Those villagers who were forcibly organized were dispersed by arrows. They went straight to the village and found houses to sneak in for self-protection.

At this moment, Vadim could no longer hold on to his bravery. He rolled and crawled back on the snow, and his embarrassed appearance was also seen by his soldiers.

The onlookers couldn't care less about commenting on the embarrassment of their leader. Their own situation was just as bad.

The frozen riverside was no longer a safe place, and sooner or later he would be shot and killed by the Ross people in the fortress if he stayed there any longer.

However, their arrows actually hit here!

There was a lot of snow on his body, and even snow was mixed into his leather boots.

Vadim, who was nervous, had no choice but to rely on a private house. He was panting and his mouth was dirty: "Damn Rus, I will peel your skin! No! I will burn you all to ashes tomorrow!"

The Smolensk soldiers who were also looking for a place to hide saw that their boss was incompetent and furious. They were not regretful or angry. They were still in shock and glad that they were not hit by the loss.

A soldier in leather armor crawled over, and he stroked his beard to hide his nervousness: "Boss, what should we do? Their arrows are sharp, and they are really hard to deal with."

"Are you afraid?!" Vadim grabbed the man's neck and questioned with glaring eyes.

"Ahem..."

"Forget it." Vadim sent his hand again, and pushed the soldiers aside a little: "Tomorrow will attack as usual. Damn...they are despicable and shameless! They really are a group of robbers. Only robbers can sneak up like this."

He spoke so much that he called the defenders of Novopolotsk mean, but he, Vadim himself, was mean too.

The vast majority of soldiers still don't mind commenting on these moral issues. The war has already broken out, and as long as it can kill the enemy, any indecent means can be used.

The Smolensk soldiers suffered a sneak attack in the evening, and its damage was negligible, which dealt a big blow to everyone's morale.

Vadim rested again and ordered the men in armor to be assembled again.

Right now, there are still five hundred warriors in cowhide armor fully soaked in turpentine, and the soldiers are assembled in a place of absolute safety. Taking advantage of the last light of the evening, he stands among his brothers.

All the faces were restless, and they were fully aware of the enemy's sneak attack just now. Standing here, Vadim can clearly feel their emotions. He raised his hands: "Everyone, look at me!"

Pairs of eyes looked for the direction of the voice, and aimed at their leader.

"Tomorrow! The day of the battle! When the sun rises, we light the fire. The fire will burn their fortress, and all the Ruth within will be reduced to ashes.

Praise the Vulcan! God Peron is on our side!

Peron! "

He chanted the name of the **** in public, at first he was the only one who chanted, and soon these armored cronies followed.

Hundreds of people collectively shouted "Peron" rhythmically, and then some ordinary tribal fighters who watched the excitement joined in the shouting. The people who had been frightened for a while were revived, and the low morale was suddenly brought up by Vadim.

He is happy to see the lively scene now, as if Vulcan used some kind of divine power to boost the morale of the army.

"Look! We're going to bring out some sacrifices! Sacrifice to the gods."

What is a sacrifice? Hasn't it already been sacrificed at the Gnezdovo altar? Could it be that the leader wants to sacrifice himself with a knife in his left hand again?

Vadim quickly gave the answer.

In his opinion, those fleeing villagers are a group of mobs, and expecting them to fight the Ross people in the fortress is just a matter of wishful thinking.

However, these guys can act as "human shields" and block many arrows for the Smolensk Army.

Besides, these Polotsk villagers have lost their use value. On the contrary, for his own power, it is a good thing for the villagers to disappear physically, so that he can take the cultivated land cultivated by the locals as a reward in exchange for the desperation of his army.

fear! Only fear can make those villagers willing to work hard.

Cruel as it may be, when soldiers recapture escaped

As many as twenty people were escorted to an empty lot in the largest village.

Hundreds of villagers who were recaptured were firmly controlled here.

Almost all the Smolensk army gathered here, and they stood densely under the night. At this moment, a large number of bonfires have been lit in the village with intricate roads, coupled with the strong reflection of the snow, the world is illuminated very brightly.

A mass of pine logs had been piled up into the hillock, and there were still plenty of pine branches added just to fuel the flames.

Suddenly people saw that their leader seemed to be the high priest, writhing mysteriously in front of the skyrocketing fire with his shirtless body.

He stretched out his left hand and held a dagger in his right hand. His twisted movements were imitating the high priest of Smolensk. The strange behavior was enough to attract the attention.

He is an avenger, under the watchful eyes of everyone, the sharp point of the knife once again pokes the wound on his left hand that has not fully healed. Enduring the pain, he clenched his fist tightly and looked around with firm eyes, while blood was dripping from his fist...

He looked at his bleeding left hand again, and glanced contemptuously at the twenty people **** with ropes and forced to the ground by soldiers.

Twenty people! Vadim is going to do a human sacrifice!

However, he did not make such remarks on the bright side.

Vadim claimed that he had sufficient reasons to execute the criminals. In front of all the soldiers, he began to count the crimes of the villagers who were escorted.

"The runaways and the cowardly should be killed! These villagers dare not fight, so what's the point of keeping them? Now, these people will be executed. Listen, especially you villagers!" He emphasized emphatically, while pointing his sword casually and trembling The people standing: "You will still be the main attacker in the battle tomorrow! You must attack. Anyone who dares to retreat will be mercilessly beheaded by my people. Now, execute."

The ready knives and axes were commanded, they cut off the poor villagers' necks, and the blood spilled on the square land that had been baked dry and covered with snow.

Those villagers couldn't help turning their faces away, unable to look directly at their relatives and friends who died inexplicably.

"Don't dodge! Let me watch!" Vadim yelled again. Already murderous, he simply approached the villagers with a sword in his hand, and pulled out the person he had just seen with a side profile that he couldn't bear to look directly at.

There was one more sacrifice, and this person was assassinated by Vadim himself.

The villagers lost everything. They felt that life was a disaster and death was a relief.

The flames scorched their faces, and seeing the dead bodies of their comrades, and the maddened Smolensk army chilled the hearts of these Polotsk people.

At least, the morale of the Smolensk Army reached its peak.

Human sacrifice is an extreme method. In the Smolensk community, it is interpreted as a great sacrifice that must be made for a great victory. Only when faced with some extreme challenges will the leader make such a move.

[In view of the general environment,

Vadim is so generous, it is the first time that the soldiers have seen such a battle in this life.

They really didn't know that Vadim was extremely ill at this moment, and he didn't have to be so extreme. In the end, 21 people were killed before the fire.

With such an extreme sacrifice, would God Peron abandon Smolensk? No! Certainly not.

That night, a large number of bonfires were lit around the largest village in Polotsk.

Not only is there an army with high morale gathered in the village, but all kinds of siege objects are also properly prepared for tomorrow's decisive battle.

The most important thing is those wooden carts piled up with wooden poles. In order to facilitate tomorrow's battle, dry firewood, rags, and even butter wrapped in cloth are piled up on the carts.

The Smolensk Army made a batch of large-scale anti-arrow shields by demolishing residential buildings.

And a large number of sharpened wooden sticks became the weapons of the militiamen.

Vadim was stunned to piece together a "behemoth" with a force of 3,700 people. Among them, who is the elite, who is the mob, and who may be the one who adapts to the wind, I am afraid that only he knows best.

"I have no way out, win or die!"

Thinking of this, Vadim, who was in a complicated mood, had no mood to sleep at all, and fought a lot.

The same is true for soldiers, who can sleep soundly without heart and lungs on the eve of a decisive battle?

But it is said that the army occupying the village of Polotsk made a huge noise, and the brightness of the bonfire there reached the peak.

After nightfall, the sudden shout turned into a continuous roar, so loud that every defender of the fortress could tell that the enemy was about to attack the city.

Standing on a high place, Weisunde faced the red fire in the east, and even the shouts one after another, he was not afraid at all, but wanted to laugh out loud.

It is really a torment to guard the fortress and wait for the enemy to attack actively.

"Tomorrow at the earliest, the day after tomorrow at the latest, Vadim, are you really planning to do something? Then, we will stay with you to the end."

Even knowing that they are at an absolute disadvantage in terms of numbers, the morale of the defenders is not bad at all.

A large number of fortress defenders did not want to sleep this night because they were worried that Vadim would decide to make a large-scale night attack.

On the wooden city wall, soldiers with crossbows leaning on the walls and wearing leather clothes dozed off. Under the city walls, Danish warriors with ordinary short wooden bows can go to the city to assist in combat at any time.

The women in the fort started cooking porridge in the evening, and they will continue to cook porridge. Due to the current emergency, they have to pray that these blond Varyags of various ages will stick to it and ensure that they are always strong. especially necessary.

The gate of the fortress was blocked by a wooden cart with its wheels removed, and it was filled with a lot of snow. Wisund was sure that the weakest part of the fortress was strong enough.

On a whim, he asked people to tie some large blocks of wood with ropes to create a batch of simple rolling logs and rocks. This is to prevent the enemy from making simple long ladders to climb the wall directly. There are not many throwables in the city, and useful throwers should be recycled as much as possible.

From the point of view of all the defenders, the enemy must launch a strong attack, or try to break open the gate, or try to climb the city to fight in order to win by relying on the superiority of numbers.

In any case, the defenders did not think of retreating. They obviously have a retreat, all evacuated from Novopolotsk Fort, they can leave the city with some luggage and go straight to the lower reaches of the frozen West Dvina River.

They can, and the back road is not threatened at all.

Not so with Wisund, nor with those Danish armed merchants.

This night, most of the fighters on both sides who were about to fight stayed up all night, ushering in the cold dawn amidst the tension.

The barley porridge has been boiled overnight and has turned into a sticky lake. The defenders immediately took out their own bowls to eat the hot rebellion, and their sluggish spirit quickly revived.

The same was true across the frozen Polota River, where the Smolensk army was having its last meal before attacking.

Also including those local villagers who are about to fight, they also ushered in the last breakfast.

The wooden bowl was thrown down by Vadim. After eating comfortably, he ordered his subordinates: "Stop dawdling! Let's go! Take out the firewood from the bonfire and light our wooden cart! Fire attack! Start!"

Immediately, the army moved into action.

The sudden movement shocked the defenders on the other side, and all the soldiers with bows rushed to the city wall to fight under the command of Vesunde himself.

After a while, a large number of wriggling figures appeared on the frozen opposite bank.

They got together more and more, and the situation became more and more wrong.

"What is that?! How can I see the flames moving?!" Vesund said to himself.

"Boss!" exclaimed the sighted warrior, "That's a car! It's a burning car! It's strange how thick the smoke is billowing."

"Car? What the **** is Vadim doing?"

The situation is still unclear, and the Smolensk army is still gathering, the enemy is indeed a colossus.

Soldiers walked out of the shelters one after another, regardless of whether they slept last night or not, the excitement of today's decisive battle dispelled all embarrassment.

A large number of ragged villagers armed with sharpened wooden sticks stood at the front of the array, behind them were well-equipped leather armored warriors.

In the end, there were 30 wooden carts collected, which exceeded Vadim's estimate and made him more confident.

It takes a lot of time to burn fresh pine wood, but the demolished houses can be ignited quickly by using dry wood

. Thanks to the tallow, the fire on the wooden cart is getting hotter and hotter. It is pine wood mixed with burning tallow resin. The smell is pungent and hot. The orange flames are flying around and white smoke is billowing. It is necessary to push such a monster through the glacier It is really a test.

If the villagers who are in charge are told that they will surely die, they will definitely have a negative attitude.

If they were only told to retreat after pushing all the burning wooden carts under the enemy's fortress, they might have done their best to complete this and evacuate as soon as possible.

Seeing that the soldiers had almost gathered, Vadim paused for breath, held up the Ross steel sword he had seized, and pointed the blade at Novopolotsk Fortress: "Smolensk warriors! Let's go!"

The black-toned behemoth moves into action accompanied by a plethora of flaming wooden carts.

Visuend, who didn't understand it at first, suddenly realized. Standing on a high place, he trembled for the first time: "Oops! They want to burn down the fortress!"

"Brothers! Shoot arrows! Shoot 'em before the burning carts approach our walls!"

Vesunde was already organizing the soldiers on the city wall, and he didn't hesitate to miss the arrow, so he quickly jumped off the wall.

His reaction was fast enough and his mind was flexible enough. At this moment, all the snow in the fortress that had not been cleared out became treasures.

When the enemy's burning wooden carts were still approaching, he had already organized personnel to transport snow to the city wall in various containers.

On the other hand, the attacking Smolensk army was already rushing in at the risk of losing arrows.

Those fighters with sharpened short sticks simply thought that this was not a weapon, and directly inserted it into the gap of the wooden cart to act as a push rod to push the wooden cart forward, covering their bodies by burning the wooden cart, and also avoiding the fire from burning themselves.

The more accurate arrows from the defenders began to hit the target, and the defenders didn't care about the identity of the soldiers on the attacking side. In this critical moment, anyone who dared to attack should be killed.

Relying on round shields and special temporary anti-arrow shields, the real Smolensk army formed a shield wall, and they moved slowly to withstand the loss well.

They took one step at a time, even if the quietly flowing Polota River was under the ice they stepped on.

They forced the local villagers to attack with arms, and the latter could only bite the bullet and risk their death at any time to continue dragging the burning wooden carts to the other side of the river one after another, and then continued to push hard in the snow.

The defenders' arrows are getting more and more accurate, but the number of crossbowmen is too small! Some squirming wounded soldiers were left on the ice, and they were still attacking.

Finally, the first burning wooden cart crashed into the wooden wall of the fortress.

Immediately thick smoke rushed towards the battlements, and the soldier who inadvertently inhaled the smoke lay down and coughed violently, covering his throat. In just a moment, his fair face was blackened by the smoke, and his blond hair was also blackened. Compared with the raging fire, the thick smoke is now more lethal, and the crossbowmen of the defenders were smoked and lost their fighting ability in a short period of time.

The success of the dust attack was Vadim's surprise, and the fire attack became secondary for the time being.

Weisunde, who was choked heavily, was dumbfounded. He covered his mouth with his sleeve, looked at the soldiers in the city with an extremely ugly expression, and suddenly tore his throat: "Quickly put out the **** fire with snow~www.mtlnovel.com~Naihe For the time being, few people responded to him, and under the battlements were all brothers lying on their stomachs and coughing.

Vadim would not let go of the crucial opportunity, and all the burning wooden carts were pushed under the fort with unexpected smoothness. Thick smoke surrounded the east wall of the fort and spread to the north and south walls.

The armed villagers who completed the task did not make any progress. On the one hand, they were forced to fight, and on the other hand, the task has been completed. If they don't retreat, are they going to stay here and burn to death?

Even, Vadim stopped the army.

He felt that the damned siege battle was the main reason for his casualties, and that the fire might burn all the Ross people and their fortress to death.

The cunning and despicable Ross people may not be willing to be roasted deer. It would be good to force all the defenders out to fight with them in an open area, so that they can annihilate this group of Ross people with the advantage of Jedi troops.

Therefore, Vadim's main army directly inserted the anti-arrow shields tied with wooden hemp ropes into the snow on the opposite bank. The soldiers stood densely, watching the fire and smoke engulf the fortress, while holding their weapons and preparing to level the ground. fight.