire, and the long-range support came to an end.
Now the Russian army no longer needs support. Those who escape slowly are killed one after another, and those who escape quickly can only leave their belongings and work hard in exchange for their own lives.
There were more than 2,000 people in the Bear Altar before the attack. Only a few people managed to escape, and a brawl broke out among the many tents.
There are no soldiers in the Russian army. It is inevitable that some people will be injured in the chaos. However, the strength gap between the two sides is too outrageous. There are more than 2,000 people in the Bear Altar, among which there are only five or six hundred mature men.
The bone cluster arrows of the Karelians are meaningless against the deerskin chainmail armor of the Russian army, not to mention that some soldiers also hung bronze sheets and iron sheets on the chainmail armor at their own expense, unless these inferior arrow clusters can be very coincidental.
The observation window that penetrated the eyes of the Ross soldier, but unfortunately there was no one.
The Karelians at the Bear Altar made their own resistance, and the team they assembled was quickly crushed by the Rus' Viking shield wall, followed by a fatal killing.
Once the morale collapsed, it was too difficult to recover. The bear altar lost its ability to resist. In the end, the only ones who resisted resolutely were the fifty altar guards wearing bear skins.
It was these people who, in order to protect the sacred altar, faced the besieging two Russian centurions, wielding spears, bear-tooth clubs, and axes and fought hard. They were strangled under the siege of the Russian heavy infantry with swords and shields.
Finally, the priests with feathers all over their bodies were also killed indiscriminately.
This was considered the last battle of the Bear Altar. The Ross army had no casualties, but a few people suffered some bruises due to the impact. The heavily armored veterans had zero battle fatalities against the leather-clad tribesmen warriors.
Nothing but normal.
Human blood flowed from the bear skin, and the Rus warriors ignored the corpses of these "bear guards." When someone realized that this was the main altar of the bear altar and discovered the gem necklace around the neck of the slain priest, the looting naturally began.
The only difference from the approach of these two centurions is that the other two centurions have been reduced to pieces. The brothers chased the fugitives and determined that the enemy had escaped too far and the pursuit became meaningless, so they began to collect those left behind.
possessions, such as an astonishing number of reindeer.