Viking Invasion-Chapter 67 — Snowbound Night

The Mercian counterattack had failed. In the days that followed, Rurik wasted no time in returning his men to labor. The forests rang again with the bite of axes and the groan of falling timber, for siege engines must be built — towers, rams, and catapults — and winter offered no mercy for idleness.

By now, December’s breath had settled fully upon the land. The cold grew savage, the snow lying more than ten centimeters deep, crusted with ice where the sun never touched it. Men’s beards froze as they spoke, and the horses’ nostrils steamed white in the dawn. Progress slowed to a crawl. Even the local militias, long meant to come to Mercia’s aid, gathered sluggishly — roads were choked with snow, rivers sealed under frost.

On such a night, when the world lay buried under a shroud of silence, Rurik sat alone at his desk, a single candle guttering beside him. The flame’s light wavered across the pages of a Latin manuscript he held open in his hands. The book, written by some long-dead missionary, was simple enough — a geographic and cultural account of the Frankish realms beyond the sea. Yet in its dry lines of description, something caught Rurik’s mind like a fishhook.

"The region of Perche is famed for its pastures. After the year of Our Lord 732, the local stock was crossbred with Arabian and Andalusian horses, yielding a new strain — docile in nature, tireless in strength, well suited for war."

"Seven hundred and thirty-two..." Rurik murmured aloud, tracing the numerals with his thumb. The date summoned images from the recesses of his memory — the Battle of Poitiers.

He could almost see it as he had once read of it: the dark hosts of the Saracens sweeping north over the Pyrenees, their banners black against the dawn; and meeting them, the Frankish armies led by Charles the Hammer — Karl Martel, the king’s iron-handed steward. There, on the fields near Tours, the fate of the West had trembled on a knife’s edge.

The Arabs were broken. Christendom’s tide turned. And from the victory rose a dynasty. Charles was called "the Hammer" for the blows he struck that day; his power grew immense. After him came his son Pippin, who took the royal crown for himself, founding the Carolingian line. And from that line, the great Charlemagne, under whom the Frankish kingdom reached its golden height.

"So that was it," Rurik whispered, leaning back in his chair. "The Franks captured their first Arab and Andalusian horses at Poitiers... then bred them with their own. That is how their cavalry gained such blood."

He closed the vellum scroll with care and rubbed his tired eyes. The letters still shimmered behind his eyelids. Reaching into the wooden chest by his desk, he drew out another scroll and unrolled it briefly — alchemical treatises, dense and spidery. Grimacing, he rolled it shut again and returned it to its place.

The entire chest had come from Ivar’s people, part of the payment for the weapons shipment months before. About a third of its contents were such alchemical texts — treatises concerning a mysterious substance called Lapis Philosophorum.

Rurik frowned, recalling scraps from his old schooling. Lapis Philosophorum — the Philosopher’s Stone. The legendary agent said to turn base metals to gold, to grant eternal life. He smiled faintly at the absurdity of it.

Another fifth of the manuscripts concerned medicine — Hippocrates’ theories on humors and the circulation of bodily fluids. Rurik stifled a yawn, set them aside, and made a separate pile for the physicians.

The remainder was stranger still: scrolls on divination, ritual flame, and the half-understood grammar of mystic fire. The ink seemed to twist on the page; the symbols themselves seemed alive. "A whole chest of these," he muttered, massaging his temples. "And scarcely a third worth anything. Ivar’s swindling me. These aren’t worth forty pounds of silver."

Friendship was one thing. Business another.

He took a sheet of papyrus and dipped his quill, meaning to write a letter of complaint. But before ink touched the page, a scream tore the night — a human sound, raw and shrill.

Rurik froze. Then the word formed in his mind, cold and clear.

Attack.

He dropped the pen. In the next instant, he was on his feet, buckling on his sword-belt while his guards rushed to help him into his armor. The door burst open, and the cold came howling in — a blade of wind laced with snow that burned his face and stripped away the fog of study.

"Sound the alarm!"

His voice carried through the darkness, rousing the camp. Thirty-odd shieldmen stumbled from their quarters, some still fastening straps or helmets, the clang of iron echoing in the night. Within five minutes, Rurik had his men formed and ready.

Across the compound, Ulf’s contingent of twenty were slower. Some were still drunk from the evening’s mead; a few had not even risen from their furs.

"Enough waiting," Rurik snapped. "The fighting’s east of the village. I’ll take my men there. You guard the north, west, and south — make sure no one flanks us."

Without another word he turned and ran, boots crunching on snow. His breath hung in clouds as he neared the eastern edge of the village — and there he saw it: a breach in the palisade, the wooden wall smashed down. Through the gap surged a flood of men bearing torches — Mercian soldiers, hundreds of them, their shadows twisting and leaping across the snow.

Rurik’s mind sharpened. He barked orders at once, naming five shieldmen and sending them to gather the scattered archers, directing them to climb the roofs and fire down into the press.

"Jorlen!" he called. "Take ten men. Round up every straggler and broken fighter — form them at the square by the granary. There’s spare gear there. Every twenty men, set one shieldman to command. Then bring me the rest."

As his lieutenants scattered to obey, Rurik seized a passing cart and had it overturned across the main street. His shieldwall formed behind it, twenty men braced and waiting. When the first wave of Mercians came pouring through the breach, they met steel and death. The narrow street channeled them, their numbers useless; the Norsemen’s axes rose and fell, cleaving through shields and helms. The first assault broke. Then a second came, and a third — each driven back in blood.

The fighting lasted three minutes, maybe four. Then, from above, the twang of bowstrings sang out — the archers had reached the roofs. They fired into the milling mass below, and every shaft found flesh. The enemy’s advance faltered.

Two minutes later, the first group of rallied troops arrived — panting, disordered, but willing. Rurik withdrew his exhausted shieldmen to the rear and let the fresh ones take the line. The tide began, slowly, to turn.

Then a horn sounded from the city — deep, mournful, from Tamworth’s walls. The Mercian attackers, realizing reinforcements from the eastern Norse camp were on their way, broke off and began to retreat, torches streaming as they fled back through the gate.

By dawn, the snow was trampled flat and blackened with soot. The Norse searched the field and found the bodies of many slain — and to Rurik’s surprise, several of them wore iron armor. Captured prisoners soon explained: these were members of the Mercian royal guard.

"One hundred and fifty armored men," Rurik mused aloud, "and six hundred militia."

A cold weight settled in his stomach. If the prince had committed all his forces... He glanced toward the city, its walls glimmering faintly in the snowlight. "Had they struck from the south at the same time, they might well have taken this camp."

Yet even as the thought came, he dismissed it. "No. Even if they’d crushed us here, the eastern main camp still stands. The outcome would be the same. They can’t win a field battle, so they try these pinprick raids. Perhaps the prince only wished for a small victory — something to keep his men from despair."

Still, Ragnar took no chances. After the second night attack on the northwest camp, he ordered Nils to bring three hundred men for reinforcement. The Mercians, stung twice and bloodied, seemed to lose all will for further aggression. Behind Tamworth’s walls they huddled, watching in silence as the Norse siege works multiplied by the day.

December twentieth.

The long storm broke at last. After more than a week of blizzard, the clouds cleared, and sunlight spilled across a landscape of white so bright it hurt the eyes. That noon, Rurik and Ulf were summoned to the eastern camp for council.

"How stands the northwest front?" asked Ragnar when they entered. His voice was calm, but the lines of fatigue were deep about his mouth.

Rurik laid out their progress: three catapults complete, three siege towers, and a hundred scaling ladders — though the two Mercian raids had cost him dearly in time and labor.

Next came reports from Lennard, whose camp lay south of the river. His terrain made him unfit for the main assault, so he had devoted his strength to catapults — ten in all, ready for bombardment.

"Good," Ragnar said at last, eyes brightening. "Two days ago, more fire-oil and arrows arrived from the coast. The cold is easing. It’s time. We’ll break their walls."

The men around the table straightened, weariness forgotten. They had waited too long in this frozen land, too long in half-light and frostbite and the ache of endless toil.

"Tomorrow," Ragnar continued, "all three camps will open fire. We’ll hammer the walls, day and night, until their spirits falter. Then we strike."

The council dispersed. Rurik and Ulf returned to their camp beneath a sky swollen with the promise of further snow. They spent the night readying their machines, tightening the cords and winches, oiling the slings.

When dawn came, the air was still — too still. Then, all at once, the silence broke.

From three sides at once, the catapults loosed. The boulders sang through the air like thunder. Across the plain, Tamworth’s walls shuddered beneath the first blows of war.