With the export business to Mercia secretly underway, Ragnar finally had a moment to breathe. Or so he thought.
He rose early, the English mist clinging to the camp like a wet wool blanket. He decided to take a walk through the "Industrial Zone" to inspect the morale of his growing empire.
On his way, he noticed the subtle changes. It wasn't just the smoke from the Blast Furnace. It was the rhythm. He saw a group of thralls moving crates of salted fish. Usually, this would be a chaotic, back-breaking affair. Today, they were using three of his "One-Wheeled Chariots" (wheelbarrows). They moved in a line, efficient and silent.
Further down, he saw a woman using one of the rejected cast-iron skillets to hammer a tent peg into the frozen ground.
"It works as a hammer too," Ragnar mused, smiling. "Dual-purpose product design."
His innovations were spreading beyond the blueprints. The "Ragnar Unit" sticks were being used by the cooks to measure dough. The camp was becoming... standardized.
But as he approached the Academy of the Stick, the smile faded.
He expected to hear the rhythmic chanting of math equations or the synchronized grunts of the "Squat Drill." instead, he heard shouting. Angry, guttural shouting.
"I said the hypotenuse is the long side, you one-eyed goat!"
"And I said I will beat you with the long side if you don't move your foot!"
Ragnar rounded the dune to find the Academy in disarray. The "Broken Men" weren't building. They were shoving each other. Two men one with a wooden leg and one with a missing ear were wrestling in the mud, while the others cheered them on with desperate, bored energy.
Bjorn stood on a crate, yelling for order, but he looked like a substitute teacher trying to control a riot in a prison cafeteria.
"Stop!" Bjorn roared, grabbing two men by their collars and pulling them apart. "No fighting in the classroom! Violence is for the battlefield!"
"We are the battlefield!" the one-eared man shouted back, spitting blood. "We are Vikings, Bjorn! Not accountants!"
Ragnar stepped into the circle. The presence of the "Director" silenced the crowd, though the tension remained thick enough to cut with a knife.
"Headmaster Bjorn," Ragnar said calmly. "Walk with me."
They walked to the edge of the water, away from the angry recruits. Bjorn looked defeated. He slumped his massive shoulders.
"You've done well, Bjorn," Ragnar started, trying to be encouraging. "The men know their numbers. The lifting form is perfect."
Bjorn sighed, kicking a pebble into the ocean. "Thank you, Brother. But... there is a problem."
"I saw the problem," Ragnar said. "They are fighting."
"They are bored, Ragnar," Bjorn admitted, gritting his teeth. "You took their axes and gave them sticks. You took their glory and gave them geometry. They are grateful to be useful, yes. But they are men who used to live for the shield wall. Now they just calculate angles. The adrenaline is gone. They are like wolves kept in a cage; eventually, they bite the bars."
Bjorn looked at Ragnar with pleading eyes. "Can we reduce the math? Can we let them hit something? Just a little bit?"
Ragnar frowned. "If they stop the math, the machines fail. If the machines fail, we die."
"But if they kill each other from boredom," Bjorn countered, "we also die."
Ragnar realized his mistake. He had treated the men like machines inputs and outputs. He had forgotten the human variable. Specifically, the Viking variable. These men needed aggression. They needed collision. They needed a way to prove they were still warriors, even if they limped.
"You are right," Ragnar said slowly. "I neglected the morale. I focused on the hardware and forgot the software."
"Software?" Bjorn asked. "Is that a type of tunic?"
"Never mind," Ragnar rubbed his chin. "We need a game."
Ragnar sat on a piece of driftwood, watching a group of children playing near the shoreline. They were playing a crude version of "King of the Hill," pushing each other off a large rock. It was violent, simple, and they were laughing hysterically.
Group dynamics, Ragnar thought. Teamwork. Physical exertion without lethal intent.
He needed to introduce a sport. But it couldn't be just any sport. He couldn't introduce soccer Vikings would just kick each other instead of the ball. He couldn't introduce cricket it was too slow, and Bjorn would definitely eat the wickets.
He needed something that emphasized force, leverage, and holding the line. Something that rewarded the specific strengths of the "Broken Men" their upper body strength and their low centers of gravity.
Two sports came to mind..
Rugby. The father of American Football.
Kabaddi. An ancient game of tagging and wrestling, requiring immense breath control and team coordination.
"Rugby," Ragnar muttered. "But adapted. We don't have grass fields; we have sand. And we can't have too much running, or the men with bad legs will be left out."
He pulled out his slate and began to sketch. The Scrum. That was the key. A test of pure pushing power.
"Bjorn!" Ragnar called out. "Get Gyda. And get the leather worker. We're making a ball."
An hour later, inside the Command Tent, Ragnar unveiled his creation.
It wasn't a perfect oval. It was a lumpy, leather sack stuffed tightly with wool and sawdust. It looked like a heavy, sad potato.
"This," Ragnar announced to Bjorn and Princess Gyda, "is the Siege Ball."
Bjorn poked it. "It does not look dangerous. Does it explode?"
"No," Ragnar said. "But the game might."
He drew a rectangle on the slate.
"The rules are simple. Two teams. Ten men each. The goal is to carry this ball across the enemy's line."
"So we run?" Bjorn asked.
"No," Ragnar corrected. "Running is allowed, but encouraged is The Wall. You cannot pass the ball forward, only backward. To move forward, you must form a wedge. You must push. It is a shield wall without shields."
He looked at Gyda. "Princess, I need you to sew colored bands. Red for one team, Blue for the other. We cannot have them killing their own teammates in the confusion."
"And the armor?" Gyda asked, looking at the rough sketch. "If they tackle each other on the frozen sand, they will break the bones they have left."
"We use the padded jackets," Ragnar decided. "The ones we made for the Torsion Spikes. Leather and wool. No metal. Metal cuts."
"Why not just let them fight with wooden swords?" Bjorn asked, still confused by the ball concept.
"Because swords test individual skill," Ragnar explained. "This game tests Logistics. It tests the ability to move a heavy object through resistance as a unit. It teaches them that the man next to you is more important than the man in front of you."
Bjorn's eyes lit up. "Like a scrum? Like when we push the ship into the water?"
"Exactly," Ragnar grinned. "But with a score."
Ragnar also decided to introduce a second activity for the evenings—something to sharpen their reflexes without moving their feet.
"And for the men who cannot run at all," Ragnar added, "we will play The Circle."
He described a modified version of Sumo wrestling mixed with arm wrestling. Two men sit or kneel inside a small rope circle. The goal is to push the other man out or make his hand touch the ground.
"It is pure leverage," Ragnar said. "Physics in the flesh."
The First Match
By the afternoon, the Academy grounds had been transformed. Ragnar had marked out a field in the sand using the "Ragnar Unit" sticks.
The "Broken Men" gathered, looking skeptical. They wore padded leather vests that made them look slightly puffy.
"What is this?" Sven asked, holding the lumpy leather ball. "Is it a pillow?"
"It is the enemy!" Ragnar shouted from the sidelines. "Listen up!"
He explained the rules. No biting. No eye-gouging. No weapons. You move the ball to the line. If you are tackled, you must release the ball.
"Team Red!" Ragnar pointed to Bjorn's squad. "Team Blue!" He pointed to Sven's squad.
"Begin!"
At first, it was chaos. Sven grabbed the ball and just stood there. Bjorn roared and tackled him. They both fell into the sand, laughing.
But then, instinct took over.
"Form up!" a one-legged veteran on the Blue Team shouted. "Wedge formation!"
The Blue Team locked arms. They put the ball carrier in the center. They lowered their heads—using the perfect squat form they had practiced for days—and drove forward.
"Hold the line!" Bjorn screamed to the Red Team. "Brace! Low center of gravity!"
They pushed. They grunted. Steam rose from their bodies in the cold air.
"Push!" Ragnar yelled, watching the geometry of the scrum. "Lower your hips, Leif! Use the triangle!"
Leif the Smith, buried somewhere in the Red scrum, dropped his hips and drove his legs. The Red line surged forward inches.
The men on the sidelines started cheering.
"Heave! Heave! Heave!"
Sven broke free from the scrum, clutching the ball. He couldn't run fast, but he rumbled like a boulder. He stiff-armed a Red defender, sending him flying into the sand.
"Go, Sven! Go!"
Sven dove across the line, face-planting into the mud.
"Point for Blue!" Ragnar blew a whistle he had carved from a bone.
Sven stood up, sand covering his face, grinning like a maniac. He raised the ball in triumph. The Blue team swarmed him, hugging and slapping his back.
Bjorn stood up, wiping mud from his eye. He wasn't angry. He was panting, his eyes shining with life.
"Again!" Bjorn roared. "That was luck! Reset the line!"
Princess Gyda stood next to Ragnar, watching the muddy spectacle.
"They are happy," she observed, surprised. "They are bruising each other, and they are happy."
"Men need a purpose," Ragnar said softly. "And sometimes, that purpose is just to push a heavy thing past another heavy thing."
"It's strategic," Gyda noted, watching the teams huddle to plan their next move. "They are discussing angles of attack."
"Exactly," Ragnar nodded. "They think they are playing. I know they are learning dynamic force distribution."
As the sun began to set, the game continued under the light of torches. The "Siege Ball" matches became the highlight of the day. The fights in the barracks stopped. The depression vanished. The "Broken Men" walked taller, proud of their bruises.
Ragnar looked at his army. They were fit. They were disciplined. And now, they were a team.
"Tomorrow," Ragnar said to Bjorn, who was limping off the field with a massive smile, "we teach them the 'Blitz'."
"Blitz," Bjorn tested the word. "Does it mean 'Smash'?"
"It means 'Lightning War'," Ragnar said. "But yes, smash works too."