Command Tent, Viking Encampment
Jarl Sigurd, the Keeper of the King's Hoard, paced back and forth, wearing a rut in the dirt floor.
"We are bleeding silver," Sigurd grunted, stopping to glare at Ragnar. "Your little 'Blood-Price' from Jarl Einar was clever, Master Builder. It bought us a few days of grain. But the men are doing the reckoning."
Ragnar looked up from his slate, where he was currently reckoning the strength of the new grappling hooks. "Reckoning is good, Sigurd. It keeps the mind sharp."
"Reckoning is dangerous!" Sigurd roared, slamming his fist into his palm. "The men have reckoned that if we take York, the 'Iron Lending' repayment will bankrupt the King. We promised them twofold the value of their scrap. That is thousands of pounds of silver. If the York hoard is light... we will have a mutiny before we even celebrate."
Ragnar leaned back. He knew Sigurd was right. The trading logic of his "Grand Forge" was standing on thin ice. He had used the army's greed to build the machines, but greed is a two-edged sword.
"We need a bounty," Ragnar admitted. "We need a prize we can trade immediately, regardless of what is inside York."
He stood up and began to pace, matching Sigurd's rhythm. The King watched them both from his throne, looking bored but attentive, like a cat watching two mice argue over cheese.
"We have wood," Ragnar listed. "We have iron though most of it is currently bolted to the throwers. We have strong arms."
"We have nothing of value!" Sigurd countered. "Unless you want to trade sand to the Saxons."
Ragnar stopped. He looked at the Leif the Smith, who was dozing in the corner, clutching a piece of his precious "living iron."
"Iron," Ragnar whispered. "We are thinking like raiders. We steal iron. We don't forge it..!"
In the 9th winter, iron forging was slow. Bog iron was gathered, roasted in small clay hearths, and beaten by hand to remove dross. It was back-breaking work and produced poor metal.
But Ragnar knew the secret. The Dragon's Hearth. "My King," Ragnar turned to Horik. "I have a path. But it requires one last wager."
"I am tired of wagers, Builder," Horik sighed. "I want a true strike."
"This is a true strike," Ragnar lied confidently. "We are going to build a grand forge. Right here on the beach."
...
The next morning, Ragnar gathered Leif the Smith and the entire Forge Cohort which consisted of Leif, three apprentices, and a man named Toke who just liked fire.
"Listen well," Ragnar announced, standing on an anvil. "We are going to change the world today."
Leif looked skeptical. "Again? I'm still tired from the living iron."
"This is grander," Ragnar said. "We are going to build a Dragon's Hearth."
The men stared at him blankly. "A what?" Toke asked, picking his nose with a soot-stained finger.
"A Great Hearth," Ragnar improvised. "Old way: we heat the earth-blood, we beat the earth-blood, we get a tiny lump of iron. It takes all day. My way: we build a tall chimney. We dump earth-blood and charcoal in the top. We pump wind into the bottom lots of wind. The heat melts the iron completely. It flows out like water. We catch it in molds."
Leif's one good eye went wide. "Liquid iron? Like... like lava?"
"Exactly~" Ragnar nodded. "Poured Iron. We can make pots. We can make arrowheads by the thousands. We can make tools. We don't hammer it; we pour it."
"But... the heat," Leif stammered. "You need the breath of a dragon to melt iron like water."
"Or," Ragnar smiled, "we need a very big bellows and a mixing of the earth."
He grabbed a piece of slate. "Who here knows what the white rock is?"
Toke raised his hand. "The white rock? It tastes chalky."
"Don't eat it, Toke," Ragnar sighed. "It's a purifier. It grabs the dross. It makes the slag float so the pure iron sinks. We mix it in."
Ragnar began to draw. He sketched a tall, brick chimney. He sketched the wind-pipes—the pipes for the air blast. He sketched the filling steps.
"We need bricks," Ragnar said. "Clay bricks. Fire-hardened. And we need to build this..." he pointed to the chimney, "...before the sun sets."
Leif looked at the drawing. He looked at Ragnar. Then he looked at Toke.
"Toke," Leif barked. "Go find the white rocks. Don't eat them."
The beach transformed into a crafting yard.
The "Master's Yard of the Stick" was deployed. Under Bjorn's screaming watch, the Broken Men mixed clay and sand to make bricks. They built a firing pit to bake them rapidly.
"Faster!" Bjorn yelled, carrying two buckets of wet clay. "The King wants his lava!"
Meanwhile, Ragnar worked with Leif on the bellows. Standard hand bellows weren't enough. They needed unending, fierce wind.
"Water strength," Ragnar muttered, looking at the small stream that ran into the ocean nearby. "We need a water wheel."
"We don't have time to build a wheel!" Leif argued. "The tide is coming in!"
"Then we use man-strength," Ragnar decided. "We build a walking-wheel."
"A what?"
"A giant squirrel wheel," Ragnar explained. "We put Toke inside it. He runs. The wheel turns. The wind-bags pump. Unending wind."
Two turns of the glass later, a crude, oversized wooden wheel stood next to the rising brick chimney. Toke was inside, looking confused but happy to be in the center of it.
"Run, Toke!" Ragnar commanded.
Toke ran. The wheel spun. The tangled workings of cranks and levers (which Ragnar had hastily bound together using spare thrower parts) groaned, but the massive bellows began to heave.
"Fill it!" Ragnar yelled.
Leif and his apprentices climbed the ladder to the top of the chimney. They dumped baskets of crushed bog iron, charcoal, and white rock into the inferno.
Now, they waited.
King Horik arrived with his sworn men. He looked at the smoking brick tower and the man running inside a giant wheel.
"Ragnar," the King said, shielding his eyes from the heat. "Why is Toke a squirrel?"
"He is the heart of the wind, my King," Ragnar said, wiping sweat from his brow. "He is giving breath to the fire."
"And this... chimney... will give us silver?"
"It will give us Poured Iron," Ragnar promised. "Which we can trade for silver. Or kill Saxons with."
Time passed. Toke got tired and was swapped out for another warrior. The hearth roared. The bricks glowed red hot.
"It is time," Ragnar said, checking the color of the flame. "Break the seal."
Leif took a long iron rod and smashed the clay plug at the bottom of the hearth.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then, a stream of blindingly bright, orange liquid shot out.
"It bleeds fire!" Jarl Sigurd gasped, stepping back.
The liquid iron flowed into the sand channels Ragnar had prepared. It filled the molds simple shapes for arrowheads and axe heads.
"By the Gods," Leif whispered, watching the flow. "It's beautiful."
Ragnar watched the molds fill. "That," he said to the King, "is the grand bounty. We just made five hundred arrowheads in ten turns. It would take a smith a week to hammer those."
King Horik stared at the cooling metal. He walked over and poked a solidified arrowhead with his boot. It was rough, brittle poured iron not good for swords, but perfect for things that just needed to be hard and heavy.
"We can make pots?" the King asked.
"Thousands," Ragnar nodded.
"We can make... armor plates?"
"If we cast them thick enough," Ragnar agreed.
The King looked at Jarl Sigurd. "Sigurd, how much is an iron pot worth in Frankia?"
"Two silver pieces," Sigurd reckoned, his eyes widening. "And we can make... how many?"
"As long as Toke runs," Ragnar pointed to the wheel, "and we have earth-blood, we can make them forever."
Sigurd's face changed. The worry about the hoard vanished, replaced by the greedy mind of a merchant prince.
"We are rich," Sigurd whispered. "We are richer than raiders!"
Ragnar turned to Leif. "Leif," Ragnar said formally. "You are now the Master of the King's Forge."
Leif stood up straighter, puffing out his soot-covered chest. "Master Leif. I like it. Does it come with extra meat?"
"Yes," Ragnar laughed. "And Toke gets extra ale."
"Toke likes ale!" Toke shouted from inside the wheel.
Ragnar looked at the grand forge he had built on a muddy English beach. A Dragon's Hearth. A walking-wheel. A grand chain of makers.
He had solved the hoard's want not with gold, but with crafting lore.
"My King," Ragnar said. "The debt is covered. The men will get their silver. Now... can we take York?"
King Horik looked at the pile of fresh, cooling iron. He picked up a poured iron arrowhead. It was still warm.
"We don't just take York, Ragnar," the King said, his eyes reflecting the orange glow of the hearth. "We take everything. We have the fire of the gods in a brick box."
He turned to the army. "Sharpen your new arrows!" Horik roared. "Tonight we feast! Tomorrow we conquer!"
As the men cheered, Ragnar collapsed onto a crate. He was exhausted. His mind felt like melted cheese. But he had done it.
He looked at Gyda, who was standing quietly by the molds, judging the worth.
"It's brittle," she noted, tapping a piece. "It will shatter if it hits stone."
"It's poured iron," Ragnar explained. "Full of char. We can burn it clean later into steel. But for now... it's good enough for trading."
"Good enough," she agreed. She looked at him. "You keep pulling tricks from the shadows, Master Builder. Eventually, the shadows will be empty."
"Then I'll build a shadow-maker," Ragnar grinned.
Gyda laughed. It was a genuine sound.