Vikings: Lords of the Ice Sea

Chapter 347 Reinforcements
In the north, Count William of Orléans's entourage is on its way.

From a distance, the team looked like a weary gray serpent, winding its way through desolate fields and bleak woodlands.

More than half of William’s troops were militiamen, dressed in tattered woolen clothes, wearing grey felt hats, and carrying crudely made spears.

After a long march, most of the militiamen's shoes were worn out, some had cracked uppers and were barely tied together with rough straw ropes, and some soldiers' shoes even fell apart completely, so they could only wrap their feet with rags, which made the marching speed extremely slow. Suppressed groans and low curses could be heard from time to time in the ranks.

"Hurry up, you lazybones, don't keep the king waiting!" The officers urged from the roadside on horseback, but to little avail. The militiamen, heads bowed, endured the pain in their feet and the biting cold, moving in step by step, following the backs of those in front of them.

After a long while, the troops stopped and did not move forward. The militiamen immediately slumped down on both sides of the road to rest, refusing to get up no matter how the officers beat and scolded them.

William rode up to the front of the group. In the distance, thousands of Vikings were stationed in a clearing about five hundred paces wide, with a dense forest to the west and a continuous swamp to the east.

The enemy had two flags: the larger one was the black serpent flag of the Kingdom of Britain, and the smaller one was a blue flag with a black castle depicted in the center.

"Blue background and black castle, that's the emblem of the shrike. Is that the First Field Division opposite?"

In recent days, the French army has captured a small number of Viking prisoners and obtained some intelligence on the expeditionary force, which consists of about eight thousand men in each division, all of whom are equipped with iron armor.

"Damn it, why are they blocking the way? Has fighting broken out at Dunworth Manor already?"

William cursed in frustration. Not daring to waste any more time, he ordered four thousand heavy infantry to launch an attack.

The French heavy infantry advanced in a shield wall, encountering only sporadic arrows. As the distance closed to twenty paces, they charged towards the enemy, shouting. The two sides fought for a long time, the Vikings holding their ground and never yielding.

Witnessing large numbers of heavy infantry withdraw from the battlefield, William convened a meeting of commanders, one of whom exclaimed, "The British barbarians are far more formidable than the Norse barbarians."

“Indeed, every barbarian has armor, so it’s not suitable to chop with a sword. Weapons like chain hammers and iron axes seem more practical.”

The next moment, William interrupted the chatter with a grim face, "His Majesty urgently needs our reinforcements, what ideas do you have?"

“Go around.” Someone suggested splitting up the forces, leaving 10,000 militiamen to hold off the enemy, while the remaining troops would bypass the area and head towards Dunworth Estate via another road.

William accepted the advice and dispatched a large number of cavalry to scout the area. At the same time, he used militia to launch a second attack, entangled with the Viking soldiers.

Less than half an hour later, a troop of cavalry returned to report that they had circled around to the westernmost end of the forest, and further west was a large, flat, open area that could accommodate the army.

William: "Are there any Vikings?"

"There are a few rangers on the plains, but there may be more hiding in the forests."

William's mood, which had just improved, soured again. He paced anxiously back and forth on the grass until the scouts on the east side returned. Unfortunately, the swamp was quite large, and if they went around to the east side, they wouldn't be able to reach Dunworth Estate before dark.

William found himself with no choice but to send three thousand cavalry and four thousand well-trained heavy infantry to outflank the enemy to the west. He left three thousand heavy infantry and ten thousand slow-moving militia behind to try and deal with the enemy.

"Hopefully it's not too late."

Perhaps out of concern for the king's safety, the French cavalrymen, after advancing a distance, spontaneously increased their speed, leaving behind the four thousand heavy infantry behind them.

More than ten minutes later, they bypassed the dense and dark forest and came to a large, low-lying clearing planted with rye grass.

Due to poor drainage and the already damp soil, the heavy hooves of tens of thousands of horses trampled and churned the grassland, quickly turning it into a muddy mess.

Just as they were about to leave the low-lying area, a chilling whistling sound suddenly erupted from the silent woods to the east. A dense swarm of arrows, like a rising black cloud, rapidly ascended from above the trees, whistling sharply as they rained down upon the cavalry.

The attackers were all the longbowmen drawn from the First Field Division, totaling 1,800 men. They occupied advantageous positions at the edge of the woods and hurled wave after wave of deadly arrows into the sky.

Arrows could not penetrate the cavalrymen's helmets and chainmail, but they could wound their unprotected mounts. Sharp arrowheads pierced the skin and embedded themselves deep in the flesh. The wounded horses neighed in agony; some reared up, throwing their riders to the ground, while others, terrified, charged wildly through the chaotic ranks, dragging their wounds. The once orderly cavalry formation was instantly thrown into disarray. The fallen horses and riders became obstacles for their comrades, and panicked horses collided and trampled each other, making the muddy ground even more slippery.

Moreover, the British longbowmen focused their fire on the leading cavalry, forcing the enemy to turn back and preventing them from advancing further.

Once the enemy was in irrecoverable chaos, the Vikings attempted to engage in close combat, including two mountain infantry battalions and 1,100 dismounted cavalry (three hundred rangers and eight hundred heavy cavalry temporarily added).

The Vikings at the front, holding their spears level, resembled a moving jungle of spikes, working in close coordination to thrust powerfully at the enemies on horseback. Soldiers in the rear, wielding iron axes and daggers, dealt with cavalrymen stuck in the mud.

French resistance was sporadic and weak; the muddy terrain severely restricted the cavalry's mobility, preventing them from organizing an effective counterattack or escaping.

At this moment, the next four thousand heavy infantry arrived on the battlefield. They tried to rescue the usually arrogant knights. However, the low-lying area had been trampled by horses' hooves and turned into a muddy and slippery swamp. Their boots sank deep into the cold, wet mud, and their originally smooth marching speed immediately slowed down. The soldiers trudged through the mud, each step extremely difficult.

After losing the vast majority of their companions, the remaining four hundred cavalrymen joined up with their allies, and the Vikings ceased their pursuit, allowing the Franks to escape the muddy area.

"A bunch of brainless idiots!"

Upon learning of the reinforcements' crushing defeat, William was so enraged that he nearly fainted. The morale of the entire army was severely damaged by the defeat, and the militia on the edge of the battlefield began to desert in small numbers. The battle was completely unwinnable.

"Regroup and retreat!"

He planned to bypass the swamp on the east side, reinforcing the king from another direction, and if things went badly, he could also make his way back to Orleans.

(End of this chapter)