68.
68.
There is no greatest weapon. There is only the greatest warrior.
If you placed a wooden stick in Hang-u's hand, and gave an iron sword to the swordsman before him, who would win?
The answer is that the ranger with a sniper rifle a hundred meters away wins.
Which is to say, before the age of firearms, in the era of cold weapons, debating the greatest weapon was meaningless.
The formulas we usually recite like a mantra—[spear > cavalry > sword > spear]—are in truth nothing more than a very rough schematization of battlefield conditions.
What I felt fighting battles large and small in Britain and the Eastern Roman Empire was that the true formula was [cavalry >>>>>>> spear, sword, and everything else].
Whether heavy cavalry or light cavalry, once mounted, you needed at least ten men just to deal with a single Örn.
So I too wanted to raise Viking cavalry by any means, but... the native horses of Scandinavia were far too small in stature for heavy cavalry to ride. The very terrain of Scandinavia was ill-suited for galloping horses as well.
If I made good use of that land between Novgorod and Kiyiu, something might be possible... but since I had already sought Árpád of the Magyars' counsel on horsemanship, he would send men. We had been reaping the benefits of a stabilized Dnieper trade route since last winter, after all. He would readily agree.
I had to make the most of this opportunity.
[Clang—! Clang—! Clang—!]
A life devoted solely to iron and hammer. Randi's hammering, to call him a master would be no disservice, was charged with obsession and will.
The steadily ringing hammer sounded like a temple bell, and to watch and listen to the sight was to have all manner of thoughts rise in the mind, only for a moment of sudden stillness to arrive.
[Clang! Clang! Hisssss—]
The alien mineral, beaten countless times and thoroughly enraged, submerged itself in the water with a bright red face, and so great was its heat that it brought the calm surface to a bubbling boil to cool its own fury.
Acrid smoke, giving off a scent of iron akin to the smell of blood, hung throughout the forge, and what the seasoned master lifted after timing the moment by his own internal clock was a greatsword of immense size.
[Shring—]
"O Brokkr and Eitri..."
Randi murmured low the names of the brother gods of the Norse smithy, Brokkr and Eitri. The enormous sword, which even he with his solid body built from a lifetime of swinging a heavy hammer had to support with both hands, was in no way unworthy of those brother gods' names he had spoken.
"Usually, when you smelt a hundred pieces of iron ore, ten of them become fine steel by the gods' care. And of those ten, one piece of steel is in such exceptionally good condition that, with the right timing and luck, it becomes a famed blade—like the Sword of Courage I presented to the Konungr."
Though his entire mind was focused on the smelting, Randi had noticed my presence and let slip a quiet word. His eyes remained fixed on the sword held in his own hands all the while.
An age without any standard specifications for iron and steel. Anyone who wielded weapons could distinguish good iron from bad, but making it was another story entirely.
The inherent state of the iron ore, the state of the smelting furnace, the intensity of the flames, that day's humidity, the weather, the skill of the handler, and on and on.
Truly, it required countless conditions to align. Randi was speaking of a famed blade.
"Those who know little of iron believe that if the handler's skill is superb, a famed blade can be forged even from the most garbage of materials. But that is not the truth."
[Hissss— Hisss—]
Having confirmed that the cross-section of the blade he had hammered bore no impurities or rough edges whatsoever, Randi once more plunged the sword into the water to cool its heat.
Silently staring down at the rising heat, Randi's face resembled that of an ascetic monk in meditation.
"What, after all, is the reason for striving to make good iron in the first place?
To produce a purer crystal of iron, we employ charcoal and coal, my own blood and the blood of beasts, the bone splinters of men and the bone splinters of animals. The reason we mobilize every conceivable method is precisely to create iron that is strong and flexible. Iron, precisely like this."
[Ting—]
When he lightly flicked the blade with his thick finger, a sound so clear you would scarcely believe it came from a sword of such enormity resonated through the forge.
"A man's skill is the matter that follows. In handling this sacred iron, I did not fold or spread it even once. I merely melted it and let it harden into the shape of a sword. The rest, this iron accomplished on its own. This is... truly a divine sword. Konungr Helgi. It is a sword that only you can wield."
Though some heat must still have remained, Randi's two hands, clad in thick beast-hide gloves, raised the sword, supporting both the portion where the hilt would sit and the blade, longer and broader than that of a common sword.
I likewise, donning the gloves handed to me by Randi's apprentice, carefully took hold of the sword and lifted it.
[Woooong— Woooong—]
So excellent was its elasticity that the hilt of the sword, a tremor still lingering within it, gently received my two hands, while the tip of the blade, pointing skyward, stretched straight and true, revealing its sharp blue edge to all around.
'A famed blade. No, a divine sword.'
Though it had not been particularly sanded, the enormous sword already gleamed. The blade alone, as long and broad as the height of an average woman, seemed to welcome its new master.
'Made from an alien mineral, should I call it an alien sword, then.'
Since Randi forged it, was it half of each?
The center of weight was positioned at the hilt and the specially ordered guard above it, so it seemed possible to adjust the angle for slashing and thrusting with wrist strength alone.
My heart, like a child receiving a Christmas gift, pounded rapidly in pure excitement.
"Randi, you are the finest craftsman in the world. I warrant that the moment this sword enters the memories of the world's people, Randi's name shall stand before the name of Ulfberht."
At my voice, filled with profound satisfaction, Randi, who had been tensed with anxiety, at last burst into loud laughter.
Uaha— hahahaha!
Such was the laughter of a man who had finally achieved his lifelong aspiration. So exhilarating it was that among the apprentices around him, there were even those whose eyes grew red-rimmed.
Leaving Randi to his delirious, tearful laughter, I handed the greatsword, which still required finishing work, back to his apprentice, who stood deferentially beside me, and requested that a spear and a short sword each be forged from the meteoric iron, of which a great quantity still remained.
The price would be all the remaining meteoric iron.
Of course, the goods Randi would produce henceforth would first fall into the hands of his number one priority customer, myself... but I intended to pay a price not ungenerous. I could even expand this forge outright...
Since water was already drawn here, it would be fine to make this an industrial district.
I could set up workshops for carpenters and stonemasons a little distance away. I should convey this idea to Erik first.
"Then, keep up the good work."
"Yes...! Konungr!"
"I shall take my leave now, Randi."
"Uaha-hahahaha! Waha! Uahahahahaha!"
Turning my back on Randi, who was now kneeling as if about to collapse and even shedding tears, I turned my steps toward the central district of Árós, which had begun its civil engineering works and was filled with a clamorous din.
Randi's laughter escorted me on my way.
*****
At the very moment the new faith I had advocated—popularly called 'Helatru (those who believe in Hel)' among the people—was being spread swiftly as a fresh shockwave by those who had witnessed the 'Proof of Helgi' on that very spot, the redevelopment of Árós and its surrounding area was underway.
Leon, who had for some time been scouring the valleys and caves of the mountain range beginning north of Árós with Hrólfr like a man possessed.
He had come to report to me with a heart brimming with excitement, but upon hearing the news of the shattered rock at Uppsala, he had meant to turn his steps at once, only to be held back by Hrólfr's dissuasion and had thus set it aside for the time being.
He said he would head straight to Uppsala the moment his report to me was finished. Something about how he must record my great deeds in writing and spread them far and wide...
Having long since given up on understanding that eccentric scientist's thinking, I told him to do as he pleased. Thus, looking even more excited than when he had first kicked open the door to my office, this Roman rattled on at length about the great discovery made by himself and Hrólfr.
Though half of its content consisted of excessive praise of me and grandiose rhetoric, the substance itself was indeed worth all the fuss.
Surprisingly, while the Norsemen did possess some knowledge of mining, due to their nature they had never greatly devoted themselves to it. They had shown a remarkably scant interest in the long, high mountain range situated right above their own heads.
To have pried open that state of near-unknown, if only a little, through the efforts of Leon and Hrólfr.
The result?
In this land, there were copper mines, gold mines, and another iron mine.
At first, I was skeptical.
How could a single scholar find copper mines, iron mines, and gold mines just by poking around the foothills a bit?
But it turned out... the villagers in the surrounding area had, knowingly or unknowingly, already been collecting the flecks of gold washing down between the valleys, or the stones with a golden sheen.
Leon, finding this suspicious, had wished to follow the watercourse upward, and at last, he had been able to pluck out one mine after another where veins of copper and gold were so boldly exposed they practically screamed, 'Come mine me~!'
'I should have thought of it at least once. Why did I think the blessing of abundance would only affect crops, fish, and bees?'
It was my premonition, but the likelihood was high that many more things besides these veins lay sleeping beneath that ground.
Of course, I had neither the reason nor the capacity to set off a massive gold rush right at this moment. So I merely kept this fact in my knowledge, dispatched a small force to the village in question, appointed the villagers as a sort of honorary mine guard, and then spoke with Leon about the matters requiring my immediate attention.
We had a city to build. (We got city to build)
If it were up to my heart, I would make all the major cities of my domain—Árós, Uppsala, Roskilde, Bamburgh, Jorvik, Novgorod, Kiyiu, and the like—into beautiful brick cities like Constantinople.
How splendid would that be? Cities painted in the same color, the kind you would find in a fairy tale. Less worry about massive fires breaking out, and sturdy.
But the problem was, for starters, our neighborhood had no such... materials to build such splendid stone houses.
Porphyrola? Portozola? Pozzolana. At any rate, to make Roman concrete required a special material... and for starters, we lacked the most critical ingredient: volcanic ash.
All of Scandinavia is nothing but mountain ranges, and yet there's no volcanic ash? That might be a little surprising, but at least as far as I knew, this region had no active volcanoes, nor anything even resembling a volcano.
Naturally, volcanic ash was unobtainable, so according to Leon, concrete could be made one way or another... but he was skeptical as to whether it could match the efficiency of the concrete produced by the Roman Empire.
Moreover, even if we somehow miraculously produced high-quality concrete... for the basics, we would have to use the stones available in our surroundings for construction, and the stones of Scandinavia were all stubbornly hard granite.
That blessed marble of the Mediterranean—I had dealt with it in Constantinople, and it was so soft, no lie, that if I applied just a little force with my finger, my handprint would remain on the stone surface.
It was the combination of such blessed base materials and superior concrete that had made such stupendous architecture possible... Had the Mediterranean been covered entirely in granite instead of marble, the Roman Empire or anyone else could never have dreamed of a Colosseum or Hippodrome.
Paying the Roman Empire a premium to purchase and import it was one method, if it could be called a method... but for the sake of maintenance, using local materials was the most basic of basics.
Thus, after a full day of pondering, Leon finally proposed we attempt something new: namely, the blessing of nature bestowed upon a Scandinavia that was marbleless, a luckless land without marble. Sturdy timber.
The masters of Scandinavia, in a sense, were perhaps not us humans, but those densely packed forests. Forests that grew faster than they could be cut down provided us with timber in quantities that were nearly infinite...
For us, logging was not merely a choice for winter firewood, but something closer to defending mankind's right to survive against an ever-encroaching nature that ceaselessly expanded its domain.
Laying the house's foundation with hard, enduring granite, and upon it, erecting the house by fitting together vertically aligned wooden pillars trimmed smooth and to identical specifications. The gaps were to be filled with Leon's special Scandinavian-style concrete.
According to the conceptual sketches Leon had drawn, it would be wooden buildings of considerable refinement, yet with a certain familiarity as well.
I gave the OK sign without hesitation, and as a king is one who leads, I intended to be the very first to employ this state-of-the-art(?) construction method to build my own house upon a low hill a little east of present-day Árós.
It was perhaps only natural that my housecarls, and the people of Árós and Uppsala who took great interest in their king, began to poke their heads in one by one with curious faces, but soon a new problem arose...
All of a sudden, a redevelopment boom had begun among the Norsemen.