Ragnar sat atop his massive black stallion, Calculus.
The horse, now outfitted with custom-fitted "Mark II" plate barding, trotted gallantly at the front of the Track-Laying Division.
Aside from the two thousand veteran "Iron Gear" employees he had at his back, Ragnar also led three thousand "Mandatory Interns"—conscripted levies raised from the recently liquidated Kingdom of Mercia.
Beside him rode the Site Managers of these mostly shovel-based units; they were Saxon Thanes clad in their traditional mail, but wearing the humiliating grey armbands of "Junior Management."
This army was one of three which had begun to march on the strategic bottlenecks of the South.
By laying track to these areas, Ragnar would effectively bring the logistics of Wessex into a stranglehold in one fell swoop.
As such, Ragnar smiled as the men in his army sang along to the industrial shanty he had commissioned Gyda to write; it had become the earworm of the season.
