Vikings: Lords of the Ice Sea

Chapter 26 Catapult

Having witnessed the power of the trebuchet, Pascal, suppressing his fear, explained his purpose to the pirate leaders.
"Now that both sides have won and lost, there is no point in continuing the fight. We might as well head to Mercia in the south."

Ivar, Bjorn, and the others exchanged glances at the sheriff's suggestion, claiming that he was deliberately playing a trick on them and that they would beat him up and send him back to York.

"Tell your master that if he wants us to leave, he'll have to prepare at least five thousand pounds of silver!"

The next day, Vig directed the pirates to move four catapults and place them two hundred meters away from the city wall.

"Load!"

At his command, the strong men pushed the winch, raising the counterweight box to a launch position ten meters high. The creaking sound of the wooden shaft rubbing together was particularly jarring on the battlefield.

On the other side, the loader pushes a rock weighing about fifty kilograms into a leather sling. The rock's surface is covered with cracks to ensure that it produces as many fragments as possible upon impact.

"Number One is fully loaded!"

"Number four is loaded!"

Seeing this, Vig ordered the city wall to be bombarded. The moment the hammer fell, the two-ton counterweight box crashed down, and the long arm at the other end quickly rose. The projectile broke free from its restraints under centrifugal force, and the shriek that tore through the air was terrifying.

In an instant, three clouds of gray smoke erupted from the east wall of York. One of them hit the crenellation, and the archer hiding behind it was killed by the falling stones before he could even scream. The other two hit the wall, and the third flew over the wall and landed far inside the city, startling a chorus of screams from the women.

"continue."

The bombardment continued from morning until afternoon. As night fell, the four catapults were slowly pushed back to the camp. After a peaceful night, they returned to their original positions and resumed the repetitive and monotonous task of throwing stones.

During this time, a carpenter suggested using fire. After receiving permission, he tried to make a ball out of pine resin, asphalt, and firewood, lit it, and quickly threw it. The fireball drew a fiery red trail in the air, like a world-destroying fire rain summoned by a demon from hell.

Half a minute later, a column of black smoke rose from the city. Everyone agreed that the effect was good and selected two catapults to be used for the fire attack.

In less than half a day, York was filled with swirling black smoke. Due to the narrow streets in the city, the fire spread extremely quickly, forcing Elrod to dispatch half of his soldiers to fight the fire.

“The Vikings learned evil magic from pagan gods.”

During the firefighting operation, Elrod discovered that the people were terrified by this new weapon, so he had to ask the bishop to perform an exorcism ceremony. Amid the chanting of the clergy, he managed to calm the people in the city.

As evening fell, the bombardment came to an end, and Ellaud dragged his weary body back to the palace. While having dinner with the nobles, the vast majority of them suggested going out of the city for a decisive battle.

"Four thousand militiamen have gathered inside the city, far outnumbering the Vikings outside. The advantage is on our side."

"Yes, kill these pirates as soon as possible. We still have a lot of farm work to do back home. If we delay any longer, and it delays the planting of winter wheat in September, there may be a famine next year."

"Even if we can't win, we should at least destroy their catapults. Today, 20% of the houses have been burned down. If this continues for a few more days, the entire city of York will be reduced to ruins."

Dizzy and overwhelmed by his subordinates' nagging, Elrod agreed to send troops the next day.

Upon careful consideration, the concerns of the nobles in various regions were indeed justified. Most of their forces were concentrated in York, leaving the rest of the city vulnerable to sporadic pirate raids. This war could not be delayed any longer. The following morning, Ellaud led 3,500 soldiers out of the city to meet the enemy, but they were immediately bombarded by catapults. The militia's morale plummeted, and disregarding their officers' orders, they surged back into the city, resulting in over two hundred deaths and injuries from the trampling.

After regrouping, Elaud led his soldiers out of the city through the north gate, intending to bypass the barbarians' catapults and attack their camp from the north.

This tactic was indeed effective. Because the catapults were heavy and slow, the four catapults were still crawling along slowly, like an old and senile wild boar, even after the Northumbrian army had formed a shield wall.

"Attack." Elaud drew his sword and pointed it forward.

According to Pascal's intelligence, the northern side of the camp was poorly defended, and the enemy had built many warehouses and kept thousands of livestock, making it the perfect point of attack.

The shield wall advanced, and the arrows fired by the Vikings did not cause too many casualties. Upon reaching the base of the stockade, some militiamen threw grappling hooks, the other end of which was tied to packhorses, and the horses were driven to pull open several gaps.

As soldiers poured into the camp, Elaud was delighted but also slightly taken aback. The Vikings' defenses were so crude.

Soon, nearly three thousand troops stormed the camp. Elrod followed with his remaining sixty armored soldiers and found that the northern area was indeed as Pascal had said, with warehouses everywhere, plus a pen for raising many sheep.

Not far away, Vikings wielding round shields and iron axes were being driven back by the militia and were forced to abandon their warehouses, each carrying small bags of valuables as they fled to the southern region.

"So many silver coins!"

As they ran, glittering silver coins kept scattering out, attracting the attention of most of the militiamen. They looked at each other and then rushed to the various warehouses in unison, desperately grabbing the supplies stored inside.

For peasants, fighting for the king was their sacred duty. Since it was a duty, the militia received no pay and had to provide their own weapons to answer the call; most were equipped with only a rusty iron axe and a square plank. Impoverished to this extent, their thirst for spoils overwhelmed all other thoughts; only one idea remained in their minds—to plunder, to plunder as much as possible.

"This is bad! Tell them to come back immediately!"

The troops were thrown into chaos, and Ellaud sent his guards to inform the nobles and gentry to restrain their militia and orderly withdraw from the camp through the gap.

Driven away by the guards, a small group of militiamen grumbled and marched out, only to be shot down by a hail of arrows. Two surviving guards peered out from behind their shields and discovered a large Viking force of over a thousand gathered outside the camp.

"Your Majesty, we have been ambushed; outside is a Viking shield wall."

Upon hearing the devastating news from his guards, Ellaud nearly fell off his horse. The scene mirrored the ambush he had meticulously planned in Mancuni.

"Damn it, the barbarians have learned my tricks."

With a large number of ambushes deployed outside the camp, Elrod ordered the entire army to continue its southward advance and break out from the south in one fell swoop.

After charging for about a hundred paces, the troops at the front suddenly screamed and sank into the ground. The militiamen behind them stopped in their tracks in fright and looked down to see a spiked trench about four meters wide and two meters deep, with only a few narrow passages leading to the east, west, and south.

Looking at the large number of Viking archers on the other side of the trench, Elaud realized that from this day forward, the fate of the entire Northumbria nation was sealed.

(End of this chapter)