The horses charged at high speed, and the cavalrymen clamped their legs on the horses' belly. They turned sideways and bent their bows, passing by the enemies who were unable to resist and shooting accurately.
Now, even if Horik brought some horses with him, his men would not even have the chance to mount their horses and escape due to a sudden attack.
These people, who had recently escaped from the northern battlefield, faced a one-sided killing near the Lindholm Isthmus.
The round shield was filled with arrows, and Horik had to order his still-living subordinates to form a circular shield wall and try their best to defend. The priest who had been protected by them had died from the arrows, and the living people were forced to support themselves.
"If this continues, we will all die! We have to find a way!" someone shouted with all his strength.
Horik gritted his teeth. Of course he wanted to escape, but now he didn't even have the chance to escape.
Because, his horses fell to death one after another under the torrent of shooting from the Ross cavalry, which was the target of public criticism.
"Bald" Fisk is not a fool. How could he let go of the enemy's horses? After all, the enemy has horses! This means that this is the enemy's cavalry. When thinking of the Danish cavalry, Fisk thought with his toes and could judge this.
They could only be Horik's elite, the same group of people who successfully escaped from the last war.
With old and new grudges added together, Fisk concluded that he had encountered the most fertile prey this time. However, at the moment, he could not yet determine the specific identities of these people.
Horik and his last men were unable to escape, and the circular shield wall they formed could only barely protect themselves. This kind of self-protection was of course feeble. Soldiers were dying, and the entire army was losing its combat power bit by bit.
.
Fisk now does not need any verbal orders at all. His cavalry formed a larger circle, completely enclosing the enemy's "ring shield wall" within it.
The cavalrymen began to circle as a whole, and arrows flew in without stopping and without any blind spots.
The ground was covered with dead bodies and the dying wounded. The brown and yellow arrow feathers were stuck in the dark green grass, like a wheat field waiting to be harvested.
Finally, the final blow is now.
"Retreat!" Fisk suddenly ordered.
The cavalrymen who had been fighting in a melee gradually suspended their "death spin", and the cavalrymen reorganized into a team. At this point, they had fired 60% of their reserve arrows.
The cavalrymen's arms were very sore, and the horses were panting heavily.
The assault assembly is a short rest and the final preparation for launching the fatal blow.
On the other side of the battlefield, Horik, who was almost collapsed, could finally breathe a sigh of relief.
But then, he understood what was going to happen next. Unfortunately, he had no way out and no capital to attack. He was like a fat sheep waiting to be slaughtered. He could only watch silently as the butcher sharpened his knife.
Horik had no new orders, and his last hundred or so subordinates could only hold on. He did not even want to negotiate with the Ross army, or in other words, he had nothing to say to the Ross army who burned his capital.
Fisk took another look at the enemies. They were surrounded by corpses but still standing. They were really a group of real men. Unfortunately, they betrayed Odin.
"Brothers! Pull back your thumbs! Draw your swords!" Following Fisk's order, the Russian cavalry raised their steel swords high, shining with deadly light in the morning sun.
Suddenly, the sword moved forward, and the Ross cavalry, who had taken a short rest, began the final fatal wall-mounted charge.
Like a stone wall pressing over him, Horik watched all this happen in despair and closed his eyes in despair...
The cavalry that Horik was once proud of has now collapsed with even its remaining strength. He can no longer organize a wall-mounted charge, but his archenemy, the Rus, has done all this.
Horse hooves trampled on the dead bodies, and the giant object weighing more than 400 kilograms, including man and horse, knocked Horik's last army into pieces.
The battle is completely over after one round of collision.
The round-faced, chubby Horik was knocked unconscious, but he was not dead. When he woke up again, he had been disarmed and his hands were tied. He really became a sheep to be slaughtered.
There are more than thirty prisoners like him. As for the others, they have all died in the battle, or were killed by the Russians to end their suffering.
At first, Horik didn't want to reveal his identity.
But his surviving subordinates are extremely arrogant. After all, no one wants to be evaluated as "as lowly as dirt" by the Ross soldiers.
So someone shouted: "When we were plundering in Durist, you were still a group of young boys! Who do you think you are? The person fighting you is the great King Horik of Denmark!"
Fisk was so frightened that he trembled all over. In a moment, he found Horik himself among the pile of corpses. If he hadn't determined that he was still breathing, Fisk would have really thought that this short and fat guy was dead.
Yes! Chunky!
Horik's stature is characterized by being short and pudgy. He was one of the direct participants in the war two years ago. Fisk had a crush on this guy. Unexpectedly, the king failed to kill this guy in his second expedition and was captured by himself in the end.
.
After all, Horik is a king, and capturing a king is more valuable than killing him.
Fisk suddenly felt much better. He had been worried that he had lost some cavalry brothers, but now that he had captured King Horik of Denmark alive, the brothers who had sacrificed before had not died in vain.
…
Horik woke up, but why did he feel so horny?
When he woke up, he saw a group of Russians kicking up their pants and laughing maniacally.
He was so outraged by the shame and humiliation that he wanted to stand up immediately and fight for his life, but as soon as he tried hard, he found that his hands were tied.
After a while, Fisk came over with a steel sword. He deliberately showed his bald head and stood in front of him like a executioner.
The sword pointed directly at the chin of Horik, who was lying on his side on the grass and was bewildered.
"I know you! King Horik of Denmark. We failed to kill you at Godfrehagen two years ago, and this time you fell into my hands."
"You? Who are you? It's pity that I have been famous all my life, but I am humiliated by an unknown person."
"Really?" Fisk shrugged, "But you betrayed Odin. Killing you now would be something the gods would like to see."
"Then let's do it! I'm still defeated, but I'm not willing to accept it!"
The way Horik gritted his teeth really made Fisk wonder: "You are defeated, why are you not willing to accept it? You don't have the strength to fight our powerful Kingdom of Ross. You have never been the king."
"Maybe! At least tell me why you Russians are here and why you have cavalry?!"
"Why? No why."
Fisk didn't want to explain. He had already learned some information about the north from other prisoners. The most critical one was that King Rurik's main force was plundering the entire Robard tribe and nearby tribes, and the army was also there.
Keep going south.
After telling the information, the prisoners had completely lost their use value, so new orders were issued, and the prisoners of war were stripped to the waist in front of Horik.
At this moment, Horik was pressed on the grass, kneeling to witness the next atrocity.
Most of the prisoners had been beheaded, but the remaining five were sentenced to the Blood Eagle punishment because they verbally insulted Ross before their death.
Fisk stood in front of Horik with a steel sword in his hand, arrogant and ferocious at the same time, his brows full of anger: "For those who have committed the most heinous crimes, they should be punished with blood eagles! From the far north to Denmark, deal with the betrayal of Austrian
Ding's traitor, we all do this. Look at it! This is the price for betraying Odin."
The prisoners were screaming to be cooked. Their bodies were tightly controlled, their skin and flesh were slashed from behind, their ribs were smashed with hand axes, and their lungs were ripped out. After this punishment, the prisoners died immediately. It was a horrific scene.
Watching Horik suffer a nervous breakdown.
He asked in return: "Would you Russians do the same to me?"
Fisk shook his head: "No. Since King Rurik is chasing you, it is still useful for me to keep you. You are our enemy, but it is a pity that you have no soldiers now. I want to go to the north to meet with my king. How about
It is my king's will to deal with you."
…
The battlefield where the cavalry was raging was in a mess, but the Russian army still took some time to clean up the battlefield.
After the entire battle, no one on the cavalry was lost, but some horses suffered some superficial injuries.
Considering that there will be no new battles in the future, the overall strength of the cavalry will be damaged, which is no longer a big problem for Fisk.
He captured twenty Horik horses that were still able to walk on this battlefield, and immediately incorporated them into his own team to serve as pack mules.
The cavalry recovered arrows and enemy weapons, and those dead bodies covered in chain mail had to be stripped off even if the armor was damaged.
Many corpses were scattered on the grass, and their white appearance looked particularly blinking.
A lot of various iron weapons have been collected, and they are all the capital that Fisk can use to claim credit from the king.
The bigger "capital" is Horik himself.
Valley Arrow
In the past, when the army arrived at Jutland, they made a strong landing, and attacked Ross's shop in Hedeby with great force. They repeatedly jumped between the belief in God and Odin throughout Denmark, triggering the Danish Civil War and bringing the Frankish power into the Viking world in a historic manner.
Horik, who had been involved in so many great things, was now disarmed, his mouth was stuffed with linen to prevent him from biting his tongue, and his hands and feet were tied tightly and fixed to the captured war horse like the carcass of a hunting wild deer.
The cavalry no longer had to search for villages to plunder, so Fisk ordered the flags to be shown, and they formed a marching double column and marched northward.
They didn't go long before they met the main force of the Russian army, which was advancing by sea and land.
The cavalry has arrived at the village in the southern part of the Robard tribe's territory and met the absolute main force of the Ross army here.
As for the large number of allies of the Russian Army, especially the Swedish Allies, these guys immediately became bandits after winning the landing battle.
Bjorn's Mellaren army, as well as a large number of small nobles' armies, their behavior is really unworldly in the eyes of the real Russian army, and they even shoot pots and pans.
On the other hand, these absolute main forces from the Principality of Ross are the backbone of the Ross army. After selectively plundering some gold and silver, collecting available weapons and equipment, and then under the leadership of Rurik, regardless of the group of guys at the rear, they lead
Elite soldiers went south.
Because Horik could not see anyone alive or dead, there were various signs that this guy took advantage of the chaos and escaped for the second time.
Even if you call him a coward, he is just doing damage to the air.
Rurik felt that since this person had lost the base of the Robard tribe, he had the royal pirate Spyut, Medved's Slavic army, and even a group of subordinates recruited by the new Danish King Ragnar.
The long and narrow Jutland peninsula came to a "waist landing".
Jutland has opened two fronts. Horik's power has collapsed, his political life is over, and personal life and death are not very important.
Of course Rurik could comfort himself with this, but it was still a great regret that Horik was not captured alive or his body was found.
The top priority of the main force of the Russian army is to join forces with the southern army, then sweep across the entire Jutland Peninsula, and finally bring the war to Frankland in this autumn harvest.
Regarding this strategy, the Russian army did not have much time to waste.
Then a miracle happened.
Isn't the appearance of the cavalry a miracle? Their appearance is equivalent to a miracle.
Starting in the spring, the fighting has continued until late July, and the warm period is coming to an end. Since the battle of Wisingse Island on Lake Wettern, when the cavalry was ordered to perform tasks alone, Rurik himself had not seen his own
The cavalry also included his Pecheneg wife Bejahir.
Goodbye now, my cavalry is still strong and powerful.
And their appearance was magical, and the Russian army suddenly became famous!
Immediately afterwards, as a prisoner who was tied up and unable to move was thrown down, Rurik's regret instantly turned into the joy of having his great revenge avenged.
When the cavalry saw the king, they dismounted and saluted.
Rurik was so overjoyed that he had no time to care about any etiquette. He hurriedly greeted Fisk and gave Fisk a fierce hug.
"Haha! It's a miracle that I actually see you and my cavalry here! Fisk, how did you know that this idiot Horik was on the run!? You captured this evil man and you are the great hero of the kingdom."
Hearing such a good reputation, Fisker laughed boldly.
Then he said: "This must be the arrangement of the gods. I still have many things to report to you. As for this Horik, it is our gift."
"Okay! This guy is finally in our hands."
The main force of the Ross fleet moved south along the coastline, with a large number of infantrymen marching on foot on the shore.
The movement of the army was delayed due to the shipment of loot, and until now, Rurik's northern army was split into two parts.
The elite flag troops he brought from his hometown, as well as the Finnish allies from Gevlo, are all fully dispatchable and powerful armies.
The Swedish army, as well as the newly conquered Götalander army on the Göta River, acted too slowly.
There is one exception, that is, the Unkras army led by Blue Fox also includes some Jotalan soldiers.
As someone who has a deep hatred for Horik, Blue Fox is eager to eat his flesh alive.
At night, the campground in the wilderness.
There were dozens of Ross ships floating in the sea, and there were bonfires everywhere on the shore.
Rurik could completely ignore the sluggish allies at the rear. Even if he lost many elite soldiers in the landing battle, the losses were really heartbreaking and the overall strength of the army would be very limited. He did not have to worry about the kingdom's stamina, because
This year is 840. According to Viking tradition, the first generation of the baby boom era started by the Rus in 828 has reached the age of twelve. A twelve-year-old man is obliged to serve as a warrior. The number of subsequent warriors will only be one.
Year after year.
Just as many as 300 of the elite troops that went into the battlefield this year were lost!
Being injured means losing the ability to fight. There are currently more than 100 injured soldiers who are unable to continue fighting. A small fleet has already escorted the wounded back home as soon as possible.
As the injuries of more than 200 soldiers were very minor, they were simply debrided with strong alcohol, bandaged, and then returned to the flag team to continue fighting.
The soldiers all believed that the entire army had defeated the strongest enemy in Jutland at the cost of heavy casualties, and the road south was destined to be very smooth.
Ironically, they thought the casualties were huge, but compared to the total collapse of the Robard people, where tens of thousands of people were either killed or turned into slaves, this loss was actually too small.
In fact, if the Allied forces were included in the decisive battle on the seaside, the total casualties of the Russian army exceeded 1,000. Septicemia caused by so-called wound infection was rampant among the wounded of the Allied forces, and Rurik's reserve of medicine could not
Rurik was completely powerless to clean those people's wounds, which turned into sepsis.
At least Rurik's elite did not have this kind of "fever disease". The wounded were debrided immediately. Those who were lightly wounded were still too uneasy to find that their wounds were recovering, so the soldiers believed that their king was affected by Odin.
of God’s love, and I also received God’s favor.
The morale of the main force of the Russian army was high because they miraculously met the cavalry during the day and miraculously captured the captured culprit Horik. Everyone was so excited that it was difficult to sleep that night.
Around the campfire, Rurik and the generals had a hearty meal.
Everyone drank hard liquor, especially Rurik and Fisk, who wanted to drink a glass of burning vodka.
Taking advantage of the opportunity, everyone focused on listening to Fisk's report on the war in the south, and were surprised that Ragnar and the Ross army's partial division actually assembled an army of tens of thousands.
Arik's attitude was cheerful: "I didn't expect that Ragnar guy is still a person, and he is actually very attractive."
But Rurik couldn't be happy. A king who could summon 10,000 Danish warriors, Ragnar, like Horik, became a threat. If you think about it carefully, this makes sense, after all, Ragnar is a person.
As Fisk pointed out that Ragnar could not restrain the army, it was the Russian army that successfully defeated the fortress, which made Rurik even more gratified.
The war in the south was not as simple and violent as that in the north. After a tough battle on Rurik's side, what was left was the purge of Horik's remaining forces.
The southern war included cavalry battles and sieges. Everyone was so surprised that they were sweating coldly when they heard Fisk's dancing words.
"Why don't I believe it? The corpses of Ragnar's Danish army filled the ditch? Our pirate leader Telalang just knocked down the enemy's city gate. Also, you also annihilated the Frank cavalry." Aric.
That being said, he didn't think Brother Fisk would lie, and said again: "You! You are more powerful than I was when I was young. You are worthy of us old Russians."
Fisk smiled honestly.
Rurik did not blame Fisk for causing the cavalry losses. Compared with the gains of the cavalry, the losses had become nothing to mention. He basically learned about the battle situation in the south. It had been two full days since Fisk set off.
Presumably the fortress built by the Franks on the Lindholm Isthmus, which the prisoners called the "Aleb Fortress", had been captured by the southern army.
So the top priority now is to speed up and go south!
The battle situation developed far more smoothly than Rurik imagined!
So, what to do with Horik?
With one sword strike, he was able to gain an advantage over him.
Even punishing him with corporal torture is simply a perverted way for the winner to vent his anger.
Horik looked like a wild boar waiting to be slaughtered. He was placed near a campfire with a circle of people standing around him.
"It's time to skin him," said Aric.
"Become a blood eagle." Fisk said casually.
Blue Fox also said: "I have seen this guy's arrogance, and he has humiliated me. It would be better to cut off his hands and feet, blind his eyes, and put him in a pen to be raised as a beast."
Being a human pig? Forget it. I have no bad taste in this area.
Rurik thought for a while, of course Horik must be executed. This person must die meaningfully, such as as a sacrifice for a major ceremony. At least one thing is certain, this person cannot be executed hastily, and he may be useful in the future.
.
So for the first time Rurik seriously revealed his identity to the former King of Denmark who looked like a prey.
He stepped directly on Horik's face with one foot, stamped it hard on the mud, and said calmly rather than coercively: "I am King Rurik of Rus. Our names are somewhat similar, but I am the Baltic Sea
The only king. I let you run away last time, but this time you fell into my hands. Don’t worry, you won’t die today. But today..."