Viking: Master of the Icy Sea

Chapter 256: The Choices of Kings

Hearing this great news, Hrogeir was overjoyed. "I will go buy ships and hire men right now. Once this is done, I am willing to pay three hundred—no, six hundred pounds!"

Wigg declined the gift. "That would leave a bad impression. As it happens, the country is currently undergoing large-scale hospital construction. If you donate this sum to the hospitals, it will serve as a slight cover and even improve your reputation."

According to the plans, the twelve directly administered counties required every subordinate town to have a hospital. Furthermore, the earldoms controlled by the nobles needed to possess at least one temple-affiliated hospital, which would be responsible for treating diseases while also spreading proper concepts of hygiene.

This initiative cost a massive amount of money, but it was absolutely necessary. If a plague were to break out, no one—from the poorest commoner to the Royal Family—would be able to escape the catastrophe.

Wigg thought to himself, 'Perhaps I should separate the Medical School from Lundinium University and establish a dedicated Medical University.'

Carrying a pile of junk gifted by Wigg, Ubbe's envoy departed from Lundinium.

Meanwhile, Ubbe led his forces into Vejle in central Denmark. Upon hearing the terrifying reputation of the Frankish Army in southern Denmark, his troops were so frightened that they ground to a halt.

Fortunately, Sweden and Norway sent reinforcements in succession. Halfdan led fifteen hundred men into Vejle, and Erik Jr. dispatched two thousand. Counting Ubbe's three thousand, the Allied Forces swelled to sixty-five hundred men.

In terms of terrain, Vejle had a river to its south and a bay to its east, allowing reinforcements to arrive by sea.

This place had once been Oleg's fief and boasted a wooden palisade and moats. Many stones had been piled up in the northern part of the city for a planned stone city wall, but because Oleg and his heir had died in the Lundinium coup, the wall's construction had been shelved indefinitely."According to the bards, this is the first time the Franks have invaded the Jutland Peninsula."

Standing on the palisade and gazing at the sprawling encampments outside the city, Ubbe repeatedly bemoaned his terrible luck.

(Note: After Charlemagne conquered the Saxony region, he briefly stopped at the Eider River in southern Denmark. He was ultimately halted by the Danevirke defensive line and never penetrated deeply into this unfamiliar, perilous peninsula filled with vast moraine plains and dense forests.)

After a long wait, a figure emerged from the camp outside. It was Edmund, who had gone to gather intelligence. He relayed King Louis's exact words:

"I swear to eradicate all evil from this land. Scram back to where you came from, and do not expect my pity. The moment the raging flames consumed the Kassel Royal Manor, peace between us became impossible."

"What does that have to do with me? It was clearly—" Catching sight of his third brother not far away, Ubbe reluctantly swallowed his complaints and walked over to discuss their battle plan.

"The enemy has twelve thousand men. How do we fight them?"

Halfdan exhaled a puff of white breath. "We drag it out. We rely on the palisade for defense until the bitter cold whittles down the Frankish Army's numbers and morale."

Ubbe retorted, "How long will that take?"

Halfdan took a small sip of mead, his tone breezy. "What is the rush? We have half a year until spring arrives. We have plenty of time to wear Louis down."

Ubbe's expression grew increasingly icy. Harassed by tens of thousands of Frankish soldiers, the villages in central Denmark were in a dire state, and Louis could still dispatch cavalry to raid the northern regions. Even if they managed to drag the war out to an ultimate victory, the populace would never accept a weak and cowardly king.

That night, he tracked down Edmund and several other subordinates, ordering them to take two to three hundred men each and garrison the medium-to-large settlements in the rear. He did not expect them to resist the main Frankish Army; they only needed to hold off the roaming cavalry units.

Having dispatched over two thousand men, the Allied Forces in Vejle were reduced to a mere four thousand—barely enough to mount a sturdy defense.

In November, the north wind was biting cold. The envoy returned from Britain with Wigg's reply. In short, the man was willing to provide any kind of support, except for actual military action.

Halfdan reacted flatly. "The North's Serpent has always prized profit. If he actually led an army here himself, it would instead be a terrible sign."

At night, once the banquet ended, the envoy sought out Ubbe in secret to relay Wigg's demands: hand over the defector Edmund, and receive twenty sets of iron armor in return. "Is that it? That is far too little. No, Edmund fled to Denmark because he trusted me. If I hand him over to Wigg, who would ever pledge their loyalty to me in the future?"

Ubbe gnawed on a smoked pig trotter that was rapidly turning cold, glancing at the envoy who looked as if he had more to say. "What else did he mention?"

"If you give up the throne and declare your fealty, he is willing to fund you with one thousand pounds."

'In his eyes, is my crown only worth this much?'

Staring at the mess of cups and plates strewn across the long table, Ubbe was momentarily stunned before a thought sprouted in his mind: he could feign submission, take the money, and then renege on the deal.

But he quickly snapped out of it, realizing that this one thousand pounds would not come without a price. Whether he chose to submit or later went back on his word, it would drain what little authority he had left.

Ubbe pondered for a long time, right up until the smoked pig trotter in his hand turned completely freezing cold.

"If he raised the price to three thousand pounds, temporary submission would not matter. However, Wigg is treacherous by nature. He would likely attach other strings, such as demanding my children as hostages, or picking a port to station his fleet..."

Fearing a trap, he ignored Wigg's proposal entirely and focused all his energy on the standoff with the Frankish Army outside the city.

Five days later, Louis launched a fierce assault, directing the attack against the western wall.

Pressed for time, the Frankish Army had not constructed any trebuchets. Instead, their infantry pushed mantlets forward at a crawl, while over a thousand archers advanced to within fifty meters of the palisade, exchanging fire with the defenders from behind the cover of their shields.

A whistling shriek approached from afar as thousands of feathered arrows blanketed the palisade before them. Wood splinters flew through the air alongside countless dull thuds, occasionally interrupted by a brief, agonizing scream.

The defending archers refused to be outdone. They hid behind rough wooden battlements to return fire. Although they numbered less than a third of the attackers, their height advantage allowed them to shoot with far greater accuracy.

Soon, muffled groans and the sounds of bodies hitting the dirt echoed through the ranks of the Frankish archers. Some collapsed clutching their faces, while others had their arms pierced, dropping their bows to the ground.

In the heat of battle, Ubbe discovered that the one hundred heavy crossbowmen sent by Erik Jr. were remarkably effective. Although they loaded slowly—firing at only a quarter of the speed of the archers—the heavy crossbow's true advantage lay in its penetrating power. It was strong enough to pierce the Frankish shields, guaranteeing a lethal strike upon impact.

After a full day of exchanging volleys, the Frankish infantry managed to fill in sections of the moat under the covering fire of their archers. On the second day, they pushed heavy, sluggish siege towers, inching steadily closer to the palisades of Vejle.

The infantrymen kept their heads ducked low, their left hands raising round shields high as they pressed tightly against their comrades' bodies. Overhead, feathered arrows from both sides darted back and forth.

Amidst the chaotic storm of flying arrows and the groans of wounded comrades underfoot, the Frankish Army steadily closed in on the silent, formidable wooden palisade. Finally, the vanguard infantry trampled through mud and blood, charging straight into the shadow of the wall. The wooden planks of the siege towers crashed down, slamming heavily against the arrow-riddled, cracked wooden barricade.

In the next moment, throngs of iron-armored soldiers surged onto the battlements, grinding down both sides' numbers in a bloody, brutal melee. It was not until noon, when the biting north wind swept snow across the battlefield, that the Frankish offensive was finally forced to a halt.