One day later, word of Edinburgh's fall reached Stirling, and Vig's mood soared.
By July 10th, a thousand reinforcements sent by Burlow arrived, swelling the besieging army to 4,500 men—equipped with shield carts, ladders, and fifteen small catapults.
At dawn the next day, the final assault began.
For twenty volleys straight, the catapults hurled pitch-filled fire jars at the northern wall. Flames devoured the timber parapets, forcing the defenders to withdraw from the battlements.
"Now!"
Seizing the moment, Viking infantry pushed forward with their shielded carts, heaving sandbags into the moat until they had filled a dozen rough passageways across.
Seeing this, Vig raised a red banner. Wooden siege towers creaked into motion. Since Stirling's walls were barely five meters high, the towers were smaller, lighter—and faster.
As the fires dwindled, the defenders regrouped atop the charred walls, loosing arrows from behind the broken crenellations.
To shield the advancing towers, eight hundred crossbowmen and archers formed three firing lines:
The front rank, heavy crossbowmen in iron armor, stood within fifty meters of the wall—each bolt striking with deadly precision.
Behind them, light crossbowmen reloaded and fired from behind large pavise shields.
In the rear, Welsh longbowmen shot in sweeping arcs, their rapid volleys raining over the parapets.
Under that withering cover, the siege towers reached the walls. With a thunderous crash, their drawbridges dropped, and armored soldiers surged across into brutal hand-to-hand combat.
From Vig's vantage point, his heavy infantry clearly dominated the fight. The defenders were swept aside—except at the gatehouse, where resistance stiffened.
"That's Duncan, isn't it?" Vig asked.
"Seems so, my lord," came the reply.
Jorlen stepped forward eagerly.
"Let me take his head before that upstart Torga steals all the glory!"
"No need," Vig said calmly. "Tell the archers—aim for him and his guard."
Moments later, volleys hammered the gatehouse. Duncan's section of wall bristled with bolts. The Indigo Raiders fell in heaps; Duncan himself took a heavy quarrel through the shoulder before being hacked to pieces by the advancing Vikings.
With their leader dead, Stirling's fall was inevitable.
Vig yawned, sat down on the grass, and began sorting through reports.
A letter had arrived from Tyne Town: another thousand Norse raiders had landed. His steward Herligev relayed their grumbling.
The West Franks, they complained, were no longer easy prey. To curry Favel with the Franks, Gunnar had even built forts on the Channel Islands—Jersey and Guernsey—to keep pirates from resting or refilling water.
With England and Francia both closed to them, the raiders had nowhere left to go—except to join Vig's northern campaign for silver and glory.
Vig smiled faintly and picked up his quill, drafting orders for new grain and supply shipments.
There was also the matter of the cavalry. Though few riders had fallen, sixty-five warhorses had been lost. Under contract, Tyne Town was obliged to replace them free of charge with fresh Frankish steeds.
"One hundred and sixty fine horses in the stables," Vig muttered, "and sixty-five gone already. War burns silver faster than fire."
Still, he honored the contract. Reputation, once tarnished, could not be repaired by saving a few horses.
After two hours of paperwork, he finally rose—just in time to see long lines of defeated Pictish prisoners herded out of the gates, squatting on the open field to await their fate.
"A month's work," Vig said, stretching. "Finally done."
He delegated the cleanup to his officers, then summoned a local guide to lead him north to the iron-rich hills.
Crossing the River Forth, the land rose into low mountains streaked with reddish stone—hematite deposits (FeO). A slave miner named Kaiso led them to one of the pits.
"My lord, this is where I work."
He pointed to piles of stone hammers and wooden picks, explaining the process.
Miners identified veins by spotting rust-colored outcrops or iron sand in streams. There were two main types: hematite and bog iron from marsh edges.
"Bog iron's soft and brittle," Kaiso said. "Good masters prefer the hard red kind."
Once a site was chosen, miners broke the ore in open pits, smashing it with stone mauls and removing obvious impurities.
Next came smelting. They built waist-high clay furnaces—tall cylinders with a vent at the base and an opening at the top for feeding ore and charcoal.
"We stack three layers of charcoal for every layer of ore," Kaiso explained, pointing to cracked, discarded furnaces. "Then light it, and for a full day we work the bellows with leather bags to keep the air flowing."
"And the yield?" Vig asked.
The slave rummaged through a storehouse and produced a rusty iron ingot, about ten kilos in weight.
Vig weighed it in his hand, frowning. The output was far too low.
Thinking over the process, he began sketching improvements in the dirt.
"We'll build a water-powered ore crusher—a wheel driven by the river to lift and drop a hammer. It'll break the rock faster and save the miners' strength."
He drew another diagram.
"And a water-driven bellows—stronger air, hotter fire, larger furnaces. We'll double the yield at least."
Kaiso listened, wide-eyed. Vig smiled and clapped him on the shoulder.
"You're quick. From now on, you're the supervisor of the Stirling Ironworks. If anyone gives you trouble, mention my name."
To motivate the miners, Vig freed the slaves, turning them into paid laborers. Their wages depended on output, with beer and silver as bonuses for high production.
Over several days he toured every pit, ordered construction of a water-mill forge on the River Forth, and resolved to turn the region into a major iron-smelting center.
A week later, another thousand raiders arrived from Tyne Town, bringing the Stirling army to over five thousand strong.
Leaving a few hundred to garrison the town, Vig marched west with 4,500 men—toward the coastal city of Glasgow, the last great stronghold in the north.
~------------------------------------------------------------------
Author's NOTE
Hello everyone, I hope you're all doing well.Many readers requested a price reduction on Pat reon, so I've reduced the membership price by $ 10 to make it more accessible for everyone.
However, by doing this, I'm personally losing over $ 200 per month. Even so, I chose to lower the price because I truly value my readers and want more of you to be able to enjoy the chapters.
Now, I sincerely need your support. Please consider visiting my Pat reon and getting a membership if you can. Your support is not just financial—it keeps me motivated and helps me continue bringing you new chapters of this masterpiece.
visit: patreon.com/YonkoSlayer
Thank you for standing by me and supporting my hard work. ❤️
~~--------------------------
Patreon Advanced Chapters:
patreon.com/YonkoSlayer