The Dream of the Iron Dragon: An Alternate History Viking Epic (Saga of the Iron Dragon Book 1)

by Robert Kroese

  Reyes and Gabe sat and drank their ale while Hrólfr and Sigurd negotiated. At last Sigurd turned to them with a sigh and said, “Much silfr.”

  “He wants us to pay for the land?” Reyes asked. “I thought he was getting one tenth of the spoils from raiding?” Sigurd had summarized the content of their previous meeting.

  “Tenth, yes,” Sigurd said. “And much silfr.”

  “How much?” Gabe asked.

  Sigurd frowned, then held up ten fingers. He made fists and then made ten fingers again.

  “A hundred?” Reyes said.

  Sigurd shook his head, then made ten fingers again. “Hundred.”

  “Ten hundreds?” Reyes gasped. “He wants a thousand pieces of silver?”

  “Thousand silfr,” Sigurd repeated, nodding his head. Then he held up a finger. “One Moon.”

  “A thousand silver pieces in one month,” Gabe said. “I’m not an expert on Viking economics by any means, but that sounds like a hell of a lot.”

  “He knows we’re up to something,” Reyes said.

  Gabe nodded. “He knows we’ve got enemies, and he’s going to make us pay.”

  “Will he accept payment in kind?”

  “I would imagine so. We may be at his mercy in terms of prices, but clothing, cookware, farm animals… I’m sure he’d take them. Worse case scenario, we sell them to someone else in the valley.”

  Sigurd pointed to one of the other areas they’d marked on the map—their second choice—and then held up seven fingers.

  “Seven hundred,” Reyes said.

  Sigurd nodded.

  “Hell,” Reyes said. “If we’re going to promise seven hundred, we might as well go all out and get our first choice. We’re probably screwed either way.”

  “I don’t think we want to be in debt to the future Duke of Normandy for a thousand silver pieces we can’t pay back. We could probably sack ten villages and not find a thousand pieces of silver. You saw the way Dag’s eyes lit up when he saw those rolls of solder. Those things are the equivalent of what, twenty-five silver coins each? These people don’t see sums like that often.”

  “Can we haggle him down?”

  Sigurd seemed to understand the question. He turned to Hrólfr and spoke again. Another curt exchanged followed, after which Sigurd turned back to Hrólfr. He held up two fingers.

  “Two hundred?” Reyes asked hopefully.

  “Two Moon,” Sigurd said.

  “He’s going to give us two months to pay it,” Gabe said.

  “What do you think?”

  “I think if we had twice as many men, we might be able to do it. But with this crew?” He shook his head.

  Reyes turned back to Sigurd. “Should we take it?” she asked, hoping her tone was clear.

  Sigurd sighed. He picked up the map from the table and pointed at a wide open space. Reyes remembered the area. It was just a wide open field dotted with copses of birch. They’d never be able to hold it if Harald attacked. Sigurd moved his finger to their preferred site. “Two Moon,” he said.

  “Take the one site now and save up for the other,” Reyes said. “Hope that our friend doesn’t decide to visit in the meantime.”

  “I don’t like it,” Gabe said.

  “Do you like it more or less than owing a money we can’t possibly come up with to a guy who will kill us if we don’t pay?”

  Gabe sighed. “Take the wide open parcel. We’ll get used to sleeping with our eyes open, I guess.”

  “All right,” Reyes said. She tapped the parcel Sigurd had indicted. “Take it.”

  Sigurd nodded. He turned to Hrólfr and began to speak, but as he did so the door to the room opened. A sentry entered and announced, “Skip!” Reyes knew that word: ship.

  Hrólfr marched outside and the others followed him. A snekkja, roughly the size of Ísbátr, was being pushed onto the muddy bank. Bylgjasverð had arrived, and all thirty-seven Norsemen appeared to be on board. Gabe grinned at Reyes. She smiled at him and turned back to Sigurd. “Tell him we’ll take the parcel on the hill.”

  Chapter Thirty-four

  The Norsemen spent most of the next week felling trees. The land at the top of the hill had to be cleared before it was usable, and they were going to need the lumber. Most of the trees in this area were maples and other short-trunked trees, not suitable for building walls or fences, but there were uses for this sort of wood as well. Closer to the river were stands of birch and beech, and scattered firs. While the area was being cleared, they slept on the boats. There were open areas that would have sufficed as a campsite, but the nights were cold and the Norsemen preferred to sleep in close quarters. Reyes suspected they also didn’t completely trust Hrólfr’s assurances of safety. On the boats, anchored a stone’s throw off the bank, they felt safe.

  Once the trees at the summit of the hill had been cut down, the Norsemen dug around the stumps until the roots were exposed nearly a meter down. They hacked away as much of the stumps as they could, and burned the rest. It was slow work, as they were using shovels with wooden blades that had been hacked out of maple trunks. After they’d filled the holes, they raked the area smooth and tamped it flat. Next, a trench was dug at the perimeter, which was partially filled with gravel brought up from the riverbed. Poles hewn from beech or fir were placed vertically in the trench, and then the trench was filled the rest of the way with more gravel. The poles were carefully selected and hewed so that they fit together snugly, with no gaps, and secured together with thin leather straps. The leather came from deer and other animals in the area; a small contingent of men had been tasked with keeping the settlement supplied with meat. The end result was an impenetrable wall nearly three meters high, topped with spikes.

  Several men grumbled about the time being spent on defenses. These were mostly the short-timers, those who were planning on returning to Norway in the fall. The short-timers were already upset about the thousand silver owed to Hrólfr, which came to twelve silver pieces per man. Reyes and Sigurd had mitigated the problem somewhat by getting Hrólfr to extend the deadline by another month and prorating the amount owed per man: each man would pay four silver per month, due at the end of the month. Those who planned to stay through the winter would owe another six silver at the end of the third month. Whether this solved the problem or merely distributed the discontent more evenly was hard to say. Additionally, they ran the risk of a majority of men opting to depart in the fall, leaving those who remained with an outsized balance they couldn’t pay. There was nothing for it, though; they would just hope the summer’s raiding was successful enough to cover their debts and tempt a sizeable contingent to stay.

  Hrólfr had also agreed not to begin extracting his tenth of the spoils until after the three month deadline. That meant that any spoils they garnered before midsummer could be applied directly to their debt. Before the raiding could even start, though, they needed a place to secure their treasure. That was the story Sigurd had given the men, anyway. The real purpose of the wall was to stave off an attack by Harald. A week after their arrival, no news had come of an impending attack, nor any news of the situation in Norway at all. Reyes kept expecting Hrólfr to show up one day in a rage, demanding to know why they hadn’t told him Harald wanted their heads on a plate, but so far everything was quiet.

  Once the fence was complete and a gate had been constructed, the tents and the rest of the men’s belongings from the ship were brought inside. More permanent lodgings would need to be constructed before winter, but for now, the tents would do. Soon, the weather would warm and the close quarters of the ships would be uncomfortable for sleeping.

  As the fortifications neared completion, Sigurd took Birgir and twenty-nine other men aboard Ísbátr for a reconnaissance expedition. They returned five days later with a report on optimal targets for raiding. From what she could understand of Sigurd’s report, Reyes deduced that the Seine Valley didn’t offer much in the way of prospects. Earlier arrivals had looted the towns and cathedrals; only the
well-fortified city of Rouen remained relatively untouched. Hrólfr undoubtedly had plans for that city, but such a prize was out of reach for a small band like Sigurd’s.

  More tempting were the towns along the Orne and the Douve, farther to the west. Sigurd announced his intention to launch a raiding expedition with both ships in three days. The men spent most of that time whittling spears and arrows and mending armor and shields. Gabe insisted that the pistols be left at the fort. They couldn’t spare the ammo, and using them would draw undue attention. The Norsemen would have to earn their spoils the old-fashioned way.

  Gabe was tempted to go along with the raiders, but relented to Reyes’s demands that he stay behind. O’Brien was healing well, but he was in no shape to go on a raiding expedition, and some men needed to remain behind to guard the fort in any case. Sigurd and the others departed, leaving the spacemen behind with seven Norsemen.

  Reyes had begrudgingly accepted that raiding would be necessary to pay their debt to Hrólfr. She didn’t like it, but there was no way around it. If they didn’t come up with the silver, Hrólfr would evict them from Normandy, and they had nowhere else to go. For once, she was glad Slater wasn’t with them: she’d never have gone along with the raiding. Slater had been too soft-hearted for this life.

  She was also thankful for once that she didn’t speak the Norsemen’s language: she suspected she didn’t want to hear what sorts of exploits they were planning, to say nothing of their bragging after the fact. She did make one demand of Sigurd: the men were not to bring any captives back to the fort. Sigurd agreed, but she suspected this was more out of his own practical concerns than deference to her scruples: at this point, slaves would just be more mouths to feed.

  While the raiding party was gone, Gabe and the other Norsemen began planning for building a small watchtower inside the perimeter fence, from which they would be able to see boats coming up the river. The tower would be supported by four long poles cut from the trunks of firs that had been hauled up the hill a few days earlier. The floor of the building would have to be at least ten meters above ground level for the men to see over the treetops. The building itself would be small, allowing for a maximum of four archers. The primary purpose was not defense, but simply to provide warning in time for men to get inside the fort and secure the gate.

  Reyes, meanwhile, sketched out plans for a radio transmitter. She would need to build a receiver as well, but the main thing was to be able to transmit a signal capable of reaching Andrea Luhman when she attained orbit in a little over a month—even if that signal was only Morse code for “We’re still alive.” Without some kind of indication the landing party survived, there was a risk that Mallick would decide the mission had failed and begin the long, probably futile, journey back to IDL space. Reyes guessed they would wait a couple weeks at least, but she didn’t want to take any chances. Mallick might still decide to scrap the mission even if they successfully made contact, but at least it would be an informed decision.

  The suit radios would suffice for a receiver; all she needed was an antenna capable of picking up signal from space. An iron rod attached to the roof of the guard tower would work fine. Rigging a transmitter was a tougher problem: there was no simple way to amplify the signal from the suit transmitters. Doing so would require vacuum tubes or transistorized diodes, neither of which were in ready supply in ninth century France.

  So she would have to build a transmitter from scratch. The main thing she needed was a large quantity of conductive metal, preferably copper. She intended to build what was known as a “spark gap transmitter,” which used an arcing electrical current to generate a radio wave. Spark gap transmitters were inefficient and imprecise, but it would work for her purposes. If she could run sufficient voltage through such a device, it would theoretically be capable of transmitting a simple signal several hundred kilometers into space. If Andrea Luhman scanned the surface near the crash site for radio signals, it would most likely pick up the broadcast. Transmitting a decipherable audio signal would be beyond the capabilities of such a transmitter, but transmitting in Morse would be no problem. Reyes had given Sigurd specific instructions to get her some copper if at all possible.

  Sigurd and the others returned a week later, triumphant from their raiding. None of the men had been killed; three had minor injuries. They brought little in the way of coins, but they were laden down with candlesticks, jewelry, silks, furs, various tools and—most importantly from Reyes’s perspective—several pieces of copper cookware. The spoils were brought to a central meeting area inside the fence. When Reyes had taken the items she needed—including a hammer, tongs, and several of the higher-quality copper items—Sigurd ordered the rest of it brought to Hrólfr. He and his men returned from Hrólfr’s several hours later with bad news: all the spoils they’d delivered were worth less than a tenth of what they owed. Hrólfr gave them the option of trying to sell the goods for silver, but he assured them they would not do much better anywhere in Normandy, and Sigurd believed him. At this rate, they’d have to raid almost constantly to cover the balance by the deadline, which was now less than six weeks away.

  Hrólfr had indicated he might be willing to push the deadline back another month if they made significant progress paying down the balance over the next few weeks, but that required remaining on good terms with him. Any day news of their fugitive status might arrive from Norway, and from that point on they wouldn’t be able to count on any favors from Hrólfr. If they were going to renegotiate the terms of their deal, they needed to do it soon. And that meant they needed to show Hrólfr they were serious. So it didn’t surprise her when Gabe suggested the three spacemen meet to discuss how they were going to come up with the money. They went for a walk along the riverbank one afternoon.

  “We’re going to have to get more personally involved in the raiding,” Gabe said.

  “How will that help?” Reyes said. “You have a way of making raids more lucrative?”

  “I have some thoughts. We need to hit higher value targets. Forget these little towns.”

  “That’s going to require different tactics,” Reyes said.

  “We do have more powerful weapons we could be using,” O’Brien said.

  Reyes shook her head. “We need to save the guns for emergencies. We have limited ammo and they draw too much attention.”

  “Guns won’t help much anyway,” Gabe said. “We can’t use them to threaten force, because nobody knows what they are. All guns do is help us kill more efficiently. They won’t change the fact that the people we’re killing don’t have anything worth killing them over.”

  “Jesus, Gabe,” Reyes said. “How many more people are you planning to kill anyway?”

  “None, if I can help it. What do you know about making bombs?”

  “From scratch? Not much.”

  “I could make a bomb,” O’Brien said.

  They turned to him.

  “I got a master’s degree in chemistry before I switched to geology. What kind of bomb do you want?”

  “Something to knock a hole in the wall around Rouen.”

  Reyes frowned. “Did you miss the part about not wanting to draw attention?”

  “We’re going to have to risk it, Reyes. If we don’t come up with that money, we’re dead.”

  Reyes sighed. “What kind of bomb are we talking about, O’Brien?”

  “Black powder would be easiest to fabricate,” O’Brien said. “We just need charcoal, sulfur and potassium nitrate. Charcoal is easy. We could find raw sulfur around a volcanic vent or hot spring, if there are any around.”

  “And potassium nitrate?” Reyes asked.

  “That’s easy too. Unpleasant, but easy. You can get it from manure. We’ll need a lot of all three. Black powder isn’t particularly powerful. Figure we need a barrel full to be sure.”

  “How long would a bomb like that take to fabricate?” Reyes asked.

  O’Brien shrugged. “We can make enough charcoal in a few hours. Just need to
get a fire going and then starve it of oxygen. Throw some green pine branches or something on top. Saltpeter is a matter of manpower. Basically we need to send men around to every barn or latrine in the area. Anywhere there’s a pile of shit that’s been sitting a while. Saltpeter is the white crystals that form on top. With the number of big Norsemen and domesticated animals in this valley, there’s got to be plenty of it around. Figure twenty men could collect all we need in a day. The sulfur will be a little trickier. Any idea what the Norse word for ‘hot spring’ is?”

  “Let’s find out,” Gabe said.

  ****

  They found Sigurd sitting by the fire, sharpening his sword with a piece of flint. Gabe did his best to explain to him what they were attempting to do. Sigurd had picked up a fair amount of English, but he seemed perplexed by the idea of building a bomb to get into Rouen.

  “Like a gun,” Gabe said. “But bigger.” He spread his arms apart. “Big boom. Make a hole in the wall.” He pointed at the perimeter fence.

  “Big boom,” Sigurd repeated.

  Gabe turned to Sigurd. “We are looking for a place where there is hot water.”

  “Hot?” Sigurd asked.

  Gabe pointed to the fire. “Nei kalt.”

  “Heitt vatn?” Sigurd asked.

  Gabe nodded. “That’s right. Heitt vatn.”

  Sigurd’s brow furrowed. He pointed to the fire.

  “No,” Gabe said. “Heitt vatn… in the ground. Like river, but hot. Heitt áin.”

  Sigurd nodded, seeming to understand. “Hver,” he said.

  “If you say so,” Gabe replied. “Hvar? Hvar hver?”

  Sigurd shrugged. He called to Agnar, who stood a few paces away. Agnar answered. They had a brief exchange, after which Agnar nodded and walked away. “Ask other men,” Sigurd said.

  “Good,” Gabe said. “Ask the neighbors.”

  “Wait!” O’Brien called. Agnar stopped to look quizzically at O’Brien. “We’re looking for springs that smell like sulfur. Like rotten eggs.”