Viking Invasion-Chapter 84 – The Smithy

By late July, Bjorn had sailed north again, bringing word from York.

"I saw the cavalry drilling," he told Rurik, grinning through weariness. "They are formidable indeed. My father intends to travel west next year, to the lands of the Franks. Ha! May fortune grant me the chance to witness a true cavalry charge before my beard turns gray."

He stayed only a day before his ships were laden once more—bales of woolen cloth, casks of ale, and fifty slaves purchased in York. The fleet then slipped downriver, the oars’ rhythm fading into the sea wind.

When Bjorn was gone, Rurik rode toward the southwestern quarter of Tain. The town had grown crowded with refugees from the north, and among them were many smiths. Twelve now worked the forges, each master employing two apprentices. The clang of hammers never ceased; sparks leapt like fireflies beneath the low-beamed roofs.

Of these smiths, eight—including Kadel—were sworn to the lord’s service. Kadel, a brawny man with soot-blackened arms, served as master of the forges, overseeing the repair and production of arms and armor. In quieter hours they also filled civilian orders, the most common being iron plowshares for the Saxon wheel-plow—a tool that had already begun transforming the farmlands.

Rurik stepped into the main smithy, built of brick and stone. The heat struck him like a living thing; the air shimmered with it. The doorway stood open for the sake of air, and within, the forge roared, its bellows puffing as a youth strained at the leather handles. The floor was strewn with hammers, tongs, chisels, and the shards of discarded iron.

"My lord?" Kadel wiped sweat from his neck with a ragged cloth, handing his hammer to an apprentice.

"How many of the two hundred damaged suits of armor are repaired?"

"Eighty-five, my lord," Kadel replied. "We’ve patched the rest as best we can. Do you need them at once?"

"Before September, if possible," Rurik said. "And see to fifty new crossbows. The stores are running low."

He left Kadel to his work and stepped outside, seeking shade. Beyond the forge’s low wall, the land rolled gently northwestward—twenty miles of hills stretching all the way to Edinburgh. Recently, farmers from those outlying villages had come to complain: bandits, they said, had been stealing sheep and cutting down their crops.

Rurik meant to put an end to it before the nuisance grew into a threat.

Inside, the rhythmic din of iron resumed. The apprentices pumped the bellows, the smiths drew white-hot billets from the flames, and the hammering began anew—a ceaseless percussion, ringing with life and labor.

To forge an iron plowshare, the smiths folded and beat the metal again and again, tempering its grain for strength. For swords, they used the old northern craft of 夹钢—"steel-cladding"—wherein two bars of soft iron were wrapped about a core of high-carbon steel, giving the blade both resilience and deadly bite. It was delicate work, the reason an iron sword cost a fortune.

Most of their labor now went into repairing scale armor—small overlapping plates of iron sewn onto leather or linen backing. The damage came chiefly from two causes:

First, heavy axe blows that cracked or bent the scales; second, the slow decay of time and wear, when the threads or linings rotted through.

If the backing was sound, the repair was simple: replace the shattered scales, pierce new holes, and stitch them with flaxen cord. But when the underlayer was torn beyond saving, every scale had to be removed and affixed anew to a fresh hide.

Compared to chainmail, scale armor was crude but practical—faster to make, easier to mend, and sufficient for ordinary men-at-arms. Between the refurbished sets and the stock in the armory, Rurik counted three hundred and fifty suits of usable mail.

"Enough for bandits, if not for kings," he murmured. "Edinburgh can wait."

The heat soon became unbearable. Rurik stepped out again, sweat streaking his temples, and just then a cart arrived bearing raw iron bars. These came from the Pictish lands—specifically from the open-pit mines near Stirling, northwest of Edinburgh—red-brown ore smelted into crude ingots, sold to traders who ferried them south.

He traced a finger along one of the bars. Even in its rawness it gleamed faintly, full of promise. One day, he thought, the north itself will burn with industry—coal and iron together, as it was in later ages.

By September, the rumors proved true. Bandits swarmed the hills, plundering livestock and grain. Each day new villagers arrived at the manor with petitions and tears. When Kadel’s armors were ready, Rurik raised four hundred men for a week of drill, and then, amid the anxious hopes of the townsfolk, they marched northwest into the rugged uplands.

"You’ve come at last, my lord!" cried stout Harry, a country squire with a red face and damp eyes. "Ten of my sheep gone in a single night! They’ve even taken to reaping our barley after dusk. If this goes on, they’ll demand tribute outright!"

Indeed, the bandits had done just that—extorting wheat, livestock, or coin from every landholder according to his acres, threatening to burn the farms of those who refused.

"For my holding alone," Harry went on, wringing his hands, "they want three hundred bushels of grain. If you’d tarried a week more, I’d have raised a militia myself and damned the cost!"

Rurik’s face darkened. "They levy tribute on my own soil? Do they think me dead?"

That night, he chose three nimble hunters to guide them. The next morning, four hundred armed men plunged into the mountains.

Autumn’s chill had begun to creep into the air. The wind carried the scent of berries and wet leaves; red fruits glowed faintly among the thickets. Now and then a grouse burst from the brush in a whirr of wings. The path narrowed until it vanished entirely, forcing the lead men to hack through the undergrowth with their axes. Progress slowed to a crawl.

"How far yet?" Rurik asked.

The foremost hunter hesitated. "Three more ridges, my lord. But the men in iron will move slow. We’ll not reach them till midday tomorrow."

"Tell me," Rurik said as they climbed, "what do you know of these outlaws?"

The man shivered at the memory. "Two hundred, perhaps three. Some paint their skin with indigo dye—symbols and beasts. Looks frightful in the firelight."

At that word—indigo—Rurik understood. These were no mere brigands. They were Picts, Picti in the Latin tongue—"the painted ones."

So the painted tribes had crossed south again. Was it chance, or a deliberate testing of his borders by the northern lords?

They camped on a ledge halfway up the slope, cooking what little salt pork they had left. At dawn they resumed their climb. By midday, as the last ridge fell away, a soft twang whispered through the trees.

Then came the hiss of arrows.

Whssst—whssst!

Feathered shafts burst from the thickets, a storm of them. The painted men screamed their battle-cries, leaping from trunk to trunk, their blue-tattooed bodies flashing between the leaves. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

Yet their ambush failed. The first volley struck iron, glancing away. Some of Rurik’s men stood dazed, half a dozen arrows quivering in their mail, more astonished than wounded.

Rurik roared, voice echoing off the hills. "Don’t just stand there—shoot back!"

Two hundred crossbows twanged as one. The bolts flew in answer, dark and swift.

When the echoes faded, the Picts lay strewn among the roots, their painted limbs still. Five of Rurik’s men were down—two struck through the face, three writhing on the ground, cursing but alive.

The rest reloaded, silent and grim, as the smell of blood mingled with the mountain wind.