Building a Viking Empire with Modern Industry-Chapter 245: We are being mocked

Caliph Harun al-Mu’tasim stepped past the high gates of the capital, leaving the cool, shaded courtyards of his palace for the unforgiving heat of the desert afternoon.

He adjusted his silk robes against the dry wind and cast a brief glance back at the safety of the city walls. Beside him walked General Khalid, flanked by a host of provincial emirs and seasoned palace guards.

They had been asked to leave the comfort of their council chambers by Vanguard Commander Bjorn. The northerner led a detachment of five hundred mercenaries who now stood in quiet formation on the dunes. Bjorn had spent the past week demanding an audience, promising to demonstrate a weapon that would decisively turn the tide of their failing war. Khalid had muttered his grievances the entire walk from the palace, clearly unhappy to be entertaining the claims of a foreign mercenary on such a punishing afternoon.

Khalid rested a hand on the hilt of his Damascus steel scimitar and surveyed the sands. Ahead of them sat a strange, bulky contraption draped in heavy canvas.

"Is this the salvation your Iron Father promises us?" Khalid asked, he kicked a spray of sand toward the silent Viking guards. "We are dragged into the heat to look at a wagon? My Caliph, we are being mocked. We should send this northerner back to his frozen wasteland before he wastes any more of our time."

At Bjorn’s nod, two guards pulled back the canvas. The Abbasid generals stared at the object, their expressions shifting from irritation to profound confusion. To their eyes, it was merely a thick, hollow iron log mounted on a reinforced oak carriage. They had no context for what they were looking at. They were accustomed to warfare fought with muscle, bronze, and the momentum of charging horses.

They did not understand the metallurgical leap sitting before them. The artillery piece had been forged from a single billet of hyper-purified Bessemer steel.

Deep within the polished barrel, precision machinists had carved spiraling grooves. When the weapon fired, expanding gases would force the aerodynamic iron shell to grip those grooves, spinning the projectile as it exited the muzzle. This gyroscopic stabilization prevented the shell from tumbling in the air, allowing it to fly true over vast distances. It was a leap across centuries of technological development, sitting quietly in the desert sun.

Bjorn stood by the cannon, resting a gauntleted hand on the breech. He did not draw a weapon, nor did he raise his voice to match Khalid’s aggression. He simply watched the Arab general with a steady, calculating gaze.

"You measure strength by the flashing of swords and the stamping of horses," Bjorn said, "Because of that, you are blind to the mechanics of this new age. We do not fight with mere muscle anymore, General. We fight with the harnessed physics of the earth."

Harun al-Mu’tasim felt a bead of sweat roll down his neck, though it had little to do with the heat. His empire was fracturing. In the north, the Roman Cataphracts were advancing through Anatolia. The Byzantine Emperor had unleashed waves of heavily armored cavalry, sweeping aside the Caliphate’s provincial garrisons with methodical precision. Arrows glanced off their armor, and infantry lines broke under their charges. The Caliph needed a miracle, even if it came from a foreigner.

"Commander Bjorn," the Caliph said, trying to keep the tremor out of his voice. "The Cataphracts are a wall of iron. They are currently slaughtering our best men in the northern passes. If this device cannot halt their advance, my dynasty will not survive the decade."

"Then observe," Bjorn replied, turning his back to the sovereign. "And watch your enemies become obsolete."

Bjorn signaled to his crew. A man hurried forward from the rear of the formation. It was Master Wei, an alchemist captured from the Tang dynasty during the Iron Empire’s eastern campaigns. Wei dropped to his knees in the sand beside the carriage, his hands moving with practiced, nervous efficiency as he adjusted the heavy steel firing mechanism.

Loading the weapon was a matter of precise chemistry. While the Tang engineers had possessed the basic formula for black powder for years, their early mixtures were inconsistent, often resulting in weak, fizzling deflagrations. The Iron Father’s foundries had changed that. They had refined the saltpeter to a ninety-nine percent purity and processed the ingredients into damp, compressed corned grains. This specialized powder burned with uniform consistency, capable of releasing a massive volume of expanding gas in a fraction of a millisecond. Packed behind an aerodynamic shell, the kinetic transfer of energy was devastating.

Wei measured the corned powder from a leather satchel, packing it tightly into the chamber. He slid the heavy, conical iron shell into place. With a solid, metallic thud, he locked the breech closed. His task complete, the alchemist scrambled backward and covered his ears, pressing himself low to the sand.

Bjorn stepped forward, holding a smoldering slow-match. He turned back to the royal entourage.

"General Khalid," Bjorn called out. "You claim the Roman Cataphracts are mountains of impenetrable iron. Let us see how a mountain fares against the Iron Empire."

Bjorn pointed toward the distant horizon. Roughly a mile away, a jagged rocky peak rose from the desert floor, a familiar landmark to the locals. The Arab generals squinted against the glare of the sun. They looked from the peak back to the steel tube, trying to understand the correlation. No catapult or trebuchet could throw a stone even a tenth of that distance. The concept of striking a target a mile away was entirely foreign to them.

"Fire," Bjorn said. He pressed the burning match to the touchhole.

The sound hit them before they could comprehend the flash. The blast was a concussive wave of atmospheric pressure that punched the breath out of every man standing on the dune. A deafening roar shattered the quiet of the desert, echoing for miles in every direction. Thick, acrid white smoke billowed outward, instantly smelling of burning sulfur.

The cannon kicked backward violently on its carriage, digging deep trenches into the sand from the sheer force of the recoil. The projectile was completely invisible to the naked eye, a blur of steel tearing through the air at supersonic speed, leaving a high-pitched shrieking sound in its wake.

The Abbasid court stared at the distant peak. For a long moment, nothing happened.

Then, the mountain simply broke apart.

The armor-piercing shell struck the ancient, sun-baked stone with a massive accumulation of kinetic force. A large section of the peak visibly collapsed, erupting outward in a cloud of pulverized rock and dust. Boulders the size of wagons tumbled down the steep slopes, altering the silhouette of the landscape forever. Several seconds later, the deep, rolling boom of the impact finally washed over the valley, vibrating through the soles of their boots.

Silence descended upon the dunes, save for the distant, fading rumble of falling rock.

The royal procession stood frozen. Then, one by one, the reality of what they had just witnessed took hold. Several guards dropped to their knees, murmuring prayers into the hot sand. Weapons slipped from loosened grips, clattering uselessly against the desert floor.

General Khalid, who had mocked the northerners only minutes prior, fell to his hands and knees. He stared at the ruined peak, his mind struggling to process the impossible physics he had just seen. To strike a mountain from a mile away and shatter its peak was an act of divine wrath, not warfare.

"Dark magic," Khalid whispered, his voice trembling. He looked up at Bjorn, his face pale beneath the desert sun. "It is the fire of the underworld. We have allied ourselves with demons."

Bjorn stood calmly amidst the drifting, sulfurous smoke. He looked down at the kneeling military elite of the Caliphate.

"It is not magic, General," Bjorn said, his voice cold and precise. "It is industry. It is the mathematical certainty of steel and powder. And I have brought an entire battery of these weapons to deploy against the Romans."

Harun al-Mu’tasim stared at the collapsed mountain, a cold realization settling over him. His magnificent dynasty, with its traditions of honorable cavalry charges and finely crafted swords, was fundamentally obsolete. The rules of power had just been rewritten in a storm of fire and shrapnel. The Middle East belonged to the Iron Father now, regardless of who sat on the throne in Baghdad.

Discarding his royal dignity, the Caliph stepped forward and grasped the sleeve of Bjorn’s coat.

"Save us," the Caliph said, his voice tight with desperation. "Deploy your weapons. Break the Byzantine Emperor’s forces. I will give you anything you require. Gold, land, unimpeded access to our coastal ports. Just wipe the Cataphracts from the map, and the Abbasid Caliphate will stand as your ally."

Bjorn nodded slowly, securing the dominance of the North without having drawn a single blade.