The whistle shrieked across the English beach.
Ragnar stood on a supply crate, watching the chaos unfold. He had missed the morning briefing at the Academy because he was busy arguing with a wagon wheel, but nothing could keep him away from the inaugural "Siege Ball" finals.
"Play!" Bjorn bellowed from the sidelines.
The ball was kicked into the air by Sven the Strong. It sailed in a wobbly arc, backlit by the pale sun.
A warrior from the opposing team, a redhead named Toke, looked up. He tracked the ball. He stepped back, arms wide, ready to catch it.
But Toke made a fatal error. He looked into the sun.
"My eyes!" Toke yelled, stumbling backward.
The heavy leather ball smacked him square in the chest and bounced off with a dull thud.
"Loose Potato!" Bjorn screamed, vibrating with excitement.
Before Toke could recover, a blur of motion shot past him. It was Leif the Lesser from the Blue Team. He didn't try to pick it up gracefully; he dove onto the ball like a starving man diving onto a roast chicken.
Leif scrambled up, clutching the ball to his chest. His eyes went wide with panic and thrill. He saw the Red Team turning toward him like a pack of wolves.
"Run, Leif! Run the curve!" Erik the Lame shouted from the coaching box (a line drawn in the sand).
Leif took off. But he didn't run straight. He zigzagged.
The crowd of four hundred "Broken Men" and off-duty warriors roared. This was better than a execution. This was sport.
"Stop him!" Starkad, the coach of the Red Team, yelled. "Break his legs! Gently! But break them!"
Two Red defenders lunged. But Leif, trained in the "Academy of the Stick" to understand angles, suddenly dropped his shoulder. He spun. The defenders collided with each other, their padded leather vests making a loud whump sound.
"Hooray!"
"Go, little thief!"
Leif crossed the line marked by two Ragnar-Unit sticks. He slammed the ball into the sand.
"POINT BLUE!" Bjorn signaled, jumping so high he nearly cracked the ground when he landed.
The Blue Team swarmed Leif, lifting the scrawny man into the air. For a moment, the gloom of the impending siege vanished. There was no war, no starvation, no Jarl Einar. There was only the glory of the Potato.
Ragnar walked over to the Red Team. They looked dejected. Starkad was kicking the sand, muttering about how the sun was a traitor.
"Starkad," Ragnar said, suppressing a smile. "Why did you lose that point?"
"Toke is blind," Starkad grunted. "And Leif is slippery."
"No," Ragnar corrected, pointing to the field. "You lost because your defensive line broke. You chased the ball instead of holding the Wall. In Siege Ball, as in war, discipline beats speed."
He looked at the panting warriors.
"You have three 'Downs' to push them back," Ragnar explained, using the terminology he had invented the night before. "If you stop them three times, you get the ball. Do not chase the rabbit. Build the fence."
Starkad's eyes lit up. "Build the fence. Trap the rabbit. Smash the rabbit."
"Ideally without smashing the rabbit's bones," Ragnar reminded him. "We need Leif for the invasion."
"Okay, brothers!" Starkad clapped his massive hands, rallying his team. "This time, we do not run! We are the Anvil! Let them break themselves on us!"
The whistle blew again.
This time, the game changed. When the Blue Team tried to run their wedge formation, they hit a solid wall of Red. Starkad's men had locked arms, lowered their hips into the 'Triangle Squat,' and refused to budge.
It was a stalemate of grunting, sweating physics.
"Push!" Erik screamed to his Blue team. "Drive the legs!"
"Hold!" Starkad roared. "Root like trees!"
Ragnar watched, fascinated. He saw the squad leaders making split-second decisions. He saw them communicating non-verbally. This wasn't just a game; it was a simulation of the shield wall, but faster, safer, and infinitely more fun.
When the sand clock finally ran out, the Blue Team had won by a single point, but both sides collapsed onto the sand, laughing and panting, their animosity washed away by sweat.
While the rugby players gasped for air, Ragnar gathered a different group of recruits near the dunes. These were the smaller men the scouts, the climbers, the ones who relied on speed rather than mass.
"Rugby is for the heavy infantry," Ragnar announced. "But a Viking army needs agility. It needs raiders."
He introduced the second game. In his old life, it was called Kabaddi. Here, he christened it The Wolf Run.
"The rules are simple," Ragnar explained to the confused group. "Two teams. One 'Wolf' enters the enemy territory. The enemy are the 'Sheepdogs'."
He drew a line in the sand.
"The Wolf must touch a Sheepdog and return to his side of the line. But here is the catch: The Wolf must prove he has the breath to fight. You must chant continuously. If you stop chanting, you are dead."
"Chant what?" a recruit asked.
"Raid," Ragnar decided. "You say 'Raid, Raid, Raid' without taking a breath. If you inhale while in enemy territory, they can tackle you."
The men looked skeptical, but Bjorn stepped up.
"I will be the Wolf!" Bjorn volunteered.
He stepped across the line, eyeing the seven defenders from Erik's squad.
"Raid-raid-raid-raid," Bjorn chanted, his voice a deep rumble.
He moved with surprising lightness for a giant. He feinted left. The defenders flinched. He lunged right.
"Catch him!" Erik shouted.
Three defenders grabbed Bjorn. But Bjorn was a mountain. He dragged them, still chanting "Raid-raid-raid," inching back toward the line.
"He's huge!" one defender wheezed, trying to hold Bjorn's leg.
Bjorn touched the line with his fingertip.
"Safe!" Ragnar shouted. "Three defenders out!"
The game exploded in popularity instantly. It required no equipment, only lungs and legs.
Soon, multiple circles formed on the beach. Men were chanting "Raid, raid, raid!" while dodging grasping hands. It trained their breath control. It trained their explosive reflexes. It trained them to stay calm when surrounded.
Ragnar watched a young scout named Ivar (the messenger) dart into a group of massive Huscarls. Ivar was small, but he was fast. He tagged a Huscarl on the nose and backflipped over another one's arm to escape, all while screaming "Raid!"
"He has potential," Princess Gyda noted, appearing beside Ragnar. She was holding a basket of apples for the winners.
"He understands the physics of evasion," Ragnar agreed. "Force equals mass times acceleration, but missing the target equals zero damage."
Gyda took a bite of an apple. "The men are happy. They are tired, but they are not angry. You have distracted them from the hunger."
"Distraction is a weapon," Ragnar said. "But we can't play games forever. The coal is here. The iron is ready. The machines are calibrated."
He looked toward the main camp. The smoke from the Blast Furnace was growing thicker, blacker. The "Sea Coal" was burning hotter than anything they had used before.
"The games are done," Ragnar said, his tone shifting. "Tomorrow, we don't play with leather balls. We play with rocks."
Unbeknownst to Ragnar, this day would be remembered.
Centuries later, historians would argue about the origins of organized team sports in England. Some would claim it started in the public schools of the 19th century. But deep in the sagas, there would be references to "Ragnar's Ball" and the "Chant of the Wolf."
Future archaeologists would find strange, leather-wrapped spheres buried in Northumbrian bogs and wonder if they were religious artifacts. They wouldn't know that these were the tools that turned a ragtag army of raiders into a cohesive, disciplined fighting force.
"Director!" Bjorn jogged over, his face flushed with victory. "The men want to know if we can play again tomorrow."