At first, Villa thought that fifty Otto supporters would be enough. Unexpectedly, there would be as many as 500 people preparing to go north that night.
Staying in your own house during the long winter, the feeling of boredom becomes increasingly irritating.
Go out to welcome the leader back. There may be some unexpected gains in the outdoors during this trip.
Some brave people are preparing, and some women are also taking action spontaneously, simply because their husbands have not returned with the leader Otto.
When the news of the priest reached the ears of these women, they firmly believed that their husbands were pacing hard in the snowfields with a large harvest, because there were too many prey, even for a strong man. It is also difficult to transport easily.
My wife’s anxiety disappeared and was replaced by joy at the prospect of a good harvest.
Nearly two hundred women, some even with their children, each dressed like a bear, began to prepare sleds for pulling goods overnight. The sleds were loaded with a large amount of dry food, as well as skin tents for camping outdoors, and axes for felling wood and killing wild animals.
In the end, nearly a thousand people were organized, including men, women, and many children.
Even Rurik himself was pulled into this mighty army by his mother Niya.
More people saw that even leader Otto’s wife and Rurik, who had high hopes, took action. This search northward could no longer be called a search.
It was the warmest expression that Rossburg made to the triumphant people.
When the first ray of sunshine in the morning shines hard on the pale earth, a sense of holiness penetrates people's hearts.
Everyone who had eaten started to take action in unison, and the vast team spontaneously formed a wide search line to make it easier to find the returning people.
Rurik was also sitting on the sled. He was dressed like a little bear.
Of course, he is completely different from the bear in that he always wears a knife in his waist for self-protection and for cutting meat.
Like other women, Niya is quite thickly dressed and will personally pull her sled towards the north.
Not to mention, even women, even people on skis carrying some heavy supplies, can still move faster on the snow.
For Rurik, today’s action was actually the first time he left Fort Ross in the fjord!
Leaving their homes protected by hills, the huge team walked directly on the frozen ocean in order to go north, because the road was very smooth.
Beside Rurik, his cousin Arik was also dragging his sleigh, and accompanying him was his wife Peravina.
The north wind was like a knife. Looking at his mother's back as she struggled to move forward, he couldn't help but feel more worried.
"Mom, how about I come down and walk?" he suggested.
"No! My child, at least now I can easily pull you."
Niya is really not young. She usually eats too much red meat and fish and does a lot of physical work, but her physical fitness is still very good.
Rurik said nothing more. He sat obediently throughout the short day until night fell and people began to set up camp one after another.
They brought a batch of charcoal blocks, so bonfires quickly appeared on the ice.
There is no need to worry that the charcoal fire is roasting the ice under the camp. Because of more than ten days of continuous freezing, the average thickness of the flat layer in the Bay of Bothnia has exceeded one meter, and the ice becomes thicker the closer you get to the coast. thick.
The people who went north to look for the leaders were very smart. This way forward on the ice was indeed the most convenient.
Of course Otto also knew about such a superior way back home, but this idea was finally changed due to the death of a large number of reindeer.
There was no grass growing on the ice. Those deer that were forcibly expelled caused a large number of deaths after just two days of walking on the ice.
Otto originally had a hundred deer as trophies, but when he led his men back to land operations again, they had only half the number.
Because the nutrients of grass under the snow are limited, reindeer do not hibernate. They will survive the entire winter, but at the cost of eating grass throughout the winter.
This is why reindeer people must practice winter grazing.
If they could have a large amount of grains, they could feed their deer herds with such highly nutritious grains, but that is absolutely impossible.
Feeding reindeer with wheat is a bizarre idea.
But without enough energy, the strong man dragging the sled and the leisurely people sitting on the sled must run for more than 200 kilometers, which will cause a large number of reindeer to die from exhaustion.
Reindeer are certainly a traditional species in the Arctic Circle, and they migrate hundreds of kilometers every year.
They naturally have extremely strong endurance, but this is by no means a reason to abuse animal power.
Smart deer farmers will not go crazy and order their deer to starve and spend several days walking through the migration route that they completed in two months.
Otto and his men are not deer herders, and their attitude towards deer is also predatory. If the deer can return to Roseburg alive, it can be kept for a period of time to try to gain more value. Don't worry if it dies midway. The owner of the deer can immediately peel off the precious deer skin and antlers, and the remaining venison is Best dry food.
Whether they have meritorious service or not, they have at least two deer.
Now everyone has to face the terrible reality. Many people are left with the last surviving deer.
Some of Otto’s men helped him drive away the deer, and he himself had to keep an eye on the last deer herder girl.
Half-dead deer is not a catastrophic problem. Many of his subordinates went to deal with the deer carcass. The skin went to the leader and the deer meat to the subordinates.
EasyThe opportunity to obtain a large amount of delicious red meat was right in front of him. The fifty venison belonging to Otto quickly turned into pieces of meat, and a considerable part had already entered the stomachs of the tribesmen.
Otto, what he cares most about is still the deer herder girl.
Along the way, the child neither cried nor fussed, but sat quietly on the sled wrapped in a thick leather coat. She ate meat, she drank water, and for days there was no intention of escaping.
"This kind of person is simply a born servant?"
Otto became more and more curious. Unexpectedly, the girl saw that her deer was being eaten by barbarians, and her heart Bleeding.
But what can a child who has lost his entire family and is controlled by barbarians do?
She does not understand the language of the barbarians, and now she is completely submissive, but she just doesn’t want to die. Because she is cowardly now, she does not have the courage to commit suicide like her mother. He was also very unlucky not to freeze to death like his brothers and sisters.
But he was the only one alive, with his hands and feet still bound.
She didn’t know where she was going to be escorted yet, but looking at the current situation, she was afraid that the deer that had been taken away from her home would die of exhaustion and starvation in the vast snowfield before she could determine where to go. On the other hand, my personal fate may be a similar tragedy.
The girl remained silent, longing that she would never see the sun again after falling asleep one day.
As long as I have been alive, the number of deer is getting fewer and fewer every day.
Otto and his party turned back to the old road. Based on the marks left earlier, everyone basically determined their geographical location.
Everyone is also very happy, and we can return to Roseburg in two or three days at most.
The only unhappy thing is probably that the deer pulling the sled are all dead. What was once a two-day journey would only take three days or more, because on their sleds were not only their own various snowfield camping equipment, but also a large number of animal skins and a large amount of frozen hard meat. More weight.
It is a good thing to return home with a full load, and everyone hopes to be able to bring them back without too much effort.
How Otto hopes that his troops in Roseburg can send people to help everyone bring back the treasure, not to mention that the people in Roseburg have missed everyone for too long.
"Maybe I should send someone to take a shortcut immediately to inform them!"