novelraw Chapter 254: Caught Off Guard
Chapter 254: Caught Off Guard
Opening the envelope, Ubbe discovered it was a letter requesting reinforcements from Niels. Annoyance swelled in his heart. "Why should I be forced to share the burden of the disaster you and Halfdan Whiteshirt brought upon us?"
Returning to the lord's longhouse, Ubbe summoned the five members of his cabinet. Given the unverified nature of this news, everyone advised him to hold off on taking immediate action.
"Your Majesty," Edmund began, "a full-scale conscription would exact a massive toll. It would be better to dispatch an envoy to gather intelligence. Once we confirm the news is accurate, we can then assemble our forces."
It was September, right in the middle of the barley harvest. Conscripting the militia would inevitably ruin this year's crop yield, and the nobles across the land would surely complain—whether they were the old nobility or the new lords recently ennobled by Ubbe.
Ubbe nodded slowly. "Who should serve as the envoy?"
Edmund volunteered to take on the mission. In all of Aalborg, only he and Ubbe knew Latin, so there were truly no other options at the moment.
Quickly drafting an official diplomatic letter, Ubbe sealed it with sealing wax and urged Edmund to make haste, instructing him to try and return within half a month.
"As you command, Your Majesty."
Tucking the diplomatic letter away securely, Edmund took two newly recruited attendants and rode off at a fierce gallop.
Four days later, they arrived in southern Denmark. They saw many Viking commoners hurrying along the road. This group wore tattered sheepskin jackets, carried round shields on their backs, and had iron axes tucked into their waists. They did not forget to grumble and complain as they marched."Is Niels gathering forces from the entire territory?"
An armored brute at the front of the column raised his head. "Yeah. All the lords under his command received orders to rush to the Danevirke within a set time limit."
At noon the following day, an endless earthen rampart appeared on the distant horizon. Edmund spurred his horse closer, carefully observing the famous defensive fortification.
The main structure of the Danevirke was an earthen bank roughly twelve feet high. Atop the slope stood a heavy, low fence-like wall, while a trench equally deep was dug outside the wall.
"These logs have rotted away! Hurry and chop down fifty oak trees."
At that moment, over a hundred conscripted militiamen were repairing a collapsed section of the earthen rampart. A military officer wearing rusted chainmail acted as the overseer, directing the militia to clear debris from the trench and replace the rotting logs. Edmund gazed off into the distance, noting that similar maintenance work was underway in other sectors.
He approached the military officer to strike up a conversation, handing over a flask of mead to bridge the gap. "How many men are in the enemy army? They have you all working so frantically."
Judging from the old man's attire that he was someone of significant status, the officer's tone softened. "Over three thousand men have gathered in Hamburg, and they are still continuously massing. And you are?"
"Edmund, an advisor to King Ubbe. I am on an official mission to Hamburg."
For the next half hour, Edmund engaged in a friendly and in-depth conversation with the military officer, learning about the long history and detailed conditions of the Danevirke defense line. Accompanied by the cheerful farewells of his new friend, Edmund crossed the defensive perimeter and officially entered the German region.
September twentieth.
A travel-worn Edmund returned to Aalborg. He looked rather disheveled, and the two attendants who had accompanied him were nowhere to be seen.
"My apologies, Your Majesty. I was attacked by bandits on the road, and my two attendants died protecting me."
Ubbe could not be bothered to care about the attendants and immediately asked about the movements of the Franks. "How many men are there, and what is King Louis's objective?"
"When I arrived in Hamburg," Edmund replied, "they had assembled roughly seven thousand men, along with over a thousand cavalrymen. King Louis did not grant me an audience, but according to the information I gathered, when Halfdan Whiteshirt burned down the Kassel manor, the victims included Louis's daughter, Princess Gisela. I expect things will be very troublesome this time." Learning of the catastrophic disaster his third brother had caused, Ubbe slumped powerlessly back into his throne. At this moment, he had no other choice but to order a full-scale conscription across the entire territory to face this sudden, overwhelming calamity.
However, it was already too late.
At that very same time, far to the south at the Danevirke.
After the Frankish army's scout cavalry arrived, they rode back and forth roughly two hundred meters away from the earthen ramparts. Ruling out the continuous stretches of swamps, forests, and low hills, they pinpointed five battlefields suitable for deploying their army.
That afternoon, the Frankish army's vanguard launched their assault. Niels recognized their banners at a glance—they belonged to the Duchy of Saxony.
"Damn Halfdan," Niels cursed. "It is all his fault for bewitching everyone into plundering East Francia. Nothing good ever comes from mixing with that lunatic."
The position Niels was defending guarded the traditional trade route between Denmark and the German region, making it the primary target of the Duke's offensive.
Under the covering fire of two hundred archers, a thousand soldiers raised their wooden shields and carried wooden planks as they slowly advanced toward the trench. Enduring the relentless harassment from the Frankish archers, Niels's troops could only vaguely aim for the gaps between the enemy shields, which drastically reduced their lethality.
"My Lord, the Frankish frontline infantry are wearing iron armor! Our arrows cannot pierce it."
Even after firing twenty volleys of feathered arrows, fewer than a hundred Frankish soldiers had fallen. Ignoring the burning ache in his arms, Niels repeatedly drew his bowstring and released, firing relentlessly until the Frankish forces closed in on the trench.
The trench was less than ten feet wide. The Frankish army used wooden planks to lay down numerous makeshift walkways. Soon after, the rear units brought forward long ladders, leaning them against the fence on the earthen slope. The soldiers endured the defenders' rain of arrows and fought fiercely to climb up. The most brutal and bloody siege warfare had begun.
"Archers, draw your swords! Everyone, push them back!"
Niels threw aside his yew bow, snatched up a round shield, and slammed into an enemy soldier nearby. The fifty armored personal guards behind him similarly cast aside their bows and arrows, taking up the duties of standard infantrymen.
The entire Danevirke defense line spanned thirty kilometers. Niels had a total of two thousand five hundred men, but currently, this specific sector of the line was defended by a mere fifty armored guards and one hundred and fifty militiamen. It was impossible to repel the enemy. His only hope was to hold out for the mobile strike force.
The mobile force consisted of three hundred men, equipped with iron armor and draft horses, tasked with reinforcing any breached sections of the line. Upon seeing the three plumes of black smoke ignited by Niels, this company of mounted infantry rode desperately, arriving just before the defense line collapsed and driving the Frankish army back down the earthen slope.
Watching the retreating silhouettes of the enemy, Niels, utterly exhausted, slumped behind the fence, gasping heavily for air. He tallied their numbers. Of the fifty armored guards who had followed him, only twenty remained. The conscripted militia had either died or fled, leaving fewer than fifty men.
"We cannot hold this wretched place," Niels muttered. "That idiot Ubbe. He still hasn't sent reinforcements. Does he actually think the Franks will spare him?"
That night, Niels led his men in a full retreat, making sure to light a massive bonfire before departing.
It did not take long before bonfires on the eastern and western flanks were lit in succession. The Vikings stationed along the entire Danevirke dispersed. A small number of nobles led their troops into Schleswig, while the remaining nobles simply returned to their respective homes.
At noon two days later, Niels counted his troops in Schleswig. Finding he only had one thousand and forty men left, the desire to retreat took root in his mind.
'Schleswig is in ruins,' he thought. 'Right now, it is nothing more than a glorified farming village with a wall around it. Losing it means nothing. It would be better to preserve our strength and let the Frankish army march north, dragging Ubbe into this mess as well.'
That same afternoon, Niels dismissed the residents within the city, led his troops onto ships along the river, and sailed out to sea, heading straight for Pomerania.