Chapter 488： Rurik stands Murmansk gazing at the Arctic Ocean

The time of daylight was very short, and Rurik felt that only three or four hours had passed since the sun began to rise to the end.

The time of day is shortening sharply every day, and finally the polar night envelopes the world.

Are you really going to the Arctic Ocean in the polar night? Isn’t that crazy?

He had already made a promise to his men and new allies. He found that he was already riding a tiger and could only go one way to the end.

Now the question is, what path should I choose? Is there a clear path in the vast snowfields?

A group of people built a camp in the pine forest on the shore of the frozen lake (Kemi Lake). Some small pine trees were felled assault, and the trunks were built into brackets and covered with sackcloth as a tent for shelter from the wind.

Everyone peeled off the deerskin, and the steaming leather quickly became hard.

The **** venison was poked by a pine tree branch, and then grilled on the fire, sprinkled with a handful of salt for a meal.

The deer blood has not been processed properly, and this venison is really bad. Rurik held a drop of oily barbecue and could only bite the bullet and eat it. He comforted himself at least compared to those more ancient hunters or nomadic deer people who ate raw meat.

He is thinking about the way forward, and everyone has the same thinking.

The sons of the two chiefs of Balmerk, they have decided to go to see the "Northern Sea" and dare not back down. Retreat means cowards, and they will definitely be despised by the Rus.

In a sense, just because the two sides of the alliance are monitoring each other and flaunting their bravery, there is no room left.

The hungry Biyuni gnawed a deer calf, and he consciously couldn't eat it anymore. He wiped his greasy hands with snow at will, yelling: "We walk all the way north, along this glacier, and we can walk to the sea."

"It's impossible." Rurik said casually, gently hooking his head.

"Why? We are right by the lake. It is obvious that the river flows into this lake in the north."

"Because water can only come from high places. We will continue on the glacier, reaching the source of the water, but not directly reaching the sea. We also need to find a real waterway to the north."

Rurik’s words were supposed to be simple and easy to understand, and Bijuni didn’t understand for a while, “It doesn’t matter. When we reached the source of the river and couldn’t find a new icy road, we were heading north in the wilderness, and we must be able to see it. A piece of ocean. If it really exists... No! It must exist!"

"Of course there is that sea, but we have to look for glaciers." Rurik raised his head, and the flames of the bonfire reflected in his eyes: "I can use my reputation to guarantee that there is a harbor in the north that never freezes. It’s pure. I want to find it and occupy it!"

"Okay. I hope there are bears...listen, my brother." Bijunillo smiled awkwardly. "We are still interested in hunting bears."

"You can rest assured about this. We will definitely hunt a lot of white bears that catch seals. If we can't catch many, we will certainly catch many seals. I have only one concern."

"You speak up."

"We will enter the pure night. It is a very long dark night. We must rely on the stars, moonlight and Aurora to move on. We will be forced to endure the extreme cold and may encounter severe blizzards. Maybe in winter. Adventure is not a good time."

"Long night?" Biyuni looked at his brother Frocky, and both of them laughed. "That's nothing, we Balmerk are used to the complete night of winter. Odin divides the year into twelve points, and designing one of them as a pure night is to test us. We dare to march in the night, I hope you Ross people It's okay."

"That's the best." Rurik nodded and felt a sense of security in his heart.

In the early morning of the next day, the extravagant sunlight shone on the vast snowfields, but the expedition veterans had already advanced on the ice.

The reindeer were fed some wheat, and they gnawed some grass roots freely. After gaining strong physical strength, they continued to advance under the drive of humans. These eight domesticated deer simply ignore the wild kinsmen that have been killed, even if they are pulled on the sledge, there are also a batch of prefabricated meat skewers that are put on the branches and are frozen like a stone, as well as a batch of unfolded and frozen skewers. The toughness is like the deerskin of a wooden board, they have no feeling at all.

The Ross people and the Balmerks were crowded together again, continuing to go north in the colder climate.

The people on the sleigh joked and brag about the boredom of the journey, while they were also observing the woods around the glacier. If bears, wolves or other animals appear at this time, they will jump off the sleigh and start hunting without hesitation.

In the current situation, hunting is no longer purely for leather. People think that their lives are facing a huge threat of extreme cold. Hunger means chills, and even freezing to death.

There must be a tribe of grazing deer people in this area. Once they are discovered, the expedition team will not hesitate to launch an attack. Now Rurik is in an extreme environment. He understands one thing alive. For the safety of himself and his brothers, let the exposed deer-raiser tribe die. He really didn't want to be a big villain, so he could only hope that those guys would not be exposed.

The day was fading at a speed visible to the naked eye, and it was another evening, and the team encountered a problem.

"What should I do now?" Biyuni asked suspiciously.

The fleece cap covered Rurik's frowning brow: "A fork in the road. Damn it!"

"Should we go this way? Left or right? You have an idea."

"Then go to the right."

"Why? Oh, I always ask..."

Rurik mumbled casually with a calm face: "I remember that the harbor is northeast of Elronburg. Now we have to go east and take the river on the right."

The team chose when the road was identified by Rurik. Most people didn't care. Bijuni didn't care at first, but he just thought about what Rurik said just now. The more he thought about it, the more strange he felt. As if Rurik himself had been to the "unfreezing harbour" he said, if Odin really gave him a notice, then the team is now on the right path.

No one knows what the name of this new glacier is, or that there is no natural name for any river. Anyone can give a river a strange name.

If you have paper and pen at this time, Rurik will write down the diary.

He is currently unable to do so, he can only bite the bullet and go on.

In fact, the glacier in the process of the team is the Tennieu River, which originated in the Murmansk region.

The team moved forward under the brilliance of the northern lights. Everyone sighed at the magnificence of the aurora and thanked the Valkyrie in the sky for illuminating the way for them. The sky is clear, and the world under the night is very transparent, but the air is really too cold...

The bonfire dispelled the severe cold and also dispelled potential prey. Of course there are polar bears in this area, but these fierce beasts instinctively fear the fire, and the sudden light of the earth also makes them instinctively avoid them.

They encountered another fork in the road in the swamp area called Savukowski. Obviously, the wider river channel made everyone feel that walking along it was the right way.

After a big turn, the team continued northward and traveled for two days on a river that was almost purely north-south. An even worse situation was placed in front of Rurik.

There may be only two hours left in daylight now, and Rurik knew that he was about to break into the more extreme polar night zone.

It's such a knotty eye, three icy rivers appeared in front of them!

Bijuni questioned again: "Choose a new road! The river in the middle is too narrow. It must be wrong. The left and right ones are very wide. Which one should we choose? Or the right?"

Rurik was a little undecided, and he didn't want to show his hesitation. Since Bijuni said this, his worries should be thrown aside.

"You are right! Just go to the right."

On the right is the river to the east, but the situation is getting more and more so that Rurik feels wrong.

The team camped under the night again. They skillfully used bow drills to drill wood to make fire. After the bonfire dispelled people's fear of the extreme cold night, they began to cook pre-made meat skewers with wheat. It was just due to the reality that Rurik issued an order to leave more wheat to the reindeer pulling the cart. After all, once the reindeer couldn't eat these high-energy foods, they would never want to pull the entire team of people and goods.

People wake up in the night and the team starts to move again. The woods in this area became sparse unexpectedly, and Rurik guessed that everyone had entered the tundra area.

This is a bad and positive sign, because only a few of the toughest trees near the Arctic Ocean can live, and the vast areas are areas that can withstand extreme moss growth.

The day lighted up slowly, and people who continued along the river course to the north clearly felt that the river course was rapidly narrowing. They didn't have time to fear, they saw the sun lazily break through the horizon, and everyone saw the snow-capped mountains in the north!

Bijuni on the sled stood up directly: "I didn't know that there are mountains here too! Rurik, should we keep going the wrong way? Cross this mountain, maybe we will go home."

"Brother, you are stupid." Froggy complained; "The direction of the stars can not be wrong, you look at the sun. Could it be that the sun will rise from somewhere else?"

Bijuni felt embarrassed. He hurriedly sat down and asked Rurik: "The river is about to disappear. How do we go without the glacier? The front is not the sea, but the mountains."

Things became very tricky, and Rurik panicked for a while.

With the attitude of having come all the time, he simply lay down his mind: "Let's continue to rush! When we rush to the hills, we will overturn the mountains. We will definitely be able to see the vast sea of ​​the north when we stand on the heights."

It is a pity that the rhetoric Ruriek underestimated the complexity of the geographical structure. What appeared in front of the team was the remnants of the Kola Peninsula mountain range. In summer, both sides of the mountain range were large areas of Arctic wetlands, partly injected with fresh water from the Gulf of Bothnia. The source is here. The place where Rurik is located is the largest water source of the Ayron River (Kemi River), but now it is determined how significant this can be.

The so-called adventure is to risk your life to explore the unknown world.

Rurik estimated that there would be a tribe of deer-raisers grazing past here in winter. He did not find any conclusive traces. He could only hope that the team would rush up to the bare hills and stand on the high ground to see the people nearby. The sea within easy reach.

But even standing on the top of the mountain, he would never want to see the sea.

The Arctic Ocean is indeed in the north, and the nearest coastline is close to 200 kilometers from this hill. No matter how powerful the eyesight of the viewer, no matter how clear the air is, no one can ignore the curvature of the earth and see the ocean obscured by the horizon.

People are exploring cautiously. As it is said that there must be a way before the car reaches the mountain, when everyone is ready to jump off the sled to climb the mountain and look into the distance, there is a very obvious glacier ahead!

It is not an ordinary glacier, but a very wide glacier!

The river is nearly 100 meters wide, with clusters of cedar forests on both sides, and more areas are tundra.

The team has yet to find any traces of deer-raising activities. Perhaps this place has been a no-man’s land since ancient times. Rurik suddenly wanted to do an experiment of putting small wooden blocks into the ice after cutting. Everyone watched the experiment and determined that the river was heading east. But what does this mean?

"This river is definitely heading to the sea! I swear!" Rurik seemed calm when he spoke, but the people fryed the pot excitedly.

"So, if we walk along this new glacier, we will definitely see the harbor and the sea you mentioned?" Biyuni swayed Rurik in excitement and kept asking.

"It can only be this way, I hope we can see the sea when the sky is completely dark. Bijuni!" Rurik said very seriously: "It seems that we must all be psychologically prepared. We must wait for the pure sea by the sea. The night is over..."

"It doesn't matter! The priest said there is a sea at the end of the world in the north, but no one has ever seen it. I can stand on the shore of the end sea, maybe I can meet the Valkyrie, and talk to the heroic spirits of my ancestors..."

Bijuni said a lot of beautiful fantasies, and Rurik knew that these ideas were too unrealistic.

Time actually began to enter the December of the Julian calendar. The Gregorian calendar was revised five or six days later than the current Old Julian calendar.

Day time has become dispensable. In fact, after another seven days, the pure polar night will come. By then, the pure night waiting for everyone is thirty-eight days.

The mixed expedition team of Ross and Balmerk spent most of the day moving forward in the dark. The people on the sled felt a lot of discomfort. The reindeer in the team pulled the sled, they seemed to be indifferent at all.

One day after the discovery of a new glacier, a new lake appeared!

This lake is extremely tortuous. It is Lake Turomsk, which is 80 kilometers long from north to south.

In the beginning, the expedition team was purely for hunting bears, but now it seems that all human beings in the world have disappeared, and only a small group of them are still struggling. They seem to be marching in the small world that Odin Dan created for them, relying entirely on the strong belief of "seeing the sea at the end of the world in the north", and being brave warriors who dare not back down and bear the infamy of cowards. Drive the reindeer and continue north along the lake.

The huge lake brings a huge benefit, that is, they can no longer be constrained by the twists and turns of the river, they can walk a straight line, so there is no dark night, they only rushed to the northernmost part of the lake in one day.

There seems to be a divine help in the dark, just at the northernmost part of the lake, a river rushing to the north reappears.

The team decisively continued northward along the river, and the river continued to widen magically.

They only traveled for one day, and the huge difficulties forced everyone to go to the snow-filled river bank.

People don’t know whether to be excited or fearful, because it should be a river with a thick layer of ice. The ice layer is already so thin that people worry about falling in. The river surface has also become very wide. If you continue to move forward in the old way, everyone will fall sooner or later Frozen to death and drowned in the river.

People had to walk along the snow-filled river, and they moved in the terrible snow that didn't reach their knees. No one dares to go deep into the pine forests on both sides of the strait for the time being, because the thickness of the snow there is too extreme.

The snow on the riverbank was not extreme yet, and they insisted on advancing all day, by which time the glacier had completely disappeared.

The sun disappeared just by rising its head on the horizon. With the help of extravagant sunlight, people trekking in the snow finally saw the magical scene.

Because there is no road ahead, there is nothing in the north, no pine trees, no tundra, there is only a lot of salty water!

"This! It must be the sea at the end of the world." Standing in the short sunlight, Biyunni was not excited. He leaned on a wooden stick to calmly look at the vast ocean in the north, listening to the sea waves beating against the frozen earth. Everything is so peaceful.

"We have finally arrived. This is what I said about the ice-free bay and the ice-free sea. The sea at the end of the world is here. It's just that this is not the end of the world." Rurik squeezed a smile as he spoke.

Listening carefully, Bijuni was a little bit disappointed: "I thought there was a cliff. The cliff was the domain outside the world tree. It was the world after ordinary people died. Did the priest make a mistake?"

"Look at it with your eyes!" Rurik said, "This is the Arctic Ocean. It is blessed by a cloud of warm water. It will never freeze here. If we Rus build a port here and set up some ships, we will If you can take a boat along the coastline to the west, you can drift to your hometown in as little as seven days."

"This..." At first, Biyunni didn't care much about this. He really stood in front of this legendary sea. He realized that behind Rurik's words, he was actually saying that this sea and the sea of ​​his hometown were Communicating.

Frocky listened carefully to Rurik's words. His worldview was rewritten. Unlike his brother's suspicion, he completely believed Rurik's words, and then interjected: "So, what is at the end of this sea?"

"A new world!"

"New world?"

"First a huge ice layer, then land. If we continue to move forward, we will..." Rurik looked at Frocky's expectant eyes. Without going into details, he put on a pretense: "It's all from God. The revelation is that Odin told me about the existence here, and also revealed that crossing this sea is an unknown new world of happiness. Froggy, if the rehearsal you are carrying is true, you should find a way to cross this sea to find that piece. New world."

"I will! I will succeed!"

Froggy was already jumping in excitement, and then faced the Arctic Ocean shouting: "Odin! I will succeed! In my whole life, I must lead the tribe to live in the new world!"

Rurik shrugged, he still didn't know that he had agitated a Norwegian madman with unprecedented power. Frocky the Raven, who colonized Iceland, if this is also fate.

Biyunni was in an incomparable reality at this moment. He knew that the sun was about to disappear for a long time, and everyone could only stay here until the sun returned. The situation should not be bad. The rivers and the sea here are not frozen, and fishing is at least okay.

He suddenly asked Rurik: "We are building a camp. You are the hero who led us here. Give the camp a name and the river a name."

"Okay. The river is the Morman River, and our camp is Fort Morman."

Moorman, what do you mean? Bijuni and everyone don't understand The name is simple, this is the name given by Rurik himself, and everyone accepted it immediately without any objections.

The team finally stopped on the coast of the Arctic Ocean. A camp called Fort Murman that will resist the long polar night is about to rise. In the future, it will also become the true northernmost stronghold of the Ross people, even if it is far from Ai Rhombus is very far away, but what does this mean to the Ruths who are a member of the Vikings? Besides, this place is really close to Narvik Fjord by sea!

Therefore, under the personal supervision of Rurik’s personal exploration and personal supervision, Murman Fort (Murmansk) began construction in the last month of AD 831.

But Rurik, he was basically unable to return to his hometown of Roseburg to participate in this year's winter festival. Even for the entire Ross tribe, people will suddenly find Lord Rurik disappeared in the ice field!

Does the tribe worry about anything? Rurik hadn't cared so much.

The people who rushed to the coast for the first time to investigate, saw the orange phantom in the sunset, and they began to agitate and laugh wildly.

Because that was a polar bear that hunted seals resting on the shore, and the number of them was really quite large!