Chapter 1,326 The Final Cremation for Smolensk

Vadim's body was left hanging until nightfall. Just in Gniezdovo, the big altar at night is already the most dazzling light in the dark night.

There are bonfires lit everywhere on the banks of the Dnieper River and its tributary Svenets River, and in the wide open space of the Great Altar, there are bonfires everywhere.

Among thousands of bonfires, a towering wooden tower made of pine wood has been completed. The grease-rich pine wood weighs countless corpse fragments. The exhibition has ended, and the dead will eventually be buried - deep in the ground in the form of ashes mixed with countless plant ash.

It's a pity that I can't go back to my hometown to spend Hanukkah this year, but it's also a great honor to be able to worship the northern gods at the enemy's altar.

Who could have imagined before the war that the Smolensk forces, which were once on high alert, would be uprooted just because Ross launched a strong defensive counterattack.

"If we had known they were so weak, we should have taken action!" Countless soldiers had this mentality.

Was Smolensk's power really weak in the past? Without Ross's comprehensive occupation of the entire Yin'ermen Lake area, without the strategizing of ruler Rurik, or even without the large-scale marriages and births presided over by Old Otto more than ten years ago, with the strength of the locals in Yin'ermen Lake, , paper data is indeed not enough to defeat Smolensk in all aspects.

After all, there was only one overlord in the Yin'ermen Lake area in the past - Pine Needle Manor. According to normal procedures, when the old manor owner Brudne dies, the most talented person in his family should succeed him. Then Vadim is most likely to defeat his brother to inherit the position and continue to dominate the entire Great Lakes as the leader.

But the power of the Ermen Slavic people, or the Slavinians, is only equivalent to that of the Vyadzic tribe. They can only live in the lake area and can only defend and cannot take the initiative to attack the south.

If there is no interference from outsiders, the Smolensk forces occupy the geographical advantages of many rivers and waterways and the advantages of a large agricultural population. Given time, their natural expansion will definitely form a Slavic country spontaneously, just like their distant relatives in the west. created

"The Principality of Great Moravia". By that time, Smolensk must expand to gain new living space for its expanding population, otherwise it will collapse itself.

However, this era belongs to Rurik and the Rus' Kingdom under his rule - even the Franks are already suffering from it.

The Smolensk aristocratic group claims to be descended from Romans, whether it is true or not is irrelevant. Rus occupied this place, Smolensk will always belong to Rus, the old aristocracy is dead, and the ambitions of the old aristocrats have been inherited by the more ambitious Rus.

Those nobles still exist, but in the form of fragments, turned into countless pieces of frozen meat mixed with pine wood, waiting for the fire of the conqueror king.

The nobles were uprooted and the priestly group was completely strangled. In the process, a large number of civilians were either killed or died on the way to escape.

The cause of their death was more likely to be an emergency escape in extremely cold weather. Whether they were conquerors or civilians who survived the disaster, they could all guess that there must be a large number of dead bodies lying in the forest near the settlement, and the dead were temporarily covered by snow. When the snow melts next year, the hungry brown bears will end their hibernation and will gnaw mercilessly to fill their weak bodies.

The beasts of the forest will enjoy a horrific feast. Will they go crazy after devouring human blood?

Maybe! After all, people are not the absolute masters of this vast forest. The number of roaming bears is quite large. They regard villagers as a non-essential food source and will actively prey on them once they are extremely hungry.

All this is just like the Ross invaders, even the Ross people are really bears! That is not a metaphorical description, but what everyone sees with their own eyes.

Hundreds of village chiefs had to endure the pain of staying up all night to participate in the last nocturnal rituals of the Rus' conquerors, supposedly to watch the burning of a huge fire tower.

Of course, they also knew that the broken corpses of the priests and nobles would be thrown into the wooden tower, and the noble people in the past would be turned into roasted meat, which would be further burned, and eventually even the bones might be burned to pieces.

In past sacrifices, only the cattle and sheep that were sacrificed enjoyed such treatment. Even though cattle and sheep were burned, no one ever built a wooden tower as tall as a tree to burn the sacrifices.

Who would have thought that the nobles who started the war would eventually become human sacrifices themselves. Speaking of human sacrifices, the big leader Vadim was still hung high on the rammed earth platform of the altar. His pale body was illuminated by the moonlight, in sharp contrast to the dark pine forest in the background.

The cold wind made the rustling of the forest never stop, but the open space of the altar was not cold. The current bonfire matrix was bright enough. The Ross coalition forces were cooking wheat to make barbecue here, and the captured ale and kvass were being drank happily.

Light and warmth are gathered here. If they were not conquerors, the majority of village leaders would be satisfied with such a lively scene.

These people were on pins and needles waiting for the final ceremony to take place, but they suddenly saw bears scurrying between the bonfires.

The old guys rubbed their eyes hard and couldn't believe it was true, but no matter what, it looked like a large group of bears walking among the people, as if they were being raised by the Russians.

Are they a pack of bears? Yes and no, at least not entirely. That was the intentional act of the veterans of the First Flag Team.

The former most elite civilian soldiers, the First Flag Troop, have now transferred their glory to the standing army. The First Banner Corps led by Arik was the earliest formal combat force organized by Ross. However, with the development of the times, the tribal armed model could no longer meet the needs of the increasingly large kingdom. The standing army was reorganized from the chief guard. Come on stage.

Arik had to admit that although the young men on horseback were of mixed race, they had repeatedly proven themselves to be true descendants of the Ross tribe during the war.

These boys have a strong fighting ability, and they will become even stronger if given some time. This does not mean that the old guys in the Citizen Soldiers' First Flag Troop are useless.

On the contrary, many young men in the four cavalry teams of the standing army are themselves the biological sons of the veterans of Arik's army.

Rurik's operation this time was close to elite entry and exit. In fact, it formed a situation where father and son soldiers went into battle. Using such a strong military force to defend and counterattack against Vadim really gave this man the greatest respect for killing everyone.

Each soldier of the First Flag Troop of the Citizen Soldiers carries a bearskin coat, and many of them have polar bear skin coats.

The thick leather jacket is a bit overly effective in keeping out the cold. Wrapping it around your body and lying in the snow means you don’t have to worry about hypothermia.

With the bear skin, there must be a bear head for decoration. The bear's upper jaw was deliberately mounted on the dome of a riveted iron helmet, forming a huge brim with tusks.

Such an image, under the slightly dim light of the campfire, really looks like a pack of bears scurrying around. Now Arik is dressed as a bear, carrying his own

The "Bear Army" gathered near the wooden tower. This was Rurik's intention. The Ross tribe lives in the far north. Bears can be seen in the northern forests and tundra in winter and summer, and white polar bears are not uncommon.

Ross does not worship bears, but he regards successful bear hunting as one of the powerful symbols of a hunter. But the simplest reason is that bear skins have great economic value, and bear meat weighs a lot, although its meat is very smelly. Sheng Meng, everyone is not picky about food, they ate all the shark meat, and the bear meat didn’t matter.

Ross tribe version

A "berserker" should be armed with heavy armor, and a real bear jaw should be installed on the helmet for decoration. If you don't have heavy armor, just wear a bear skin and fight!

The current Arik troops are participating in sacrifices as berserkers, and their exact position at the moment is lower-level priests.

Their appearance caused a huge sensation, and when another wave of people started to make noises, the whole sacrificial scene immediately became excited.

At the same time, Rurik waited quietly in his palace and made final preparations for the upcoming sacrifice.

Is there really no priestess? In fact, there is. Rurik had eighteen wives, all of whom were qualified to be priestesses and participated in sacrificial activities to a greater or lesser extent.

Their relationship with the king is, in a sense, equivalent to that between the Valkyries and Odin. Midgard in the world echoes Asgard in the heaven. This is something everyone talks about. This highlights that King Rurik really received Odin's blessing.

"Remove the blue stripes sewn on the flag and sew them into a white burqa, Rurik, but this is yours." Carlotta couldn't help complaining.

She relied on an oil lamp and used a cold-drawn carbon steel sewing needle made by Ross to sew clothes for him. The fabric was the Ross flag.

The same was true for Beyathil. She realized that she would be participating in the sacrifice of the Russians for the first time. She didn't have any complaints, but was extremely happy.

She was also busy making her own burqa. Seeing that it was almost finished, she became interested in the steel needle at hand.

"I'm almost done. It's such a good needle. I've never seen such a good treasure in the grassland." As she said that, she still held it in front of the oil lamp and gestured, just to see its details.

Rurik turned his back to the two women and kept shaking his body to adjust his clothes: "You all hurry up, we will take action in a while."

"Don't you have to wait for the stars to return? Only then will it make the most sense to light the fire." Carlotta continued with her head raised.

"It doesn't matter. I am the king and I have absolute discretion."

"You." Carlotta smiled slightly, looked at Beyathil again, and said weakly: "He probably can't understand the stars in the sky."

"Really? I don't believe it. He is the king, he knows everything."

"He is the person chosen by Odin. If he knows everything, he is a god. Odin should have sacrificed one eye and stood on the earth. But if this is the case, Rurik should summon lightning and fire , he can easily kill all the enemies without any effort for the soldiers to go out to fight." Beyathil shook his head and continued the work at hand: "At least, he is a god in my mind."

"You..." The two girls didn't say anything anymore, but they listened to their words.

god? Now Rurik believes in God, and he believes that he does have divine help. In this way, Russia's territory has officially reached the Dnieper River in 842. In theory, the route to Constantinople has been won by Russia.

Not only the expedition to Frank, but also the one waiting for Ross in the west

After the "Roman Empire" achieved huge benefits, it was time to turn around and attack Eastern Rome. And this is a shortcut for Ross to continue to obtain development capital.

"I heard the nonsense you two said. Beyahil." Rurik said suddenly, still with his back to his back.

"ah?!"

"Am I your god?"

"You... of course you are. I am Valkyrie and you are Odin. Well. I should serve you." Rurik slowly turned around and held onto his golden laurel crown.

At this moment, he is wearing an armor suit to protect his body, an armed belt is tied around his waist, and his body is decorated with rubies, lapis lazuli, and gold, and the weapon named

The Damascus patterned steel sword of the "Destroyer" must be hung on his waist.

"What do you two think of my outfit?"

"Indescribable!" Carlotta responded with a smile.

"What about you? Beyathil." Rurik turned his head slightly.

"Like a god of war."

"Then, you two are my Valkyries. After all this is over, I will stay in Smolensk for a while to wait for the situation to stabilize. You two must serve me well! You... know this What means."

"I'm afraid you can't bear it." Carlotta naturally wanted it, but she saw that Beyathil had already slightly tilted her head.

The two girls put on plain white robes, and the strips of blue cloth with stitches removed served as belts. They also wore gemstone necklaces and crowns woven from pine branches. Everything tried to imitate the temple in the capital city. That arrangement.

"Let's go. Ignition will be a long process, let's start early." Rurik finally said.

An honor guard was already waiting. They were a group of fine young men selected from the cavalry. They carried bucklers on their backs and wore battle robes, and all wore round polar bear skin hats on their heads. The hats were filled with dyed wild goose feathers. Rurik's request was very simple, and everything was as gorgeous as possible.

They took action! A gorgeously dressed honor guard led the way, and the weather was the trumpeter and drummer of the entire army, marching along with the neat drumbeats.

Rurik was just behind the trumpeters. He held his sword and, accompanied by his two wives who served as priestesses, slowly walked towards the wooden tower that needed to be lit.

At this moment, thousands of people spontaneously gathered around, shouting and cheering, accompanied by the melodious and low sound of horns and crisp drums, as if the whole earth was shaking.

The whole world was extremely bright. Surrounded by soldiers, officers, and Russian nobles, and watched by the surrendered leaders, Rurik and his guard of honor stood under the wooden tower, and also stood surrounded by the wooden tower. living

In front of the "Xiong Army".

"The stars haven't reached their position yet. Should we start now? Maybe it's too hasty." Arik took off his bear-headed helmet and suggested to his brother that he could postpone it a little.

Rurik shook his head: "Look at this lively scene, how can we spoil everyone's interest?"

"Light the fire immediately? No more speeches?"

"No need. No matter how loud I shout, I can't suppress everyone's roar. The warriors just hope that these defeated people will completely turn into ashes, and we will use their deaths to prove to Odin that we are great warriors." These words Arik was very comfortable with what he heard. He took a good look at the king's younger brother: "Otto's sword. The destroyer! It represents the will of my uncle. It's a pity that Vadim could not be sacrificed in Novgorod."

"That's not the case." Rurik shrugged: "Vadim's head will be beheaded, presented to the old king, and exhibited by the boyars of Novgorod."

"You have the final say in everything. Do you want to do it now?"

"Then light a fire. Give me the torch."

"Okay." Then, the sound of the horn suddenly stopped. After a while, the horn and the drum sounded at the same time.

A tall man held a torch high in public. He stood at a high place. People nearby could see that he was the king, while people further away could only see a majestic figure holding a torch.

What is he going to do? It couldn't be more obvious. The pilot fire was deliberately mixed with solidified grease, beeswax, and even a small amount of earth salt to make the dry reeds extremely flammable.

Rurik showed off the torch in his hand, threw it out with all his strength, and landed it firmly in the pilot fire. Then it caused a burst of fire and saltpeter, and then the fire spread rapidly.

But the fire tower was not completed quickly. People only saw a ball of fire rising, followed by a roar.

The fireball dissipated, leaving only a ball of fire, which disappointed the people who were cheering.

"The next step is to wait." Rurik lingered on leaving, accompanied by two wives dressed as priests, watching the fire slowly expand.

The fire in the pilot fire with added fuel grew stronger and stronger, and it began to roast the water-containing wood of the wooden tower, causing the entire tower to emit steam.

When everything reaches the flammable critical point, the wooden tower finally begins to transform into a fire tower. For this reason, Rurik has been standing here for a long time with a suit of armor on his stomach. He and his wives are not too cold, but even if they continue to stand, their legs are numb and their shoulders are uncomfortable.

He was still enduring, knowing that he could not retreat unless the heat of the fire tower was enough to scorch him.

The stars are shifting, and when the Big Dipper and the North Star reach the correct relative position, it can be said that the moment of Hanukkah has arrived.

Rurik deliberately lit the fire in advance. After about three hours, the fire tower burned more and more intensely, forcing Rurik to evacuate.

The entire high altar fell into the sun of creation for the first time. The Ross coalition forces were already accustomed to this traditional show, and it was the first time for them to see hundreds of village leaders.

What is this? Sacrifice to the God of Fire? So, do the Russians actually believe in Peron?

They are really worshiping the sacred fire! The Svenets River, whose name is the Holy Fire, is where the Gniezdovo Altar was deliberately built.

On the last day of the year 842, a fire tower stood on the altar. It interpreted like a performance art what

"Holy Fire", the whole of Gniezdovo fell into a strange warmth in the harsh winter - even too hot.

The heat made people retreat, and a large number of warriors simply showed up shirtless to have their chests and backs roasted. There was also something special about this matter, the so-called blessing of the God of Fire.

Young warriors often do this. After all, most of their mothers are Slavs. Due to their mother's family relationship, they also began to believe in Slavic gods and mixed with the Nordic gods to understand them.

Under the blazing flames, the young warrior freely displayed his muscle lines, his chest hair was whitened by the blazing flames, and glistening sweat began to ooze all over his body.

They didn't feel cold, they just felt like they were in a sauna. It was such heat that a headless corpse like rotten flesh was placed on a small sled and dragged to Rurik's side by shirtless and sweaty warriors.

"Your Majesty, Vadim's head has been severed."

"Very good." Rurik nodded and motioned for his men to take action. Vadim's blood eagle ended here. The ferocious body had been frozen hard, but now it has begun to thaw.

The fire tower ahead was extremely dangerous, and the air was filled with a particularly pungent smell of pine resin, as well as a strange barbecue smell that everyone knew what it was.

The ordered soldiers worked together to lift an extremely long pine tree trunk, with one end against the sled where the corpse was placed.

Everyone wiped their bodies with snow first, then put wet cloth blankets on their bodies, pushing the wooden poles to send the sled directly into the fire tower, where it was mixed with the whitened wood.

After completing their mission, they returned with crazy smiles. At this moment, everyone was exuding steam, as if they had just crawled out of lava.

Vadim was completely finished, only his head remained. Rurik probably made the head into a bone bowl after returning to Novgorod for the display.

What seems like a perverted act of bereavement is actually a heroic act praised by the Viking world. This shows the authority and domineering power of the king, which is the most common practice among tribes. Compared with the kindness and generosity of the king, people now need the king most to lead everyone to win battles and humiliate the enemy.

Rurik really realized this truth during the war, so he had already ordered Vadim's skull wine bowl for himself, and of course it had to be decorated with lapis lazuli and gold.

This is the final cremation, waiting for death

The "Bear Army" endured the heat and continued to add new fuel to the fire tower - red pine and spruce cut at an astonishing height.

The fire tower burned away the old era of Smolensk. When the fire tower was extinguished and turned into thick ashes, a new era of management of the place by the Governor's Palace began.

In this way, it is of great significance that Arik continued to add firewood to the fire tower, because he was the appointed governor, and he also participated in and supervised the return of all the old rulers in the local area.