Tens of thousands of nomads slowly followed ancient roads through the highlands.
Horse hooves clattered over broken stone.
The higher they climbed, the thinner the forests became.
Cold winds roared between the peaks, flinging dry grass into travelers' faces.
"How much farther?"
Bolsho asked impatiently, leaning on his walking staff as he glanced worriedly at the elderly, the women, and the children.
The scout replied,
"Just ahead."
"Once we cross this pass."
"You'll see."
Bolsho continued climbing.
Finally, breathing heavily, he reached the summit.
His eyes widened.
The endless mountains suddenly opened into a broad, flat valley.
The afternoon sun broke through the clouds, bathing the entire landscape in warm golden light.
A small river wound gently through the center.
Rich meadows still retained traces of green despite autumn's arrival.
Farther away, forests of beech and birch climbed the gentle slopes, sheltering the valley from the harsh winds.
"What a magnificent place."
"You've done well."
Delighted, Bolsho rewarded each scout with:
one slave,
one barrel of wine,
and four sheep.
The arduous migration had finally ended.
Leaving the majority of his people and livestock to winter in the valley, Bolsho personally led over 2,000 cavalrymen onward into the Carpathian Basin to raid the surrounding lands.
This region had once belonged to Moravia.
It lay on the empire's remote frontier.
Sparse settlements of Slavs and Avars lived there, combining farming with animal husbandry.
The Magyar horsemen swept through them effortlessly.
One settlement after another fell.
As Bolsho gathered more intelligence, his excitement only grew.
"This land is enormous."
"My Gyut tribe numbers only fifty thousand."
"Perhaps..."
"We should invite the other tribes."
Returning to the valley, he spent many days consulting with the tribal elders.
In the end they reached a decision.
Messengers would be sent to two friendly—but relatively weak—Magyar tribes.
Together they would seize this vast new homeland...
and establish a new khaganate.
November — Londinium
Vig sat in his office working through reports arriving from every corner of the empire.
Four years had passed since the conquest of Francia.
The cabinet had continuously relocated settlers from Scandinavia into regions like Calais and Paris.
So far, 200,000 migrants had been moved south—
an average of 10,000 settlers per county across the twenty directly administered counties.
Reviewing the governors' reports, Vig saw the same conclusion everywhere.
Every one of the twenty counties was running a fiscal deficit.
The reasons were obvious:
maintaining garrisons,
suppressing bandits,
granting two-year tax exemptions to new settlers,
and widespread passive resistance from Frankish peasants, which made tax collection extremely inefficient.
For the foreseeable future, the directly governed territories south of the Channel would continue relying on heavy subsidies from the central government.
Following the war of AD 873, the Viking Empire's total population had reached roughly 15 million.
Britain contained 3 million.
The directly ruled Channel territories held 2 million.
The remaining 10 million lived throughout continental Europe under indirect rule, contributing almost no direct taxation.
Imperial finances therefore depended primarily on commercial taxes.
Last year's revenue had reached 260,000 pounds—
more than enough to maintain the enormous empire while still funding ambitious public works.
The first major project was a new high-standard highway across western Francia.
Goods from Britain would travel upstream along the Seine, cross a short overland route, then continue via the upper Saône toward the Mediterranean.
The cabinet spared no expense.
The road would both stimulate commerce and allow armies to redeploy rapidly during wartime.
Additional plans included sewers and aqueducts for major cities, improving sanitation throughout the empire.
Most of the labor would come from prisoners of war and rebellious peasants.
After completing their sentences, they would be shipped to the New World, Livonia, or Pannonia—the name Gregor had chosen for his future kingdom.
Continuing through the paperwork, Vig noted that:
imperial finances remained healthy;
grain reserves were abundant;
rebellions across Europe were gradually subsiding;
and the Eastern Romans were preoccupied with affairs in Anatolia.
Overall...
this had been a year of peaceful development.
He finished half a cup of warm cocoa before opening the final report.
It came from the Ministry of Overseas Affairs.
The report summarized recent island surveys.
The Azores, Canary Islands, Faroes, and several other islands possessed no guano deposits worth mining.
Meanwhile, eight sailing ships continued exploring both the Caribbean and the South Atlantic in search of reliable nitrate sources.
Results were expected sometime next year.
The previous year's war had exhausted the empire's gunpowder reserves.
To replenish supplies, the cabinet had instructed local governors to organize workers to scrape nitrate-rich earth from livestock pens.
The results had been disappointing.
Production remained low.
The work was also deeply unpopular.
From what Vig remembered, Europe's major saltpeter supplies during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries came from India and Chile.
Since those sea routes had yet to be opened, all they could do was continue searching for islands covered in guano.
The Caribbean
After three weeks at sea, the crew of the Red Falcon had grown listless.
No one even felt like talking anymore.
Corncob pipes dangled from their mouths as they leaned silently against the rail, staring across the endless ocean.
"Land ahead!"
At the lookout's cry, every sailor looked up.
Ahead rose nothing more than a gray-brown mass of rock protruding abruptly from the blue sea—
steep...
barren...
like a giant's discarded stone.
The captain brought the ship closer and dropped anchor.
Taking a longboat ashore, he surveyed the island.
There were no trees.
Only low shrubs.
Thousands of seabirds circled overhead, shrieking constantly.
The cliffs were coated with thick layers of bird droppings.
"Bring me the tools."
Using a pickaxe, the captain chipped away a pale yellow stone.
He crushed it into powder, dissolved it in water, filtered out the impurities, and produced a bucket of dark, murky liquid.
Following instructions from the Overseas Affairs handbook, he mixed wood ash into the solution and boiled it over an iron pot.
After it cooled, crystals formed along the sides.
He scraped off a small sample and tossed it into the fire.
A bright flame instantly flared up.
"Hahaha!"
"We've finally found it!"
"Our hard days are over, boys!"
The Red Falcon had served for many years.
Retired from frontline naval duty, she now belonged to the Ministry of Overseas Affairs.
The Vikings monopolized the route to the New World.
There were no pirates in the Caribbean.
No rival navies either.
The ship's duties consisted solely of exploration and transport.
Combat opportunities simply didn't exist.
Now fortune had finally smiled upon them.
The Red Falcon had become the first vessel to discover a guano island.
Its captain would almost certainly be ennobled as a Knight-Explorer, perhaps even raised to baron, receiving a hereditary estate somewhere in the New World.
It might not compare with the great nobles of the Old World—
but it would still secure his family's place among the aristocracy.
"Hurry up!"
"Quit standing around!"
"The bounty waiting in Puerto Rico won't collect itself!"
The captain ordered the sailors to pile stones atop the island's highest point as a marker, carefully recorded its location, and eagerly set sail back toward Puerto Rico to report their discovery.
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