The question hung in the salty air.

Ethelwulf kept his polite smile, though his sharp eyes darted toward the Viking standing next to him.

He was curious to see how Hakon would handle a southern King’s fragile ego.

"Are you kidding me right now?!" Hakon roared, ignoring royal etiquette as he slapped his hand against his knee.

King Salomon flinched... he was a highly respected monarch who had humiliated the Frankish Empire, and this giant northern brute was laughing directly in his face.

"I am serious." Salomon hissed.

After hearing such words, Hakon finally stopped laughing. The amused expression vanished from his scarred face.

He took a slow step forward. "You want to talk about ruling?" Hakon asked.

Hakon slowly raised his arm, pointing a finger at the ironclads floating in the river.

"It is your choice, King Salomon," Hakon stated firmly, "If you are so incredibly terrified of losing your little royal pride... you can stop all this right now. Today."

Salomon blinked, "Stop it?"

"Yes," Hakon nodded smoothly. "You just say the word, and I will order my men to pack up every single repeating rifle, every single steel plow, and every single bag of explosive black powder... we will load it all back onto our ships, we will burn the trade agreements, and we will sail back across the ocean."

Hakon slowly tilted his head, "And then..." Hakon whispered, "You can just sit alone in your castle, cut off from the world, and wait for Emperor Louis to march his men over your borders to slaughter you."

Though the King of Brittany was a brave man, the reality of Hakon’s words hit him like a heavy iron hammer to the chest.

He knew Hakon was right... without the Iron Kingdom, Brittany was completely doomed.

"Or," Hakon continued, "You could surrender to Emperor Louis right now! You could ally with the Franks as a loyal vassal. But we both know how that goes, don’t we? Louis would strip you of your crown, take all of your gold, and force your elite knights to bleed in the mud for his own wars."

Hakon took another step closer, "But look at you right now, Salomon, King Ragnar didn’t demand your crown. He didn’t ask you to kneel in the mud. You are not a vassal. You are not trapped in some humiliating submission pact."

"I know that." Salomon muttered.

"Then what is the problem?" Hakon threw his hands in the air.

"Open your eyes!" Hakon roared. "Look right there!" Hakon ordered. "Do you see those men with the clean tunics and the rolls of parchment stepping off that merchant ship? Those are highly educated scholars from Córdoba and the Abbasid lands! They are traveling thousands of miles just to study in your newly built libraries because your city is safe!"

Salomon swallowed a lump in his throat.

"And look over by the market." Hakon continued, "Those are brilliant engineers and highly skilled craftsmen. They are flocking to your kingdom to build smills and water wheels. And your farmers? They aren’t starving in the mud anymore! They have steel plows, and they are feeding your entire population."

Even so, Hakon wasn’t finished.

"You are living your best life, Salomon," Hakon said quietly, "The Kingdom of Brittany is experiencing its golden age. It is the best age your land has ever seen in all of its history."

"So instead of entirely standing here complaining about who is ruling your kingdom," Hakon chuckled warmly. "Why don’t you just go to your church, drop to your knees, and thank your god that King Ragnar Ulfsson decided to be your friend instead of your enemy?"

The loud noise of the port rushed back into King Salomon’s ears.

Salomon sighed a long, heartfelt sigh. "You giants of the North, you have a rather irritating way of saying the logical thing."

Salomon straightened his back, fixing his velvet coat.

"Well, if you will excuse me, King Salomon," Hakon grinned. "I have a ridiculous pile of raw gold that I need to load onto my flagship. The Iron King’s forges need constant feeding, after all."

"Of course, Lord Hakon," Salomon laughed, finally relaxing. "Safe travels back to your frozen north."

As the Breton King happily walked away to inspect his newly purchased armory, Hakon let out a heavy breath, rolling his broad shoulders.

Dealing with southern kings was exhausting work... he would rather fight a bear in the snow.

"You handled that well, my friend," Ethelwulf praised quietly, "You are becoming quite the diplomat yourself." 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

"Don’t ever insult me like that again, Ethelwulf." Hakon grumbled.

...

Days, weeks, and months had passed in a blur of freezing snow, forge hammers, and the smell of burning coal.

It had been three months since the news reached City Titan.

Three months since the reality set in that the Frankish Empire was actively using explosive gunpowder.

The comforting safety of the Iron Kingdom’s monopoly had been shattered.

Inside the fortified royal chamber of the keep, Ragnar did not look like the brilliant visionary who had dragged the dark ages kicking and screaming into the modern era.

Right now, he looked like a exhausted, entirely obsessed madman.

Hundreds of torn, crumpled pieces of parchment were scattered across the warm fur rugs.

Empty iron mugs of bitter ale and half-eaten plates of salted pork were stacked precariously on every single available flat surface.

"Damnit... no, the iron pressure valve is still wrong." Ragnar muttered aggressively to himself.

He was leaning over his large desk, scratching out a highly complex mathematical equation with a sharp piece of black charcoal.

"If the internal boiler hits two hundred degrees while pushing that much steel weight, the transmission tracks will snap under the sheer torque..." Ragnar growled.

He angrily crumpled the parchment into a tight ball and threw it over his broad shoulder, adding it to the pile of failures behind him.

Creak... The door of the royal chamber slowly pushed open.

Gyda stepped quietly into the room... she was holding a wooden tray of hot venison and fresh bread.

"By the gods, Ragnar." Gyda sighed heavily, stepping over the sea of crumpled paper so she wouldn’t ruin his discarded notes. "Have you forgotten what a hot bath is?"

"I just need a few more hours... the math for the heavy boiler is almost there. I can feel it." Ragnar grumbled without even looking up from his blank piece of parchment.

After hearing such words, Gyda rolled her eyes. "You said ’just a few more hours’ three days ago, husband," Gyda stated firmly, crossing her arms over her chest. "You are running yourself into the ground."

Though his brain was firing on a million different complex cylinders, the caring tone of his wife finally managed to break through Ragnar’s obsessive trance.

He slowly set the piece of charcoal down, leaning heavily back into his chair.

He was so tired... his shoulders ached terribly, his head was pounding, and the pressure of the entire world was pressing on his chest.

"Eat the meat," Gyda ordered, "If you do not finish that plate in the next five minutes, I will throw all of these papers into the hearth."

Ragnar let out a genuinely tired laugh... he reached out and grabbed a slice of the juicy meat, taking a bite.

As Ragnar chewed the venison, the door of the chamber pushed open again.

Lord Commander Leofric marched quickly into the room.

"My King." Leofric saluted, "I apologize for the sudden interruption, but a fast-clipper just arrived from the southern front."

Ragnar entirely stopped chewing... he quickly swallowed the meat and wiped his greasy mouth with the back of his hand.

"Report, Leofric," Ragnar commanded, "Did Emperor Louis finally march his new guns to the border?"

"Yes, your Grace." Leofric nodded grimly, "The Frankish army mobilized two weeks ago. Spies estimate they have nearly 40,000 armed with their primitive gunpowder fire-tubes."

"And it gets entirely worse, my King," Leofric swallowed hard, "Emperor Louis managed to forge his own heavy bronze cannons. They are slow, and they are heavy... but they have enough explosive power to crack the walls of our southern forts. After coming here for a month and returning again, Lord Bjorn sent a request for reinforcements. If we don’t push them back... the gates will fall."

Ragnar stared quietly at the half-eaten piece of meat on his desk.

Bronze cannons.

Two hundred thousand muskets.

The medieval world was waking up, trying to tear down his empire before it could fully bloom.

Ragnar slowly stood up from his chair. He frantically started entirely digging through the ocean-like pile of torn papers scattered on the rug.

"Ragnar?" Gyda frowned, highly confused.

"It was wrong because I was thinking too small." Ragnar muttered to himself, "I was trying to fit the heavy boiler onto a standard iron chassis... the tracks were snapping because the center of gravity was completely fucking off... the gears need to be horizontally aligned with the steam pistons!"

"My King...?" Leofric asked nervously, taking a slow step back toward the door.

Ragnar laughed loudly, "I just found it!"

Ragnar yanked a single crumpled piece of parchment from the very bottom of the pile.

He stood up quickly, smoothing the wrinkled parchment out against the flat surface of his desk with his hands.

Gyda and Leofric carefully stepped closer, leaning over the desk to look at the highly complex drawing.

It wasn’t a standard, iron train... it wasn’t a simple, completely stationary shore cannon.

On the last torn piece of paper was a detailed model of a steam engine.

But this steam engine was different... it was encased in heavily angled steel armor plates.

Instead of standard wheels, the engine sat entirely on interlocking iron treads designed to crush thick mud, cross deep trenches, and shatter human bones.

And sitting right on top of the armored boiler was a fully rotating steel turret mounting a modern cannon!