Building a Viking Empire with Modern Industry-Chapter 193: Vikings

Ragnar watched a trio of children, their faces smeared with soot and snot, chasing a half-starved dog through the freezing slush.

One of them held a wooden sword, swinging it wildly at the biting wind. Their tunics were threadbare, patched with mismatched scraps of rabbit fur.

Ragnar stopped, his gloved hands tightening over the silver head of his cane.

What am I doing here? He looked around at the turf-roofed longhouses, the smoking fire pits, the miserable, freezing squalor of the Viking age. This was the land he had bled to escape. It was nothing but ice, rocks, and the stubborn fools who chose to freeze on them.

Across the sea, he was the Iron Father. He owned the soot-choked skies of the Midlands. He had steam engines pounding day and night, foundries pouring molten steel, and thousands of contractors bound by ink and silver to his will. He was halfway to forging a unified Kingdom of England under a monopoly of iron.

And yet, here he was, standing in frozen sheep dung, preparing to wage war over a stretch of barren pine trees.

Why? Because a savage wearing a crown of bones wanted tribute?

"The ledger does not balance." Gyda stepped up beside him.

"You are burning coal to keep those ships idling in the bay," Gyda continued, her voice devoid of sentiment. "

You are preparing to expend high-explosive shells, black powder, and the time of our best Grenadiers. To defend... this." She gestured to a collapsed fishing rack. "We came to secure a timber supply line, not to engage in a tribal blood-feud."

"I am aware of the costs, Gyda," Ragnar muttered, his jaw tight.

"Then why did you promise Hakon the fire of our fleet?" She finally turned to him, her brow furrowed in rare confusion.

"Three hundred men with axes. We could simply board the Gyda, weigh anchor, and leave them to their Gore-King. We owe them nothing. Your mother can sail with us to Titan."

"She won’t leave," Ragnar said softly. "You saw her in there. Her roots are wrapped around the stones of this fjord."

"So you drag your empire into a war of pride?" Gyda challenged, stepping in front of him.

"You are the Iron Father. If you let emotion dictate your ledgers, the whole foundation crumbles! We have the Franks probing our southern ports in England, and you want to fight a cannibal in the snow?"

"I said I am aware!" Ragnar snapped, the sudden volume making a nearby villager flinch and hurry away.

He closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. She was right. Every instinct that had built his industrial empire was screaming at him to cut his losses. Fighting King Erik’s berserkers was a waste of munitions. It was a sentimental, foolish decision.

"You sound like two merchants haggling over a rotten fish."

Ragnar and Gyda turned. Sigrid stood on the porch of a nearby longhouse, her ash-wood walking stick planted firmly in the snow.

She walked toward them.

"Mother," Ragnar started, "we are merely discussing the logistics—"

"You are discussing running away," Sigrid interrupted, stopping a foot from Gyda. She looked the younger woman up and down.

"You have a mind for silver, girl. I see it. You count the cost of the arrows before you shoot the wolf. But you do not understand the North."

"I understand a bad investment, Lady Sigrid," Gyda replied evenly, not backing down an inch. "Your son is a king in all but name across the sea. He has no business bleeding in this mud."

"He was born in this mud!" Sigrid shot back. She turned her fierce gaze to Ragnar.

"You dress in fine cloth, Ragnar. You wear glass over your eye and iron on your leg. You call yourself an ’Iron Father’. But beneath that brass buttoned coat, your blood still boils when a rival Jarl claims what is yours. You are trying to act like a coin-counter, but you are a Viking."

"I am a builder, Mother," Ragnar said, his voice hardening. "I don’t see the value in conquering a land that offers nothing but frostbite and misery."

"Nothing?" Sigrid laughed, a harsh, grating sound. She raised her stick and pointed toward the towering cliffs of the fjord, then to the massive men sharpening their axes by the longhouses.

"Look at the mountains, boy. Look at the men. You think you need coal to build an empire? You need iron in the spine. If you let Erik Blood-Tooth take this village, you tell the whole North that the ’Iron Father’ is a coward with fancy toys."

Ragnar stared at the cliffs. He stared at the men. The gears in his mind, which had been jammed with conflicting emotions, suddenly caught. They began to spin.

"The fjord," Ragnar whispered.

Gyda frowned. "What about it?"

"The water is deep enough for the heaviest dreadnoughts we could ever build. The cliffs are natural bastions. If we mount heavy steam cannons on those ridges, no navy in the world could sail into this bay without being blown to splinters."

Gyda’s eyes narrowed as she began to see the board as he did. "A secure naval base. Untouchable by the Franks or the Caliphate."

"Exactly," Ragnar said, his voice dropping into its familiar, calculating rhythm. He pointed his cane at the men by the fire. "And the workforce. They are starving, but they are hardy. They survive this winter. Put them in the foundries, feed them regular rations, and they will work harder than any conscript in Mercia."

He turned to his mother, a cold, predatory smile spreading across his face. "You’re right, Mother. But to claim it, I have to liquidate the current management."

Sigrid smirked. "Now you sound like my son."

"Gyda," Ragnar said, turning to his partner. "King Erik is a liability to the trade routes. We will remove him."

"How?" Gyda asked, pulling a charcoal pencil from her cloak. "Three hundred berserkers arrive at dawn. They know the terrain. We are fighting an unarmored, unpredictable enemy."

"They are predictable because they are hungry," Ragnar countered. He looked around the village layout, mapping the kill zones in his head. "They want to break the shield wall. So... we won’t give them one."

"Bjorn!" Ragnar bellowed.

A moment later, the massive general came jogging down from the Great Hall, his hand resting on the pommel of his sword.

"You called, Director?"

"We have work to do before the sun rises," Ragnar ordered, pointing toward the narrow valley entrance that led into Kattegat. "I want the villagers evacuated to the ships. Every single one of them. Clear the longhouses."

Bjorn grinned. "We’re burning it?"

"We are creating a funnel," Ragnar corrected. "Have Leif and the engineers drag four of the Repeater Cannons off the ships. I want them mounted at the end of the main thoroughfare, hidden behind the chieftain’s hall. Set up overlapping fields of fire."

"And the Grenadiers?" Gyda asked, jotting down the logistics.

"Put them on the roofs of the longhouses lining the path," Ragnar said, his eyes gleaming behind his monocle.

"Issue them the quick-load clips. When King Erik’s tax collectors march into the village expecting terrified peasants, they are going to find an empty street. And then, we introduce them to the industrial revolution."

Bjorn threw his head back and laughed, a sound that carried over the howling wind. "I’ll get the men moving!"