Chapter 152 War Stalemate

The sun was high in the bright sky, shining on the mountaintops without any obstruction, and the heat of the sun made the mist on the sea disappear.

Bern Sigvald tried to concentrate and saw clearly that the invaders had at least sixty longships.

Twenty of them had already landed on the seashore, and at least sixty people jumped off each ship.

They wore leather helmets and armor, held shields, and were equipped with scimitars and spears. They gathered along the winding coast, forming a neat array and advancing forward.

The invading army in front of them was about 1,500 people, but in the river bay area ruled by the Sigvald family, there were only more than 2,000 men and boys in total.

What's more, the invaders still had forty longships that had not landed.

At this time, these forty longships were lined up in a long line, paddling hard, and going upstream along the river.

Elihu Phoenix was standing on the first ship. He was responsible for the duties of commander and lookout, staring at the river in front of him without blinking.

When he sailed through the river bay, a strong current suddenly rushed the longboat to the south bank. Elihu lost his balance and fell to the bottom of the boat.

He could hear the sound of rapids flowing, and he could see that a few feet to the right was a turbulent river made up of many white foams, with sharp rocks in the middle, blocking any boats that dared to approach like a sharp blade.

"Stop moving forward, stop!"

Elihu shouted in a language with a strange accent: "Turn around! Turn around!"

He quickly stood up, pulled out an oar, and plunged it into the water, trying to fix the hull with the crew.

"Your calculation is wrong."

He anxiously shouted to the commander of the Forest Walker: "Think of a way quickly, the flow rate of this river is much faster than you expected."

"Watergate, it's the watergate! We who guard the watergate have failed, everyone row hard!"

The Forest Walker shouted: "Row quickly! Otherwise we will run aground!"

At the same moment, he felt the side of the boat rub against the rocks, making a friction sound that made people's teeth sour.

——

Things were indeed as the forest walker guessed. Not long ago, Elihu led the longboats up the river, and their cheers awakened the Iban people's gathering place closest to the coast.

Seger, the son of Bern Sigvald, was stationed here. He was used to getting up early. As soon as he woke up from his sleep, he immediately saw the strange ships that suddenly appeared on the seashore.

Hearing the different languages ​​these people shouted to each other, he quickly woke up the villagers and sent people to notify other gathering places. Then he began to escort the villagers to evacuate to the valley on the mountain.

Seger asked the women and children to hide in the cave behind the cliff and sealed the cave entrance with leaves and stones. He didn't bother to look for his father, and hurriedly led the men to the water gate.

On the way of retreat, he saw that most of the longboats had rowed into the river bay. If he could use the water gate to kill these ships and then gather all the men in the gathering place, the Sigvald family would have enough resistance.

The Ibans were a warlike race, and every household had weapons ready for war. The men were all holding axes and shields, following closely behind the leader's son, ready to fight to save their lives.

The water gate was surrounded by mist, and no one was seen or heard.

Seger was a wise man from the Sigvald family. He was very cautious. He stretched out his hand to stop the men who were only concerned with roaring and wanting to rush out, and carefully looked at the white mist.

Several short and thin figures vaguely emerged and disappeared. In just a moment, he concluded that these figures were definitely not the Ibans guarding the water gate.

Seger did not shout to test, but quietly retreated with the warriors without revealing their whereabouts. With his familiarity with the terrain, he quickly went around to the canyon upstream of the river.

They took off their heavy clothes, smeared their bodies with whale oil that they usually chewed, raised their axes and shields, and jumped naked into the freezing water without hesitation, floating downstream along the current.

When they almost reached the water gate, they completely submerged their figures in the water to hide their tracks. They approached secretly and pointed their axes at the gathered enemy warriors.

In an instant, the short axes were fired at the same time. Several wooden men were hit by the sharp axes and rolled to the ground with wailing. The Iban people jumped out of the water and rushed forward, trying to split these invaders who were so weak that they didn't even look at them into two pieces.

There were not many wooden men, and they were attacked suddenly. After a moment, they were stepped on the ground. The Iban warriors showed no mercy, picked up the axes, shouted war cries, and chopped the wooden men on the ground.

Seger looked at the longboat that was about to arrive at the river bay at this time, hurried forward, and called everyone loudly to push the capstan together to completely open the water gate that had only a two-foot gap.

The blocked water flow gushed out instantly, making the downstream river channel immediately turbulent.

——

The river was surging, and all forty longboats were crowded in front of the river bend. The crew could not control the boats to turn around, because once they turned sideways, the longboats would be tilted by the current.

If they wanted to continue to go upstream, they would be swept away by the rapids behind the river bend and drift back to the south bank of the river again, or even hit the rocks that were like sharp blades.

Fortunately, more than half of the boats were forest walkers. With their superb boat handling skills, the forty longboats were delayed until now and have not capsized.

"This is crazy. We can't force our way into the rapids again."

The forest walker commander looked at the water in front of him and shouted to Elihu:

"The crew's physical strength is about to run out. We must use this last moment to command all the ships to withdraw from the river in turn."

"You take command, send out flag signals, and let them retreat!" Elihu roared with shame and anger.

His ship always hit the longboat behind him in the rapids. He was not familiar with this kind of shaking, and he couldn't even stand firmly.

Under the sun, Elihu was wet all over, emitting water light. He lay on the boat in a mess, looking to the west.

Under the command and dispatch of the flag in the hands of the forest walker, the longboats gave up paddling one after another, carefully controlled and stabilized the hull, and floated back to the sea along the water.

He looked back at the front again, the gathering place very close behind the river bend, that was the residence of the Sigvald family, and his target of raiding.

Although Elihu decisively issued the order to retreat, he was not willing to do so.

If the attack is launched from the coast, it can only be a frontal attack, and then it will inevitably suffer some losses. In front of him, it is just a river bay of Ibben Island. There are Ibben Port and Ibben Nor behind. Those big cities need him to conquer.

Thinking of this, he blinked his eyes, his eyes were full of tenacity. He gritted his teeth and grabbed a paddle, pulled up an exhausted warrior, sat on the other side, and shouted loudly:

"This is the first battle of Dothraki after the coronation of the great Khal. The grassland, the holy city, and all the Dothraki are watching us. We can't retreat and can't fail."

"Everyone obeys my arrangements and orders, no need to hold back, use all your strength, if the river wants to embrace us in its arms, then today is the day."

There was no sound response, everyone bent down, panting silently, waiting for the order with a firm look.

This Volantis looked back, and his scarred face grinned an ugly smile.

"Forward."

At the command, everyone paddled desperately, even the commander of the forest walker rolled up his sleeves to help.

The rowers were immersed in the silvery water, and their sweat and river water wet their hair and eyes. They paddled hard.

In the situation of concentration, it was difficult for them to determine whether they were moving.

However, slowly, they gradually moved away from the jagged rocks and returned to the center of the river. They used up their last bit of strength to paddle across the river and slide to the north bank.

At this moment, the sharp-eyed commander of the forest walker seemed to have discovered something. He stood up and took out the longbow hanging on his back.

Bending the bow and arrow, aiming at the dark shadow on the opposite bank, with each arrow he shot, there would be a scream on the shore, but Elihu and the others were sitting at the bottom of the boat and could not see anything.

The water flow gradually slowed down, giving the crew a chance to catch their breath. The longbows of the forest walkers were still singing, and the sharp sound of breaking through the air was like the sound of a harp, composing a warrior song.

Then, the longboat seemed to touch the bottom of the river, and there was a strong vibration, which made everyone lie down, followed by many footsteps and shouting.

Everyone quickly raised their heads and looked at the shore, only to see dozens of Ibbenese holding short axes and shields rushing here.

"Dothraki people follow me to charge in front, and the forest walkers are behind."

"Attack! Attack!"

Elihu put on an iron helmet, held a war hammer and jumped off the boat first, pointing at the Ibben warriors and roaring loudly, the sound was like a rumbling thunder.

He slowly moved forward under the protection of the warriors' shields, and the forest walkers behind him also provided accurate arrow support, so no flying axes could hurt him.

When the two sides were close, he was like a crazy beast, rushing forward and crashing into the Iban people's team. His war hammer swept across, causing heavy casualties in the enemy array around him.

Elihu trampled on the corpses and continued to move forward, not caring about the enemies who were ready to move. The Iban warriors could only bite the bullet and launch another charge, but the result was the same. Their siege was like sand and stone facing the impact of huge waves, and it was instantly disintegrated.

They didn't know what it would be like for the bravest warriors in the world to fight, but at this moment, the corpses and blood all over the ground and the miserable wailing of the wounded became an indelible shadow in their hearts.

The horror of the man in front of them was beyond their imagination. They dropped their weapons and shields, and the forest walkers also loosened their bowstrings, and everything fell into a dead silence.

——

The Dothraki warriors who landed on the coast faced a tough battle.

After opening the sluice gate, Seger, the young son of Bern, saw that the invaders' longboats were constantly circling on the river, so he went to gather people with confidence. From the mountains to the forests, he quietly summoned all the men in the gathering places to fight against the enemies who invaded the territory of Sigvald's family.

He did not choose to sound the alarm, making the invaders mistakenly think that they were still asleep. At the same time, he used his familiarity with the terrain to launch a successful raid. Teams of Iban warriors rushed down the slope and pressed the enemy to the beach tightly, but then the enemy formed a formation to defend them.

Seger, who was just sixteen years old, had never met such an enemy. Facing this tightly coordinated formation, he was helpless and could only watch sadly as the Iban warriors died tragically under the enemy's spears one after another.

The sand on the beach was dyed red with blood. I am afraid that only the next day's tide will wash the ground clean.

"Stab."

Standing behind the array, the Dothraki captain with a horsetail decoration on his helmet issued orders calmly.

The warrior hiding behind the tower shield swung the bloody spear in his hand and stabbed forward, unaware of how many people he had killed.

In fact, the captain was not as calm as he seemed. Instead, he was full of doubts. The battle plan was jointly formulated by Elihu and him: advance on both ends, take the enemy by surprise, and attack them when they are unprepared.

He was originally leading more than a thousand warriors to advance towards the gathering place of the Iban people easily, preparing to support Elihu, with the goal of preventing the enemy from fleeing to the north.

Unexpectedly, he was suddenly attacked by the main force of the enemy and had to retreat. When he found that the land under his feet became bumpy, there was no way to retreat, and he had to choose to fight with his back to the sea.

How did so many accidents happen? Elihu has been out of contact until now.

Saigal, who was standing opposite the Dothraki captain, was also worried and looked up to the south from time to time. He had already sent people to contact his father Bourne and the family's elite warriors, but until now, there has been no response from either side.