That evening, Vig summoned his senior commanders for a war council.
Rather than getting straight to the point, he began by recalling one of history's most famous campaigns.
"In 281 BC, Hannibal led an army of tens of thousands out of Iberia, intending to strike at Rome's heartland—Italy.
At the mouth of the Rhône, his advance was blocked by enemy forces, forcing him to march upstream to find a crossing.
After crossing the river, a series of circumstances led Hannibal to make a decision no one expected.
He forced his army across the Alps."
As he spoke, Vig tapped a point on the map with a wooden pointer.
"After fifteen days of crossing the mountains, he miraculously entered the Po Valley, though nearly half his army was lost in the process.
Our objective is the same as Hannibal's.
The difference is that the Franks are prepared.
They've constructed numerous defensive works throughout the Alps.
Along this mountain road alone they've built three stone fortresses and eight wooden forts.
They aren't giving us any opportunity for a surprise attack."
Taking a deep breath, Vig moved the pointer toward the Mediterranean coast.
The meaning was obvious.
Every inland route was now protected by Frankish fortifications.
Instead of battering through the mountains, it was better to follow the relatively flat coastal road and advance steadily from west to east.
The next day, the army departed Marseille.
On June 11, they reached Toulon.
After two years of construction, it had become a heavily fortified naval base.
Following the recent Battle of Nice, the Royal Navy had lost fourteen warships, while the surviving vessels were undergoing repairs inside the harbor.
The emperor toured the port.
He did not reprimand Commodore Hadawa.
Instead, he merely instructed the fleet to restore its combat strength as quickly as possible.
The coming campaign would be decided primarily by the army, not the navy.
Thirty miles east of Toulon stood a small Viking frontier fortress.
Beyond it lay territory firmly under Frankish control.
After several days marching along the ancient, rugged Roman road, the landscape suddenly opened up.
To the north stretched the rugged foothills of the Alps, their barren slopes rising like an immense natural wall.
To the south shimmered the sapphire-blue Ligurian Sea beneath a cloudless sky.
Seagulls circled overhead while gentle waves washed against the narrow pebble beaches.
Straight ahead lay a long strip of coastal plain.
On a nearby hill stood a Frankish stone fortress.
If the Vikings wished to advance safely, they would first have to destroy or capture it.
"How's the artillery regiment?" Vig asked Leif.
"I just counted.
Only twenty cannons have managed to keep up with the advance.
The other sixty are still behind us.
They'll need some more time."
Vig rode to higher ground and looked back toward the artillery column.
Even with improved gun carriages, the bronze cannons remained cumbersome.
Each required eight draft horses to haul.
Fortunately, the Mediterranean summer was hot and dry.
Had it been the rainy season, even more guns would have been left behind.
Unwilling to waste time, Vig ordered the mountain infantry to secure the surrounding area while the twenty available cannons immediately went into action.
An hour later, the artillery had advanced to within 350 meters of the walls—just beyond the range of the defenders' trebuchets.
The artillery colonel roared:
"Load!"
The gunners worked shirtless beneath the blazing sun.
Sweat streamed down their bronze-colored backs.
Powder bags and iron shot disappeared one after another into the cold bronze barrels.
"Fire!"
Twenty cannons erupted simultaneously.
Flames burst from their muzzles.
Heavy impacts echoed from the fortress walls.
Stone fragments showered down as shallow craters appeared across the masonry.
The bombardment continued until noon.
By then, the cannon barrels had grown so hot they could barely be touched.
The firing paused.
The crews poured water over the guns to cool them.
Steam hissed continuously as the water flashed into vapor.
The sea breeze gradually dispersed the powder smoke, revealing the battered fortress.
Its walls were scarred with countless impact marks.
Many battlements had collapsed.
Only a handful of defenders still remained at their posts.
Half an hour later, the bronze guns had cooled.
After studying the walls through narrowed eyes, the artillery commander ordered every cannon to concentrate on the weakest section.
The final barrage began.
Shell after shell slammed into the same spot.
Each impact sent violent tremors through the wall.
Then, with an especially deep, thunderous crash—
A stretch nearly thirty meters wide collapsed.
Dust and debris engulfed the battlefield.
When the smoke finally cleared, only broken masonry remained, piled into a broad slope leading into the fortress.
Seeing the breach, the assault infantry surged inside, rapidly securing the warehouses, barracks, and other key positions.
The defenders offered almost no resistance.
Their morale had already been shattered by the artillery.
They fled through the eastern gate, abandoning so hastily that they didn't even have time to burn their supplies.
The fall of the Fortress of Nice was only the beginning.
Farther east, another stone fortress stood almost every ten miles.
Some blocked the road directly.
Others occupied hills overlooking the route.
In Vig's eyes, this represented the absolute limit of what the Franks could achieve.
Had the Vikings still relied on trebuchets and mining tunnels, each fortress would have required at least a month to reduce.
Taken together, the entire chain could have delayed the invasion for a full year, giving Charles the Bald ample time to assemble his armies and strike at the invaders.
Unfortunately for the Franks, the Viking Empire had entered the age of gunpowder.
Fortifications built for the age of cold steel generally had walls only 1.5 to 2 meters thick.
They simply could not withstand cannon fire.
Unless the Franks rebuilt their defenses with walls four to ten meters thick, using earth-filled cores faced with stone, they had no hope of resisting artillery.
But such reconstruction required time.
And Vig had no intention of giving them any.
The Viking army continued advancing eastward.
One fortress after another fell before the cannons.
Few held out for more than half a day.
By the end of June, Vig reached the outskirts of Genoa.
The Frankish army had not yet completed its concentration.
Most of their troops remained scattered among the various Alpine passes.
None of them had imagined the Vikings could smash through the coastal defenses in only twenty days.
"Father, just look at those defenders on the walls.
I imagine this is exactly how the Romans looked when they learned Hannibal had crossed the Alps."
The second prince and the commanders laughed loudly, paying little attention to the soldiers defending the city.
Soon afterward, fifty bronze cannons unleashed a coordinated barrage.
Genoa's walls were somewhat thicker—over two meters—but by two o'clock that afternoon, a massive breach had been blasted open.
A whistle shrilled.
Two infantry regiments stormed through the gap.
The Frankish defenders fought desperately in the streets.
The battle lasted until dusk.
Most escaped through the eastern and northern gates.
A smaller number fled to the harbor and boarded waiting warships.
"So many ships..."
Vig couldn't help sighing.
At a glance, more than a hundred warships floated offshore.
Among them flew the banners of the Duke of Naples and various other allied powers.
The Western Mediterranean Fleet had been crippled.
The homeland was expected to scrape together only twenty additional warships as reinforcements, including a single newly commissioned gunship.
They were not expected to arrive until early August.
Even then, the Royal Navy still could not secure command of the sea.
Without naval superiority, it was impossible to transport supplies by sea.
That severely limited the mobility of the Viking army.
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