The Berserker War Chapter 14

When the lone Berserker ship was a day away from Berk, Hiccup gave his father the word. Again, the Vikings swarmed aboard, and again they got no battle because the lone Berserker surrendered at once. He had two peg legs, only one arm, and an eye patch, so he didn't seem to be much of a threat. He insisted that he was a messenger with a special message from Dagur to Chief Stoick. So, after Spitelout interrogated him and Gobber made sure he carried no hidden weapons, they took him to Berk's chief.

Stoick stood in front of the Nest for the occasion. Six threatening-looking Night Furies glared down from the edge of the second floor, alert for any treachery, as the messenger was brought before the chief.

"I am told that you have a message for me," Stoick growled.

"My message from Dagur is that you are badly outnumbered and cut off from the land. Surrendering is your only option. Dagur will be generous with the terms he offers you."

Stoick glanced at Gobber and Spitelout, then back at the dragons. He gave his answer in one shouted word. "NUTS!"

"In that case, I have a second message from Dagur," the messenger went on. He was brave, if nothing else. "Dagur challenges one of your Night Furies to single combat. The losing side will surrender to the winner. But because dragons are bigger than people, the Night Fury cannot fly or use fire."

Hiccup snorted when he heard that. "Sure, why not? But only if Dagur can't use any weapons! We'll just try to lick each other to death!"

"It could end the war for us," Toothless said thoughtfully.

"Dagur can't be trusted to keep an agreement like that," Astrid replied. "He hates us! This is just his way to either win a war he's on the verge of losing, or get himself to Valhalla before his tribe exiles him. No matter who loses, he wins."

"I'm with Astrid on this one," Guana nodded. "He'll cheat somehow. If he could kill a Night Fury, that might be worth losing the war, at least to him. Don't trust him, Hiccup."

"I don't," Hiccup nodded. "Wait a second; let's see how this scene ends."

Stoick couldn't understand what they were saying, of course. But he made a pretty good guess. "I don't give orders to dragons," he rumbled. "Would you like to present your offer to the Night Furies yourself?" The Berserker messenger looked up at the black dragons who were looking down at him. He saw lots and lots of teeth. He shook his head.

"All right," the chief growled. "That settles that. Did you have anything else to say?"

"Yes," the messenger quavered. "Lock me away... set me adrift... but don't send me back to Raca! I've fought dragons, I've fought slaves, I've fought other Vikings, but none of them scare me like Dagur does!"

Stoick thought about that. Finally, he turned to Spitelout. "House him with the last batch of Berserkers who wanted to live here. If he does anything suspicious, give him his wish and lock him up." He turned and stormed up the steps to the Nest.

"You heard what he said," he rumbled at Hiccup. "What do you think?"

DAGUR CAN'T BE TRUSTED. THIS MESSENGER
WAS JUST A DESPERATE ATTEMPT TO SALVAGE
SOMETHING FROM A WAR HE CAN'T WIN

"I think so, too," his father nodded. "I'd love to send a messenger back to Dagur to give him my answer, but I can't think of anyone I'm willing to lose, and those Berserker deserters won't go."

Hiccup looked thoughtful; his "thoughtful" facial expression was as easy to recognize on his dragon face as it had been on his human face.

YOU MIGHT BE ON TO SOMETHING THERE, DAD

o

That night, the nearest of the Berserker villages felt the dragons' rage like they had never felt it before. This was no food raid, or a focused strike on military targets; it was an all-out attack by every dragon in Berk.

First, the Night Furies took out every heavy weapon in the town (which wasn't many). Then the other dragons descended, spitting fire at anything that would burn. The humans tried to fight back, but they didn't do well. The dragons fought differently tonight.

The usual way for humans to fight dragons was to attack each dragon from two or more directions at once, thus ensuring that at least one attack would get through. But tonight, the dragons used a new tactic. Each Nadder, Zippleback, and Nightmare had a Gronckle flying just above and behind it. Nothing the humans tried could break up those pairs of dragons, so they couldn't isolate them. If they attacked from two directions, the two dragons would each handle one attack; if they came in threes or more, the dragons would just lift off and attack somewhere else, while a Night Fury firebolt would send the groups of men flying. Only one dragon flew solo; that was the Snaptrapper, who had regained her strength and wanted some serious payback against the Berserkers. With four heads capable of spitting acid in four directions at once, she didn't need an escort.

When the dragons left, two hours later, the village was a smoking ruin. Not many men had died, but plenty were wounded. The dragons hadn't lost anyone, and their wounds were mostly minor.

"Hiccup, I've got to hand it to you – that 'wingman' idea worked great," Astrid smiled as they led their flock home.

"It all depended on how well the Gronckles could stick to the plan, and they did just fine," he nodded. "We'll try it again tomorrow night."

The plan worked just as well the next night, when they hit the second-closest Berserker village. Again, they virtually leveled the village, leaving nothing but ashes and miserable, homeless Berserkers.

Dagur saw the writing on the wall, and rushed all his remaining heavy weapons to the third-closest village. On the third night, that village was raided... by the Night Furies, who joyously wiped out the heavy weapons, leaving the entire Berserker tribe virtually defenseless. The next real raid came the following night, and they hit the fourth-closest village, which was now undefended. They came back to the third-closest village the night after that, once the defenders from the other towns had gone home.

"They still haven't come up with a counter-tactic to our wingmen!" Guana noticed after that raid.

"They've lost the ones who did all the thinking for them, and now they're just an ordinary bunch of Vikings," Night-fury-six-shooter replied. "Dad can think circles around a bunch like that!"

Town by town, the dragons were methodically wiping the Berserker tribe off the map. The humans' huge advantage in numbers did them no good – Hiccup was too good at outguessing Dagur and hitting his forces where they were least prepared. The other dragons, for their part, had learned some useful lessons from the Night Furies. They didn't land to fight any more than they had to; they stayed in the air and kept moving. That kept their losses down and their injuries minor. It became something like a badge of honor among the Gronckles to come home with a bola wrapped around their legs, but otherwise unharmed.

The capital town of Raca quickly turned into a huge refugee camp, as survivors from the other towns streamed toward the only Berserker town of any consequence that hadn't been burned to the ground yet. The outskirts of the town were filled with tents and makeshift shelters filled with cold, hungry, desperate people. It soon became obvious that the dragons were saving an attack on Raca for last. There was nothing Dagur could do about it. He had plenty of people, but no ships, no heavy weapons, no forges to make anything, and very little food. Too many members of his army were drifting away into the refugee areas to try and help their families survive; some of his advisors, weary of being ignored, were among them. Everyone was watching the skies every night, waiting for the final blow to fall.

When the dragons finally appeared over Raca, they came in broad daylight. They loosed no flames; they bit and clawed no one. They just dropped bundles from their claws, circled the town once, and left. The bundles scattered in mid-air and blanketed Raca with... a message.

It was Stoick who had given Hiccup the idea of sending a message to the Berserkers, but it was Agnarr and Agmundr who made it practical. It would have taken weeks for the Vikings to hand-write hundreds of copies of the message on parchments and squares of used bed sheets. The two young smith's apprentices offered to help, and they had the solution within a few hours. They cut a hardwood block in half, and each of them carved away the runes for half the message in his half of the block. When the halves were rejoined, all they had to do was brush some ink on the block, press it on the paper or fabric, and set the completed message aside to dry. While the dragons raided the last of the Berserker towns, the two ex-Berserkers worked day and night on their contribution to Berk's victory over their former tribe.

The message itself was short and simple, calculated to appeal to the average Viking in the streets, or more specifically, the average Viking in the refugee camps. Stoick and Gobber had labored over the wording, and they got some useful suggestions from Hiccup before producing copies by the hundreds:

Brave Berserker warriors!

Berk has no quarrel with you. Just get rid of the mad chief who brought this disaster on you and your loved ones, renew our treaty of peace, and the war will end. The dragons will plague you no more.

Signed,
Stoick, Chief of Berk

There was no mention of surrender, or defeat, or reparations, or anything else that might make a stubborn Viking dig in his heels. The dragons spread the messages all over Raca, focusing on the refugee areas, then flew home and waited to see what the response might be.

The answer was spotted by the patrolling Nadders three nights later. "Two small ships are sailing towards us," they reported. "Their crews look large for such small ships." Hiccup passed the word to his father.

"In a perfect world, that would be a delegation to end the war and renew the peace treaty," Stoick said thoughtfully. "But this is not a perfect world. If they've come for one last fight to save their honor, we will give them what they want. Let them come."

The Berserker ships drifted silently toward Berk's docks. The two fishing boats were a far cry from the "armada with the strength of fifty thousand men" that had last visited this harbor. They carried about forty men between them. They blew no horn of welcome; no pennants flew from their mastheads.

Lining the shore, waiting for them, were all the warriors of Berk in full battle array. Everyone had his weapon handy, but no weapons were drawn or brandished at the intruders. The catapults were manned, loaded, and aimed. There were no dragons visible from the harbor; they were inside the town, alertly waiting for a signal to rise and attack.

Stoick, Gobber, and Spitelout walked cautiously along the docks to where the two Berserker ships had tied up. A big man with fearsome horns on his helmet stood up in the bow of the lead ship when he saw them coming, and shouted, "Presenting the high chief of the Berserker tribe! Cracker of skulls, slayer of beasts, the great and fearsome... Dagur the Deposed!" He gestured toward the second ship, where the high chief of the Berserker tribe was bound, gagged, and tied to the mast. He was struggling to get free, in spite of the utter uselessness of such a gesture.

The big Berserker lowered his voice to a conversational tone. "I am Pugpoodle the Hirsute, and I have been chosen to speak for our temporary leaders' council. We will choose a new chief soon, but before that happens, we thought we should finish our business with Berk."

"What is yer business?" Gobber demanded.

Pugpoodle held out his hand toward another Berserker, who placed a scroll in it. "Our business is to renew our treaty of peace and friendship with the good people of Berk, with whom we have no quarrel. The terms of the treaty have not changed. We will sign it... using black ink... as soon as you are willing. As evidence of our goodwill, we offer you a gift – the highest-ranking prisoner we could find." Again he gestured toward Dagur.

"What do you think?" Stoick asked his friends. "Shall we accept their offer, sign the treaty, and celebrate by treating our guests to a fine meal?" Those last two words were especially calculated to appeal to the Berserkers, who were known to be suffering from severe food shortages. Spitelout and Gobber nodded politely.

"Very well, then," the chief said, and turned to Pugpoodle. "You and your men are welcome in Berk. We will sign the treaty just before supper, and offer you any other hospitality you may require." Some of the Berserkers were seen to sigh in relief.

Then he turned to his people and bellowed, "People of Berk! Put away your weapons and return to your everyday lives! The Berserker War is over!"

The Berserker delegation expected to hear a mighty cheer in response to that announcement. They weren't expecting a chorus of inhuman roars from within the town as well.