Building a Viking Empire with Modern Industry-Chapter 244: Grenade

Weeks had passed since King Ragnar oversaw the loading of rifled cannons into the bellies of his ironclad ships. Departing the freezing docks of City Titan, the primitive steamships crossed the Atlantic, their reinforced steel prows cutting effortlessly through the heavy waves.

Powered by boiling water and burning coal, they bypassed the limitations of wind and fragile wooden hulls. Belching thick clouds of black smoke into the sky, they carried elite Viking mercenaries and Tang laborers to establish the empire’s first overseas military base on the Levantine coast. The industrialized North had finally arrived in the Middle East.

In the sprawling throne room of the Palace of the Green Dome in Baghdad, the geopolitical reality was fracturing. Caliph Harun al-Mu’tasim hurled a jewel-encrusted goblet against a marble pillar, shattering it.

The Abbasid Caliphate was being crushed in a dual siege. By allowing a hundred-thousand-strong Tang expeditionary force to march through his lands, the Caliph had severely strained his agricultural base.

Smelling blood in the water, Emperor Basil of the Byzantine Empire had recognized the vulnerability and unleashed his forces across the Anatolian border. Tens of thousands of iron-clad shock cavalry were systematically burning and annexing the wealthiest Abbasid frontier cities while the Caliph’s main army managed the eastern threat.

"The Roman cavalry has breached the walls of Edessa, Majesty," Vizier al-Fadl said,

"Tarsus is lost to the double-headed eagle. And the scouts report that the Iron Father’s promised reinforcements have finally arrived at the palace gates."

The doors of the throne room swung open. Vanguard Commander Bjorn entered the incense-filled court with a slow stride. Clad in blackened plate armor, he was followed by a mere detachment of his elite Viking Grenadiers... a few hundred heavily muscled warriors carrying wood-and-iron repeating muskets slung over their shoulders.

The gathered Arab generals, provincial emirs, and merchants stared in stunned silence at the small contingent. Then, mocking laughter erupted from the military elite.

"Is this a jest?" demanded General Khalid, gripping the hilt of his Damascus steel scimitar as he stepped forward.

"The great Iron Father of the North sends us five hundred men to fight thirty thousand Byzantine Cataphracts? Their detachment will be trampled to dust in a single charge." Khalid sneered, gesturing dismissively at the Vikings. "Cataphracts are mountains of iron. Both rider and warhorse are encased in lamellar steel. Your primitive axes will bounce off their armor, and their lances will skewer you."

"Do you even know what a Cataphract is, you northern savage?" Khalid sneered, spitting on the marble floor near Bjorn’s boots.

"Both the rider and the massive warhorse are completely encased in heavy lamellar steel! Your primitive axes will simply bounce off their armor, and their heavy lances will skewer you like roasted pigs! Have you sailed across the entire world simply to die a meaningless death in our throne room?"

Listening to the mocking tirade of his own general, the Caliph felt his momentary flash of hope instantly curdle into a furious, suffocating despair. He glared down at these northern barbarians, his chest heaving violently as the horrific realization washed over him. The Iron Father had betrayed them...

"I traded my empire’s sacred dignity for salvation, and you bring me a handful of men?!" Harun shouted in furious despair,

"Khalid is right! The Roman cavalry is a tidal wave of impenetrable iron! They will run you down before you even understand what has hit you! Get out of my sight, you useless northern dogs!"

Remaining entirely unbothered by the hysterical screaming of the dying eastern court, Bjorn did not draw his broadsword, nor did he raise his deep, rumbling voice.

Smiling a cold, terrifyingly confident smile that sent a sudden, involuntary shiver directly down the Caliph’s spine, the Viking Vanguard Commander stepped forward, entirely ignoring the furious, highly trained Arab palace guards who instantly leveled their razor-sharp spears directly at his chest!

Bjorn pulled out a single, perfectly spherical object forged from dull cast iron. It was roughly the size of an apple, heavily scored with deep, grid-like geometric grooves, and featured a strange, brass-ringed pin protruding from the top.

Bjorn bypassed the screaming generals, walking straight up the carpeted steps toward the elevated royal dais.

The Arab generals genuinely thought it was a child’s toy, a heavy iron paperweight, or perhaps a strange, primitive tribute token from the frozen wastelands... But that is a high-explosive, timed-fuse fragmentation grenade, packed to the absolute brim with Ragnar’s newly engineered, hyper-purified, corned black powder.

When that specialized powder detonates inside a deeply scored cast-iron shell, the immense, rapidly expanding atmospheric pressure causes the metal to instantly shatter exactly along those geometric fault lines. It violently projects hundreds of razor-sharp, jagged shrapnel fragments outward at supersonic speeds! It is literally a handheld, pocket-sized claymore mine designed specifically to penetrate heavy armor, shred muscle tissue, and completely eradicate human life in a devastating, three-hundred-and-sixty-degree radius!

Can you even begin to comprehend the sheer, pants-wetting terror of handing a medieval king a live modern explosive while he is busy insulting you?

Bjorn looked down into the eyes of the most powerful man in the Middle East.

"My brother, the Iron Father, does not deal in jests, nor does he send his valuable men to die," Bjorn stated, completely silencing the mocking laughter of the Arab generals.

"You look at my small detachment and you see weakness, entirely because you still measure military strength in the pathetic amount of flesh you can throw at a stone wall."

Tapping the surface of the fragmentation grenade with a finger, Bjorn leaned closer to the Caliph.

"This tiny piece of metal contains more concentrated, destructive fury than a thousand of your finest, most expensive horsemen, when my Viking Grenadiers march onto the Anatolian battlefield, they do not fight with primitive swords, nor do they cower behind wooden shields. They will hurl a thousand of these iron orbs directly into the tightly packed, charging ranks of the Roman Cataphracts!"

Turning his head slightly, Bjorn locked eyes with the suddenly pale General Khalid, ensuring the arrogant commander heard every single word.

"It will shatter their bones, it will rip the flesh from their massive warhorses, and it will instantaneously transform their impenetrable, disciplined formation into a massive, screaming slaughterhouse of blood, fire, and absolute terror! I promise you, Caliph, this tiny piece of metal will entirely exterminate the Roman cavalry, and Emperor Basil will weep tears of blood before the week is out!"

Staring at theiron sphere resting mere inches from his trembling, jewel-adorned hand, the Caliph swallowed hard.

The unshakeable certainty radiating from the Viking Commander’s voice was far more terrifying than any shouted threat or drawn blade could ever be.