CHAPTER 17: Big four
Word had quickly been delivered to the Mentranian overseers party of the defence program being destroyed and lost, and subsequently, the word was delivered to Hawkon.
In light of Guddorn eventually swimming his way, alongside the other Mentranians working on the program, back to Mentra, to let the overseers party know of who caused the program to be lost, and generally what happened, Hawkon had called for a private summit between himself and some other vital figures in the Mentranian regime.
These figures, you could call them, including Hawkon himself, the 'big four'. And for a good reason, because these four figures held tremendous power in the regime, Hawkon obviously being the most powerful out of them.
Apart of the 'big four' of Mentra was Guddorn himself, since he was the leader of Mentra's defence program before the Hooligans came along and completely ruined it and snatched it from the hands of Mentra. And it was because of that reason that he was taking part in this private summit called by Mentra's ruthless young leader. Hawkon wasn't going to blame Guddorn for what happened.
The place that was hosting the summit between Hawkon, Guddorn, and the other two figures of the 'big four', wasn't the big hall in the middle of the outer village of Mentra, like Hawkon had used when he made his first speech after becoming leader, but instead, an underground, secretive, bunker-esque vicinity that'd only be used for situations that arose within the area of militaristic action.
The entrance was hidden from the regulars of Mentra, because the way you entered was within the area directly behind the giant cliff of Mentra, where a trapdoor, covered in leaves and sticks to conceal it, was situated within the muddy grass. Every day on the island at least two or five Mentranian defenders patrolled the vicinity of the trapdoor, but they never looked at it or acted like they were guarding something. They didn't want it to be seen by the regulars.
That was because this secretive, underground, militaristic place would, at the times it gets used, have meetings where vital and internal information is exchanged, primarily on the whereabouts of Mentra's weaponry on the island and so on, and on potential plans to attack a tribe or generally to discuss hypothetical wars. Until today, the latter was very rarely spoken about.
By situating these discussions underground, nobody could overhear what was being discussed, so that was the general idea. And Hawkon was secretly taken down here so none of the regulars would run up and cheer him, like they'd always do (by force), to embrace their great 'father' as he's known as in his cult of personality.
A medium sized table, with three chairs on either side of one end, with one single chair alone on the other, was situated upon a wooden ground. The underground meeting place was lit up by various candles to the point the light was as bright as sunlight.
Hawkon the Second was stood directly in front of the table, awaiting his three other figures. They were slowly making their way inside. Guddorn was the first one to emerge, and as soon as he entered, he stopped and saluted respectfully towards his leader, Hawkon, who was surrounded by his father's old advisers and a couple of other Mentranian defenders, as still as statues, maintaining as much dignity as possible in their positions in the presence of Hawkon.
"Sir Hawkon..." Guddorn said.
Hawkon nodded back. He gestured for Guddorn to take a seat.
The next figure was much wider and vicious looking, but somebody who signed a pact with the Mentranians to keep the regime alive and from collapsing, deliberately to prevent the Berkians/Hooligans returning to the island and taking it back, in light of their resurgence of hostility towards said tribe. It was Fludgeon the Feared, the Chieftan of the Berserker tribe.
"Great leader..." Fludgeon slowly uttered, shaking Hawkon's hand, as he too resumed a seat in the secretive underground, militaristic area.
Last but not least, arguably the second most powerful viking just below Hawkon within the Mentranian regime, it was Gustav Larson. He slowly saluted Hawkon as the young leader gave off a more solemn expression towards Gustav, in comparison to the ones he gave to Fludgeon and Guddorn.
"Father, sir..." Gustav saluted.
"Take a seat, if you will." Hawkon replied, to which Gustav obeyed.
Hawkon finally walked around the table, taking his seat on the chair at the other end of the table, whilst Fludgeon, Guddorn and Gustav were all sat closer together on the opposite end, to make Hawkon look more dominant in terms of position, another deliberate act by the Mentranians.
Five defenders in total surrounded the area, all standing in a guard stance all around, with their crossbows at the ready, intent on defending the four powerful vikings of Mentra should anything happen whilst inside.
"I cannot express just how much shaking anger is inside me right now. I saw this day coming. I always had it in my gut feeling, that the Hooligans would one day try to come back here and reclaim our island, the island that was never theirs. But for them to strike us in such an unprovoked way, to the point our whole defence program has been lost? ruined? snatched from our grasp, for want of a better phrase? they're playing the Grimmel and Drago playbook at this point, and I will soon be revealing Mentra's intent to declare war on the Hooligans so we can defend our sovereignty." Hawkon declared.
"Very well put, sir. I can assure you that we would've disposed of them had we anticipated a battle. We were only expecting to work on phase one. They just appeared, and outnumbered our men and defenders. It's all on me, sir, I'm sorry that I've let us all down..." Guddorn conceded.
"You haven't let us down. Yet. Whilst you were indeed in charge of running our defence program development, I can fully relate to the notion that you didn't anticipate such a strike. I anticipated them personally, in the future, but never did I expect them to emerge at the exact time we commenced the development of that dragon deterrent."
Guddorn internally felt relieved. Only Hawkon could make even the most deadly defenders/powerful figure of Mentra fear for their lives in the manner Guddorn just did for his, but thankfully, Hawkon's understanding nature just now felt like a huge weight lifted off of Guddorn's shoulders.
"Can we just take a moment, however, to acknowledge what we've just lost? we've lost any hope of having a deterrent to defend our island...we've lost any hope of potentially restarting the program, since, as my advisers reminded me, you all killed a decent amount of the dragons on there."
"Hiccup Haddock was the lead in it all, sir. And can I just take this moment to reveal that Blavery, the one who defected, was apart of the Hooligan attack? he was in their gear, like he was...one of them." Guddorn added.
"I'm aware of his defection. This is what the Hooligans do. They not only work and plot to destroy us on the outside, but they've also plotted to destroy us from the inside. Blavery's defection being a prime example of that, especially since, as you've said, he was there on their side when they snatched our deterrent program from our grasp. And speaking of which, the overseers party had requested my permission to send about ten of our brethren to the camps in light of their failure to stop Blavery from escaping. I accepted their request. That's the type of action we'll need to take if we want to prevent the Hooligans from winning over us in the future." Hawkon said.
So it's true; the Mentranians who failed to capture Blavery when he was initially defecting over the border of Mentra were sent to the isolation camps, on Hawkon's approval. Not a single person had anything to say about that in the room. Guddorn simply nodded with dignity, like it was no big deal that his own brethren were most likely executed in the camps.
"What we need to do now, though, is work out how we're going to retaliate. We can't let the Hooligans come here, to try and bring down our sovereignty, by destroying our defence program." Hawkon said.
"Hawkon sir, I give you my upmost assurance that my men will do whatever they can to keep our ongoing pact in strong cooperation. We will therefore support your leadership and your people in whatever you may come up with, as we too seek to deny the Hooligans any chances of coming back here to supposedly 'take back' their island, which was never theirs, as has been reiterated already." Fludgeon the Feared said.
"I think I'm right in still saying the Berserkers no longer have a peace treaty with the Hooligans, and if so, I'll wholeheartedly welcome your contribution to our defence, aye?" Hawkon asked.
"That's not even a question, sir Hawkon. My tribe executed the scum of Dagur in light of making us appease the one legged bane. Under no circumstances will my men turn back from our goal of killing him and his tribe." Fludgeon assured Hawkon.
Hawkon nodded.
"Did you say that it was Hiccup who led the attack on our brethren, Guddorn?" Gustav said, the second in command speaking up in the summit for the first time.
"Blavery spoke of that name to me and pointed to the person in question. It was indeed him, on that basis."
"That's quite the coincidence for us, because I was recently called to the camps to monitor their running, and I was informed that we had captured Hiccup's wife, her name's Astrid Hofferson, and as we speak, she's still detained in one of the camps. Knowing my history with the Hooligans, you can understand where I'm going to go with this?" Larson said, leaning forwards.
Fludgeon, Guddorn, but Hawkon especially, glared with straight looks towards the second in command of Mentra.
"The Hooligans, probably knowing full well at this point that our people have got Hiccup's wife captured, launched that attack with the likely fear that something's going to happen to Astrid. To emotionally, and internally, initiate the hostilities that'll be needed to defeat the Hooligans, we ought to make a special occasion for the whole island, to witness the public execution of Hiccup's wife?"
"Are you for certain, Larson, that that's his wife in the camps?" Hawkon asked.
"I'm certain of it. I saw her with my own two eyes, and it was definitely her. When we execute her and the Hooligans know about it, they'll be stripped of their motivation and their sanity to try and attack us further." Larson said.
Hawkon liked that idea. To execute the wife of the Chieftan of the Hooligans, the tribe that's seeking to destroy Mentra and its sovereignty, in Hawkon's head, was the perfect way to go about starting the retaliation.
"We'll need to arrange that, which the overseers party will handle. To make the event a significant turning point in our history, all of us ought to be there in person, like our people will be, for when the wife of Hiccup Haddock is executed." Hawkon said.
The 'big four' figures leading the way to commencing the upcoming conflict between themselves and the Hooligans had concluded on their plans to begin their retaliation against the Hooligans. Hawkon now wanted to talk about the geographical situation regarding the Hooligan's home island, and where it resides.
"Turning to another pressing matter, and a matter that we need to figure out if we're wanting our brethren to properly give the Hooligans what they've had coming, we need to work out where their home island is." Hawkon declared, leaning backwards in his chair slightly.
"Sir Hawkon, again, my history with those guys means I know a ton about them internally speaking, and I know the structure of their home island." Gustav said.
"Please sir, give it to me so we can initiate our plan right away." Guddorn said, talking to Larson with a respectable tone.
"But it might also be a problem. Their island is one gigantic mountain in the middle of the ocean...it's like a giant rock. It's so tall that our men and brethren would struggle to find a way up into it." Gustav added.
"But having said that, sir, when the Hooligans attacked us before we had to abandon the progress we made on our defence program, Hiccup and his other Hooligan friends were wearing gear that enabled them to glide in the air. They had like...leather in between their arms and their ribs, attached, and they were gliding in the air like birds." Guddorn said.
"They're called wing suits." Larson said.
"Wing suits? the name evidently catches on. It made them look like humanoid dragons." Guddorn said.
"On the issue of their island supposedly being a mountain on all sides, sir Hawkon," Fludgeon said, having an input into the solution of getting around New Berk being so tall, "what if our respective people construct such wing suits and then we fling those wearing it into the air, when we one day sail towards their island, from catapults? that way, when they get shot from the catapults, the wing suits will enable them to very quickly glide upwards into the air and onto their island."
"Larson, how viable is that?" Hawkon asked, referring to Fludgeon's solution.
He was asking Gustav this on the basis of the second-in-command's history with the Hooligans.
"I've personally memorised a few tricks from the time the Hooligans constructed their wing suits during the time their flying vermin were all with them. We can certainly work towards this. Time wise, we're looking at about a couple of months or so if we're going to construct them for all of our defenders." Gustav said.
"Maybe half of the suits we'll need to construct will be a better figure to aim for then. So we'll go ahead with that, and again, I shall inform the overseers party of this. The work ethic of our Mentranian people means they too can help out in the creation of these suits, provided they're under strict supervision." Hawkon nodded.
"Rest assured sir, we will hit the Hooligans where it hurts the most." Guddorn insisted.
"That's the intention. We have plans in place now, we aren't going to let them attempt to steal our island that they claim is theirs. Our brethren will defend the Mentranian vikings and ensure our sovereignty is maintained. The Hooligans wanted a war, they're about to get one. They can destroy our defence program unprovoked, but after this, they'll be squashed down like little bugs." Hawkon said.
Fludgeon the Feared, Gustav Larson, Guddorn the Glorious, and most importantly, Hawkon the Second had all the plans in place for Mentra to strike back. As the 'big four' figures of Mentra, they're bound to pose a bigger threat to Hiccup than he expects.
That threat commences with the execution of Astrid tomorrow, in the public view of the Mentranians.