In mid-June, the second batch of students completed their five-year course. The Whigs went to the school to hold the graduation ceremony and,
incidentally, to assign the fifty students to their positions.
After deliberating, the Whigs made the following decision:
Thirty-five people would enter the administrative system, ten would serve as trainee shamans at various temples, and the remaining five would remain at the school to teach while simultaneously studying the first year of junior high school.
"With this group of students filling the vacancies, the administrative efficiency of the four northern counties will be greatly improved. Starting next year, we will be able to gradually establish "city" level institutions…
"
While the Whigs were making plans for the future, two columns of black smoke rose from the east.
An enemy attack?
Two columns of smoke meant that the enemy numbered between 100 and 500.
The graduation ceremony was postponed. Vig escorted Heligif back to Castle Tain, leaving fifty shield-bearers to defend the base. He led the remaining fifty shield-bearers to the south-east wall of Castle Tain.
Ten minutes later, the newly formed infantry company of the city defense was assembled. All 150 men, fully armed with iron armor, awaited orders in the open space behind the wall. Over the next
hour, armed civilians arrived one by one.
The permanent population of the city of Tain was 3,200. In the event of an attack, every adult male was obliged to defend the city. They were organized into squads of 30-50 men, depending on the area of residence. Hearing the alarm, they headed to Tyne Castle to get weapons. There were 800 men on site, nearly half of whom were armed with crossbows.
"I didn't expect Eric to have the guts to attack Tyne. Quite interesting."
Including the armed civilians, Vig had nearly a thousand men, making the defense of the wall an easy task.
He ordered the defenders to bring in a large number of kerosene canisters from the warehouse and stack them next to six small trebuchets.
When everything was ready, and seeing that the enemy was still not approaching, Vig ordered two hundred armed civilians to take the boats moored at the pier as far upstream as possible to avoid being caught in the fighting.
At two o'clock in the afternoon, the enemy fleet finally appeared on the river: twenty longships and about five hundred men.
Strangely, the fleet did not have Eric's banners with swords and axes, and the formation was disorganized, like a flock of wild ducks just learning to swim.
"Only 10% in armor! This is incredibly bad. Doesn't look like Eric's men."
Vig signaled the trebuchets to stop loading and ordered all the militia to sit behind the battlements, creating the illusion of a weak defense.
Soon the raider ships moored at the pier. They walked chaotically, forming a wall of shields in the open space, and
gradually approached the southern walls of Tyne Town.
"Who are you? Why do you attack King Ragnar's Britain?"
A moment later, a reply came from behind the shield wall: "We are only aiming at Vig. We do not intend to insult King Ragnar
nor do we intend to occupy this place. Having killed Vig, we swear to sail away and never to disturb the locals again."
Lord Oh of Bergen
he couldn't help but laugh as the enemy copied his tactics. He waved his left hand, signaling the majority to remain where they were until the distance between them was within fifty meters.
"Everyone fire!"
At Vig's command, the militia opened fire with their crossbows at the breaches in the shield wall. Hundreds of crossbow bolts pierced the shield wall, instantly killing over twenty raiders.
The raiders' archers behind the shield wall responded.
At only forty men, they were no match for such a large force, especially considering that they were protected by the ramparts. After two rounds of fire, the archers, overwhelmed by the crossbowmen, did not dare venture beyond the shield wall to strike back.
Faced with an overwhelming barrage of crossbow bolts, the raiders retreated, their shield wall slowly retreating.
Suddenly, the trebuchets behind the wall began hurling flaming oil canisters, aiming not at the moving shield wall, but at the raiders' ships on the shore.
The counterweights fell with a dull thud, sending six flaming oil canisters flying through the air to whistle down on the longships a hundred yards away.
To the cheers of the defenders, the canisters hit one of the outer ships, the blazing flames engulfing the woolen sail before spreading to another longship to the west.
The attack on the ships caused a small commotion within the slowly retreating shield wall. Crossbowmen, aiming at the suddenly widening passages, pulled their triggers, and a single volley of crossbow bolts felled more than thirty men.
"The enemy will not hold out! Shield guards and companies of city infantry, attack!"
At Vigus's command, two hundred armored warriors poured out of the southern gate and rushed at the enemy.
The raiders found themselves in a difficult position. If they retreated in formation, they would be cut down by the energetic soldiers. If they ran full speed towards the ship's landing, they would end up in the rear of the crossbowmen.
After a few seconds of hesitation, the small group of raiders on the edge of the shield wall decided to flee. Seeing their comrades retreating, the remaining raiders lost all will and rushed towards the ship's landing.
The next moment, before their eyes could fill with despair, a second volley of kerosene canisters fell on the shore, setting two longships ablaze again.
Without thinking, the raiders rushed towards the nearest ship. Due to disorganization, some longships were overcrowded,
while others were too sparsely manned. Before they could decide on an order, two hundred soldiers had already surrounded them.
The flotilla sailed upstream from the mouth of the Tyne, a distance of twenty kilometers. After more than four hours of rowing, the raiders were exhausted and no match for the ferocious soldiers.
After only a few minutes of fighting, most of the raiders surrendered, leaving only two longships that broke away from the shore and disappeared downstream.
After the battle, Vig ordered armed civilians to put out the fire so that it would not spread to the entire dock area. After putting out the fire, he took the interrogation reports from an eyewitness.
According to the raiders' testimony, Lord Auch ordered them to plunder Tyne Castle, but they acted without the permission of King Eric, without his permission.
After a few moments of thought, Vig commissioned his scribe to write a letter to Londinium, informing Ragnar of the raid and sending two of the captives as witnesses.
'According to the old rules, the remaining 300 captives will be assigned to a construction crew to reclaim the moors and clear the marshes.'
By this time, Tyneshire's population had grown to over 30,000: 15,000 Vikings, over 4,000 Welsh tribes, and about 10,000 remaining Angles.
To accommodate the growing influx of immigrants, Vig intended to cultivate the vast area south of the Tyne.
"Viking raiders and Pictish raiders provide a constant supply of labor, greatly reducing construction costs and making it suitable for large-scale projects.
The population of the southern coast is growing. Perhaps I should consider building a floating bridge and a small stone fortress on the beachhead. Iceland currently dumps huge volumes of volcanic ash every month, and it would be a waste if it were to sit idle."
With an abundance of labor at his disposal, Vig even promised the Ravenspeaker to build a tall and majestic Nordic temple in the center of the city, showcasing a new, progressive and time-honored Nordic polytheism that would completely eclipse such traditional holy places as Uppsala, Nidaros, and Lake Tissø.