Building a Viking Empire with Modern Industry-Chapter 127: Blood and Chaos

After steaming south for a few hours, Ragnar and his "Corporate Defense Force" arrived at the terminus of the Sandwich line.

Due to the unfinished nature of the coastal extension, the tracks ended abruptly about two hundred yards from the shoreline, sitting atop a reinforced embankment of gravel and railway ties.

As the "Screaming Kettle" hissed to a halt, letting off a plume of white steam that mixed with the salty sea air, Ragnar ordered his troops to set up their defensive perimeter.

The "Iron Gear" heavy infantry deployed portable barricades.. pre-fabricated wooden walls reinforced with steel bands along the ridge of the embankment.

Hiding behind the blackened steel of the locomotive and the flatbed cars, Ragnar's troops lay in wait, ready to audit Grandmaster Roland's assets.

They had received information from the optical semaphore that the Frankish fleet would be walking into the "Kill Zone" within a matter of minutes.

As such, Ragnar kept a careful watch over the grey waters of the English Channel, where his "Welcome Mat" lay buried beneath the wet sand.

There would be no escape from the thermal restructuring he had planned. Ragnar could not forgive Roland for the transgression he had made against the brand.

Ragnar had offered the world cheap wool and clean water; Roland had responded by murdering a child over a clockwork toy. This was a violation of the Non-Aggression Principle. There would be no severance package for the enemy today.

Before long, Ragnar could hear the chanting of an army of Frankish zealots singing their Latin hymns.

The crimson sails with the golden flames of the Order of the Sacred Flame snapped in the wind as the massive fleet dropped anchor.

Hundreds of longboats and flat-bottomed barges began rowing toward the shore.

Seeing the enemy before them, Ragnar's "Iron Gear" marksmen cranked the levers of their repeating crossbows. They hid behind the flatbed cars, using the crates of "Spicy Mix" as cover.

Ragnar stood atop the coal tender, looking through a brass telescope.

Beside him, Vizier Al-Hakam was reciting a prayer for protection, his eyes wide as he looked at the sheer number of knights disembarking.

"There are so many," Al-Hakam whispered. "The beach is turning white with their tabards."

"Density is good," Ragnar replied calmly, checking his pocket watch. "It increases the efficiency of the fuel."

Only when the enemy was fully committed to the beach.. when the heavy cavalry had struggled through the surf and the peasant zealots were massing on the sand.. did Ragnar give the signal.

The distance between Ragnar's train and Roland's front line was about three hundred yards. Easy enough for a heavy ballista, but Ragnar wasn't relying on kinetics yet.

"Leif!" Ragnar shouted down to the cab. "Activate the Hydraulic Asset!"

Leif the Lesser, grinning like a madman, slammed a heavy iron lever forward.

Deep beneath the sand, the buried iron pipes pressurized. The Naphtha - the liquid fire of the Greeks, refined by Arab alchemy and pumped by Viking steam power - surged forward.

Grandmaster Roland, who was riding at the head of the army on a massive destrier, was shocked when the ground beneath his vanguard began to hiss. He thought perhaps it was a geyser or some natural phenomenon. He was wrong.

FWOOSH!

Instantly, the beach erupted. It was a wall of liquid fire. The hidden nozzles, spaced every fifty feet, sprayed a pressurized arc of burning Naphtha into the packed ranks of the Frankish army.

Chaos, death, and thermal destruction rained down upon the Holy League. Roland was completely caught in the inferno; the effect of the sticky, unquenchable fire on men wearing padded gambesons and metal ovens (armor) was devastating.

Though Roland was unharmed his horse reared in terror, throwing the Grandmaster into the wet sand.

"Sorcery!" a Bishop screamed, his robes catching fire. "The sand is cursed!"

By the time Roland had recovered from his position on the ground, the second wave of the trap was sprung.

The fire forced the Franks to split, pushing them into the marshy kill zones on the flanks.

Realizing that this was the work of the "Iron Demon" and that he had walked right into a heathen trap, Roland stood up. His golden armor was smeared with mud, but his fanaticism was untouched. He drew his sword, pointing it at the black silhouette of the train on the embankment.

"Do not fear the fire!" Roland bellowed, his voice cracking with rage. "It is a trick of the Devil! Charge the machine! Destroy the source of the smoke!"

As soon as the Sacred Flame made their way through the wall of smoke, they began to be battered by the Torsion Spikes mounted on the flatbed cars. The heavy steel bolts, size of spear shafts, punched through shields and breastplates alike.

Yet Roland paid no heed to them. He rallied his forces with the logic of a martyr.

"Into the smoke!" Roland screamed. "The fire cannot touch the righteous!"

As such, the tens of thousands of peasant conscripts were pushed forward by the elite knights behind them.

Despite being terrified of the "Dragon's Breath," they feared their masters more.

Thousands of heavily armed Frankish soldiers marched through the black, oily smoke to engage Ragnar's forces in melee combat.

They believed that if they could just reach the train, their superior numbers and skill with the sword would prevail.

Ragnar had yet to deploy the Mobile Strike Wing (cavalry).

Instead, they were hiding behind the embankment, waiting to encircle the Franks if they tried to retreat to the boats. Ragnar calmly sat atop the tender, poured himself a cup of coffee from a thermos, and waited for the market to correct itself.

"They are still coming," Al-Hakam noted, impressed by their suicidal bravery. "Faith is a powerful drug."

"So is adrenaline," Ragnar noted. "General Bjorn?"

"Yes, Director?" The massive COO stood ready on the flatbed car, his Lucerne Hammer resting on his shoulder.

"Prepare the Interns. It is time for their on-the-job training."

After suffering thousands of casualties in the initial "Thermal Event," Roland remained undeterred. He still had over 20,000 men at his back.

It became quickly apparent that Ragnar had at most 5,000 employees under his command. If Roland could close the distance, he would win by the sheer volume of bodies.

As such, Roland quickly advanced towards the embankment, unafraid of the whistling crossbow bolts as he led his troops up the gravel slope.

Whether he was simply lucky or blessed by a very confused God, Roland arrived at the enemy lines atop the embankment screaming at the top of his lungs the battle cry of the Crusade.

"God wills it!"

However, what he was met with was the corporate chant of Ragnar's soldiers as they rushed forward from behind the train cars, pikes leveled and hammers raised.

"Efficiency is Victory!"

The two chants perfectly contrasted their worldviews as a grand melee began to unfold on the railway tracks.

Despite Roland's overwhelming numbers, Ragnar's forces had the high ground and the advantage of Standardization. The Franks were a mix of knights and peasants. The Vikings were a uniform wall of grey steel.

However, the sheer weight of the Frankish numbers began to push the "Interns" - the Saxon levies - back against the train.

"Hold the line!" Bjorn shouted, smashing a knight's helmet with the beak of his hammer. "If you let them scratch the paint, I will dock your pay!"

Ragnar watched the melee from the roof of the locomotive. He saw a gap forming on the left flank where the Frankish knights were pushing hard.

He put down his coffee.

"Al-Hakam," Ragnar said, adjusting his gauntlets. "Hold my cup."

"Where are you going?"

Ragnar drew his heavy sabre and spun the cylinder of his revolver crossbow.

"I am going to conduct a Hostile Takeover."

Ragnar leaped from the top of the train, landing with a heavy clang in the middle of the fray.

The blood and chaos that followed would prove to be an inspiration for the future marketing pamphlets of the Directorate. The only men who remained calm during this sea of bloodshed were Ragnar and his elite guard, who fought with the rhythmic precision of a piston engine, dismantling the chivalry of Europe one swing at a time.