Chapter 427: A New World
The mud of the docks squelched beneath King Ragnar’s boots.
He didn’t wait for the kneeling soldiers to rise. He walked past them, scanning the palisades and the cannons on the walls. The three foreign marshals followed behind him, silent and unfazed by the stares of the local northmen.
"Get up, Erik," Ragnar repeated. "And take me to your map. I don’t have time to stand around in the cold."
King Erik rose to his feet, ignoring the dirt on his furs. He nodded and led the Iron King up the stairs toward the longhouse.
The silence of the port broke. The Norwegian riflemen stood up, whispering to each other as they watched the fleet anchor in their bay.
Inside the longhouse, Ragnar walked over to the table. He leaned over the map, ignoring the spilled ale.
"Talk to me, Erik," Ragnar ordered. "My scouts told me Lothair landed 30,000 men on the eastern beaches. Where are they right now?"
"They are stuck in the mud, King Ragnar," Erik grinned. "Richard here laid a trap on the road. We blew a few of their knights to pieces and sank their artillery in a marsh."
"Good," Ragnar grunted. "But Lothair won’t just sit there."
"He won’t have the chance," Erik explained, pointing at the map. "I sent Commander Sigurd with a fleet to the river to flank them. We are going to hit them in the dead of night. Three thousand men with the new rifles."
Ragnar nodded. "A river flank in the dark. That is a brutal move, Erik. If Sigurd hits them hard enough, Lothair’s vanguard will collapse into a rout before the sun comes up."
"Exactly," Erik laughed.
Ragnar dragged his finger across the map. "How many towns and castles are in this area? I need to know what we are defending if Lothair breaks out of that forest."
"There are a few," Erik answered. "Just to the north is Tunsberg. A bit further south is Kaupang. Jarl Hastein holds a ring-fort in the valley, and there are three smaller strongholds guarding the passes."
"Tunsberg and Kaupang..." Ragnar muttered. "Reinforce them. Send the reserve rifles to Hastein’s ring-fort. I want this coast locked down."
Ragnar stood up straight. He looked across the table, his eyes locking onto the man wearing the southern coat.
"And who the hell is this?" Ragnar asked. "He doesn’t look like he belongs in a Norwegian longhouse."
Richard swallowed hard.
"My name is Richard, King Ragnar," he introduced himself. "I am a tactician. I used to serve the southern lords before I realized the future was being forged in your city."
"He is the one who designed the road trap, my King," Erik added. "He is brilliant with numbers."
"Richard," Ragnar mused. "A southern scholar blowing up Frankish knights in the mud. I like that. Good minds are harder to replace than swords."
"Thank you, my King," Richard breathed.
Ragnar turned his attention back to Erik. "I didn’t sail up here with 15,000 men just to watch Lothair freeze in a river," Ragnar stated. "The Emperor is massing a coalition in Flanders, and the Pope is trying to declare a crusade against me. The southern world is about to march on City Titan."
"Then why are you here, Ragnar?" Erik asked. "We can hold the north. You need to be down there, sitting behind your walls."
"I am here because I need you to do something more important than fighting a vanguard," Ragnar commanded. "I want you to gather four thousand settlers from your people and the local clans."
Erik blinked. "Four thousand? Where am I sending them?"
"To Iceland." Ragnar said.
A silence fell over the longhouse. Richard adjusted his coat, unable to grasp the value of the order.
"To Iceland?" Erik stammered. "What are four thousand people going to do there while the world burns down here?"
"They are going to dig." Ragnar answered. "I will send an engineer from City Titan. He will give them orders on what to mine."
Ragnar leaned closer to the table. "The earth there is bursting with sulfur. The hot springs and caves are filled with the components I need to mass-produce black powder."
"...I need Iceland to become a sulfur mine. Do you understand me, Erik?"
"I understand, my King," Erik nodded. "I will gather the settlers. We will strip the island bare for you."
"Good," Ragnar grunted. "Because I need to end this war soon."
"We will crush the Emperor, Ragnar," Domnall the Scot spoke up. "We will march to Paris and burn his throne."
"Yes, we will." Ragnar agreed.
Ragnar turned and looked toward the window. "I will explore the new world soon," Ragnar whispered. "Right after this war is finished. I will build a new fleet, and we will sail off the edge of their maps."
The room went silent. Erik and the marshals stared at their King.
Explore the new world?
However, Richard couldn’t just stay quiet. He took a hesitant step forward, ignoring the warning glance from Commander Sigurd.
"King Ragnar?" Richard asked. "What do you mean? What is this new world?"
King Erik of Iceland stood still near the large map table.
The dark ale he had spilled earlier was slowly dripping onto the floorboards, ignored by everyone in the room.
He stared at the Iron King with wide eyes.
"Hmm... the new world?" Erik mumbled quietly to himself.
He squinted, looking closely at the man standing before him.
This was not Ragnar’s personality at all. In the past, the Iron King was a man of intense fire.
He would constantly joke, talk loudly about his ridiculous inventions, and eagerly boast about his grand plans over a freshly tapped barrel of mead.
He would slap his commanders hard on the back, laugh in the face of danger, and treat the brutal southern empires like they were nothing more than a minor annoyance.
Why did he look so serious?
Of course, Erik knew they were standing in the middle of a massive war. The Emperor was marching hundreds of thousands of men, and the Pope was calling for a holy crusade.
A king should absolutely be serious when the entire world wants to burn his cities to the ground. But even so... this wasn’t him.
Clearly, something terrible had happened down south before he boarded that fleet... after all, this isn’t the Ragnar they know.
The man standing in the longhouse felt like a stranger. His dark eyes were cold, distant, and hollowed out by a crushing weight.
He looked like a man who had stopped sleeping, his face pale and devoid of its usual arrogant smirk.