CHAPTER 28: Sea warfare
Alvin the Treacherous led his men away from New Berk towards the direction of the Mentranian armada. The Outcasts were using the boats provided by the Hooligans, and although it was within their intention to attack the Mentranians, they weren't actually going to go fully into battle. The reason why will soon be discovered.
"SAIL FORWARDS, MEN! OUR FRIENDS ARE WAITING FOR US!" Alvin commanded, as his boat floated on the seas like a sea-saw given how much it was moving on each side.
Although the sky was darkening, the Outcasts were able to see the Mentranian armada clearly. Alvin especially. He kept looking into his wooden telescope, provided to him by Gobber back up on New Berk.
"If they decide to retreat, gentlemen, we'll just stay on their track as much as we possibly can. Hiccup needs us to keep them focused on us." Alvin said, looking back to the other boats surrounding his own, with his other Outcast men.
Alvin adjusted his sail so his boat floated in line with the direction of the wind. The entirety of the Outcasts on the seas, equipped with spears, and a few with crossbows of their own, were now sailing towards the direction of the Mentranians, who looked to be going for a circling of New Berk before the emergence of the Outcasts.
"That's it men...sail right into their direction, they'll know that we mean business tonight..." Alvin said, smiling, as his whole tribe on the seas currently was sailing with full confidence towards the Mentranians.
Some clicks on the boats of the Outcasts could be heard, which were generated from the arrows being placed into the crossbows some of them had. As the scent of seaweed rocked the air on the seas, the Outcasts were more than equipped to take on the Mentranian armada ahead.
"Alvin, which boat is Guddorn located on?" an Outcast also on Alvin's boat asked.
Alvin thought that that'd be an important bit of knowledge to clarify, because he was specifically assigned the role of ensuring that Guddorn wasn't accidentally killed or lost in the inevitable confrontation of weaponry and attacks.
"Good point. I ought to find the fanatic and ensure we don't lose him." Alvin nodded, leaning down to grab his telescope once again.
He raised the telescope up and firmly slotted it against his left eye. Upon looking through it, a zoomed in sighting of the Mentranian armada, where the boats were firmly packed with masked Mentranian vikings, alongside brief collections of Berserkers, were the first thing he picked up. Guddorn, wearing a lot more gear than his companions, was easy to make out, and Alvin was able to identify the right hand viking of Hawkon easily as a result.
"There he is. Right there." Alvin whispered, as the sea wind briefly collapsed itself towards his direction.
As he studied the Mentranians through the telescope, one of the fanatical vikings looked like he was yelling, and Alvin caught that very Mentranian pointing towards his direction, prompting the other Mentranians to look here as well. If only it was possible to hear what they were saying.
"Seems like they've finally noticed us." Alvin nodded, memorising Guddorn's face upon placing the telescope down.
"Only just?" one Outcast behind Alvin asked, as all of the boats continued to sail, albeit slowly, towards the Mentranians.
"Yeah. Majority of them are wearing scaly overhead robe masks, whatever they are. Chances are they're pretty blind souls." Alvin chuckled, "but we need to expect a confrontation. These guys aren't gonna give us a free pass, and if we want the plan agreed just now to work, we'll have to take on Guddorn's defences directly."
The distance was closing between the two sets of boats on the seas near New Berk. The Mentranians had only just noticed the Outcasts coming their way. Guddorn's goal was to distract the Outcasts and force them to use up their weaponry, so the Hooligans would be less equipped than before, even though these clearly weren't the Hooligans. Alvin's plan was to attack Guddorn's armada, and to help Hiccup in capturing Hawkon's right hand viking himself.
As the distance between the two armadas got closer and closer, the Outcasts brought out their crossbows and wooden shields, which they were hanging on the edges of their boats.
"READY YOUR SHIELDS, MEN. WE MUST AVOID THEIR VENOMOUS ARROWS!" Alvin echoed, which had been delivered perfectly across the air all to the boats behind him.
The Outcasts slotted their spiky helmets lower on their foreheads, some held their spears up high in the event they were required to hop over to the hostile boats, and some aimed their crossbows up over the seas in preparation for contact.
Should this plan fail, the Outcasts will have not only been played, but they'll have also missed the crucial opportunity to capture one out of the four prominent vikings in the Mentranian regime, which in this case was Guddorn the Glorious.
His capture will not only start the hopeful destabilising of 'The Viking's Mentra' regime on Old Berk, but it'll also potentially give Hiccup the answer to the question he's been asking ever since this whole debacle began; where is Astrid?
For the Mentranians, this encounter was solely to get the Hooligans (or in this case, the Outcasts) to waste their weaponry and their equipment, and then subsequently, for them to retreat and return home to Mentra, at which point they'll have gathered a physical image of the island they'll be dealing with when the time arrives to invade it.
But they had to be careful, because the consequences of failure of this mission will result in an angered despot viking in Hawkon potentially bringing back the Mentranian death squad, and even potentially for Guddorn. He's done it before, he'll happily do it again.
"Sir, it seems like we've got a different tribe of vikings heading our way, whatever they are, they're approaching us...what do we do?" a Mentranian asked.
"They're Outcasts. We simply do what we came here to do. The Hooligans are evidently too chicken to attack us. They know our might is second to none, so they've sent out their carers. No matter. We can deal with their carers quite easily." Guddorn declared, as the Mentranian armada continued to sail together.
"LOAD UP THE CATAPULT!" the Mentranian captain yelled, with the captain essentially being a 2nd commander of the armada, below Guddorn.
The seas swayed the boats and the night time hovered over the skies, but that didn't stop the Mentranians from utilising their secret weapon that Alvin couldn't see on his telescope just now, due to the secret weapon, the catapult, being camouflaged in sight with the darkness that was now rife.
"Captain, instruct our men to sail towards the carers of the Hooligans. When we fire away the catapult and knock down one of their boats, our strength and advantage will have doubled. We can run through them like a predator running through its prey." Guddorn commanded, as his boat's sails were adjusted by the captain, so it was sailing in line with the rest of the armada; towards the Outcasts.
The Mentranians adjusted their catapult as the boats continued to sway on the seas. One of the Mentranians on the boat with the catapult grabbed a decent-sized boulder that they had carried on the journey from Mentra, but it took three more Mentranians to fully load it onto the catapult. They ensured that it was aimed directly for the Outcasts in the distance, just a little in front of New Berk.
"Ready for take off, gents..." one Mentranian declared, referring to the catapult and its boulder.
The Outcasts and Alvin had continued to sail in the midst of the dark, closer to the Mentranian armada. They were starting to see the Mentranians in person at this point, they were that closer to the armada.
"We're pretty much at them, ready yourselves up..." Alvin insisted, once again yelling to echo his comment to his men behind on the other boats.
Suddenly, a thunderous collision, whereby one of the Outcast boats had collided with what appeared to be a boulder that fell from the air, had emerged. This sent Alvin into a state of shock, as well as the other Outcasts. The boat's wooden structure had been teared up entirely, and as the boat started to sink, the vikings in it leapt out of it and swam into the cold sea.
The sheer collision of the boulder and the boat had sent Alvin slipping to the floor of his from the flinching he received, but he quickly got up and leaned over to grab the hands of his fellow Outcast men to lift them up.
The boulder had landed harshly onto the boat from the direction ahead of Alvin. It was clearly airborne, and the loss of that boat had quickly prompted a fear and panic into Alvin. That was no random boulder. The Mentranians had a catapult with them, and that was dangerous.
"WHAT WAS THAT?!" one Outcast yelled.
"THEY'VE GOT A CATAPULT! FIRE YOUR ARROWS FROM HERE, MEN!" Alvin yelled.
The Outcasts, frightened and struck from that out of nowhere sinking of one of their boats in thanks to a catapulted boulder, placed their shields up to the sides of their boats and the ones with crossbows had started firing their arrows across the seas towards the Mentranian armada.
"A direct hit, sir Guddorn..."
"Wonderful. We've got them rattled. Load up the next and final boulder we brought with us from our island." Guddorn nodded, as did the captain.
"Sir, they're firing arrows at us...any second now they could be within striking distance of us."
"Precisely what we want them to do. Perhaps we could, though, for a bit of a laugh, return the favour. Open fire towards them to hold them off."
"Aye, Guddorn sir."
The Mentranians, outnumbering the Outcasts in terms of those who have crossbows, aimed theirs up and began firing their venomous arrows towards the boats of the Outcasts. They were getting dangerously closer to each other, as the unpleasant sound of arrows being flung from the crossbows ran rampant in the war-filled air. It was like a bomb being flicked, or something thick being flicked.
The two viking types had reached within enough distance of each other to be able to fire their arrows at their boats. Some stuck, some didn't, but now, screaming and cries of panic were being echoed from the Outcasts, to the delight of the confident, striking Mentranians.
"Boulder number two on the way, Guddorn sir..."
"Splendid. Their screams, as we rule over them gradually, are a joy to behold...steady on for the catapult, men.." Guddorn said.
"ALVIN, WE DON'T HAVE ENOUGH CROSSBOWS TO KEEP UP!"
"WHY DIDN'T I JUST ASK HICCUP OR GOBBER FOR MORE...THEY'RE CLOSING IN ON US AND THEY'RE FIRING THEIR VENOMOUS ARROWS, MEN...WE NEED TO-"
"ALVIN, GET OUT OF THE WAY!" an Outcast yelled, as a grey boulder was visibly crashing down from the air to the point it looked like it was about to hit Alvin straight on.
A second boulder had made a dangerous thud of a collision, this time to Alvin's boat, as the Chieftan of the Outcasts had stumbled and dropped over the edge of his boat deliberately to avoid the boulder. The boulder once again created a sound of thunderous bombs, the weight of the rock was so thick and hard against the wood when it landed upon it, creating another wreckage easily.
"ALVIN, SHALL WE RETREAT?!"
"RETREAT MEN, RETREAAT! WE DIDN'T ANTICIPATE BRINGING ENOUGH CROSSBOWS!" Alvin yelled from the water, as he swam with shiny sweat coming down his cheeks even though he was in the water.
"DON'T SWIM AWAY, WE'RE ONLY GOING TO KILL YOU!" a menacing, inciting voice from a slight distance besides Alvin yelled; the Mentranian armada was slowly emerging closer, and that yell came straight from the Mentranians.
They knew Alvin and a couple of other Outcasts were in the water.
"GET THE HECK OUT OF HERE! QUICK! GET ME AND HIM OUT OF HERE AND LET'S SAIL THE HECK AWAY! THEIR NUMBERS ARE TOO STRONG FOR US!" Alvin yelled, as his arms felt tired from swimming.
Alvin swam like his life depended on it, his arms swaying and waving through the waters like he was swimming away from a predator underwater. His breathing had increased as the reality dawned on him that he could very well be killed here due to how close the Mentranian armada was, evident from the yelling one of the Mentranians emitted just now, and a yell that Alvin himself heard.
Alvin and his other Outcast partner was pulled up into the other boat by another fellow Outcast. The Mentranians were less than two minutes away, and they were still firing their venomous crossbows.
"MEN, GET BACK! GET BACK! HICCUP SHOULD BE DOWN HERE ANY SECOND NOW! WE NEED TO EVACUATE IN THE MEANTIME AND GET THEM CLOSER TO NEW BERK FOR THE PLAN!"
"ON IT, ALVIN!"
All Guddorn could do, hearing the cries of panic from the Outcasts as his armada closed in on them, was chuckle.
