Building a Viking Empire with Modern Industry-Chapter 56: Efficiency of Ruin

The Industrial Corps stood in their grid formation, a grey block of discipline amidst the chaos of the battlefield. The front line of Huscarls knelt, bracing the butts of their twelve-foot ash pikes against the earth. Behind them, the "Range Department" composed of Tech-Thralls and Broken Men worked the levers of their machines.

Fifty Torsion Spikes fired in unison. The "Broom" canisters disintegrated mid-air, turning into a cloud of shrapnel that shredded the oncoming Danish wedge.

The Danish armor was designed to stop a swinging sword. It was useless against high-velocity scrap metal moving at terminal velocity.

"Reload!" Leif the Lesser screamed, his voice cracking with the strain. "Maintain the cycle! Ten seconds!"

As the Tech-Thralls furiously cranked the winches, the Huscarls in the front row tightened their grip on the pikes. They were the "Aegis." Their job was to ensure the machine kept running.

The surviving Danes, maddened by pain and confusion, threw themselves at the pike wall. They were brave men. They were legends in their own villages. But bravery has no coefficient in physics.

One massive Dane, his face painted with woad and blood, managed to bat aside two pikes with his great-axe. He roared, stepping into the gap, raising his weapon to split the skull of a reloading Tech-Thrall.

"Die, wizard!" the Dane screamed.

The Tech-Thrall didn’t even look up from his winch.

Beside him, a "Security Consultant" stepped forward. He thrust a short, triangular-bladed stabbing sword—standard issue "Sidearm Type B"—directly into the Dane’s armpit, bypassing the armor entirely.

The Dane collapsed, choking on his own blood.

"Clear the obstruction!" Toke grunted, kicking the body away. "The machine must cycle!"

Scenes like this played out all along the line. The Danes tried to be heroes. The Industrial Corps tried to be efficient. Efficiency was winning.

Before long, the Torsion Spikes were reset. The Tech-Thralls locked the mechanisms.

"Battery Ready!" Leif shouted.

"Fire!"

Another cloud of iron hail swept the field. The Danish second wave, which had been hesitating, simply evaporated. Men dropped their shields and clutched their faces. The morale, which had been forged in a hundred raids, shattered under the weight of industrial superiority.

King Guthrum, sitting on his horse Bone-Crusher five hundred meters away, watched in horror.

His berserkers were burning in the pools of Napalm. His elite Huscarls were pinned to the ground by bolts thick enough to kill a horse.

"They do not fight," Guthrum whispered, his hand shaking on his axe handle. "They just... stand there."

"My King!" Jarl Hrolf screamed, riding up. His horse was bleeding from three different wounds. "We must pull back! The men won’t advance! They say the air bites them!"

Guthrum looked at the grey square of the Industrial Corps. It hadn’t moved an inch. It was an immovable object that spat fire.

"Retreat!" Guthrum choked out the order. "Back to the camp! Back to the wagons!"

He turned his horse. But even as he fled, the sound of Ragnar’s voice, amplified by the birch-bark megaphone, rolled across the field like thunder.

"LIQUIDATE THE ASSETS!"

On the Viking line, the order changed everything. The Tech-Thralls stopped cranking. The pike-men lifted their weapons.

From the flanks, the "Mobile Division" emerged. Five hundred light cavalry, riding the new, lighter horses Ragnar had imported from the continent. They carried The Typewriter the handheld repeating crossbows.

Ragnar rode at the front on Calculus, his heavy destrier thundering against the turf.

"Do not let them regroup!" Ragnar shouted, his voice cold and hard. "A routed enemy is just inventory waiting to be collected! Chase them down!"

The cavalry swept forward in a pincer movement.

They didn’t charge into the melee. They rode parallel to the fleeing Danes, firing bolts into the mass of running men.

The Danes were exhausted, burnt, and terrified. They dropped their weapons to run faster. They cast aside their armor. But you cannot outrun a horse, and you cannot outrun a bolt.

Ragnar drew his falchion. A Danish captain turned to fight him, raising a sword. He pulled the trigger on The Typewriter mounted to his saddle. The captain took a bolt to the chest and fell backward.

The enemy forces were encircled. The pikes closed in from the front, the cavalry from the sides.

"Mercy!" a Dane screamed, throwing himself into the mud. "I yield!"

"Processing!" Bjorn roared, riding up. "Throw down your weapons! Hands on your heads! Move to the collection point!"

The battle if it could be called that was over in less than an hour.

The field was a mess of bodies, broken shields, and burning pools of Napalm. But the Industrial Corps had barely taken a scratch.

The men of the Industrial Corps stood amidst the carnage, looking at their handiwork. They were stunned.

These were veterans. They were used to losing half their friends in a shield wall. They were used to the "Red Fog" of battle where you hacked until your arm went numb.

But today? They weren’t even out of breath.

"It... it is too easy," a young pike-man whispered, looking at the pile of Danish dead. "I didn’t even draw my knife."

"It is the power of the gear," an older Huscarl said, patting his standardized pike. "The Director was right. The machine fights for us."

A cheer started low in the ranks, then swelled. It wasn’t the wild, bloodthirsty scream of a Viking raid. It was the deep, satisfied roar of a job well done.

"LONG LIVE THE INDUSTRY!"

"LONG LIVE THE DIRECTOR!"

Ragnar rode back to the center of the line. He reloaded his saddle-crossbow, his face impassive behind the steel sallet helm.

General Bjorn rode up, grinning like a wolf who had found an open sheep pen.

"Total liquidation, Director," Bjorn reported. "Guthrum has fled with maybe a hundred men. The rest are dead or in the holding pen. We have acquired three thousand prisoners."

"Three thousand new miners," Ragnar corrected. "Excellent."

He looked at the fleeing dust cloud on the horizon.

"We won the battle," Ragnar said, wiping a speck of soot from his polished armor. "But the merger isn’t complete until we sign the papers."

"Sir?"

"Get the army moving," Ragnar ordered. "We don’t stop for celebration. We march on Guthrum’s main camp."

"Now?" Bjorn asked, surprised. "The men are hungry."

"The men can eat while they walk," Ragnar said. "Guthrum is terrified. Terror has a half-life. If we wait, he recovers. If we strike now, while he is still shaking..."

Ragnar pointed his sword toward the south.

"...we take East Anglia by sunset."

"Pack the wagons," Ragnar commanded. "The hostile takeover continues."

As the steam whistle blew again, signaling the end of the combat shift and the start of the transit shift, the Industrial Army fell into step.