They entered the region, not like wolves, not like men, but like demons.

The torch was applied to every hut, to every village, to every town.

They amused themselves with tossing men, women and children upon their camp-fires, glowing like furnaces.

The sword and the spear were too merciful instruments of death.

The flames of the burning towns blazed along the horizon night after night, and the cry of the victims roused the Novgorodians to the intensest thirst for vengeance.
With the sweep of utter desolation, Mstislaf approached the city, and when his army stood before the walls, there was behind him a path, leagues in width, and two hundred miles in length, covered with ruins, ashes and the bodies of the dead.