Bjorn stood near the jagged edge of the broken stones, he slowly raised the spyglass to his right eye.

The Frankish camp was quiet... there were no massive bonfires, no loud singing, and no drunken cheers.

The bombard was still resting face-down in the mud, abandoned by the engineers.

"What are they doing?" Bjorn whispered to himself, adjusting the brass focus ring.

Instead of huddling together for warmth or sleeping off the terror of the Viking artillery barrage, the Frankish vanguard was alert.

Bjorn could clearly see hundreds of burning torches moving in overlapping circles around the perimeter of the enemy camp.

They were running strict military patrols.

"...the old southern dogs are finally learning some new tricks," Bjorn muttered, his eyes narrowing in deep suspicion.

"Learning what?" Hakon grunted, "Please tell me you see them packing up their tents to run back to Paris,"

"Look at the tree line. All of a sudden, they leave everything... the bombard, the ruined ramp... and they make tight patrols around their camp. That’s not a normal thing." Bjorn said, handing the spyglass to his friend.

Hakon squinted through the glass, his brow furrowing deeply.

"You are right," Hakon noted, lowering the tube. "...are those muskets in their hands?"

"Yes," Bjorn nodded firmly. "Whoever is commanding that camp down there is paranoid that we are going to march out in the dark and slit their throats."

"Well, maybe we fucking should!" Hakon suggested, "We could break their lines before the sun comes up."

"And abandon the safety of our walls?" Bjorn asked, shaking his head. "Absolutely not. We hold the high ground. If we march, we play right into their hands."

Bjorn crossed his arms over his mail armor.

Torstein had sailed out on the ship yesterday morning... the wind over the English Channel had been incredibly strong and favorable.

"Did my message reach him by now?" Bjorn asked himself quietly, chewing on the inside of his cheek.

If Torstein pushed the sails to their breaking point, he would have easily reached the capital docks hours ago.

Ragnar already knew about the grand Frankish coalition... he knew about the Magyars, the vassal betrayal in Flanders, and the fleet sailing north.

"What will he do?" Hakon asked, almost reading Bjorn’s mind. "...he cannot fight four armies at the exact same time."

Bjorn let out a long breath, "He has to make a choice, there are three or four armies marching in different directions. Will he bring his main force here to crush this vanguard?"

"That would be glorious..." Hakon grinned.

"However, that doesn’t make any tactical sense," Bjorn argued, "Why would Ragnar waste weeks marching his units all the way down here? Look around you, we have over fifteen thousand heavily armed men. We have the repeating rifles, the primitive muskets, and hundreds of steel cannons. We are sitting behind massive stone walls... mostly."

"Even with the breach," Bjorn continued, "we can hold this position for months. Ragnar knows I do not need him to hold Calais. Relying on him to march down here just to crush a heavily entrenched vanguard is a waste of his resources."

Hakon frowned, "Then what? Will he take the fleet to Norway and see what the second Frankish army is doing? If those southern bastards land on our homeland and start burning the farms, the Viking clans will rebel."

"Even so, it doesn’t make sense either," Bjorn muttered, "Norway is covered in forests and freezing mountains. If the Franks land there, the local jarls and the harsh winter will slowly bleed them dry. Ragnar wouldn’t abandon the heart of City Titan just to chase ghosts in the northern snow."

"So, will he just defend?" Hakon asked, "Will the great Iron King just lock himself inside his keep and wait for the Emperor to build those siege engines in Flanders?"

"I don’t know, damn it," Bjorn admitted. "He is building something in that workshop... something he thinks will shatter the Emperor’s will to fight."

"Well, I hope he finishes it quickly," Hakon grumbled, shivering. "the waiting is killing my nerves."

Bjorn agreed silently... standing on a broken wall and playing a grand guessing game with the fate of the world was exhausting.

He just had to wait and see what Ragnar would do.

The night dragged on endlessly. But Bjorn refused to leave his post.

He paced back and forth across the intact sections of the southern wall, checking on the artillery crews and ensuring the Breton musket men were fully awake.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity of darkness, the eastern horizon slowly began to bleed a bruised purple.

Dawn was breaking.

"It’s morning," General Gurvand said, climbing up the steps and rubbing his eyes.

The Breton commander walked over to Bjorn, "The men in the lower courtyard are fully awake and eating their rations. Should I order the riflemen back to the upper battlements?"

Bjorn was focused on the fog stretching out before them.

"Do you feel that?" Bjorn whispered, his eyes widening slightly.

"Feel what, Lord Bjorn?" Gurvand asked.

"The stone," Bjorn said, dropping to one knee and pressing his hand flat against the parapet. "It is trembling."

Hakon stopped drinking his coffee... he set the wooden mug down on a crate and pressed his own hand against the wall.

"..!"

Squeeeeeak... Crunch... Squeeeeeak...

The sound echoed through the morning mist.

It was the distinct noise of wooden wheels grinding through the deep northern mud, accompanied by the cracking of leather whips and the snorting of thousands of tired beasts.

Bjorn stood up slowly... he snatched the brass spyglass from his belt and brought it to his eye, praying to Odin that the mist would clear.

As the morning sun finally crested the horizon, its bright golden rays burned away the layers of white fog clinging to the fields.

The Frankish camp slowly came into view.

"Bjorn...?" Hakon asked quietly, taking a slow step back from the edge of the wall. "What is it? Did they dig the bombard out of the mud?"

Bjorn had spent the entire night wondering why the Frankish vanguard had set up strict patrols instead of retreating.

He had assumed they were just terrified of a night raid.

He was incredibly wrong... they were securing the perimeter to protect an incoming supply line!

Stretching out far beyond the Frankish camp, covering the southern dirt road as far as the eye could see, was an endless caravan of war.

Hundreds of carts were being dragged through the mud.

Thousands of workhorses and oxen were straining against their leather harnesses, their mouths foaming with exhaustion.

And sitting on top of every single one of those carts, was a bronze cannon.

They weren’t the giant, experimental monsters like the bombard... they were standard, perfectly sized field artillery.

They were the exact southern copies of King Ragnar’s original designs, entirely mass-produced by the foundries of Paris.

And so, through the lifting fog, even a crying babe could see that the Frankish Empire had entered the modern era...

Down in the fields, Marshal Hugh rode proudly along the lines of the arriving artillery train.

He looked up at the broken walls of Calais, a victorious smile spreading across his gray beard.

"Halt the carts!" Hugh roared at the top of his lungs, "Unload the bronze!"

Then the weary Frankish spearmen and cavalry erupted in a deafening roar, and the terror of the previous night vanished.

The Marshal turned his horse, drew his sword, and aimed it at the Viking stronghold.

"Heads are ripe for the picking!" Hugh shouted.