Viking: Master of the Icy Sea

Chapter 347: Reinforcements

In the north, Earl William of Orléans and his troops were rushing along their route.

From a distance, the procession looked like an exhausted gray serpent, winding its way through the desolate fields and bleak woodlands.

Over half of William's forces were militia. They were wrapped in tattered woolen cloth, wearing gray felt hats and clutching crudely crafted spears in their hands.

After such a grueling trek, most of the militia's shoes had worn through. Some had cracked uppers held together by nothing more than coarse grass rope. A portion of the soldiers' shoes had completely disintegrated, forcing them to wrap their bare feet in rags. This dragged their marching speed to an agonizing crawl, and suppressed groans and low curses periodically rippled through the ranks.

"Hurry up, you lazy bastards! Do not keep the King waiting." The military officers rode back and forth along the roadside, barking orders, but their efforts yielded little result. The militia kept their heads bowed, enduring the agony in their feet and the biting cold as they simply shuffled forward, blindly following the backs of the men in front of them.

Eventually, the column ground to a halt. The militia instantly collapsed onto the sides of the dirt road to rest, refusing to stand up no matter how much the military officers cursed or beat them.

William spurred his horse to the front of the formation. In the distance, several thousand Vikings were stationed across an open clearing roughly five hundred paces wide. To their west lay a dense forest, and to their east stretched an endless expanse of marshland.

The enemy flew two banners. The larger one was the black serpent banner of the Kingdom of Britain, while the smaller one was a blue flag depicting a black castle in its center.

"A black castle on a blue background. That is Butcherbird's crest. Are we facing the First Field Division?"

Over the past few days, the Frankish army had captured a handful of Viking captives, extracting scattered intelligence about the expeditionary force. Each division boasted roughly eight thousand men, and every single combatant was equipped with iron armor."Damn it, why are they blocking the way? Has the battle at Dunwall Manor already begun?"

William cursed in frustration. Unwilling to delay any further, he mobilized four thousand heavy infantrymen to launch an assault.

The heavy infantry of the Frankish army advanced in a shield wall formation, suffering only sparse volleys of feathered arrows. As the distance closed to twenty paces, they roared and surged toward the enemy. The two sides clashed in a brutal melee for a long time, but the Vikings held their ground, never yielding a single inch from start to finish.

Watching a large swath of his heavy infantry retreat from the battlefield, William summoned his commanders for a war council. One of them sighed heavily. "These British barbarians are far more formidable than the Norse barbarians."

"Indeed. Every single barbarian is clad in armor. Slashing at them with swords is useless; weapons like a flail or an iron axe feel far more practical."

The next moment, William interrupted their idle chatter with a dark scowl. "His Majesty is in desperate need of our reinforcements. What solutions do you have?"

"We bypass them." Someone suggested dividing their forces, leaving ten thousand militia behind to tie down the enemy while the rest of the troops bypassed the area, taking an alternate route to Dunwall Manor.

William accepted the proposal, dispatching a large number of cavalry to conduct reconnaissance nearby. Simultaneously, he deployed the militia to launch a second wave of attacks to keep the Viking soldiers occupied.

Less than half an hour later, a squad of cavalry returned with a report, claiming they had circled to the westernmost edge of the forest. Further west lay a massive, flat clearing perfectly capable of accommodating an army's passage.

William asked, "Are there any Vikings?"

"There are a small number of rangers on the plains, and perhaps more hidden within the forest."

William's briefly lifted spirits plummeted once more. He paced anxiously across the grass until the reconnaissance scouts from the east returned. Regrettably, the marshland was far too expansive. If they attempted to detour to the east, they would never reach Dunwall Manor before nightfall.

With no other viable options, William was forced to send three thousand cavalry and four thousand fresh heavy infantry on a western detour. He would remain behind with three thousand heavy infantry and the ten thousand sluggish militia to find a way to deal with the enemy force here.

"I just hope there is still time."

Perhaps driven by concern for the King's safety, the Frankish army's cavalry spontaneously accelerated after marching for a distance, leaving the four thousand heavy infantry trailing far behind them.

Over ten minutes passed. They bypassed the dense, gloomy forest, revealing a vast, low-lying clearing overgrown with ryegrass.

Due to poor drainage and naturally damp soil, the trampling and churning of over ten thousand heavy hooves quickly transformed the grassy expanse into a treacherous mud pit.

Just as they were about to exit the low-lying basin, a heart-stopping whistle erupted from the silent woods to their east. A dense swarm of arrows, looking exactly like a rising black cloud, shot up rapidly above the treeline. Accompanied by sharp, piercing shrieks as they tore through the air, the projectiles rained down upon the cavalry formation.

The ambushers were the entirety of the longbowmen drafted from the First Field Division. Totaling eighteen hundred men, they had claimed a highly advantageous position along the forest's edge, unleashing relentless, high-angle fire that sent wave after wave of lethal arrows arcing into the sky.

The arrows could not pierce the iron helmets or chainmail of the cavalrymen, but they were more than capable of slaughtering their unarmored mounts. Sharp broadheads tore through hide and buried themselves deep into flesh. The stricken warhorses released agonizing shrieks. Some reared up violently, throwing their knights into the dirt, while others went mad with panic, wildly thrashing through the chaotic ranks despite their wounds. The previously orderly cavalry formation dissolved into instant bedlam. Fallen horses and dismounted riders became stumbling blocks for their comrades behind them. Terrified beasts collided and trampled one another, churning the muddy ground until it grew impossibly slick.

Moreover, the British longbowmen concentrated their fire strictly on the vanguard, forcing the enemy to fall back and cutting off any hope of further advance.

Once the enemy forces were plunged into an unrecoverable state of chaos, the Vikings launched a close-quarters assault. This included two Mountain Infantry Battalions and eleven hundred dismounted cavalrymen, comprising three hundred rangers and eight hundred temporarily conscripted heavy cavalry.

The front row of Vikings leveled their spears, looking like a moving forest of thorns. Working in tight coordination, they delivered vicious thrusting attacks against the mounted foes. The soldiers in the rear wielded iron axes and daggers, tasked with dispatching the cavalrymen who were bogged down in the mud.

The resistance of the Frankish army was scattered and feeble. The deep mire severely crippled the cavalry's mobility, leaving them completely unable to organize an effective counterattack or execute a retreat.

At that moment, the trailing four thousand heavy infantry arrived on the battlefield. They attempted to rescue these usually arrogant lords and knights. However, the low-lying depression had been so thoroughly churned by horse hooves that it had devolved into a massive, slippery quagmire. Their boots sank deep into the freezing, wet sludge. Their previously smooth marching pace ground to a halt as the soldiers trudged forward with uneven steps, each stride requiring a monumental effort.

Having lost the vast majority of their comrades, the surviving four hundred cavalrymen finally rendezvoused with their allied forces. The Vikings ceased their pursuit, allowing the Franks to flee the muddy basin.

"A pack of brainless fools!"

Upon learning of the relief force's disastrous defeat, William's vision went black with rage. Losing in such a spectacular fashion had dealt a devastating blow to the morale of the entire army. The militia on the fringes of the battlefield began to desert in small droves; this battle was completely unwinnable now.

"Gather the ranks. Retreat!"

He planned to detour around the eastern marshland and reinforce the King from a different direction. If the war effort collapsed entirely, he would still be perfectly positioned to flee straight back to Orléans.