Inside the Great Hall of Dublin...
The benches had been replaced by rows of pine folding tables, behind which sat twenty Iron Kingdom scribes.
In the corners of the hall, where drunken berserkers once collapsed in their own vomit, sentinels of the royal guard stood at parade rest, their rifled percussion carbines held across their chests.
Upon the high seat of Dublin sat Ragnar Ulfsson.
He had his boots kicked up onto an overturned barrel of confiscated Danish silver, his chin resting against a gloved fist as he surveyed the hall with an expression of faint boredom.
At his side stood Bjorn, leaning over a wide nautical chart of the North Atlantic held down with compass weights.
"Twenty days," Ragnar muttered. "Twenty bloody days."
Bjorn looked up from the navigation charts, a smirk twitching beneath his beard. "You sound disappointed, brother. Most conquerors celebrate when an entire kingdom falls in three weeks."
