CHAPTER 16: Response
The boats had finally slammed into the sea salty shores of Berk - having its first contact with vikings in ten years since Hiccup and the Berkians evacuated it to escape Grimmel. The four medium sized boats had come to a halt as they swayed gently to the left and right with the weather maintaining a steady composure. The sandy shores were no less than two meters below them at this point as the full sight of Berk came to the vision of the Ancient army.
The four boats had carried 500 Ancient vikings on each, and each collection of 500 were to march around the vicinity of Berk before coming to a halt in the direct middle of the island, right near the entrance to the Great Hall.
The vikings were awe struck by the sheer buildings on Berk as they prepared to make the jump into the shallow waters. Some of them were literal towers painted in coats of red, orange, yellow and turquoise as they resembled overhanging dragon pens. A fair space away, some of the army could see the stone steps on the famous hill planted in the middle of the island that led to the giant doors into the Great Hall.
And all of this had been abandoned ten years ago, not seeing human footsteps on it since then until now. It was bizarre. The grass was green as if the island was as fresh as when Hiccup and the Berkians lived on it, none of the huts looked remotely damaged, not least because the vibrant colours on the various huts built after the defeat of Drago were still intact, and the numerous wooden docks were prominent in their structures.
All in all, it looked like Old Berk had surprisingly lasted fairly well for an island that had been abandoned for ten years up until now. But the Ancient army wasn't here to admire the island - it was here to militarize and occupy the island on the orders of the leader & Chieftan, Alfa Yurlin.
"My goodness..." one of the soldiers said, suddenly losing his balance as he tried to step off the boat.
"Watch yourself, fella!" one of his fellow vikings said.
He quickly regained his balance and made a leap off the boat onto the shores of Berk.
"Sorry - I'm just unable to take my eyes off those buildings. The Hooligans were truly a creative bunch, but it's a shame it's had to come to this."
"Indeed - less talking now, more action. Everyone, stay put with your groups, we are to march swiftly across this island, through the various terrains, huts, areas, and no single area will go missed! OUR YURLIN!"
"OUR YURLIN!" yelled the 2,000-big army of Ancient vikings as they rallied from the shallow waters onto the physical land of Berk.
Four groups of 500 vikings were to split and march across various parts of Berk - one group was to march through the forests and inevitably past the cove (none of which the vikings knew the significance of, with it being the place where Toothless and Hiccup first bonded all those years ago), another group of 500 were to march directly through the village, the rest were to cover the coasts, and ultimately the four groups were to meet back in the middle of the island.
At which point the occupation will have fully cemented itself, and the militarization of the island will have been commenced.
This 500-strong group of Ancient vikings were marching in a big group, with six rows of men side by side as they marched. As they marched, they held crossbows, some held battleaxes, and some held swords, all on their left shoulders whilst their free arms waved up and down in line with their stomping legs. This was the formation at which the Ancient vikings were to march across Berk.
The forests were unused to such a massive group of men marching in it - all the singing birds in the trees, as the morning sun rose amid this military takeover, had flown off, abandoning their nests in the process. The gigantic collective noise of 500 men stomping their boots into various twigs had caused the wildlife to swiftly run away - in short, these men were the dominants, and it showed particularly with their gear.
All of their helmets had spikes as long as 1 foot, the vikings had belts with daggers around their gear, and their brown leather attire with steel shoulder pads had swiftly put any notion of weakness into doubt.
Eventually, as the group continued marching in absolute sync with each other like robots, eventually they all arrived at the edge of the cove. Of course, none of the men stopped because they were under orders to cover as much of the island as possible, but some of the men looked to their left as they noticed the gigantic, unnatural looking bowl shaped drop into what appeared to be a cove.
A small glimpse of a giant waterfall at the bottom, alongside a couple of giant boulders and an overhanging root near the lake, caught some of the men's attention, but to no great curiosity or realization of the significance of the area they had just passed by. This was the cove where Hiccup bonded with Toothless, but the Ancient army knew nothing of such an occurrence - therefore, the downwards land they had just marched by was nothing more than an unusual formation of the terrain.
"OUR YURLIN!" yelled the front Ancient viking of the marching group, to which the rest of the vikings yelled after him, once again in a perfected sync.
"OUR YURLIN!" they all yelled, further sending the birds away from the trees.
The stomping of their boots continued through the forests, as they readied to return to the village after doing a full circling of Berk's forest. The occupation and militarization of Berk was set to be cemented and concluded.
To put it into context, the number of Ancient vikings sent to Berk this morning was 2,000. That's about ten times the amount of the estimated population of the Hooligans on Berk at the time they still lived on it, which was around 200-300 of them. The numbers were scarily high when compared to the original number of Hooligans on the island prior to their exodus.
Hiccup was frantic, he was uncertain, he was completely lightheaded at the news he had just received. It was now late in the afternoon, on the same day that the Ancient Tribe had militarized Berk, and by this point Hiccup had received a visit from one of Dagur's trusted vikings to inform him of the actions of Yurlin this morning.
He had gathered the entire tribe inside their new Great Hall - it was more or less the same size as the one back at Old Berk, now militarized by a bunch of vikings who've never lived there in their lives, but it was also built with the exact same sort of material, the key difference being it wasn't built inside a hill.
Hiccup had gathered his entire family, Valka, Astrid, the two kids, Gobber, and the gang, inside the hall - the entire lot of Berkians were squeezed together inside the hall as Hiccup prepared to speak. His eyes were widened as he couldn't comprehend the thought that a foreign tribe had just sent its army onto HIS old island of seven generations, the island HIS dad ruled as a respected Chieftan, and the island that saw significant battles on it which shaped the future - notably, the one with Drago.
Gobber thumped the table with his one heavy palm to grab the attention of the tribe.
"ALRIGHT LADS AND LASSES, HALT YOUR VOICES!" he yelled, sounding a lot more serious this time than he was even when he met Yurlin with Eret.
Zephyr and Nuffink were by their dad's side, worried based on the expressions he was having on his face. He could only stare at the wooden table. Eventually, Hiccup grew the courage to finally initiate this meeting inside the hall.
"OKAY EVERYONE..." his voice echoed, "now I didn't expect to have to make this sort of gathering again...nor did I ever want to have to do it...but we've received news from the Berserkers...that Alfa Yurlin has sent a load of his vikings onto Berk..."
Almost instantly, roars of anger and boos could be heard from the Berkians in the hall - they were angered at the sheer idea a foreign tribe had marched onto their old island and militarized it. It was entirely provocative, and given Berk was a patriotic piece of the Hooligan's history, it angered them even more.
"WHAT RIGHT 'AVE THEY GOT?!" one Berkian yelled.
"WE'LL SHOVE EM OFF BY THE FORCE OF OUR PALMS!" another yelled.
"IF STOICK WERE 'ERE, WE'D SEND EM A MESSAGE ALRIGHT!"
Zephyr and Nuffink called their dad and looked up to him as the manly voices from the crowd roared and echoed towards them.
"Dad...what do you mean?" Zephyr asked, having never ever been onto Old Berk before.
She didn't quite understand the significance of the old island, but she knew something bad was happening here, she could feel it from the environment inside the hall.
"Zeph...our old island...your grandad was the ruler of it and I was your age when we lived there...it's had vikings sent onto it by another tribe...I..." Hiccup couldn't finish his sentence as more angry heckles from the Hooligans could be heard.
"WHY DON'T WE GO BACK AND PAY EM A VISIT AND TELL THEM A LESSON?!"
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Snotlout frantically yelled, crazily throwing his arms up in the air, which silenced the entire hall as they watched him with raised eyebrows.
"Oh, so I arguably perform my most masculine roar and you all give me the 'what's wrong with him' look? you're all ungrateful of my masculine capabilities..." Snotlout said.
"Hey, I thought I was masculine at one stage..." Fishlegs quietly squeaked.
"HAH, you, Masculine? remember the time you thought Meatlug was a boy, around Snoggletog?!" Ruffnut yelled, "I've already embarrassed you, masculine guys don't get embarrassed so easily!"
"Leave me alone!" Fishlegs yelled.
"GUYS!" Hiccup yelled, catching the attention of the entire hall again, "we need to STOP diverting from the point, this is serious business here. I just don't know what to do..."
Valka walked up to her son and stood besides him as she raised her voice to the now silent crowd of Berkians in the hall.
"If I've known anything, it's that actions like these are mere bluffs. The tail eventually returns between the legs, and this is what'll happen with Yurlin," Valka said.
"No no no no no..." Eret said, hopping up onto the wooden platform to join Hiccup, Valka, Astrid and the rest in front of the entire tribe, "with all due respect Valka, that's what they want you to think."
All of this talk was only bringing Hiccup's mood down.
"Now I know the prospect of standing up to a Chieftan of this kind is horrifying...I stood up to tyranny at one stage and I paid a price, but we always win in the end. I knew from the moment I laid eyes on Alfa Yurlin that he was a snake...a rattlesnake at that, all of his words I could only hear as hisses. It's like I said to Hiccup, he's got that slithery nature Grimmel would've died to have. That's how bad he is."
"Oh come on Eret, what're you saying here?" Astrid said, noticing Eret's implication of something.
"I'm saying that to sit back and let the bully have what he wants is the biggest mistake we could make. When the bully knows he can carry it on, he's going to bully more. It'll only take a standing up to scare the bully away into his hidey hole."
"No, Eret, son of Eret, I'm not doing that," Hiccup said, "I am NOT going to put my kids or our tribe through any of that ever again - the prospect of war, in this day and age, this dragon free world...and with me as a father now, I will never condone such an idea. Besides...as much as Berk is our home of seven generations, we've been living on here, 'New Berk' now, for ten years...we've made a good living out of it, right?"
"BUT STOICK WOULD'VE TOOK PRIDE IN OUR OLD ISLAND, WE SHOULD DO THE SAME!" heckled one Hooligan in response.
"I know my dad would've...I'm his son, do you think I don't know that? but what I'm saying is that this warmongering talk helps nobody. Yurlin is just ultimately sending his vikings onto an island that's been free of vikings for a decade...the big deal is that it used to be our home of seven generations, but with no vikings on it...we can just see it in that light surely?"
Hiccup's words generated faces of shock and disappointment from the hundreds of Berkians. As if to say 'how could you say that about our old island which we're patriotic and proud of to preserve?'
"I'm not for one moment suggesting war, Hiccup...that cannot happen. All I'm saying is that we just send some of our own vikings back to Berk to just sort of...investigate the situation, there'll be no swords raised or crossbows fired. But if we cannot even do that, and mark my words son, I'm saying this from my experience besides tyrannical vikings like Drago - if we don't at least call their bluff, they're going to be inclined and confident to do more of this stuff again," Eret said.
Hiccup was lost for words. He looked down at the wooden platform he was stood on, sighed heavily, and looked back to the hundreds of bearded, fat, some small, viking faces looking at him.
"It's like Yurlin says...he has a very big hatred of Drago and the Warlords, just like us...from what I remember, his ideology is based on fighting against that sort of cohort...if we think about it, the vikings now militarizing Berk share the same views towards Drago as we do...it could simply be a deterrent for our safety?!"
Loads of mumbling voices could be heard in the hall.
"Come to think of it...I do miss our Berk!" Fishlegs said, "I kinda wanna go home!" he added, actually starting to tear up a bit.
"Crybaby..." Tuffnut laughed.
Eret seriously thought it'd be a mistake for Hiccup to not at least call Yurlin's bluff on this - it's like feeding an overly murderous dragon in the hopes it won't be hungry anymore. Except the more you feed it, the more it'll demand. It'll never be full.
"Let's not forget the type of Chieftan Yurlin is, Hiccup. He's as much dictatorial and ruthless, from my small sensings of him from seeing him, as Drago is...perhaps even more so in many respects because he has the full backing of his tribe and supposedly runs camps across his island."
"We are not going to work up a fuss over this...we need to wait and hear from Yurlin himself - the last letter he sent to me from when Eret here and Gobber met him, said that he wanted peace and an alliance with us...see, we're vikings, we're pragmatic about this...all we have to do is just wait for him to come over to us. Do I want him to be occupying Berk? I don't - but that letter he gave me gives me confidence that we can see this in a more positive light!" Hiccup said to the hall, his voice echoing off the corners of the walls.
Eret wasn't so sure. Alfa Yurlin was a dictator, not a Chieftan. An extremist, not a moderate viking. And whilst Eret respected Hiccup's choice not to take any action, he feared it'd be the biggest mistake.
For Hiccup, in a post-dragon world where his best bud Toothless and the dragons were now permanently in The Hidden World, to which Hiccup will never ever see him again after seeing him initially after the last Snoggletog when he went on a ride with him alongside Zephyr and Nuffink, it was totally out of the question for him.
He was a dad now, Zephyr and Nuffink didn't deserve to experience the horrors of battle he had to face as a teenager. He was well beyond that point too, he just wanted peace for the rest of his life.
The militarization of Berk by Alfa Yurlin was a tricky situation, and Hiccup was going to definitely keep an eye on the situation, but he was going to try and see it in a more positive light based on Yurlin's extreme hatred of Drago and everything he stands for.
Yurlin was set to make a speech to the Ancient Tribe revealing his decision, and that speech was eagerly anticipated across the entire archipelago in light of the quickly spread news of his militarization of Berk.
In light of all of this, though, Hiccup had secretly wished that the dragons were back in the world with them. Situations like this were significantly more dangerous without the dragons. He knew that deep down, but in the spirit of positive thinking, tried to ignore that thought.
Although he had seen Toothless at the most recent Snoggletog, he was starting to miss him, especially in this situation he now found himself in.