CHAPTER 6: New team
Fearful of the reluctant council members plotting to overthrow his Chieftan leadership position, Yurlin had ordered the purges of all of them last night. Not even the ones who supported his ideas last night and who implemented the decree. Every single one of them were purged under his orders last night.
Now, Yurlin had appointed a brand new council team of diehard fanatics of his. Nobody in the tribe was to know where the old council members disappeared to.
The new council vikings had been diehard supporters of Yurlin himself over the past five years from the moment he wrote the 'The Solution' book, and having led the movement and campaign to make him Chieftan, they were rewarded dearly with positions at the head of the tribe which allowed them to enact policies which they genuinely believed in, which were more or less the same ones their Chieftan believed in.
Like any other tribe, usually when a council member steps down either due to old age or not wanting to carry on much longer, the notion of purging them was considered not just evil but a completely archaic, heartless, murderous action for simply resigning. It was tradition that the tribe maintained civilty. Under Yurlin though, all of this was too much of a threat to his leadership to go down that route.
He knew the old council members underestimated him, that they thought he'd crumble under the pressure of being Chieftan, and it was actually far from it at this point. Otherwise, Yurlin wouldn't have had the authority by him to carry out the purges he did just a few days after becoming Chieftan. He thrived on being at the top.
"Welcome, my new council," Yurlin declared, "all meetings from this point onwards will be largely symbolic and very unlikely to occur, and given the action I have now taken, my decisions will become action in light of the threat we face."
A couple of new prominent Ancient vikings promoted to the council were Krimm Hiss and Herrick Herald. Both of them were around Yurlin's age and the Chieftan had appointed them specifically as apart of his closer circle.
Hiss was to be the council member in charge of distributing the tribe's newly found ideas under Yurlin in the form of colourful painted posters, regular weekly papers akin to 'articles' by the council pinned onto wooden poles and huts for the tribe to read. His position was to ultimately present a favourable image of the new regime under Yurlin to the Ancient vikings.
Herald was essentially the second most powerful viking in the tribe after Yurlin himself, and he was to be the spokesman for the tribe overseas. He was the equivalent, more so than Hiss, of a Deputy Chieftan of the tribe, even though no such position existed. Policy making, as one of Yurlin's closest friends in helping him become Chieftan over the past five years, was to be his priority.
In being the spokesman for the tribe overseas it would be him meeting up with the Chieftans and other vikings of the outside tribes in the event of treaties being signed or alliances being confirmed.
They were the two prominent vikings appointed by Yurlin - the rest of the new council consisted of a small group of newly appointed vikings who were working for either Herald or Hiss in their specific areas. This council was entirely pro-Yurlin and there wasn't a single dissenting opinion among it, unlike the past in the Ancient Tribe where there were constant differences in opinion.
That was basically the case for any other tribe on the Barbaric Archipelago. Yurlin's one was going to be different.
"People thought I'd be weakened and pressured under the weight to stay. Well, who's having the last laugh now?" Yurlin asked, his rhetorical question generating chuckles from inside the room as everyone coldly laughed at the purges.
"Rest assured folks, we are going to fufill our promises to the Ancient vikings. We will solve the unviking problem, we'll give our vikings the living space they need and we will wage against the unviking lord, Drago Bludvist himself. An alliance with the Hooligans is inevitable, the treaty will have to be barred from being touched by bare hands it'll be that sacred and valuable to us!" Yurlin uttered.
"I couldn't have asked for a better position, Chieftan," Herrick Herald said, "I am going to ensure our newly trained vikings will be taught to conquer the unvikings in the merciless ways possible. They deserve it."
"How goes progress on the reconstruction of our hall?" Yurlin asked, turning to Hiss.
"Chief," Hiss replied, "the hall is making great progress. We've given our men and boys a job, and they're gratefully constructing our new hall with all the patriotism in the world. We true vikings used to build out of the terrain back in the day, they're grateful for receiving the opportunity!"
"Great news - we must spend a significant amount of time rearming ourselves though. The fire has proven that the Warlords are hiding on our island, and with those being the central unvikings leading us to this mess in the first place, it is time for us to take the initiative. I am ordering the construction of a punishment camp destined for captured unvikings on our island."
Krimm Hiss grabbed a wooden tip with ink and a soggy bit of paper and wrote down Yurlin's order.
"This camp must be isolated away from the main village, nobody wants to be in the presence of an unviking's cry, it'd poison everyone's ears. But the great workers of the camp will be most rewarded for tolerating the inevitable, tiresome, hypocritical cries of mercy when our camps come to fruition. The more mercy they beg for, the harder we punish them I say!" Yurlin declared.
Having ordered the construction of a punishment camp, appointing his own council which contained not only no dissenting voices but no women, and also beginning the process of convincing the Ancient vikings of their newly found regime and its purposes, nothing was in the way of Yurlin now.
It wasn't a mistake of Yurlin's that not a single woman viking was in the council - it's as the decree said, women vikings should be in the hut, making food, raising kids for the future of the tribe. Prior to Yurlin, the ancient tribe always had some women viking at the top of its decision making, again similar to the Hooligans etc, but not under Yurlin.
His ideology was a male-supremacist one. Hypothetically speaking, if Astrid was a member of this tribe under Yurlin, she'd never be allowed to do half of the things she's done i.e fight with weapons, make decisions, etc. That's just a prime example of the direction Yurlin's new regime was heading.
And now, with all of this in place, it was going to be a long few years before Yurlin's tribe was ready to take the fight to the 'unvikings' in Drago Bludvist and the Warlords, and to enact his expansion plans.