The Son Of Ragnar

Chapter 217 Sturla Debuts

General Njal had advanced and he knew time was not their friend. He braced himself for any interference because it would only be logical to detach a part of your army to buy time yet he did not see anything.

Nothing was blocking their paths but they could see the footprints showing that they were going the right way.

Njal noticed his men were looking tired, but they could not rest because he knew what would happen if he did.

"Onward! We must save the clan even if we have to lay down our lives!" Njal screamed but this did nothing to boost them because, in the end, they were only human.

It was eerily quiet and the darkness limited how they could perceive their environment.

Njal knew something was strange and they eventually reached the hill that stood in the east, this was the place the flanked army would otherwise converge but the footsteps he had been following were almost nonexistent.

General Njal made the call to stop, the moonlight was to their advantage because he knew they would give their position away if they used to fire on sticks.

"What's wrong General Njal?" A man asked, surprised that the man that denied them rest was stopping suddenly.

Perhaps, his body was finally reaching its limit but that was highly unlikely. Njal looked left and right, and it looked like the army never converged at this point.

"Don't tell me…" Njal muttered to himself right before looking at the hill with a sense of urgency.

But before he could warn his men, a hail of arrows rained down on them with no mercy.

The arrows naturally found a few unfortunate targets but they did poorly in terms of reducing their numbers.

Njal knew they were going to meet interference but he did not know they would use their environment to their advantage.

They had managed to climb the hill and waited in wait for them.

General Njal knew they could push ahead as they had the advantage seeing as the archers could not give chase.

They raised their shields, strapped to their back, above their heads, and advanced.

Njal questioned what the purpose of those arrows was because surely they had to have ground forces as well.

They had the aerial advantage as it stood.

"Do not let down your guard!" Njal warned and the moment he sounded this warning, they were surrounded as the enemy created a circular formation but there was something strange about this.

Their numbers, this was not numbers you used for a distraction, these were numbers used to eradicate your enemies because they were heavily outnumbered.

General Njal had taken an estimate from the army that had collided with Torvi and these men.

This was approximately the max number of men under their enemy so this could only mean that they were not moving piece by piece.

No, they were moving their entire army.

"You cannot hold us here! We will break through and destroy the enemies that lay ahead!" A man screamed, trying his best to keep his spirits up.

This was a gesture that Njal appreciated but things were looking quite bleak.

"Enemies that lay ahead?" A voice said, originating the formation.

He was out of view but Njal's face showed he knew exactly who it was.

Like the red sea parted by Moses, the men of the man that spoke slowly split, allowing him to walk forward uninterrupted.

"We are the enemies that lay ahead." The man said as he came into view.

It was Sighvatur, the Chieftain of the Sturlungar clan.

Njal instantly knew they were in trouble but there was no way for them to retreat, they were boxed in.

He had it all wrong, these men had no interest in barracking Gissur right now.

He was a man that wore a helmet, he had a long brown beard that reached his lower chest but his head did not share that same luxury, seeing as he was bald beneath the helmet.

No, they wanted to wipe the forces stationed at the border out and gain more ground in their territory.

They had flanked them not to sneak past them, they did so so they could not warn or call for backup.

"Now then, let's begin the massacre." Sighvatur's blood-curdling words echoed.

-

The area in which Torvi stood was devastated, all the forces were slain and littered everywhere.

Torvi had lost but this was only natural seeing her enemy was Sturla, the son of Sighvatur.

Sturla was a lot bigger than his father in mass and height, but he had his beard shaped neatly as opposed to his father's long beard.

He had brown hair styled in a mohawk, but he looked like the typical warrior of this day and age.

He had a tattoo of a staff inked on his forehead.

What the staff represented was unknown.

"Are we done here?" Sturla said, looking at the corpses of the men he had killed, they did not lose much of their own men showing the difference in skill.

"Yes sir!" A man shouted in response but the moment she did, an arrow flew from beneath the corpses. Sturla snatched it out of the air with his bare hand like he was swatting a fly.

"You are a stubborn one…" Sturla said; the person responsible for this sneak attack was Torvi.

She was apprehended immediately with her head pressed against the ground and a sword already raised to execute her.

Torvi looked at Sturla with hatred, cursing him with what was supposed to be her last breath but Sturla gestured for his men to stop.

"I understand your rage but the moment you stepped into this battle, you understood what would happen. We are not the bad guys, we are simply the victors…" Sturla said, looking over at the men with the sword.

He gestured for them to strip Torvi, watching the whole process with an indifferent face.

"... And you just became a spoil of war…" Sturla said. She saw his men's hungry eyes descend on her and Torvi knew what was coming next.

But she was not going to be dishonored, she bit off her tongue, killing herself but not before killing at least three men.

Sturla was indifferent, he did not look impressed or disturbed by this because he knew that a harder battle awaited them.

They had conquered this battlefield, now he was going to join his father in his battle against General Njal.