Ragnar rose then, pushing back his chair as he began to walk the length of the table. Since the first moment he had conceived the siege mortars in the quiet hours of his study back in Titan, he had known their power.
Though the device had first taken shape in the hands of the Andalusians around the year of our twelve hundred and fifty... a primitive iron-reinforced bucket hurling stones on wings of black powder his own version, born of modern knowledge and industrial refinement, stood ready to eclipse that ancient precursor.
