"Holy Mother of God, shield us!" a young, terrified knight prayed at the top of his lungs.

He was curled into a tight ball on the muddy forest floor, holding his heavy steel shield over his head as if trying to hide from an angry god.

"Curse these Northern demons to the deepest pits of hell!" an older veteran shouted, desperately trying to pull his horse by the leather reins.

"My leg! I can’t feel my leg! Someone help me!" another screamed from beneath the crushing weight of a fallen tree branch.

All around them lay the armored corpses of their fallen comrades.

But the most horrifying part to the surviving soldiers was not the death itself; it was how they had died.

The invincible knights of Europa, men who had trained since childhood to fight with glorious broadswords and lances, had not been bested by legendary warriors in single combat.

They had been completely shredded by falling garbage!

Rusty nails, broken horseshoes, jagged pieces of iron pots, and bent farm tools had rained down from the sky at terrifying speeds!

This jagged scrap metal had violently lodged into the dirt, embedded deeply into the tree trunks, and torn right through their incredibly expensive chainmail.

To make matters infinitely worse, the dry branches of the oak trees had caught the smoldering wooden splinters from the shattered cannon canisters.

Small, crackling fires were firing the trees, rapidly spreading through the dry summer leaves.

The flames licked the hanging moss, filling the enclosed forest with blinding smoke.

"Get out! Move back to the camp!" Duke Odo bellowed.

The Great Duke’s golden armor was scratched and heavily dented by a flying piece of an iron bucket.

The surviving knights grabbed their wounded brothers, hauling them roughly over the saddles of any surviving horses, and ran for their lives away from the burning woods.

They shoved each other out of the way, abandoning their heavy lances and dropping their shields just to run a little faster.

They fled blindly across the plains, leaving a long, embarrassing trail of shattered pride, until they finally collapsed behind the safety of their massive siege camp, a full mile away from the walls of Calais.

Hours passed. The bright morning sun slowly crawled across the clear blue sky, eventually dipping toward the late afternoon and casting shadows over the Frankish tents.

The arrogant laughter, the boastful stories, and the drinking songs from the previous day were completely gone.

They had to start burying the bodies.

Long, neat rows of shallow graves were dug into the grass just outside the camp perimeter.

Priests in long white robes walked slowly up and down the lines, swinging brass censers of incense and splashing holy water onto the freshly turned dirt.

The priests kept glancing up at the clear sky, as if expecting more rusty nails and broken horseshoes to fall from the clouds at any moment.

Duke Odo stood at the edge of the makeshift graveyard, his helmet tucked under his arm.

"We lost nearly four hundred men in those trees today," Lothair whispered, "And we didn’t even see a single Viking. We didn’t cross blades. We didn’t swing a single sword."

Duke Odo squeezed his eyes shut, bowing his head.

"God help us," Odo prayed softly, "Please, Almighty Lord, send us a miracle. Send us help. Because our steel armor... it is useless against this."

Meanwhile, up on the towering stone walls of Calais, the mood was entirely different. I

"Make way! Make way for the new royal treasury!" a wildly joyous voice echoed from the city streets below.

Bjorn lowered his brass spyglass and looked down into the city courtyard.

King Erik of Norway was riding through the stone gates, sittingupon a beautiful Frankish warhorse he had "borrowed" from the empty field.

Behind him, dozens of cheering Northern soldiers and smiling Frankish citizens were pulling the twenty heavy supply wagons that the Dukes had left behind as bait.

The canvas covers were thrown wide open, exposing massive, glittering mounds of silver coins, intricately carved golden chalices, and fine purple silks to the bright afternoon sun.

The local citizens of Calais, who had been terrified of the giant Vikings just two short days ago, were now clapping, whistling, and laughing brightly as Erik tossed a handful of silver coins high into the cheering crowd.

"Bjorn!" Erik shouted, looking up at the high walls with a grin that stretched from ear to ear.

"I brought the bait! And let me tell you, Duke Odo has terrible taste in silk clothing, but his gold is incredibly shiny!" 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

Bjorn chuckled warmly. He turned away from the wall, walked over to the stone stairs, and made his way down into the bustling courtyard to greet the returning men.

"Commander," Julian said as Bjorn approached, "Are we going to send it all back to your king?"

Bjorn smiled, over the last few days, Julian had grown from a terrified prisoner into one of Bjorn’s most reliable assistants.

The boy was sharp, brave, and deeply curious about the new machines.

"We are going to do exactly what King Ragnar ordered us to do with all spoils of war," Bjorn explained.

"We will load half of this treasure onto our fastest transport ships and send it back to City Titan. Ragnar will use it to mine more iron, and hire hundreds of new blacksmiths."

Erik hopped down from his stolen warhorse, looking slightly confused. He wiped the sweat from his forehead.

"Wait, only half? We are keeping the rest of it here in Calais? Why? To throw a feast for the men?"

"No, Erik," Bjorn laughed, shaking his head. "We keep it here to pay the workers. We need to rebuild the main gates stronger than before. We need to pave these muddy streets with solid stone. And we need to ensure that every single family in this city has a warm hearth, solid shoes, and a full belly when the winter snow arrives."

For generations, the Frankish Dukes and Counts had only ever taken from them.

The lords taxed their wheat, took their pigs, and drafted their sons into endless, pointless wars.

But this Iron Kingdom... these towering men from the North fought like demons on the battlefield, yet they shared their wealth like saints.

"Come, Erik! Let us get these wagons sorted and securely locked away!"