Viking: Master of the Icy Sea

Chapter 258: Snowfield

As Niels drew back his bowstring, hundreds of arrows suddenly rose from the woods.

"Enemy attack!"

The terrified roars of the Franks were instantly drowned out by a rain of arrows. Draft horses struck by arrows let out agonizing shrieks, galloping madly out of their minds. This triggered widespread chaos as carts overturned and axles snapped with ear-piercing cracks. Loaded wine barrels rolled onto the ground, causing the strong stench of alcohol mixed with the metallic scent of blood to permeate the biting wind.

"Form a shield wall!"

Having lost over a third of their numbers, the hundred surviving soldiers huddled into a circular shield formation. Niels remained expressionless, continuing to lead his archers in unleashing a torrent of arrows. The freezing bowstrings dug into their stiffened fingers, but every jolt of pain only morphed into a deeper thirst for blood until they had emptied the two quivers of feathered arrows they carried.

By this time, the scattered surviving Franks had already abandoned everything, vanishing into the edge of sight like frightened rabbits. The Vikings seized the moment to sweep the battlefield, prioritizing the enemy's armor before scavenging for weapons and feathered arrows.

After a long period of busy looting, the ground began to faintly tremble. Knowing he lacked the strength to face cavalry, Niels reluctantly abandoned the sacks of grain and carcasses of draft animals on the ground, quietly leading his forces into the depths of the pine forest.

Victorious in their first clash, Niels swiftly launched the next wave of harassment. To increase his soldiers' mobility, he innovatively equipped everyone with long, narrow, curved birch sledges.

With his rear under attack, "Louis the German" at the Vejle frontlines dispatched two successive waves of reinforcements to exterminate the threat, but both were defeated by Niels.

At this point, the Viking Allied Forces maintained a count of five thousand men, while the Frankish army only had eight thousand combat-capable soldiers remaining. The situation had fallen into a stalemate.February, 862 AD.

One day, after crushing another Frankish convoy, Niels was clearing the battlefield when he stumbled upon a family letter on a corpse. The letter was from a noble on the front lines, written to his family residing in a castle in Bavaria.

In the letter, the noble complained that only half of last month's wages for overextended service had been paid, with the remainder substituted by plundered grain and furs.

After half-reading and half-guessing his way through the Latin letter, Niels faintly sensed something unusual. He ordered his subordinates to sift through all the letters they could find. That night, he carefully pondered the contents, deducing that since King Louis could not afford to pay the wages for overextended service, the main force of the Frankish army was highly likely to retreat.

The opportunity had arrived. Niels informed Halfdan in Aarhus, requesting reinforcements to launch a surprise attack while the Frankish army retreated.

Schleswig was located in southern Denmark. If the Franks were to invade again in the future, he would be the one to suffer the most. His only option was to inflict heavy casualties on the enemy and buy a few more years of buffer time.

Upon receiving the message, Halfdan dispatched fifteen hundred men by ship to Pomerania. The composition of this force was complex, comprising both Norwegian reinforcements and minor nobles from Sweden.

When Niels originally fled, he had taken a thousand soldiers. Now, with Halfdan throwing in a mixed bag of fifteen hundred troops, combined with the fifteen hundred men from the West Slavic tribes, his total forces smoothly expanded to four thousand.

"That is enough."

Over the following week, Niels led his elite troops to harass supply convoys as usual, deducing the enemy's retreat schedule from the intercepted correspondence.

Could it be a trap?

At this moment, his heart was filled with apprehension, suspecting this might be bait thrown out by Louis to lure the Vikings into taking the initiative. Consequently, Niels suffered from insomnia for several consecutive days, until the Frankish main force retreated south exactly as anticipated.

February 15th.

At eight o'clock in the morning, the sky was covered with lead-gray clouds. A long marching column struggled to crawl across the snowfield, intermixed with numerous baggage carts of varying sizes. Most of these were civilian vehicles conscripted for the war, of terrible quality. Every so often, a carriage could be seen breaking down on the spot, before being jointly carried to the roadside by Frankish soldiers and abandoned. "Just how much stuff did they plunder?"

Niels lay prone on a low hill to the southeast, suspecting that southern Denmark had been picked clean by these people. Even if they won this war, the region would not be able to return to its pre-war state for years to come.

Before long, a small squad of Frankish cavalry rode over to the low hill to scout. Scanning their surroundings, they saw nothing but a vast expanse of white snow. Their vigilance instantly relaxed, and they pulled out salted meat from their coats to replenish their energy.

Over ten minutes later, the Frankish cavalry galloped away to scout the woods further to the east. In an instant, the motionless snowfield seemed to come alive. Over two hundred archers draped in white cloaks shook off the snow, stretching their nearly frozen limbs.

Suddenly, the agonized wails of the mounted scouts echoed from the eastern woods. The ambush had been exposed. Niels grabbed his bow and arrow and charged to the top of the low hill, leading the archers in raining arrows down upon the Frankish army.

At the same time, earth-shattering war cries erupted from the woods. Over three thousand soldiers charged out of the treeline in succession, surging toward the enemy's marching column like a torrential flood.

The attack came too fast, too fiercely, and far too unexpectedly! The hastily formed ranks of the Frankish army crumbled to pieces. The terrified cries of the soldiers were drowned out by deafening roars and the clash of weapons. Before the frontline spearmen could even lower their spears, they were brutally knocked to the ground by burly figures clad in animal skins. Immediately after, more Vikings squeezed into the breach, wielding one-handed axes to hack and smash the nearby enemies.

"Hold the line! Archers, return fire!"

A military officer wrapped in a scarlet cloak reined in his horse and shouted, attempting to rally the formation. However, a powerful feathered arrow accurately pierced his throat. His tall figure violently shuddered, a bizarre gurgling sound escaping his windpipe before he pitched headfirst off his horse.

With their commander sniped, this two-thousand-strong Frankish vanguard fell into chaos. Their morale rapidly plummeted, and they scattered in different directions to flee for their lives.

"Do not pursue! The enemy cavalry will be here soon!"

Niels gathered three thousand five hundred men and had the wounded sent back to a hidden spot in the woods. The remaining troops did not linger, nor did they retreat into the forest; instead, they withdrew southward along the road.

It was not long before a large contingent of Frankish cavalry arrived at the battlefield. They easily slaughtered over three hundred enemies scattered nearby, then reformed their ranks to pursue Niels's main force to the south.

During their sprint, noticing the increasingly violent trembling of the ground, Niels shouted loudly, "Pick up the pace! Drop the captured spoils of war; we will come back for them after we win!"

Some heeded his advice, tossing aside their loot to flee for their lives, while others, unwilling to abandon the captured armor, gradually fell behind the column.

Soon after, Niels left the road, continuing to flee toward the southeast. At this moment, only two thousand five hundred men remained by his side. Some soldiers had broken away from the ranks to run off on their own, while others, weighed down by too much loot, were overtaken and slain by the Frankish cavalry.

At nine thirty, the Frankish cavalry crested a slope, and the scenery ahead abruptly opened up. The terrain was flat and expansive. A large swarm of light infantry was fleeing while clustered around a blue banner. The flag depicted three crossed feathered arrows—Niels's personal, exclusive banner.

"Charge over there and kill him."

The commander tightened his reins, his warhorse rearing up on its hind legs. Its neigh sliced through the biting air, propelling nearly a thousand cavalrymen to launch a devastating charge.