At the same time, in Sweden—
After landing at Gothenburg, Oleg and the Royal Guard became Halfdan's last lifeline.
With 1,500 armored soldiers, the Guard smashed into the coalition besieging the city.
The startled Swedes broke and scattered, leaving many dead.
"Good! Yes! THAT'S how it should be! Let these savages taste our power!"
Halfdan shouted excitedly together with his berserkers.
One captain of the Royal Guard rolled his eyes so hard it nearly made a sound.
"Who's 'we,' you fur-wearing idiots?
You got beaten at home and dragged us across the sea to clean up your mess."
Once the coalition fled, Halfdan urged that they press the advantage—chasing them all the way to Kalmar, Stockholm, and the eastern settlements.
"Where's your map?" Oleg asked.
Halfdan produced a crude scribble—only a few medium and large settlements marked, with no roads, rivers, lakes, or terrain.
This was it?
Oleg couldn't help asking:
"Prince, the Sword of the North has roamed these lands for two years.
You never thought to map anything?"
He looked over at the berserkers—now looting corpses, sometimes outright snatching trophies from the Guard. They behaved like wild bears, utterly untouched by civilization.
Recording terrain and making maps?
Impossible for that lot.
Oleg dropped the topic.
Circling the area on horseback, he identified tracks—many men had fled southeast.
According to the map, that pointed to Kalmar.
After resting a night, the Royal Guard—1,400 strong—marched to attack.
Halfdan refused to miss the chance to chase his enemies and brought 500 berserkers along.
Two days later, some berserkers began wandering off to plunder nearby villages.
Worried they'd corrupt army discipline, Oleg simply left the prince behind and marched on.
Following the chaotic footprints, the Guard arrived outside Kalmar.
The walls had recently been reinforced; a trench dug outside, sharpened stakes planted within, and archers manned the battlements.
A messenger sent to negotiate was driven away by a volley of arrows.
They dare resist more than a thousand armored troops?
Oleg wondered what Halfdan had done to inspire such determination.
With negotiations rejected, the soldiers took axes into the forest, working with practiced precision. Before nightfall they had established a simple encampment, prepared for a long siege.
As Ragnar's strategic trump card, the Royal Guard was composed of carefully selected veterans of the Frankish and Welsh wars.
Under Wigger's subtle influence, they excelled at fortification and siege-craft.
For several days, the Guard felled timber and requisitioned supplies while ignoring the defenders' provocations.
"Don't engage. The sooner we finish, the sooner we go home."
Oleg estimated they could take Kalmar within a week, then move on to Stockholm and the rest.
Hopefully, they could return before winter.
With materials ready, they began constructing siege engines. Oleg skipped the difficult trebuchets and towers, focusing instead on battering rams and ladders—once the Guard reached the battlements, the defenders would crumble.
But the day before the engines were complete, the gods played a colossal joke.
"What did you say? Gothenburg is gone?"
Oleg stared at the grimy, battered Halfdan and his surviving berserkers, unable to believe his ears.
"Don't blame me—the enemy used tricks! They're even more cunning than Wigger!"
Halfdan, enduring the Guard's contempt, recounted what happened:
After being left behind, the berserkers happily rampaged along the road, looting everything. As their spoils increased, their discipline collapsed.
They stopped scouting altogether—and walked straight into an ambush.
Captured men revealed that Gothenburg was empty.
The coalition marched overnight, used prisoners to trick the gate guards, and retook Gothenburg—the birthplace of Ragnar's clan.
By the time Halfdan finished, Oleg had no words.
He just walked a few steps away, sat down cross-legged, and stared at the dirt. What was there to say?
At dawn the next morning, after a sleepless night, Oleg gathered his officers.
"We have only three days of food.
Our only option is to take Kalmar, seize their grain and ships, then send word to the general—convince him to come clean up this mess."
Fired up by their commander, the Royal Guard attacked with astonishing resolve.
Under a hail of arrows, they raised their ladders.
Thanks to iron armor, some soldiers took five or six arrows and still climbed, cutting through defenders at the top.
The local garrison had no answer.
They fell back from the walls to the streets, then to the docks.
A few escaped by boat; the rest surrendered.
Inside the storehouses, Oleg found abundant supplies—grain, iron ingots, beer.
"Good. Even if the ships are gone, we can build new ones.
As long as we have food, the Guard won't collapse."
Halfdan still had a few hundred men—but Oleg decided to treat them as if they didn't exist.
No—worse.
As walking liabilities.
"First he led a large army into the Welsh mountains and let a nighttime ambush rout him.
Now, with a numerical advantage here, he gets trapped again—this time losing Gothenburg.
Does traveling with berserkers make one stupid?
Forget it. He looks too hopeless to win a crown anyway. No point trying to flatter him.
We build ships, meet up with Niels, retake Gothenburg together, then deal with the coalition piece by piece."
Meanwhile — Oslo, Norway, Royal Garden
Following a craftsman's suggestion, the royal garden was planted with hardy calendula.
Now in full bloom, thousands of golden blossoms rippled like sunlight, attracting buzzing swarms of bees.
Wrapped in a loose robe, King Erik sat alone on the steps, dazedly watching the flower field and his children—Princess Eve and young Hys—frolic within it.
"Calendulas… yes, they have the right brilliance for royal dignity.
Wait—why is my mind wandering again?"
Snapping back, Erik remembered he was supposed to be thinking about the Danish and Swedish crises.
The shamans were right—age made one prone to drifting thoughts.
After several minutes of renewed contemplation, the old king made his decisions:
—Send the palace guard to occupy Zealand.
If Horst was still resisting, he'd give him weapons and silver.
But if Horst had fled, then Norway would simply take Zealand—it commanded key shipping lanes and was ideal for extracting tolls.
And the Swedish coalition was urging for more supplies.
He should probably delay the shipments.
If they crushed Halfdan too fast, Ragnar might intervene personally—and that would be disastrous.
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