Erik let out a chuckle, "Well, we could sit in this city for six months and grow fat. Let them try to starve us."

"They will not just wait," Bjorn corrected, "Think about it, Erik. If you cannot attack a superior weapon in the daylight... when do you attack?"

Erik’s eyes widened slightly. "At night. When we cannot see to aim the cannons."

"Exactly," Bjorn smiled grimly.

"Then we will keep the men awake," Erik declared, resting his hand on his axe. "We will chop their heads off as soon as they poke over the ledge."

"Why fight them with axes when we have the fire?" Bjorn replied. He turned around and shouted down the wall.

"Halvar! Julian! Come here!"

His left-hand marshal and the young Frankish farmer quickly jogged over.

"Julian, you know this city better than I do," Bjorn said. "I need you to gather every single torch, lantern, and barrel of lamp oil you can find. I want them brought to the walls immediately."

"Torches, Commander?" Julian asked, wiping soot from his forehead.

"Yes," Bjorn nodded. "When the sun goes down tonight, I do not want a single shadow touching the base of this wall. You will throw burning torches into the dried moat. You will hang lanterns from long wooden poles over the edge. If the Dukes want to sneak up to our walls in the dark with their little wooden ladders, I want the ground lit up brighter than the midday sun!"

Julian grinned, "I will get it done, Commander! They won’t be able to hide a single mouse down there!"

As Julian and Halvar rushed off to organize the lighting, Erik leaned against the brass cannon, looking genuinely impressed.

"You have become a very sneaky man, Bjorn. Ragnar has taught you well."

"Oh, you have no idea," Bjorn chuckled, "Lighting up the walls is just the first part of the trap. The second part is a little gift Ragnar gave me right before we boarded the ships."

Bjorn gestured to a group of his most trusted Northern soldiers standing near a stack of wooden crates. At Bjorn’s signal, the men carefully opened the crates and pulled out dozens of small, tightly sealed clay jars. Attached to the top of each jar was a thick loop of hemp rope.

Erik frowned, looking at the ordinary clay pots. "Are we going to offer them some wine?"

"Not wine," Bjorn said, tapping the side of a jar. "Black powder. They are sealed tight with wax."

"But... how do we light them?" Erik asked, scratching his braided beard. "There are no fuses attached. Do we just drop them on the knights’ heads and hope the clay breaks?"

"No, Erik. That is the genius of it," Bjorn explained, "Ragnar told me to lower these jars down the outside of the stone walls using the ropes. We will let them hang just a few feet off the ground, right in the exact spots where an enemy would naturally try to place a scaling ladder."

"If the Frankish warriors march up to the walls tonight," Bjorn continued, "our musketeers won’t need to aim at the men in the dark. All they have to do is aim at the clay jars hanging against the wall."

Erik gasped, "By the Gods... The lead ball from the musket will pierce the clay, create a spark against the stone, and ignite the powder instantly!"

"Exactly," Bjorn grinned. "It will blow up right in their faces!"

Erik threw his head back and laughed, clapping his hands together. "Ragnar is a terrifying man! To turn a simple clay jar into a weapon of destruction! The Frankish lords are going to think we have summoned demons from the underworld!"

As the soldiers began carefully lowering the gunpowder-filled jars down the sides of the battlements, Bjorn looked back out toward the distant enemy camp.

Far out on the plains, the Frankish trebuchet crews were preparing their massive wooden catapults. They were standing nearly two hundred and fifty yards away, completely relaxed. The commanders were drinking water from leather skins, taking their time loading the heavy boulders.

Bjorn’s eyes narrowed. He did not like the idea of giant rocks hitting his new city walls, even if they were far away.

"Halvar!" Bjorn called out.

"Yes, Commander?"

"The Duke’s trebuchet crews look entirely too comfortable out there," Bjorn noted, pointing a finger toward the distant catapults. "I think it is time we show the Great Duke exactly how far our reach extends."

Halvar smiled, immediately turning to the three thousand musketeers standing at attention along the wall.

"First rank! Step forward!" Halvar shouted, his whistle piercing the air.

One thousand men stepped up to the stone ledge. They rested their long iron muskets on the battlements, clicking their flint levers back.

"Aim for the siege engines!" Bjorn commanded, "Try your range!"

Down on the plains, Count Lothair was sitting on his horse near the trebuchets, sipping wine and watching the walls of Calais.

He saw the tiny figures of the Northern soldiers lining up along the top of the wall.

"Fools." Lothair sneered to his lieutenant. "They are wasting their arrows. A longbow cannot reach half this distance."

Up on the walls, Bjorn dropped his hand. "Fire!"

A rolling, deafening wave of sharp thunder erupted from the top of the wall. A massive cloud of white smoke instantly obscured the battlements, but the deadly lead balls had already left the barrels.

Traveling faster than the speed of sound, the one thousand lead projectiles crossed the massive expanse in a heartbeat.

Thick beams of the catapults splintered and shattered under the immense impact. Frankish engineers screamed as the invisible projectiles tore right through their leather armor and chainmail.

Count Lothair’s horse shrieked in pain as a stray ball grazed its flank, throwing the arrogant Count face-first into the muddy grass.

Within seconds, the crews manning the distant trebuchets had completely collapsed!

Count Lothair gasped, his mouth full of mud. A continuous ringing echoed in his ears.

Panicking, he pushed himself up onto his knees, clutching his shoulder.

"Witchcraft..." a veteran knight beside him muttered. He stared blankly at the shattered remains of their catapults.

"Stand your ground!" Lothair screamed, drawing his sword with his good arm. "Reform the vanguard! Advance!"

But his command was completely useless. Before the infantry could even take a single step forward, a second, far deeper roar echoed across the battlefield.

This time, it was the boom of the Iron Kingdom’s brass cannons. Solid iron balls tore through the Frankish front lines, carving long paths straight through the tight formations of elite heavy infantry.

From the rear lines, the long, mournful blast of the retreat horns finally echoed over the bloody plains. Duke Odo, watching from a safe distance, gritted his teeth.

He slammed his gauntlet onto the table, demanding silence from the whispering lords.

"Listen to me, you frightened children!" Duke Odo bellowed, "Have you forgotten who we are? We are the chosen swords of the Pope! God himself has blessed this grand army! Do you truly believe that the Almighty would let us be defeated by wild men holding metal tubes? They are relying on cheap magic and cowardly tricks because they are too weak to face our knights on an open field! If we sit here and do nothing, if we simply stare at their walls and shiver in our boots, we will be the laughingstock of history! We must strike back! We must prove our divine right to rule!"

Odo paused, breathing heavily, entirely pleased with his own words. He looked around the table, expecting the lords to cheer and draw their sword.

Instead, Count Lothair leaned forward.

"Shut your arrogant mouth, Odo," Lothair spat. "You are a complete idiot."

Duke Odo’s face turned bright red. "How dare you speak to me—"

"I dare because your stupidity got my best engineers slaughtered today!" Lothair interrupted, "God isn’t down here fighting this war, Odo. We are! And those cowards you are talking about just turned a four-story siege tower into splinters from a distance our archers cannot even dream of reaching. If you march my knights back out there in the sunlight, I will personally strangle you with my good hand!"

A tense silence fell over the tent. The lesser lords shifted, waiting for swords to be drawn.

"Fine," Odo hissed, leaning over the table, "If the great Count Lothair is too terrified of the daylight, then we will fight in the dark. We will bleed them every single night."

Lothair narrowed his eyes. "A night raid?"

"When the sun falls, their magical fire tubes cannot see us. I noticed they have put hundreds of torches and lanterns along the tops of their walls. They are terrified of the dark. But they are fools! No army has enough oil to light up the entire perimeter of a city this size perfectly."

Odo unrolled a rough map of the Calais walls on the table, pointing to the eastern section.

"We will send a thousand of our lightest, fastest infantry," Odo declared, "Just black leather, dark cloaks, short swords, and ladders. They will march slowly, creeping through the tall grass. They will scale the walls, slit the throats of those Northern dogs while they sleep, and open the gates from the inside!"