Building a Viking Empire with Modern Industry-Chapter 199: A Costly Silence

In an instant, a massive blizzard swept down from the jagged peaks of the Norwegian mountains, swallowing the valley of Kattegat in an impenetrable wall of howling, freezing white. The sudden, violent drop in temperature transformed the muddy defensive trenches into solid rock, while the wind whipped the falling snow into blinding vortexes that severely limited visibility to mere paces.

Since the temperature had plummeted so drastically, the delicate mechanics of the Iron Empire’s weaponry began to suffer.

The lubricating oil within the brass gears of the Repeater Cannons thickened into a stubborn paste, making the cranks stiff and unyielding, while the iron barrels themselves became so painfully cold that they would rip the skin from a bare hand.

Standing on the elevated eastern ridge overlooking the Serpent’s Pass, the Grenadiers shivered violently beneath their thick wool coats, desperately trying to keep the firing mechanisms of their crossbows clear of the rapidly accumulating ice.

Despite this severe mechanical handicap, the guards gripped their weapons tightly, their eyes straining against the dark, swirling snowstorm. They had been told that a horde of three thousand cannibal berserkers was marching down this very mountain pass, and the paralyzing fear of being eaten alive gnawed at the edges of their discipline.

The eerie, whistling wind sounded entirely too much like the whispers of ghosts, keeping every man on the precipice of pure panic.

That is, until a chorus of blood-curdling shrieks actually tore through the howling gale.

Bursting from the impenetrable whiteout, dark, hulking shadows charged directly at the outer trench line. They were screaming with a terrifying ferocity, swinging heavy axes wildly as they bounded over the frozen earthworks.

"They’re here! The horde is upon us!" a young, inexperienced sentry screamed, his voice cracking with sheer terror as he fumbled with his firing lever.

Seeing his men lose their nerve in the blinding snow, the trench captain bellowed for them to hold their fire and wait for a clear target, but his voice was completely drowned out by the roaring wind and the panic of the green recruits.

Without waiting for the command, the terrified artillerymen yanked the heavy firing lanyards of the primary field cannons.

The twin guns erupted with a deafening, earth-shattering roar, belching massive plumes of orange fire that briefly illuminated the blizzard. A devastating storm of heavy iron canister shot ripped through the darkness, tearing the charging shadows to absolute shreds and sending geysers of red snow spraying into the air.

The sheer concussive force of the blast shook the foundations of the nearby longhouses, leaving a ringing silence in its immediate wake.

"Reload! Reload the tubes before the rest of them breach the line!" the captain shouted, striking a panicked gunner on the helmet to break him out of his shock.

Ragnar, who had been reviewing defensive maps in a nearby command tent, burst through the canvas flaps with his silver-tipped cane in hand, his monocle catching the faint light of the trench torches.

Beside him, Gyda, his fiercely intelligent Keeper of the Ledgers, emerged with a furious scowl, immediately tallying the wasted munitions in her mind.

"Cease fire! Stand down, you undisciplined fools!" Ragnar roared, limping rapidly toward the barricade while pushing a trembling crossbowman aside.

He stared out into the smoking, cratered snowfield, waiting for the inevitable secondary charge of the Gore-King’s massive army.

Eventually, the swirling snow settled just enough to reveal the absurd, infuriating truth of the engagement. There was no army of three thousand men. There was no horde waiting in the tree line.

Lying in the center of the devastated kill-zone were the mangled, bloodied remains of exactly five men. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Gyda stepped up to the palisade, her eyes narrowing as she calculated the staggering deficit of the last ten seconds. "You panicked over five wild men,"

"You expended a full measure of premium black powder and two heavy canister shells to eliminate a mere handful of scavengers."

"After all, those high-explosive reserves were strictly allocated for breaking a mass infantry charge, not for shooting shadows!" Ragnar reprimanded the gun crews, his iron-tipped cane striking the frozen timber of the barricade with a sharp crack.

He turned his piercing gaze to the shattered corpses in the snow, a deep realization beginning to turn the gears in his mind.

Five men did not charge a fortified cannon position expecting to win. They charged expecting to die. They charged to make a noise.

However, before Ragnar could fully articulate this rising dread, heavy, frantic footsteps crunched through the snow behind them. Bjorn, the giant general of the Iron Guard, sprinted up the icy incline from the village docks, his chest heaving violently and his broadsword already drawn.

Though Bjorn was a hardened veteran of the North who had bathed in the blood of countless battles, he looked as pale as the snow beneath his boots.

"The sea!" Bjorn roared, grabbing Ragnar by the shoulder of his blue wool coat, entirely forgetting his formalities in the face of imminent disaster.

"Ragnar, you must turn the guns around! The prisoner lied, or he told us a half-truth! I was patrolling the docks, looking through the fog and the snow..."

"Calm yourself, Bjorn, and give me a precise report!" Ragnar demanded, shrugging off the giant’s grip while gripping his cane tighter. "What did you see in the water?!"

"Longships," Bjorn breathed, pointing his heavy blade back down the valley toward the dark, churning waters of the fjord. "Fifty of them. Massive oak hulls, slipping through the fog. They are sailing directly into our undefended harbor!"

A suffocating silence fell over the command group, broken only by the whistling wind. Gyda’s eyes widened slightly as the pieces of the puzzle aggressively snapped into place. "Thus, the prisoner’s confession was a calculated maneuver," she murmured.

"Fifty ships... that is easily two thousand seasoned warriors, bypassing our cannons entirely while we freeze on this ridge."

Yet, instead of flying into a panicked rage at the deception, Ragnar’s mind went eerily still. The frustration of the wasted ammunition melted away, replaced by the terrifying clarity of a grandmaster who had just realized his opponent was not playing checkers, but chess.

"He sacrificed five of his own men to trigger our guns," Ragnar whispered, looking back at the mangled corpses in the snow. "He sent them to scream and die in the dark, knowing our green recruits would panic and fire the cannons."

"A brilliant expenditure of disposable assets," Gyda agreed, her voice laced with a dark, grudging respect. "He knows our heavy guns are locked facing the mountain pass, and moving them back through this blizzard will take hours we do not have."

"I took him for a mere savage," Ragnar confessed, a cold, predatory smile slowly spreading across his scarred face. "King Erik is a strategist."

"We can admire his intellect after we sever his head from his shoulders!" Bjorn interrupted, slamming his fist against his breastplate. "They are landing on the shingle right now! Our longhouses are exposed, our ships are anchored, and our men are completely out of position!"

With this said, the Iron Father turned to his Master of the Ledgers.

The element of surprise had been violently ripped from their grasp.

"Gyda, take the Grenadiers and hold this ridge," Ragnar commanded. "If this is a pincer movement, we cannot leave our flank exposed. Bjorn, gather every man with a blade and follow me down to the shoreline. We must hold the docks until Master Leif can build steam in the Gyda’s boilers!"

"You cannot hold off two thousand men on an open beach with swords!" Bjorn protested, falling into step beside Ragnar as the Iron Father began to limp rapidly down the icy path toward the village.

"We do not need to defeat them on the beach, my friend," Ragnar grinned. "We merely need to delay them long enough for our ironclad to pivot its broadside. Let us go down and properly welcome the King of Norway to the new age!"