Tying the small leather strap securely around the pigeon’s leg, she stepped back and watched as the guard released the bird into the stormy, grey sky.
Ragnar limped out from the doors of the Great Hall.
"Is the cipher secured?" Ragnar asked, stopping beside his wife and resting his gloved hands upon the head of his cane.
"Every single one," Gyda confird. "I utilized the highest level of our encrypted rcantile code, bearing your personal wax seal. Lord Commander Leofric is a man of rigid discipline; the mont he receives this dispatch in City Titan, he will know it is not a forgery or a trap. He will not hesitate to marshal the reserves."
"Good," Ragnar murmured. "Leofric knows the logistics of our swift-cogs better than anyone in the fleet. With the prevailing winds at their backs, the reinforcents will drop anchor in this fjord within three or four days."
Despite this brilliant logistical maneuver, Gyda’s brow remained slightly furrowed. "Three or four days is a lifeti when we are sitting in the shadow of the Gore-King’s mountain. Though we broke their vanguard, Erik Blood-Tooth will not sit idle while we fortify his front porch."
...
Afterward, having confird the successful dispatch of their lifeline to England, Ragnar turned his attention away from the sky. It was ti to balance the ledgers with the only surviving piece of the enemy’s vanguard.
Descending the creaking, ice-slicked wooden stairs into the darkness, Ragnar was accompanied by the towering figure of Bjorn, whose massive hand rested casually on the poml of his broadsword.
The cellar was oppressively cold. Chained heavily to the central support pillar was Kjell, the captured chieftain of the berserkers.
Since the ironclad had sunk to the bottom of the bay, the Master Inquisitor Silas had relocated his grisly workshop to this subterranean frozen dungeon, keeping the brute alive through a carefully asured application of agonizing survival techniques.
Seeing his captor step into the dim light of the lantern, Kjell strained against his thick iron bonds, spitting a wad of dark blood onto the packed dirt floor.
"You co to hide in the dirt with ?" Kjell wheezed. "I heard the thunder shake the earth! I heard your great tal beast scream and die in the water! My King’s fleet has arrived, hasn’t it? The warriors have co to wash this village in your blood!"
"You have been locked in the dark for too long, Kjell. Your ears are playing tricks on you."
Ragnar did not raise his voice, stepping slowly into the lantern’s glow and leaning heavily upon his cane. "Your king’s fleet did indeed arrive, Kjell," Ragnar stated smoothly.
"They landed on our shores with screaming n, expecting to find us cowering in the mud. They brought their rusted axes and their hunger for human flesh, completely confident that their sheer numbers would overwhelm our lines."
Kjell’s bloody grin widened. "And they butchered your iron-n! They shattered your shields!"
"That is, until they t the true fury of the industrial age,
They charged into a concentrated storm of repeating crossbow fire and high-explosive hand-grenades. The sky rained shrapnel and fire upon their heads, tearing their flesh to ribbons and turning the pristine snow into a slaughterhouse."
Kjell blinked. "Lies! You are a liar!"
"I assure you, I am a man who keeps ticulous accounts, and I do not exaggerate my ledgers," Ragnar continued relentlessly, stepping closer so the captive could see the absolute truth burning behind his monocle. "When our field cannons swept their rear ranks with canister shot, your fierce, unbreakable brothers panicked. Seeing his warriors slaughtered by weapons they could not comprehend, and realizing their King was nowhere to be found, the survivors broke. They dropped their weapons, trampled their own wounded, and scrambled back to their ships in terror."
"No..." Kjell whispered, the chains rattling. "The Gore-King’s chosen do not run..."
Nevertheless, Bjorn reached beneath his heavy cloak and tossed a blood-soaked garnt onto the dirt at Kjell’s feet. It was the luxurious white wolf-fur cloak of Jarl Hakon.
"Your new ally sank to the bottom of the fjord, along with his stolen prize," Bjorn growled. "Over five hundred of your brothers are rotting in piles on the beach. The rest are sailing back to your mountain, carrying a tale of fire and thunder that will haunt their nightmares until the end of their days."
"Thus, the stage is set for the final reckoning," Ragnar declared, turning his back on the broken chieftain.
"Though your King may believe himself safe behind the frozen walls of ’The Fang’, he is rely a rat hiding in a stone cage. My ssenger birds are already halfway across the sea, summoning a fleet of reinforcents that will blot out the sun."
Ragnar paused at the base of the stairs, looking over his shoulder one last ti. "Yet, you should find so small comfort in your chains, Kjell," Ragnar offered coldly. "You will be safe down here in the dark. After all, when my reinforcents arrive and we march our siege mortars up the Serpent’s Pass... there will be nothing left of your King’s mountain but ash and rubble."
...
Across the narrow sea, far removed from the mud of Kattegat, the skies over the Midlands bled a perpetual, industrious grey. The common folk of the realm, alongside the terrified lords of neighboring lands, had begun whispering a new, imposing na for the sprawling domain that now swallowed nearly half of England.
They called it the Iron Empire. Ragnar had never officially bothered to crown himself or declare such a pompous title. Though the title was entirely unofficial.
The remaining northern territories, primarily the rugged Kingdom of Scotland and a handful of stubborn city-states, watched the encroaching iron railways and towering blast furnaces with mounting dread. Since the dramatic fall of Wessex and rcia, the Scottish King had realized that it was only a matter of ti before the Iron Father turned his unyielding gaze northward.
Within the walls of the Governor’s Mansion in City Titan, Lord Commander Leofric rubbed his temples, fighting a losing battle against sheer exhaustion. Left to govern the capital while Ragnar secured timber rights in the North, Leofric found himself paralyzed not by enemy armies or rebellions, but by the suffocating tide of diplomacy.
Despite this monuntal military might resting securely at his fingertips, the battle-hardened veteran was currently trapped in the great hall, enduring his least favorite theater of war: politics.
Leofric glared down at the trembling Scottish envoy. The man, a highland lord wrapped in tartan and sweating profusely despite the drafty chill of the vast room, gestured nervously toward a dozen heavy, iron-bound chests laid out on the polished stone floor.
"My King sends his warst, most fraternal regards to the exalted Iron Father," the envoy stamred, bowing so low his nose nearly brushed the floorboards, while his accompanying guards kept their eyes fixed firmly on the ground.
"Furthermore, he offers these humble gifts... ten chests of pure highland silver, fifty bolts of our finest wool, and a prized Andalusian stallion as a token of our continued, unwavering friendship."
Leofric sighed. "Your King has sent three separate envoys in the past fortnight alone, Lord Duncan. If he sends any more ’tokens of friendship,’ he will empty his own treasury before my n even bother to march to the border."
The King of Scotland was cowering behind his stone walls, desperately throwing gold at City Titan to stave off an imminent invasion, completely unaware that the dreaded Iron Father was currently freezing in a Norwegian fjord, fighting half-naked n ard with rusted axes over a stretch of pine trees.
"The King rely wishes to ensure that our borders remain peaceful," Lord Duncan pressed on, pulling a delicately rolled parchnt from his tunic with a shaking hand. "He even suggests a union of our houses! He has a niece, renowned for her beauty, who would gladly—"
"I strongly advise against finishing that sentence, Duncan," Leofric interrupted, raising a hand to halt the diplomat’s desperate rambling.
"The Director is already bound to a woman who manages our ledgers. If you offer him a Scottish bride, his wife will likely have your King’s niece fed to the periter hounds before the wedding feast can be cooked..."
The envoy swallowed hard, his face draining of all color as he quickly tucked the marriage proposal back into his tunic.
Leofric was just about to dismiss the sweating diplomat with another vague promise of peace so he could finally return to the training yards.
That is, until the doors at the back of the audience hall burst open.
Sprint past the startled Iron Guards stationed at the entrance, Leofric’s young son, Osric, practically flew down the central aisle of the audience chamber.
The boy’s cheeks were flushed a bright red from sprinting all the way from the rookery, and his small hand clutched a tiny, tightly rolled cylinder of vellum bound by a familiar black leather strap.
"Father! Father, the Rookery Master said it just arrived!" Osric panted. "It’s a black-banded bird! From the North!"
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