Building a Viking Empire with Modern Industry-Chapter 43: Severance Package

The red flare had faded from the sky, but the alarm bells were still ringing.

Ragnar stood in the hallway of the Governor’s Palace. He had ordered the "Palace Staff" (the armed Broken Men) to barricade the lower floors. Now, he needed to check on the most critical component of his machine.

He pushed open the door to the Master Bedroom, which doubled as the Archives.

He expected to find Princess Gyda packing. He expected to see her hiding gold or burning sensitive documents.

Instead, he found her sitting on the floor, surrounded by small canvas bags. She was calmly measuring out black powder with a brass scale.

Scoop. Weigh. Pour.

"Gyda," Ragnar said, stepping over a pile of crossbow bolts. "The mob is at the gates. Einar has brought an army."

Gyda didn’t look up. "I know. The vibration from their marching is rattling the windows. It is annoying."

She tied off a bag of powder and placed it in a crate marked ’High Velocity’.

"Are you... making bombs?" Ragnar asked, a mixture of horror and admiration in his voice.

"I am balancing the accounts," Gyda corrected, standing up and wiping residue from her hands. "Einar wants to steal our assets. I am preparing a liquidation strategy."

She walked over to him. She wasn’t wearing her usual wool dress. She had donned a full set of boiled leather armor, dyed black, with the Valkyrie’s Sting strapped to her thigh. She looked less like a wife and more like a Spec-Ops commander.

Ragnar looked at her. In the reference stories from his past life, this was the moment where the wife would cry and ask if they were going to be okay.

Gyda did not cry. She reached out and grabbed the lapels of his tunic, pulling him down to her eye level.

"Ragnar," she said, her voice steady as a metronome. "Do not die."

"I don’t plan to," Ragnar stammered.

"Good," she continued. "Because if you die, I have to explain to my father why the ’Industrial Empire’ collapsed. And I hate explaining failure."

She reached onto the table and picked up his helmet. It wasn’t a horned Viking helmet. It was a smooth, rounded sallet helm made of tempered steel—a design Ragnar had stolen from the 15th century.

She placed it on his head, buckling the strap under his chin. The metal was cold against his skin.

"Your helmet is polished," she noted, tapping the steel. "Try not to dent it."

Then, she did something unexpected. She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him—a fierce, quick pressure on his lips that tasted of gunpowder and tea.

"Go to the wall, Director," she whispered. "I will secure the palace. If they get past you, they will find that the Mistress of the Ledger is very expensive to fight."

Ragnar looked at her. He felt a surge of emotion that had nothing to do with engineering. This woman was the steel spine of his operation.

"I will hold the line," Ragnar promised.

He turned and walked out of the room. He knew that if he did, he might stay to help her pack the explosives, and he was needed on the ramparts.

...

The Walls of York

Ragnar climbed the stone steps to the main gatehouse. The wind whipped his cloak around his legs. General Bjorn was waiting for him. The giant was leaning on the battlements, eating a turkey leg.

"You look calm," Ragnar noted, joining him at the edge.

"I am hungry," Bjorn shrugged. "Fighting makes me hungry. And Einar..." Bjorn pointed a greasy finger into the darkness. "Einar has brought a lot of food."

Ragnar looked out.

The sight was terrifying. The treeline to the north was alive with fire. Thousands of torches bobbed in the darkness like a river of lava flowing toward the city.

"How many?" Ragnar asked.

"Two thousand, maybe more," Bjorn estimated, tossing the turkey bone over the wall. "Wolf-Skins. Berserkers. And a lot of Saxon mercenaries. They are drunk, they are angry, and they are shouting about ’Old Ways’." 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

Ragnar nodded. 2,000 men. The Industrial Corps had 500 active combatants, plus the Huscarls.

"The Huscarls?" Ragnar asked. "Are they loyal?"

"They are loyal to the winning side," Bjorn grunted. "Right now, they are standing with us because we have the walls. But if Einar breaches the gate... they might remember that they used to drink with him."

It was a fragile defense. If the line broke, the Huscarls would flip, and the Industrial Revolution would end in a massacre.

"We cannot let them touch the gate," Ragnar decided.

He looked at the defensive line. The Torsion Spikes were mounted on swivel bases. The "Broken Men" stood by their machines, their faces pale but determined. They knew what Einar would do to them if he won. There was no mercy for a thrall who dared to hold a weapon.

As the torchlight drew closer, the mob halted about three hundred meters from the wall—just outside standard bow range. But well within Torsion Spike range.

A figure rode forward on a black horse. He carried a white shield, illuminated by a torchbearer.

It was Hakon, Einar’s second-in-command.

"I bring words!" Hakon screamed, his voice carrying over the wind. "From Jarl Einar, the True Lord of the North!"

Ragnar picked up his birch-bark megaphone. "Speak!"

Hakon cleared his throat. He looked arrogant, backed by the sea of torches.

"The Jarl offers you a choice!" Hakon bellowed. "Surrender the city! Surrender the machine-sorcery! Hand over the Bastard Builder and the Witch Gyda!"

Ragnar raised an eyebrow. "Witch? That’s a new one."

"If you do this," Hakon continued, "the Jarl promises mercy! The thralls will be returned to their masters! The schools will be burned! And we will return to the favor of Odin!"

"And if we refuse?" Ragnar shouted back.

"Then we will skin you alive!" Hakon laughed. "We have the numbers! We have the rage! You are hiding behind stone skirts!"

Ragnar lowered the megaphone. He looked at Bjorn.

"They want to return the thralls to their masters," Ragnar repeated.

He turned to the crew of the nearest Torsion Spike. The gunner was a one-eyed man named Leif the Left. He had been a slave in a mine until Ragnar gave him a job.

"Leif," Ragnar asked softly. "Do you want to go back to the mine?"

Leif looked at his machine. He looked at his uniform. He looked at the torchlight reflecting in his single eye.

"No, Director," Leif whispered. "I like my pension."

"Good," Ragnar said.

He lifted the megaphone again.

"Hakon!" Ragnar shouted. "I have a counter-offer!"

Hakon paused, looking confused. "You... you have terms?"

"I offer you a Severance Package!" Ragnar yelled. "Turn around now, and you keep your lives! Step one foot closer, and your employment is terminated! Permanently!"

Hakon laughed. The mob behind him roared with laughter. They slapped their shields. Severance package? What kind of wizard-talk was that?

"You are mad!" Hakon screamed. "We are coming in!"

Hakon turned his horse and waved his sword. The sea of torches surged forward.

"CHARGE!"

The ground shook. Two thousand men began to run. They screamed the names of old gods. They didn’t have siege towers or ladders. They just had raw, suicidal momentum. They intended to storm the gate by sheer weight of bodies.

Bjorn looked at Ragnar. "They are fast."

"Physics is faster," Ragnar said.

He raised his hand.

"Aegis Protocol: Engage," Ragnar ordered calmly. "Scatter-Shot. Zone One."

Bjorn blew his whistle.

On the walls, twenty Torsion Spikes swiveled downward. These weren’t loaded with single armor-piercing bolts. They were loaded with "The Broom" a canister Ragnar had designed, filled with scrap iron, nails, and broken glass. It was a giant shotgun.

"FIRE!" Bjorn roared.

Twenty canisters flew into the darkness. They hit the optimal range of 100 meters and disintegrated.

A cloud of shrapnel thousands of jagged pieces of iron slammed into the charging mob.

The front row of the Berserkers simply evaporated. Men fell mid-scream, their wooden shields shredded like paper. The charge faltered as the ground became slick with blood.

"Reload!" Leif the Left shouted, cranking his winch with the speed of a man fighting for his life. "Zone Two! Elevation down!"

The mob hesitated. They had expected arrows. They could block arrows. They couldn’t block a wall of flying nails.

"They are stopping!" Bjorn cheered. "Look at them! They are confused!"

"They are rebooting," Ragnar muttered. "They don’t understand the data."

But Einar wasn’t done. From the back of the lines, Einar’s voice roared.

"FORWARD! IT IS MAGIC TRICKS! THEY CANNOT RELOAD FAST ENOUGH! GET TO THE BLIND SPOT!"

Einar knew that the Torsion Spikes had a slow rate of fire. If they could close the distance while the machines were cranking, they could get under the angle of the guns.

"They are pushing again!" Bjorn warned. "They are sprinting!"

Ragnar watched the wave of men surge over their fallen comrades. They were getting closer. 80 meters. 50 meters.

"They are entering the dead zone," Ragnar realized. "The Spikes can’t depress that low."

He looked at the gate. If they reached the wood, they would start chopping.

"Bjorn," Ragnar said, his voice cold. "Activate the Public Relations Campaign."

"The... PR campaign?" Bjorn blinked.

"The barrels," Ragnar clarified. "Drop the barrels."

Bjorn grinned. A wicked, nasty grin.

"Squad Four!" Bjorn shouted to the men waiting above the gate arch. "Release the PR!"

Four men tipped massive barrels over the edge.

They smashed onto the cobblestones in front of the gate. They split open, spilling a thick, black, viscous liquid.

Bitumen. Tar. Mixed with the last of the whale oil.

The charging Berserkers slipped. They slid. They piled up against the gate, covered in sticky, black slime.

"What is this?!" Hakon screamed, trying to wipe the tar from his eyes. "Mud? Is it mud?!"

Ragnar leaned over the battlement. He held a lit torch in his hand.

"It is not mud," Ragnar said, looking down at the confused, tar-covered mob. "It is fuel."

He dropped the torch. It fell in slow motion, tumbling end over end.

When it hit the black pool, the world turned orange.

A wall of fire erupted in front of the gate. The Bitumen burned hot and fast. The Berserkers trapped in the "dead zone" scrambled back, screaming as the heat hit them.

"Fall back!" Einar screamed from the rear. "FALL BACK!"

The mob broke. The "Wolf-Skins" turned into frightened puppies, scrambling over each other to get away from the wall of fire and the flying nails.

Ragnar watched them run.

"Assessment?" Ragnar asked Bjorn.

"They are routed," Bjorn said, watching the retreat. "But they aren’t dead. Einar is pulling them back to the woods. He will try again."

"Let him," Ragnar said, turning away from the flames. "Now we know where he is."

He looked at the Industrial Corps. They were cheering. They were hugging their machines.

"Don’t celebrate yet!" Ragnar ordered. "Reload! Inspect your gears! The shift isn’t over!"

He looked toward the Governor’s Palace. He saw a candle flickering in the window. Gyda was watching.

"I told you," Ragnar whispered to the distant light. "I plan to balance the budget."

He turned to Bjorn.

"Get the Huscarls ready. Einar thinks he’s safe in the woods. Tomorrow morning... we go hunting."