CHAPTER 28: Gone
Absolutely no time was allowed for a lie in. Every single Pacifist viking on the island all woke up from the orders of the Pacifist council in order to commemorate the loss of the Founding Father in the early hours of the morning. It was barely just getting to sunrise and it was a few hours after the Father had stopped breathing, but the entire island was awake at the call of the newly formed council.
The island was half covered in sun light and the other in dark blue with the way the sky was looking at the moment. It was so early the moon was still visible in the distance beyond the rocky cold seas. The rural island, containing many huts and structures on many levels of the terrain which often ascended and descended in its structure, was split in the middle with the day of time, quite literally. But the morning was starting to make its presence.
Yawning Pacifist vikings in their black viking gear were gathering directly outside the wooden palace in the central part of the island. They were all gathered in the somewhat cold air as many of them wrapped up in black jackets handcrafted from sheep wool inside and leather on the outside. They all wore their steel helmets to try and keep their heads warm too.
The news of the Founding Father's death had shocked the Pacifist viking tribe quite significantly. He had been the longest serving Founding Father in the tribe's history, and he had set a record for being the longest, stretching for many many years. No other Founding Father in the bloodline before him had managed to serve the role for as long as he did, and as a result plenty of Pacifists who were born in his beginnings in the role were greatly saddened and at a loss, almost as if they had lost a family member.
Many Pacifists were chatting and quietly mumbling with each other amidst the relatively calm winds outside, but that all stopped as soon as they witnessed a couple of Pacifist vikings carrying a wooden coffin from inside the palace, which was being held up on their shoulders as they walked slowly to the platform. They held it as firmly as they could when walking up the wooden steps to the platform, and on the coffin itself there was a collection of flowers placed on top of it.
The New Pacifist logo was beaming in its full size on a giant blowing flag which was placed directly over the upper front region of the wooden palace. The coat of black with a white circle in the middle with a bulky viking painted in black wearing a bullish-looking helmet who was holding a sword upright in the air.
The giant emblem was overlooking the entire crowd of Pacifists as they quietly and intensely watched the arrival of the coffin that contained the Founding Father. It had been built there about a week after Hawkon came to power following his appointment as Chieftan, and more than ever it was a symbol representing a whole new period for the tribe.
Other New Pacifist emblems were set up directly near the palace, they were built on little wooden poles with little flags of it. There were tens and tens of them, stretching all the way down from the palace with enough of them managing to reach near the end of the crowd, all of them having gaps between the many poles. Many more of these little flags of the New Pacifist emblem were going to be built across the island, and after today no doubt they'd start emerging in greater numbers from being built to symbolize the tribe's new future.
As the two Pacifist vikings on the platform gently rested the coffin, they both stood up and took a bow towards it to show their respect to the Founding Father, after which they both had walked off the platform. Grugg Hawkon emerged out from the palace subsequently, walking up onto the platform and briefly nodded to the crowd of Pacifists. They took out their swords from their holders on the belts and held them upright in the air to greet their Chieftan, to which he nodded and gave off a brief salute.
They didn't chant this time due to the mourning period that could be felt in the air. After they moved their saluting swords back down and into their belts, Hawkon walked in front of the platform and stood in front of a small wooden podium-looking table thing that reached his chest in height. Gripping onto it with his hands on the sides of it as his New Pacifist emblem armband was clear to see, he started speaking.
"Thank you," he said, in a much deeper voice than he had used in his public speeches in front of the Pacifists usually, "we stand here today in solidarity with a friend to whom we pay our dearest respects."
"It goes without saying that when I first stepped foot onto this island nine years ago after being taken here following my abandonment from the Hooligans, my hope was gone. The friends I thought I had, they all willingly left me to rot simply for expressing an opinion and undertaking action I considered to be the right one. Those feelings ate me away. It was through the generosity of our friend who we lost this morning that got me through all of that into the position I now proudly hold for you all."
Grugg was speaking from the heart as he addressed the Pacifists this morning. Even though he wanted to combine the position of 'Founding Father' with his own, and even though the Father had kept his power limited with his checks, there was an automatic sense of respect that he had for the Father, mainly for allowing him to come here in the first place and to be given the role of Chieftan.
"It is that generosity that will be of the greatest loss. The man, but also the generosity he held, firmly kept the Pacifist tribe going and in a sense he personified the values we've held throughout my nine years on this island. This man ignited the revival of the Pacifist tribe in the form of the New Pacifists under my leadership, by giving the vikings a chance to avenge the wrongdoings of wild dragon attacks, and being taken for granted by the external tribes of this archipelago. For that, nothing less than a thank you can be granted to him."
There was a clap throughout the crowd as Hawkon looked across the various men and women vikings. He cleared his throat before speaking his voice once again, as it echoed across the entire crowd from a wooden structure on the podium-like table that allowed his voice to be echoed in the air.
"I have merely been here, as I've said already, for nine years. But I have now been here for another additional month, this time as your Chieftan. And I can sense the weight of your devotions to our friend and our figure. From these senses I've been able to pick up a general consensus, and these are what I consider to be those."
Hawkon was about to list off what he considered to be the general feeling of the tribe towards the Father, by listing off some periods and times where he himself was still a Hairy Hooligan. He wanted to be empathetic and to calm the nerves by being a Chieftan who could read the tribe, especially before going ahead with combining his position with that of the Founding Father and thus enacting an even more authoritarian beginning for the tribe.
This speech was Hawkon's way of not only being empathetic to calm those among the crowd nervous about him, but to generally butter them all up before becoming what he called 'Chancellor'.
"Amidst the great wars between the Hooligans and Drago, and subsequently between the Hooligans and Grimmel which resulted in the Hooligans taking us and the archipelago for granted by using it as a battlefield playground, the Father kept the spirit of the tribe going. I may still have been a Hooligan at the period the Hooligans and myself fought against Drago as a Hooligan still personally, but the consensus I feel right now gives me the ability to pick up how you all felt about him at that time, prior to my arrival on this island. And no doubt I'm not far off the mark, if at all."
"That is the first consensus I have managed to pick up. The second one is that there is a great level of gratitude for our hero to have given us a chance at our resurrection and a revival which will no doubt take us back to the days of the real viking, by appointing the New Pacifist party and subsequently myself, as the Chieftan. He always made sure to follow the majority opinion, and in doing so he managed to carve out a reputation of respect, honor and complete heroism."
"How suitable that his proudest legacy will be the creation of a revived, renewed Pacifist tribe that will shape the future for ourselves, where in his name we will stand up to the external vikings beyond these seas and let them know that we're here. How suitable also that in doing this he has set the inevitable irreversible path down to fixing our circumstances in means which what we now call the old Pacifists would never have taken. How suitable that in thanks to his generous leadership in allowing the New Pacifists to form, we are now able to give a sense of purpose to each and every one of ourselves in weapon building, camps, supply gathering, and so on."
"And quite possibly I think it is most notable of our friend's time that his leadership enabled a viking, in me, who had been abandoned by his old tribe, to be allowed to be taken here seeking refuge, only to end up as the Chieftan of the tribe that had taken him in. I am proud to have gone down that path and it'll be something personally that I will cherish and wholeheartedly bask in with pure dignity, not least because this man contributed 100% to it."
Hawkon was about to conclude his eulogy.
"The loss of our Founding Father cannot be an excuse to return to the old era. He would've wanted this tribe to evolve and change. With me having received his word of approval to become Chieftan I feel the burden on my shoulders to carry our path forwards and it is a challenge I will welcome with open arms. The Pacifistian vikings will soon see, with all of your adaptability to the new way of life, that the actions of our Founding Father will pay off. He laid the foundation, I will lay the finished building."
And with that, Grugg Hawkon had concluded his eulogy. An applause grew out amongst the vikings in the crowd as Hawkon saluted and waved his palm up in the air as the giant New Pacifist emblem slightly drifted in the calm winds above and behind him on the wooden platform.
The coffin was to be carried throughout the island and to ultimately be given a secret burial as a monument for the Father, to show the magnitude of respect he had commanded within the tribe. Respect so high that his burial place would be kept hidden and known only by the Pacifist tribe council and Hawkon himself.
It was now night time, and the whole of Pacifist Island was still mourning at the loss of the Founding Father. The Pacifist Chieftan was sat inside the palace meeting with a couple members of the Pacifist fighter vikings. These guys standing in front of Hawkon were the top leading vikings within the Pacifist viking army, which at present numbered at around 10,000 fighters. They were the head leaders who'd have meetings with the Founding Father prior to his death because the Father held the power over the fighters.
It'd be odd to call these guys a viking army because never before in the Pacifist tribe's history had it ever sent fighters overseas on the Barbaric Archipelago throughout its entire existence. But even though it had long been created from a notion of its own name in Pacifism, there was always a core group of vikings in the tribe who were members of the viking's army purely for defence reasons on its own island.
The tribe lacked tons of wooden ships which wasn't a problem for them as they never sent anyone overseas anyway. But it lacked sufficient weapons like numerous crossbows, battleaxes, and so on. It lacked on-land transportation like wooden carts. The army was ultimately an island-only group who never in their history had been sent overseas, not even in recent conflicts as mentioned before, such as the one with Drago and the Hooligans or Grimmel and the Hooligans.
Grugg Hawkon was meeting with them to discuss the new arrangements that the council was due to announce - most notably, the combining of Chieftan and Founding Father into one position called 'Chancellor of the Pacifist Tribe' which would give Hawkon full control and unchecked power. His mouth would be the final word at that point. And ultimately, he'd be getting full control over the Pacifist viking army.
The sons of the late Founding Father, in regards to them, Hawkon had long dispatched secret Pacifist viking members to locate and take care of them. They genuinely went into hiding and not a single viking could locate them - Hawkon long concluded that they simply escaped the island and swam away the moment he got appointed a month ago, that's what he hoped if they couldn't be found to be disposed of at least.
"Chieftan," one of the Pacifist army leaders said, with the both of them saluting with their swords upright at Hawkon.
"Evening gentlemen. It's been a bleak day for all of us no doubt. The Father is truly going to be missed and I hope on that basis you will work with me in solving the path forwards from here now that he has unfortunately gone."
The two men nodded at Hawkon.
"In due course, there will be an announcement by my council of a tribe-wide vote for everyone to take part in, we will be asking the tribe whether they'd be happy with combining my position with that of the Founding Father, which would in turn make me not the Chieftan anymore, but the Chancellor. Gentlemen, I feel this is appropriate given I have to have as much support as possible in combating the wild dragon crisis which, even though we've not had one in a while, is still here and needs to be dealt with," Hawkon said.
"We are only too happy to cooperate with you on this Chieftan," one of the leaders of the Pacifist viking army said, "your mandate in our last election means that we're confident in making this historical move."
Hawkon was pleasantly surprised at the willingness of the two leading vikings of the Pacifist army to cooperate with the combining of the positions.
"When this happens gentlemen, I want us to up our game. We will be conscripting another 20,000 of our vikings into the army so we'll go from the current 10,000 to 30,000. I will expect us to rely on wild horses trained and caught throughout the archipelago and such for on land transport like our carts. I expect us to create weapons and crossbows, we will need the young men and boys of our tribe to contribute to this. We will build sailing ships made out of the finest wood for a mighty armada for barricading ourselves against the dragons. Crossbows, battleaxes, swords, and given we are still in a crisis with the wild dragons even though, as I've said, there's not been an attack for ages, I feel it appropriate for us to take these measures."
"To be totally honest with you sir we have long wanted fresh meat in our ranks. We absolutely share your hatred at what the battles left by Drago and Grimmel all those years ago with those other tribes have done to the Barbaric Archipelago, and I'm sure our Father would've permitted us to do this too. You will have our full backing as Chancellor when it happens, sir."
"Very good, dismissed," Hawkon saluted.
The tribe-wide vote that Hawkon had planned to take place in a couple of days wasn't really going to mean anything. It was purely going to be a symbolic show of unity, because the combining of the positions of Chieftan and Founding Father was going to happen anyways regardless, and the Pacifist vikings this time, unlike the last election when the Founding Father still had checks over Hawkon, all had to turn out, and they had to vote yes to the move, or else.
In reality too, Hawkon's intention to rearm and build up the tribe's weapons for the first time in its history, add more ships, and to forcibly enroll a bunch of young men from the tribe into the army, doubling its current size from 10,000 to 30,000, was not only based on the wild dragon threat he felt was starting to dissipate due to a lack of attacks now, but mainly more so on his external plans.
His desire to finally take revenge against Hiccup, alongside his ultimate goal of giving the Pacifist tribe more territory, was as close as it had ever been within his grasp. When, not if, but when, he becomes Chancellor after the symbolic irrelevant tribe-wide vote, all deals will be off, and Hawkon finally would've created history by turning the only tribe in the Barbaric Archipelago's history that used voting to pick its Chieftan, into a brutal one-man dictatorship with no checks on his calls and authority.
In effect, he'd personify the entire tribe after becoming Chancellor. His mouth would be the law of the land on Pacifist Island.
The Pacifist tribe was merely a launch pad for him to be able to get revenge against Hiccup and to take the archipelago back to the past where no dragons existed, no traitor vikings existed who touched, bonded and befriended dragons, and to give the Pacifists in the process more territory as a way to keep them onside and to generally achieve his goal of a world as if it had been rewinded back to generations stretching well before dragons existed, Drago, Grimmel, Hooligans, as well as the outside tribes.
He wanted to rule the land with an iron fist and to cleanse the archipelago of any possibility that a figure similar to Drago, Grimmel or Hiccup or any of the outside tribes would ever emerge again.
The loss of his mum and dad in the great big battle against Drago and his Bewilderbeast at the time of Stoick's death was also going to play a big part in Hawkon's thirst for conquest and revenge, hence the dictatorial measures and leadership he wholeheartedly and unequivocably took and was taking with the tribe.
The question now though was whether any of the tribes in the Outcasts or Berserkers could locate Hiccup's new island to alert him of the ongoing situation back in the archipelago. Time could only tell.
