The morning sun rose slowly over the plains of Calais.

"You know," Bjorn said, "If a commander tried to storm a city with his chest bare in front of ten field cannons, he would end up in the history books as the stupidest commander who ever lived."

Erik snorted, nearly choking on his apple. "Bare-chested or wearing full steel armor, it doesn’t matter to Ragnar’s cannons! But you are right. Duke Odo must be pulling his hair out this morning. First, we blew up his siege towers in the daylight. Then, we vaporized his little assassins in the dark. What is left for the great Holy Order to do?"

"That is exactly what worries me," Bjorn muttered.

Far out on the grassy plains, the Frankish army was moving again...

The tents were being hurriedly taken down. The heavily armored knights were mounting their horses, but they were not forming up in attack columns. They were moving backward.

"Commander Bjorn," Julian said, "They are packing up the supply wagons. Are they... are they running away?"

Erik let out a laugh. "By the Gods, they are! The cowards have had enough of our thunder! They are retreating back to their castles to cry to the Pope!"

Bjorn narrowed his eyes, tracking the movements of the enemy generals. He watched as the heavy cavalry slowly trotted away, their shiny armor disappearing behind a rolling green hill.

But as the main force pulled back, they left something very strange behind.

Sitting right in the middle of the open plains, about half a mile from the Calais gates, were twenty massive, heavily loaded supply wagons.

The oxen had been unhitched and led away, leaving the carts completely stranded in the tall grass.

"Why would an army abandon good supply wagons?" Julian asked, scratching his head.

"Look closer," Bjorn ordered, pulling a brass spyglass from his leather belt.

Bjorn extended the spyglass and peered through the glass lenses.

The stranded wagons were not filled with grain or salted pork. The canvas covers had been intentionally pulled back to reveal the cargo.

Glittering brightly under the morning sun were massive, overflowing chests of silver coins, golden chalices, fine purple silks, and jeweled weapons.

It was a king’s ransom, sitting completely unguarded in the middle of an open field!

Erik grabbed the spyglass from Bjorn’s hands and took a look. The wild Norwegian king’s eyes instantly widened.

"Loot!" Erik gasped, "Bjorn, look at all that gold! They were in such a terrified hurry to run away that their heavy treasury wagons got stuck in the mud! We have to go get it!"

Erik immediately spun around, raising his axe into the air. "Warriors of Norway! Open the gates! We are going on a morning stroll to collect our—"

"Hold your ground!" Bjorn roared.

The Northern soldiers, who had started to cheer, instantly froze in place. They looked at Bjorn, then back at Erik, unsure of who to obey.

Bjorn reached out and firmly grabbed Erik by the shoulder, spinning the eager king back around to face the plains.

"Erik, use your head," Bjorn commanded, "Do you think they would accidentally leave twenty carts of pure gold sitting right in front of our city?"

Erik blinked, "...you think it is on purpose?"

"Of course it is on purpose!" Bjorn said, crossing his arms . "They are trying to make us come up from behind these walls."

Julian gasped, "It is a trap... They are using the gold as bait!"

Erik looked through the spyglass again.

"By the Saints..." Erik whispered, "You are right, Bjorn. Look at the tree line just behind that large hill. The sunlight is reflecting off something hidden in the leaves."

Bjorn took the spyglass back and looked.

Sure enough, hiding out of sight behind the crest of the hills and inside the thick forests were the five thousand heavy Frankish knights!

They were sitting silently on their armored horses, holding their massive lances, just waiting for the Vikings to step out into the open.

If Erik had charged out there with his men to grab the gold, the Frankish cavalry would have swept down from the hills like an unstoppable avalanche. Without the high walls and the cannons to protect them, the Northern warriors would have been trampled into bloody mud in less than five minutes.

"They almost had me," Erik admitted, "If I were in command today, my men would be dead right now. Ragnar chose the right man to lead this army, Commander."

Bjorn smiled gently, patting Erik’s back.

"So, what do we do?" Julian asked, leaning far over the stone ledge. "Do we just leave the gold out there? If we don’t take it, they will know we saw through their trap and they will just try something else."

"Leave it?" Erik laughed, "A true Northman never leaves free gold on the table, boy! Bjorn, please tell me you have a clever plan to steal their bait and smash their trap at the exact same time!"

Bjorn looked down at the twenty stranded wagons. He looked at the distant tree line where the knights were hiding.

And then, he looked at his ten massive, beautiful field artillery cannons resting on the walls.

A wicked grin spread across Bjorn’s face.

"Ragnar once told me a very interesting fact about black powder," Bjorn mused, turning his attention to Halvar, who was standing nearby.

"Halvar, how much range do these brass beasts truly have if we tilt the barrels upward?"

Halvar quickly pulled out his leather notebook, "...if we adjust the wooden wedges under the barrels to a forty-five-degree angle, the heavy iron balls can travel over an entire mile. It will easily clear those rolling hills."

"We know exactly where they are hiding because they have to stay close enough to charge the wagons quickly. They are bunched together in those trees. We are going to use something else."

Bjorn turned back to Julian. "Run down to the armory immediately. I need you to gather as many small, jagged pieces of scrap iron, broken horseshoes, and rusty nails as you can find. Bring them up here in heavy canvas sacks."

Julian didn’t ask questions. He offered a salute and sprinted down the stone stairs.

"Scrap iron?" Erik asked, "What are you going to do with rusty nails?"

"We are going to make a new type of cannonball," Bjorn explained. "We will pack the scrap metal tightly into thin wooden canisters. When the cannon fires, the canister will break apart in the air, scattering thousands of jagged pieces of metal down on the hidden knight!"

...

Within thirty minutes, Julian and a team of soldiers rushed back up to the battlements carrying heavy sacks clinking loudly with scrap metal.

Under Bjorn’s instructions, the artillery crews packed the shrapnel into custom-made wooden sabots, loading them carefully into the massive brass tubes.

"Raise the barrels!" Bjorn commanded.

The gunners hammered the wooden wedges, tilting the snouts of the ten cannons high into the air, aiming them toward the distant tree line behind the abandoned gold.

Down in the hidden forest, Duke Odo sat upon his warhorse, sweating inside his steel armor.

"Why haven’t they come out yet?" Odo whispered angrily to Count Lothair. "They should be drooling over that gold!"

"Patience, Odo," Lothair replied, keeping his horse steady. "They are probably just gathering their carts to haul it away. Soon, they will walk right into the slaughter."

Back on the walls, Bjorn stood behind the center cannon.

Bjorn brought his massive hand down.

"FIRE!"

The ten field cannons erupted. The concussive thunder rattled the stone battlements, sending a massive wave of white sulfur smoke billowing high into the sky.

But this time, there were no heavy iron balls smashing into the dirt. Instead, ten wooden canisters soared high into the air in a deadly arc, flying completely over the rolling green hills.

As they reached the apex of their flight, directly above the hidden Frankish cavalry, the wooden sabots shattered.

Tens of thousands of jagged iron scraps, broken nails, and sharp horseshoes rained down from the sky at terrifying speeds.

Hidden in the trees, the deadly iron rain ripped viciously through the leaves and branches, clattering against steel helmets, piercing unprotected horseflesh, and tearing right through their chainmail.

The quiet forest was suddenly rocked by the neighing of horses and the shouts of riders.

Up on the walls, Erik listened to the distant screams echoing from the woods.

"Well," Bjorn chuckled, brushing some loose black powder from his hands. "Why don’t you take some men and go fetch our new gold?"