Vikings: Lords of the Ice Sea

Chapter 99 Rodri

The defenders intended to surrender, so Vig ordered the archers to temporarily cease fire.

Soon after, the fire died down, and a well-dressed middle-aged man came out of the gate and asked to negotiate with the commander in Latin.

"My name is Rodri, King Bovis. May I ask your identity?"

Vig responded in Latin: "Vig, Lord of Tynburg."

Upon learning that this clean-cut young man was the renowned "Serpent of the North," Rhodes' expression was extremely complex. After a long silence, he said in a hoarse voice:

"Since you're in charge of leading the troops, my defeat isn't unjust. What do you want?"

"The Welsh bandits plundered villages in Mercia and even wounded Hafdan. His Majesty lost face, so he ordered me to lead an army to attack the Welsh region until all the nobles submitted."

Sensing the undisguised greed and murderous intent of the soldiers around him, Rodri made a condition:
Povis was nominally loyal to Ragnar, paying twenty deerskins annually, and was not required to travel to Londinium for an audience or answer the call to arms during wartime.

After he finished speaking, Vig stared at Rodri for a long time until sweat beaded on the latter's forehead. Vig suddenly forced a friendly smile and said, "No problem, it's a deal. But you must participate in the next operation and be responsible for persuading the remaining lords to surrender."

"Persuade them to surrender? They won't listen to me."

Realizing the other party's resistance, Vig took a crossbow from the soldier and demonstrated how to operate it.

He pressed the front of the crossbow against the ground, stepped on the metal stirrup with his left foot, and pulled the bowstring up into the slot with both hands.

Next, Vig drew a crossbow bolt and placed it in the quiver, with the fletching close to the notch of the crossbow string.

After loading, he aimed at a handcart fifty meters away and, guided by the crossbow's sights, raised it slightly.

“Watch closely, Lord Rodri.”

After saying that, Vig pressed the metal trigger with his index finger, and the kinetic energy accumulated in the crossbow arm was released instantly, propelling the bolt straight into the handcart.

Amid the cheers of the soldiers, Vig handed the crossbow to Rodri and taught him how to operate it.

At first, Rodri didn't understand the former's intention, until he pulled the trigger and watched the crossbow bolt shoot into the grass not far away. He suddenly realized what was going on and spoke quickly.

"How much does a crossbow cost? How long does it take to build?"

Vig: "Carpenters make the crossbow arms and bodies, blacksmiths make the metal parts, and then they assemble them. The cost is about ten silver pence, and the production time is two weeks. It is most suitable for mass production and equipping the army. Heavy crossbows are a little more troublesome, costing 40 to 60 pence."

"Once the crossbow is made, it only takes me twenty days to train a civilian who has never touched a bow and arrow into a crossbowman. How long will it take your longbowmen? Five years? Ten years?"

Ignoring Rhodes's pale face, Vig handed the crossbow back to the soldier. "Yesterday, you sent a squad of archers to exchange fire with my heavy crossbowmen, and it seems you suffered twenty casualties. In comparison, eleven crossbowmen were hit in vulnerable positions by arrows, nine were wounded, and two died. Do you think it was worth it?"

Clearly, in a battle between longbowmen with ten years of experience and heavy crossbowmen trained in twenty days, the former will inevitably suffer the most.

With a couple of bitter laughs, Rhodes didn't dwell on the matter, but instead asked one last question:
“I admit that in a troop-and-fire exchange, longbowmen cannot defeat heavily armored crossbowmen, but we don’t need to fight head-on. We can retreat into the mountains and fight a protracted war. In unfamiliar terrain, your casualties will increase dramatically.” “My lord, you are wrong again.” In response to this sophistry, Vig revealed his final trump card:
If the Welshmen were to retreat into the mountains, he would not rashly pursue them, but instead build castles in key locations. Then, in May, when the winter wheat was ripe, he would send troops to harvest the Welsh wheat, forcing them into a decisive battle.

"As the High King of Britain, Ragnar has a vast empire and ample manpower and resources to wear you down. In the end, he only wants to save face, and you were the ones who started the war, so you are already very lucky to have achieved this outcome."

Speechless after being refuted, Rodri agreed to submit and join the Vikings in the next military campaign.

After resting for three days, the army headed north to the mouth of the Di River, and then sailed west along the coastline, heading straight for Gwennes's capital, Lanfies.

The town was located in the northwest corner of Wales. At this time, King Sylvie received news of a major Viking invasion and hastily assembled 1,500 militiamen, intending to annihilate this pagan army in one fell swoop.

At dawn, the morning mist, carrying the salty sea breeze, swept over the wooden wall. King Sivir went to the west wall to look out at the sea. The mudflats after the tide receded looked like a moldy woolen blanket. The waves crashed against the rocks, creating bursts of white foam. Some poor people were picking clams with baskets on their backs.

Suddenly, his right eyelid started twitching violently, and as he rubbed his eyes, he caught a glimpse of some dark spots on the horizon.

At first, Sivir thought they were a flock of ravens or seagulls, until the black dots grew larger and larger, revealing the outline of the ship.

"Fifty, no, one hundred Viking longships, ring the bells and assemble the troops!"

The fleet was tearing through the morning mist, with a black dragon flag flying on the mast of the foremost warship, its menacing bow hurtling toward the beach.

The monastery bells rang, and the poor people who were collecting shellfish on the mudflats stood frozen for a moment before throwing down their baskets and fleeing into Lanfies, scattering the shellfish all over the ground.

A few minutes later, the town's east gate slowly closed, leaving only a messy dock.

The captain of the guards approached. "Your Majesty, shall we proceed with the original plan to lead the troops out of the city to meet the enemy?"

Gulu.

Sivir swallowed hard, trembling as she took out her flask and sipped some mead. "This is bad. It's not Hafdan's oak banner on the other side, but the black serpent banner. Damn it, the people coming are the 'Serpent of the North'!"

More than two months after the Battle of the Seine, Sivir heard about the battle from many merchants. Some said that the Serpent of the North used magic to drive the river and sweep away thousands of Frankish soldiers, while others said that the Serpent of the North threw all six thousand prisoners into the sea as an offering to the gods.

Based on various versions of the story, Sivir deduced a relatively reasonable conclusion:

Vig defeated Charlemagne's grandson and routed a Frankish army of tens of thousands.

With her flask securely tucked away, Sivir complained to the guards behind her, "Ragnar is not someone to mess with. I told them not to rob Mercia, but those idiots wouldn't listen. Now they've ruined us."

Before the Viking army even reached the shore, Sivir decided to send envoys out of the city to negotiate.

“Listen carefully, I am willing to nominally submit to Ragnar and pay tribute with a small amount of salted herring and deerskin each year, but I will never go to see the king or participate in his wars. Also, those messy Norse shamans are forbidden from causing trouble in my territory.”

(End of this chapter)