Viking: Master of the Icy Sea

Chapter 345: Stone Bridge

In the late autumn of October, the sky was overcast. The murky, freezing river water flowed sluggishly beneath the bridge. A cavalry messenger arrived at the west bank of Bull Bridge, conveying the King's orders to Count Rikard.

"He wants me to hold out until noon? Understood."

After dismissing the messenger, Count Rikard remained where he stood, gazing across the river at the rolling hills on the east bank. Before long, a massive throng of silhouettes crested the hills and entered his line of sight.

"Damn, that many cavalry? When we retreat later, we can't take our original route. We'll have to fall back into the forest."

Bull Bridge was a relic of the Roman era, a double-arch design featuring typical semicircular arches. It was over eighty feet long and twenty feet wide, spacious enough to accommodate two heavily loaded carts traveling side by side.

Following the advice of the cadets, Count Rikard had constructed makeshift fortifications on both banks. On the east bank stood simple wooden palisades, bordered on the outside by a shallow trench.

By comparison, the defenses on the west bank were far sturdier. In addition to trenches and a low wall, the garrison regiment had arranged a row of arrow deflecting boards along the riverbank, leaving firing slots at regular intervals.

At nine in the morning, the Frankish army launched their first wave of attacks. Viking crossbow bolts flew from behind the palisades like a swarm of locusts. The Frankish soldiers formed a shield wall and slowly advanced toward the barrier. Finally, spears thrust viciously through the gaps in their shields, stabbing at the figures behind the wooden palisades. The Vikings extended their own weapons through the gaps in the palisades, and the two sides engaged in brutal thrusting attacks and slashing strikes across the wooden barrier.

After a prolonged stalemate, a resounding crash echoed as the wooden palisades were forcefully pushed over. Frankish soldiers surged through the breach, their swords and axes hacking viciously at the narrow entrance. The Vikings retreated in panic, and the bridgehead on the east bank quickly fell.

However, this bloody battle had only just begun.As the Frankish army stepped onto the bridge, a volley of crossbow bolts rained down from the west bank. The stone bridge offered no cover, leaving the Frankish soldiers to endure the barrage, moving agonizingly forward with their shields raised. Soldiers from both sides crammed together. Swords and axes struck against shields and armor, emitting ear-piercing shrieks of metal. Men continuously screamed as they plunged into the muddy torrent below.

Well before their departure, the cadets had advised the Count to bring extra crossbow bolts. Count Rikard had accepted the suggestion wholeheartedly, requisitioning four hundred light crossbows from the quartermaster.

Light crossbows were simple to operate. During their training camp, everyone had received relevant instruction, including non-combatants like the accompanying shamans, clerks handling documents, and stablehands.

At this moment, Count Rikard's four hundred crossbowmen were positioned on the west bank of the river. Sheltering behind the arrow deflecting boards, they mechanically went through the motions of loading, aiming, and firing, inflicting severe casualties upon the Frankish army.

By ten o'clock, the Frankish army had surged across the stone bridge to assault the west bank's fortifications. They shoved the bodies of the fallen into the trench and brought up numerous sandbags from the rear, completely filling in the shallow ditch.

"Well, what do we do now?"

On an elevated position not far from the west bank, Count Rikard looked at the three cadets beside him but received no valuable answers. With the battle at this stage, victory or defeat hinged entirely on the willpower of the soldiers; tactical maneuvering had lost its utility.

After repeated charges, the Frankish army breached the low wall. The Vikings were left with their final line of defense: numerous hastily constructed chevaux de frise. Further back, the Vikings had piled up vast amounts of firewood. Should they need to retreat, they would ignite a massive blaze to delay the Frankish army's pursuit.

Separated by the chevaux de frise, both sides exchanged vicious thrusting attacks with their spears. Count Rikard looked on with a dazed expression, regretting ever involving himself in this cruel and bloody war.

Sensing an impending victory, the Frankish banners descended from the hills and slowly approached the stone bridge. A massive formation of heavy infantry followed closely behind, exuding an indescribable sense of overwhelming pressure.

They couldn't hold the line. Count Rikard ordered his subordinates to prepare for a retreat, sighing inwardly, 'If I had known it would be like this, I would have handed over command and stayed home to sleep.'

Right as the Vikings were about to ignite the firewood, an uproar erupted among the Frankish army on the east bank. Count Rikard focused his gaze and saw chaos breaking out near the Frankish banners; something entirely unexpected had apparently occurred. Just then, a young man on the west bank hoisted his light crossbow and began shouting wildly. "I hit him! I hit him! Odin is watching over me!"

Count Rikard immediately summoned the youth. "What did you do?"

The young man was so thrilled he babbled incoherently, claiming his crossbow bolt had flown straight through the crowd and pierced the throat of the Frankish commander. The man was likely beyond saving.

The reaction of the Frankish army corroborated his claim. The frontline troops retreated across the bridge like a receding tide. The soldiers of the 5th Garrison Regiment didn't cheer; they merely collapsed onto the ground in sheer exhaustion, staring blankly ahead.

"W-we won?" Count Rikard looked at his squires and military officers in sheer disbelief.

A voice murmured from the crowd, "It seems so."

Up until this moment, Odin's favor continued to bless them. Count Rikard sent men to interrogate the injured Frankish soldiers and discovered that the enemy commander was none other than the King of Provence. (After Lothair's death, the Kingdom of Middle Francia was divided into three parts: the eldest son inherited Italy, the second son inherited Lotharingia, and the youngest son inherited Provence.)

"Quick, write a letter to inform His Majesty!" Count Rikard's spirits soared. To think that the very first battle he had ever experienced would yield such magnificent results! Could it be that he was a natural-born military commander?

When the news of the great victory at Bull Bridge reached Rennes, a collective silence fell over the main hall of the Duke's Residence. Chief of Staff Leif clenched the letter tightly, his expression as dark as stormy waters. "Uncle, this fool has completely ruined our plans!"

Wigg fell deep into thought. Since Count Rikard had repelled the Frankish vanguard and allegedly slain the King of Provence, their planned ambush was now moot. The past two days of careful strategic arrangements had been entirely for naught.

But none of this was Count Rikard's fault. It was Wigg who, worried that the loudmouth might accidentally leak their intentions, had deliberately concealed the truth from him and simply ordered him to garrison Bull Bridge.

The 5th Garrison Regiment had successfully completed their assigned task. Wigg had absolutely no grounds to reprimand the Count. He took the letter sent by Rikard and repeatedly read over the testimonies extracted from the captured soldiers.

After a long while, he began to adjust his deployments, dispatching two Mountain Infantry Battalions to the hills on the east bank of the Bull River to gather more intelligence.

Additionally, he ordered two of Utgard's infantry regiments to approach a village garrisoned by the Frankish army to test the enemy's reaction.

On October eighteenth, widespread scouting skirmishes erupted along the northern front. Deep within the woods, when faced with the highly coordinated Duck-and-Drake Formation Squads clad in light brigandine armor, the Frankish scouts were at a distinct disadvantage. Over a hundred of them were taken prisoner.

Synthesizing the reports submitted by the various units, Leif led the staff officers in a careful screening process, filtering out some of the more absurd drivel before adding more detailed markings to their tactical maps.

Based on how the situation had developed, Wigg had roughly pinpointed the location of Charles the Bald: northeast of Rennes, about a day and a half to two days' march away. Furthermore, the sixty-odd thousand troops of the Frankish army weren't concentrated in one place. It was estimated that Charles only had twenty to thirty thousand men remaining by his side.

His previous guess had been spot-on. Charles the Bald's main axis of attack was indeed along the northern front, waiting for an opportunity to capture Saint-Malo before sweeping west to sever the Vikings' retreat path.

Following the Battle of Bull Bridge and the suspected death of the King of Provence, Wigg speculated that the Frankish army might temporarily suspend their assault on Saint-Malo, perhaps even falling back to Laval.

Gradually, a daring idea began to take root in his mind: intercept Charles the Bald and bring this war to a swift and decisive end!

At dawn on October nineteenth, Wigg led his forces out of Rennes, rendezvousing with Utgard's troops midway to bring their total military strength up to thirty-one thousand men. The nine thousand men led by Butcherbird were also on the march and were expected to link up with them by noon the following day.