It was probably a few days ago, right after Barnett and the System Sprite had a little chat about these so-called Viking pirates and merchant vessels, that Barnett got royally burned one more time—only that, afterward, the lightweight bolt-thrower warship armed with Scorpion Crossbows never actually got built. What did appear, though, were a handful of new small fishing boats—and merchant ships.
Fishing boats: nothing fancy. They bob around in calm nearshore waters; you fling the net, haul it up, and voilà—fish, shrimp, crab, shellfish, turtles, you name it, it's edible. Anything inedible? Just toss it right back into the sea.
But merchant ships—that's where things got a bit messy.
These little coastal traders still couldn't venture into the high seas, but so long as they hugged the shoreline, they were fine.
So some of Biyad's merchants, acting on their own initiative, organized themselves. They loaded up on the beast hides hunted from the nearby forests, surplus pottery fresh off the wheel at the ceramic workshop, plus various iron goods, all with the plan to ship them south to Oslo and turn a profit.
Of course, in the end, every single piece of iron got impounded by Barnett. Ha! Strategic resources, people—are you trying to aid the enemy or what? Want to live? If not, just say so; I'll have the Vikings torch your home within five minutes.
Terrified, the merchants begged, pleaded, and grovelled, finally coughing up a 1,500-gold-coin protection fee—and that was their salvation.
Barnett made a tidy profit.
"Please note," the System Sprite cautioned, "squeezing the populace like that sparks social unrest and drives crime rates up. It can even lead to outright rebellion."
"I won't let it happen again. No more slip-ups," Barnett vowed.
And just like that, Barnett washed his hands of the merchants' seaborne trade—his only concern now was tax collection.
When the small merchant ships finally reached Oslo and docked, they discovered that Oslo and Biyad had never signed a formal trade agreement. That meant yet another round of tariffs. After settling that bill, the merchants suddenly realized: even if they sold every last item at full price, they still wouldn't break even—tariffs were simply too steep.
"We're in the red! Utterly bankrupt!" they wailed in unison from the ship's hold.
—but that, of course, is beside the point. The real point is that Felix von Lukenar—Oslo's lord, long reckoned the prime heir to the Norwegian ducal throne—suddenly got wind that another power had emerged to his north.
Biyad City? Never heard of it. Must be some up-and-coming tribal settlement. Yet here they were, dispatching multiple ships to trade on his turf—and, on top of that, Barnett had "kindly" lent local merchants a detachment of Vikings for protection. Taken together, these signs convinced Felix von Lukenar that this little town was no mere backwater…
And with that thought, Count Felix's wheels started turning. His feud with Olaf III of Bergen had reached a boiling point, and both sides were drilling and gathering forces, primed for a showdown.
Felix was confident his forces were vastly superior in strength, and that his cunning and statecraft outmatched that "punk" Olaf III. But Olaf III boasted a touch more legitimacy—something that gnawed at Felix's nerves.
That's why a fair number of the more old-school Viking clans backed Olaf III. His army numbered some 22,000, including an elite chain-mail cavalry contingent of over 2,000—the ace in Olaf's hand. If all-out war broke out, the outcome was far from certain.
Felix still believed he would prevail. But massive casualties? Unthinkable. He needed to preserve his forces; he intended, after all, to carry on his late liege's mandate and march on England next. If he suffered crippling losses now, he would lack the resources for that campaign.
So in recent days, Count Felix had been cozying up to the mountain-dwelling Dwarf clans, hoping to sway them to his side. Ideally, the Dwarves would join him in the fray; if not, they could at least supply him with weapons and armor.
Felix's pitch to the Dwarves was airtight—and persuasive: "Our king died in England, and we all thirst for vengeance. You Dwarves lack the numbers to stand alone—you need Viking might. But we Vikings may soon be bled dry by our contest to decide the next Duke. If our forces dwindle too much in this civil strife, we won't be able to raise the army to conquer England. I, Count Felix, am the front-runner to become the new Duke of Norway. The sooner you back me, the sooner I'm Duke, the sooner I'll unite Norway and march on England to avenge our fallen sovereign. Think carefully on my proposal."
In response, the Dwarf elders erupted into fierce debate over the past few days. They split into two camps: the traditionalists argued that this plan flew in the face of Dwarven moral code; the radicals insisted on flexibility.
Thus, they'd failed even to elect a new Dwarf king—yet here they were, tethered to Viking internal politics. Neither faction could persuade the other, so they finally reached a temporary compromise: suspend all trade with the Vikings until a proper solution was hammered out. Hence Barnett's puzzlement: "Why haven't any Dwarves shown up to trade?"
When a balance is this finely poised, even a single straw can tip the scales. What then of a fully armed independent city with two thousand soldiers? For Count Felix, Biyad City was a massive coup.
As he gathered more intel on Biyad City, his admiration only grew: new, dynamic, prosperous, militarily formidable. This was no mere straw—it was a fifty-gram lead weight.
A lead weight nonetheless. Not the scale, and certainly not the balance itself.
"Send a messenger to that Barnett fellow," Count Felix ordered. "Offer him your support. Once I'm Duke of Norway, I'll cede Bergen's lands to him and formally bestow upon him the title Count of Biyad."
And so Felix dispatched his envoy with that proposition. Almost simultaneously, Olaf III got wind of Biyad City and sent his own messenger, offering Barnett nearly identical terms. Their envoys nearly came to blows on the village path outside Biyad City—only a patrolling cavalry troop prevented a bloodbath. The troop's captain, sensing the absurdity, dispatched riders to carry word back to the city.
"Ugh, really," Barnett sighed when his retainer relayed the news. "I had plans to sit back, watch the tigers fight, and reap the spoils. But now these two bastards want to drag me into their war."
"Ha! You can't freeload without muscle. If a clam and a sandpiper scrap and a toad watches, what spoils does the toad snatch?" the System Sprite deadpanned.
"Guess I'll have to pick a side, then. Who to choose? Did they already cut some secret deal between themselves? Both promising to make me Count of Biyad and carve out lands for me from their enemy's holdings? Seriously, they couldn't even throw me a few thousand gold coins to show good faith—I'm strapped for cash!"
"You still have tens of thousands of unused gold coins lying around," the Sprite noted.
"True enough—but who ever thinks they have too much money?"
So Barnett stashed both delegations in neighboring guest chambers in the town's central keep—close enough to see each other when they looked out the windows, just to spite them. Then he set about weighing his options: choose wrong, and he'd die.
On the surface, Felix boasted the larger power base. Now thirty-seven, his battlefield performance had been noteworthy, and the System Sprite rated his leadership at a solid three stars.
Olaf III, twenty-two, was said to be impressively burly and famously strong; tales of his valor circulated years ago. But he struck many as brave yet tactically dim. Still, his command over 850 chain-mail cavalry—albeit novice heavy cavalry—was not to be underestimated.
"Hmm. Who to side with…shall we flip a coin?" Barnett proposed to the Sprite.
"I'm indifferent—suit yourself," the Sprite replied.
Of course Barnett would never entrust such a monumental decision to chance. After much deliberation, he opted for the younger, duller, more pliable Olaf III.
After all, Barnett harbored ambitions of becoming King of Norway himself. It made sense to eliminate the stronger contender—Count Felix—so that his own path to the throne would be clearer.
The System Sprite agreed: the twenty-two-year-old brute would be far easier to manipulate.
"How much gold do I have left? Ten thousand?" Barnett asked.
"That's correct."
"Then we'll recruit more troops: six companies of Vikings, four companies of patrol cavalry, and as a special unit, one company of the Norse Field Ecclesiastic Corps," Barnett declared gravely.
"Viking companies cost 400 gold each, patrol cavalry 300 each, and the Norse Field Ecclesiastic Corps 800 each. That's a total of 4,400 gold. No problem?" the Sprite checked.
"No problem."
"Excellent. These troops will be ready in one day. That adds 900 infantry, 200 cavalry, and fifty ecclesiastics, boosting your army to over 3,000 men. But your tax revenues will soon be stretched to the limit—keep that in mind."
"Don't worry," Barnett replied with a wicked grin, "in a few days I'll be able to sustain them."