Vikings: Lords of the Ice Sea

Chapter 160 The Prince and the Royal Guard
At the same time, in Sweden.

After landing in Gothenburg, Oleg's Imperial Guard became Hafdan's lifeline. Faced with 1,500 armored soldiers, the Allied forces besieging Gothenburg fled in panic, suffering heavy casualties.

"Good, good, that's how it should be. Let these barbarians see our might!"

Hafdan and the berserkers were shouting and yelling, which made one of the Royal Guard officers roll his eyes and complain inwardly:
“Who’s calling you barbarians ‘we’? You bunch of idiots in animal skins, getting beaten up at home and forcing me to come all the way across the ocean to cause trouble.”

After repelling the allied forces, Hafdan proposed to press on and capture Kalmar, Stockholm, and other towns on the east coast in one fell swoop.

"Where's the map?" Oleg reached out and asked for it, receiving a hastily drawn map that only marked the locations of a few large and medium-sized settlements, without any roads, rivers, lakes, or other water sources.

That's it?

He couldn't help but press further: "Your Highness, for the past two years, members of the Sword of North have been running rampant in the countryside. Why haven't you taken the time to draw up a map?"

Oleg looked up and saw the berserkers looting the enemy corpses, occasionally snatching spoils from the Imperial Guard soldiers, like a group of savage bears who had never been influenced by civilization.

Recording the terrain and drawing maps must have been quite a task for them.

Oleg didn't waste any more words. He rode around the area and, judging from the footprints, determined that the defeated allied forces should have fled southeast, roughly to Kalmar according to the map.

After a night's rest, 1,400 Imperial Guards went to fight the enemy. Hafdan, unwilling to miss the opportunity to strike a blow against his enemy, led more than 500 berserkers to accompany them.

After two days of marching, some berserkers broke away from the group and began raiding nearby villages. Oleg was worried that they would corrupt the morale of the army, so he abandoned the prince and set off first.

Following the messy footprints, the Imperial Guard pursued the enemy to the outskirts of Kalmar. The stockade walls had been recently renovated, and deep trenches had been dug outside the walls, filled with many sharpened wooden stakes. Archers of the garrison stood behind the battlements. When the messenger went to persuade them to surrender, he was driven back by several arrows.

How dare they fight against more than a thousand armored soldiers?
Oleg was very curious about what the Sword of North had done to make the locals so resolute.

After failing to persuade them to surrender, the Imperial Guard soldiers, armed with axes and saws, entered the woods. With clear division of labor, they set up a makeshift camp before sunset, planning a long-term siege.

As Ragnar's trump card for controlling the entire country, the Imperial Guard's soldiers were carefully selected, many of whom had participated in the West Frankish Wars and the Welsh Wars. They were subtly influenced by Vigé and were particularly skilled in setting up camp and attacking cities.

For the next few days, the Imperial Guards were busy logging and requisitioning supplies from nearby villages, paying no attention to the provocations from the Kalmar garrison.

"Ignore them. The sooner we finish the mission, the sooner we can go home."

Based on the estimated progress, Oleg planned to finish Kalmar in a week, followed by Stockholm and other places, and try to return home before winter.

With enough timber, the Imperial Guard began constructing siege equipment. Oleg abandoned catapults and siege towers, investing resources in battering rams and ladders, which had shorter construction times. Once they breached the city walls, the enemy would be utterly helpless against the Imperial Guard's armored soldiers.

However, the day before the machine was to be completed, the gods played a cruel joke on him.

"What did you say? Gothenburg is gone?"

Oleg looked at the disheveled Hafdan and hundreds of berserkers, unable to believe what he was hearing. "Don't blame me, the enemy is too cunning, even more treacherous than Vig," Hafdan said, enduring the guards' contempt, as he recounted his experiences from the past:

After being shaken off by the Imperial Guard, the berserkers were happy to have some free time and looted along the road. The more they gained, the less disciplined they became, and eventually they stopped scouting and were ambushed by the Allied forces.

After the ambush ended, the Allied forces interrogated the prisoners and learned that Gothenburg was undefended. They then traveled through the night, using the prisoners to trick the city gates into opening, and captured the town—the "birthplace" of the Ragnar Group—without major incident.

After His Highness finished speaking, Oleg couldn't think of anything else to say. He silently walked to the side and sat down cross-legged. What else could he say now that things had come to this?
The next morning, Oleg, who had been sitting idly all night, summoned his officers. “We only have enough food for three days. The only way is to capture Kalmar, seize the food and ships, and then send someone to contact the general and try to persuade him to come and clean up this mess.”

Inspired by their commander, the Imperial Guards displayed astonishing willpower, braving the arrows hurled by the defenders and carrying ladders to fiercely attack the stockade walls.

Thanks to the protection of the iron armor, some people were hit by five or six arrows but still managed to climb the long ladders and rush to the top of the city wall to kill indiscriminately.

The defending troops were no match for these well-trained armored soldiers. They retreated from the stockade walls to the streets, and then from the streets to the docks. Except for a small number who escaped by boat, the rest chose to surrender.

Upon taking inventory of the warehouse supplies, Oleg found that there was plenty of food, wheat, iron ingots, and beer.

“Very good. Even if the ships in the port are taken away by the garrison, we can just build new ships from scratch. As long as we have food to eat, the Imperial Guard will not collapse immediately.”

Currently, Hafdan still has several hundred men left, but Oleg has decided to treat them as air—no, they should be described as a bunch of gluttons who only consume food.

"When Hafdan led his army into the mountains to suppress bandits, he suffered a great loss when he was attacked by the Welsh at night despite having a numerical advantage. Now, he has not learned his lesson and has been ambushed by a small group of remnants of the Allied forces, losing Gothenburg in the process."

So, does this mean that if you hang out with berserkers, your IQ will also become stupid?

"Forget it, look at his stupidity, he probably won't win the throne, and I don't need to flatter him. Let's find a way to build ships, seek reinforcements from Nils, and have our two armies join forces to retake Gothenburg, then slowly wear down the allied forces."

Oslo, Norway, the Royal Palace's back garden.

On the advice of the craftsmen, a large number of cold-resistant but heat-sensitive marigolds were planted here. Now in full bloom, thousands of square meters of golden flowers are in full bloom, like layers of golden waves, attracting swarms of wild bees to collect nectar.

Eric, wearing a loose nightgown, sat alone on the steps, gazing blankly at the marigold field before him, and at his daughter Eve and young son Heath playing in the field.

"The marigold is still the prettiest, with its bright colors, which is more in line with the royal family's grandeur. Wait, why did I suddenly drift off into thought?"

In a daze, Eric remembered that he was thinking about the chaos in Denmark and Sweden. It seemed that the shaman was right; it was easy to lose focus as one got older.

After a few minutes of reconsideration, the old king decided to send the royal guards to Zealand. If his brother was still organizing resistance, he might as well provide him with a batch of weapons and silver.

If Horst runs away, then take over Zealand. This island is strategically located and can control the shipping lanes of merchant ships, making it suitable for collecting tolls.

Furthermore, the Swedish allied forces are urging for the next batch of supplies. Perhaps we should delay it for a while to prevent them from completely defeating Hafdan, which would attract Ragnar's army and cause trouble.

(End of this chapter)