Bilal stood on the battlements. He was clad in heavy chainmail, his dark hair tied back, a massive Dane axe resting on his shoulder. Beside him stood Torik, now sixteen years old. The boy was holding a steel crossbow, his hands trembling slightly at the sheer, terrifying scale of the army below.
The valley was a sea of iron, torches, and banners. There were over four thousand men down there.
"Look at them, Grandfather," Torik whispered, his voice cracking. "There are too many. We only have two hundred fighters. The spy was right. They took our fire. We have nothing left."
Bilal placed a heavy, grounding hand on the boy's shoulder.
"They have numbers, Torik," Bilal said, his voice a deep, resonant hum of pure confidence. "But numbers require food. Numbers require warmth. We burned their shelter. We poisoned their water. Every day they stand in that freezing mud, a hundred of them will die of the flux."
Bilal looked down at the Swedish commanders and Olaf's Jarls, who were riding forward on horseback, laughing, thinking the Giant was finally disarmed.
"They burned our chemical fire," Bilal muttered in English, a cold smile touching his lips."Then we will let the laws of the world crush them.".
He raised his massive hand.
Behind the stone walls, completely hidden from the enemy's view, Bilal's engineers stood by the four towering wooden machines he had designed years ago. They didn't need gunpowder.
"Cut the ropes!" Bilal roared.
There was a sound like a cracking whip, followed by the terrifying, deep WHOOSH of giant wooden arms swinging through the air. The Counterweight Trebuchets—artillery that wouldn't be seen in Europe for another century—unleashed their payload.
Four massive, 90-kilogram boulders arced beautifully through the grey Norwegian sky.
The Jarls looked up, their laughter dying in their throats. They had never seen artillery of this size.
The boulders slammed into the densely packed center of the Viking vanguard. The kinetic energy shattered shields, crushed armor, and threw men through the air like broken toys.
Before the screams could even echo across the valley, Bilal raised his hand again.
"Reload!" he commanded.
Bilal leaned over the stone ramparts, his eyes locked onto the bloody chaos below. He wasn't the terrified student from 2026 anymore. He was the Lord of Axiomra, and he was about to show the Kings of the North that the mind of a builder is far more dangerous than the axe of a warrior.