Building a Viking Empire with Modern Industry-Chapter 201: Sunset

High up on the precipice of the eastern ridge, the blizzard howled with a vengeance, but the biting cold was nothing compared to the ice flooding Gyda’s veins. Pressing the heavy brass spyglass to her eye, she watched the nightmare unfold in the dark waters of the bay below.

The massive, steam-powered turrets of her namesake, the ironclad Gyda, were not tracking the encroaching fleet of Viking longships as they were supposed to. Instead, the cavernous black muzzles of the heavy naval guns had locked squarely onto the bloody shingle of the shoreline, aiming directly at the desperate, dwindling shield wall where Ragnar fought for his life.

Her breath caught in her throat as her mind raced through the terrible arithmetic of the battlefield. There was absolutely no time to dispatch a runner through the blinding snow, and the heavy brass field cannons anchored on the ridge were far too cumbersome to pivot and fire before the ironclad unleashed its devastating payload.

In mere seconds, the man she valued more than any hoard of silver would be reduced to ash and red mist. Despite this paralyzing terror, Gyda did not freeze; she knew the anatomical blueprints of that mechanical beast better than any living soul, save perhaps the Iron Father himself.

Dropping the spyglass into the snow, she whirled around to face the disciplined ranks of the Iron Guard Grenadiers. "Ready the explosive shafts and prime the powder-pots!" Gyda screamed.

"Aim for the ironclad’s deck, directly midships! Target the copper ventilation grates situated above the primary boiler room! The plating there is as thin as an eggshell, meant to release steam, not repel fire!"

The veteran soldiers did not hesitate to follow the commands of the Master of the Ledgers. Drawing back the heavy strings of their repeating crossbows, they loaded bolts tipped with volatile black powder pouches, while the stronger men struck flint to the tarred fuses of spherical iron hand-grenades.

A deadly volley of fire and sparking fuses rained down from the high precipice, plunging through the swirling blizzard like a swarm of angry fireflies descending upon the metal leviathan anchored in the dark waters below.

Down on the bridge of the dreadnought, Jarl Hakon stood wrapped in his luxurious white wolf fur, an arrogant sneer stretching across his weathered face as he raised his hand to signal the gunnery crews. He was savoring the sweet taste of his treacherous victory, entirely focused on the slaughter he was about to unleash upon the man who had dared to claim his fjord. That is, until a heavy, sparking iron sphere plummeted from the stormy sky, crashing straight through the flimsy copper louvers of the ventilation grate and vanishing into the sweltering, pressurized depths of the ship’s engine room.

As the grenade ignited the highly pressurized steam boilers and the volatile coal dust swirling in the lower decks, a catastrophic chain reaction tore the impregnable warship apart from the inside out!

The Gyda ballooned outward for a fraction of a second before its solid iron hull shattered, transforming the absolute pride of the Iron Empire into a erupting volcano of molten slag and blinding white fire.

The concussive blast wave raced across the freezing waters of the bay with the force of a hurricane, slamming into the pebble-strewn shoreline with devastating impact. It hurled Ragnar, Bjorn, and hundreds of screaming berserkers off their feet, tossing them into the freezing, blood-soaked mud.

The air was instantly sucked from Ragnar’s lungs as he crashed hard against the unforgiving gravel, his vision swimming in a sea of disorienting black spots while a high-pitched, agonizing ring completely deafened him to the chaos around him.

Groaning in pain, the Iron Father pushed himself up from the frozen mire. He turned his gaze toward the bay, and his heart physically ached within his chest. Seeing his greatest invention, a magnificent titan of industry named after the woman he cherished, sinking rapidly as a mass of burning, twisted scrap metal was a blow more agonizing than any axe strike.

The burning debris hissed violently as it slipped beneath the freezing waves, dragging the treacherous Jarl Hakon and his stolen prize down to the dark, icy abyss of the sea floor. After all, Ragnar had poured his very soul and countless tons of precious, refined steel into that vessel, believing it to be the invincible vanguard of his new world order.

Afterward, as the blinding flash faded and the ringing in his ears slowly began to recede into the howling wind, the grim reality of his situation crystallized in the freezing air.

The explosion had instantly vaporized the traitorous crew and sent a wall of scalding water crashing over the vanguard of the Gore-King’s forces, drowning dozens of screaming men in the surf.

Nevertheless, the vast majority of the invading horde had survived the shockwave, slowly picking themselves up from the mud with rusted blades gripped tightly in their hands.

Bjorn spat a mouthful of bloody slush onto the ground, using his massive broadsword as a crutch to haul his giant frame upright. "By the blood of the gods," the scarred warrior breathed, staring at the bubbling, fiery wreckage sinking into the fjord.

"Your lady of iron certainly knows how to make an exit, Ragnar. I suppose we won’t be sailing home to England in that one."

"No," Ragnar replied, his voice eerily calm as he gripped the silver handle of his cane, pulling his hidden sword free from its sheath. "We will not. But neither will they."

Shaking the disorientation from their heads, the surviving berserkers realized that the terrifying metal beast in the bay was gone, leaving the invaders with a massive numerical advantage. A towering warlord, his face painted with the blood of the fallen, stepped over the corpses of the Iron Guard and pointed his jagged spear directly at Ragnar’s chest.

"Your fire-breathing dragon is dead, iron-man!" the warlord roared. "You are trapped on the edge of the world! Surrender your weapons, and King Erik may allow you to watch as we feast upon your flesh!"

Bjorn chuckled darkly, rolling his broad shoulders as he eyed the sea of enraged, bloodthirsty warriors slowly forming a ring around their position. "Two thousand angry cannibals, and we are trapped on the shoreline with the freezing sea at our backs. It is a terrible day to die, Iron Father."

"We are not dying today," Ragnar commanded. "We still have the high ground raining death upon their rear from the mountain, and we hold the chokepoint on this beach. Lock your shield with mine. We will make them pay for every inch of this mud with a pound of their own flesh!"

"I thought you’d never ask!" Bjorn grinned savagely, raising his dented buckler and stepping shoulder-to-shoulder with his lord.

"You think you can fight the entire North?" the warlord mocked, stepping into striking range with a cruel, mocking laugh. "You have no ships! You have no retreat! You are just a man with a broken leg and a shiny coat!"