Chapter 438: A Worthy Adversary
Richard held the spyglass against his eye. He adjusted the glass, trying to make sense of the movement happening down on the mud of the Frankish beach camp.
"Look at the right flank." Richard whispered, handing the spyglass back to the Iron King. "King Ragnar, what are they doing?"
"Hmm?" Ragnar grunted, snatching the brass tube and bringing it up to his eye.
The clear, magnified image of the southern vanguard came into focus.
Ragnar slowly swept his gaze across the trenches Lord Lothair had spent the last five days digging.
But Richard was right... something was wrong with the picture.
Instead of hiding behind their barricades, nearly two thousand heavily armored Frankish knights were mounting their warhorses.
They weren’t forming up in a tight, glorious cavalry line to charge the open field. Instead, they were quietly and methodically breaking away from the main camp, disappearing into the pine forest on the far left side of the beach.
"They are moving into the trees." Ragnar murmured, a frown creasing his forehead. "Heavy cavalry into a thick forest?"
"Look at the infantry, my King," Richard pointed toward the center of the camp.
Ragnar shifted the spyglass. His eyes widened slightly.
The Frankish spearmen were dismantling their own wooden pikes.
They were throwing the sharpened logs into the mud, opening up their defensive perimeter.
And replacing them were the musketeers.
They were spreading out everywhere. They formed loose, light skirmish lines, staggering their positions so no two men were standing next to each other.
"What does it mean?" Richard asked.
"It means Lothair isn’t an idiot," Ragnar stated plainly, lowering the spyglass. "He knows that if he packs his men into tight shield walls, our Gatling guns and Steam Chariots will turn them into bloody mist. By spreading his musketeers out into loose formations, he is denying us a clustered target. A cannonball might kill one or two men, instead of twenty."
However, the surprises waiting for them on the beach were not over.
Out on the water of the bay, the horizon was filling with sails.
Dozens of deep-hulled transport ships and long, narrow raiding vessels were crashing against the shoreline.
They flew the dark, blood-red raven banners of Denmark.
Ragnar watched intently as the ramps slammed into the shallow water.
Fresh, heavily armed soldiers began to pour out onto the beach like an endless swarm of ants.
"Those are Danish infantry." Richard gasped. "There must be at least 6,000 of them unloading right now."
"King Horik is honoring his mercenary contract," Ragnar noted. "He is feeding men straight into Lothair’s meat grinder to keep us pinned on this coast."
All this was just happening here, shifting the tactical balance of the morning.
Lothair was receiving reinforcements by sea, spreading his men to counter the artillery, and sneaking heavy cavalry into the dense woods to bypass the Iron Kingdom’s heavy blocks.
Ragnar turned his head, his eyes locking onto the slim southern tactician.
"Richard," Ragnar asked. "Tell me about this Lord Lothair. Who is he?"
"I... I don’t entirely know, King Ragnar," Richard stuttered, rubbing his hands together. "I spent most of my time in the southern libraries of Paris. I didn’t socialize with the military nobles. But wait... I know someone who does."
Richard turned and sprinted back through the tightly packed ranks of the Iron Kingdom’s infantry blocks.
A few moments later, he returned, dragging a man by his tunic.
It was a Frankish defector named Odo, a former spearman who had surrendered to King Erik’s forces to avoid freezing to death in the mud a few days prior.
"Speak to the King!" Richard ordered, shoving the man forward.
Odo fell to his knees in the dirt, terrified of the warlord standing in front of the Steam Chariot.
He kept his eyes glued to Ragnar’s boots.
"M-My Lord King!" Odo stammered, his teeth chattering.
"Get up, Odo." Ragnar commanded calmly, offering the man a hand.
He pulled the soldier to his feet. "I just need a simple answer. Who is Lord Lothair?"
Odo swallowed hard. "He... he is the First Marshal under Emperor Louis, King Ragnar," Odo explained. "He is only 39 years old, but he is already the most feared man in the Frankish court. He owns sprawling lands in northern France."
"Which lands?" Ragnar asked.
"Rouen, Amiens, and Evreux, my King," Odo listed quickly. "He controls the deep rivers and the grain fields. Because of his vast wealth, he maintains the biggest personal army in the kingdom. The men are his personal household guard. They would die before they ever disobey him."
Though Ragnar usually possessed an overwhelming confidence in his own future knowledge, he felt a sudden, deep sense of grounded reality wash over him.
For a marshal like that... a man who had clawed his way to the top of the largest empire in Europe before his fortieth birthday, who commanded the loyalty of thirty thousand elite killers—obviously, he should be a genius.
"He is trying to bait us, King Ragnar," Richard deduced. "He spread his men out to make our cannons useless, and he sent those two thousand knights into the woods to flank our infantry blocks once we push into the mud."
"..."
Ragnar patted Odo firmly on the shoulder. "Go get some hot stew, soldier. You did well."
The defector bowed and sprinted away.
"What do we do, Ragnar?" King Erik asked, riding his warhorse up to the command group.
"We do exactly what we planned," Ragnar declared. "Lothair spread his men thin to survive the cannons, which means his center is weak enough to break."
Ragnar turned to Richard. "Tell Domnall and Wulfhere to angle the outer infantry blocks to face the forest, when those two thousand Frankish knights try to charge out of the trees, I want them met with a solid wall of steel pikes and point-blank repeating rifle fire."
"And the center?" Richard asked.
"The center marches straight down Lothair’s throat," Ragnar grinned. "The Steam Chariots will lead the charge. They will roll right over his loose skirmish lines and blast a hole straight through to the Danish ships."
15,000 men stood in their designated places, fully prepared to die for the Iron King.
Ragnar pulled himself up onto the iron plating of the lead Steam Chariot.
He raised his heavy broadsword high into the air.
"Advance the blocks!"
"Tell the lead chariot to aim for their command tent!"
"Fire!"
----
A/N:
Rule #1: If someone mentions a guy named Napoleon, just nod and pretend you know him so you don’t look uneducated.