CHAPTER 59: Hiccup goes to war
Hiccup had attended Gothi's gathering to which she'd spoke to Odin and cemented him as the leader of the free viking world against the tyranny that threatened to become a big enough force in the future to attack New Berk. Afterwards, Hiccup's position as the savior of the free viking world was set in stone.
Gothi was, however, brought back to be besides Hiccup in the hall of New Berk. All of the tribe was - not just the adults, but all the children. It was late at night and Hiccup received news of the unprovoked attack on Caldera Cay and all of its Defenders of the Wing by the Ancients and Warlords. The brutality to which the invasion was carried out as rumored had prompted Hiccup to avoid being vague about his words.
The aura inside the hall was gloomy. The torches barely kept the room lit as the flames of the torches struggled to keep their shape given the cold temperature. The walls were creaking as if the place was on the verge of coming down with a collapse. Usually in a room filled with hundreds of vikings it'd be instantly hot because of how many breathing individuals there were in a confined space like this given the numbers inside.
But it wasn't this time - not like all the previous times Hiccup had gathered his tribe inside the hall for speeches in regards to the Ancient problem. This time, the whole hall retained an icy cold coat across the acres of space it occupied, including inside. A mist was slowly crawling its way past the hundreds of bodies of all the geared up Hooligans, to the point such gear wasn't even effectively beating off the cold.
And this time, it was only Hiccup on the big wooden platform, almost like he was struggling to hold back the urge to just fall to the ground and curve himself up to hide from the outside. All the others, like Snotlout and the usuals, were among the hundreds of other Hooligans in the crowd.
All the times Hiccup gave speeches and updates on the overseas situation, they all joined him on the platform in front of the vikings. This time, it was just him and his family. What he was about to say was so grave and gloomy that he felt it only be appropriate that his family joined him side by side as this was going to have wide implications for them as much as it did him.
But ultimately, for a good cause - the brutality to which the invasion of Caldera Cay took place left no room for doubt in Hiccup's mind that saying what he was about to say was the first step to saving the archipelago, and the wider viking world.
Astrid looked at Hiccup, and Valka patted her son on the shoulder. Zephyr and Nuffink were stood either side of Hiccup as his family congregated the eerily silent hall despite the hundreds of vikings inside it. Astrid nodded at him in support as Valka held onto his shoulder.
"I never thought I'd have to make this declaration, but here we are. I'm going to be candid with you all," Hiccup said, his voice sounding worn out and weakened.
"We've received the news that the Ancients have crossed the shores of Caldera Cay in what is quite obviously an unprovoked and cruel attack with no possible justification. I'd decided to hold off on making this declaration in the final hopes that they'd realize, the Ancients, that we were serious when we collectively stated, including Dagur, Alvin and Mala, that the next time they attacked a sovereign tribe, we'd stand up to them."
"I'd delayed making this speech in the hope that maybe they'd have taken that seriously enough to withdraw their vikings from Caldera Cay upon second thoughts. From what we've gathered, that hasn't happened and they're now inducting the island into their tribe, yet another annexation, with absolutely no hesitation."
"So it's on that basis that I have to tell you all now...and I'm invoking the spirit of my father when I say this...but consequently, we have no choice, I have no choice...this tribe, us, the Berkians, this tribe is now at war...with the Ancients."
The cold, deep, stunned silence after that sentence prompted a collective ache in the hearts of everyone in the hall. All that could be heard were the gentle breezes of wind grazing off the walls of the hall outside. Hiccup briefly hesitated as if he was holding back a cry. He briefly froze in place as shivering sensations ran rife around his arms and hands, like he was getting goosebumps.
"I'm so sorry...you all know for the longest time I tried to avoid this happening, I tried my best to calm the tensions, to try and reason with who we're dealing with, in the hopes that they'd come to the table and realize their actions were not only striking fear in the minds of all vikings across the archipelago, but threatening the peace we've lived in over the past ten years since the dragons left."
"Yet all this time I'd been making the same mistake I made with Drago when trying to talk to him. Yurlin just wouldn't have it. All along, he'd made up his mind to conduct these horrifying attacks on a scale of brutality that'd make even Grimmel repulsed, regardless of anything that we tried to accomplish. Every single time he has conducted these annexations, he's claimed that the tribes respectively who've fell victim to his tyrannical attacks had been 'slaughtering' and provoking his own vikings first - we know very well that this is a barefaced lie."
"We know that the so-called attack on his island by the Defenders of the Wing was orchestrated and conducted by his own vikings disguised as them. With the Northern Market islands, he claimed that they were being 'infested' and that they were also attacking Ancient vikings. We made a compromise when it came to Dragon Island that he had no more territorial demands to make provided he took Dragon Island and allowed the Wingmaidens to evacuate their settlement they'd built to commemorate the dragons. Then what does he do? he takes over Wingmaiden island."
"And I think we all need to realize just the scale of what he's done here. This isn't a Drago situation we're facing. This is a man who has annexed WHOLE tribes into his own, who constantly talks about 'unvikings' to which the term is clearly at his own discretion, meaning innocent vikings are at risk of tyranny, and this is somebody who has systematically conducted horrifying crimes against his own vikings. His own COUNCIL ordered his vikings to attack their own for the sake of rooting out the 'unvikings' which ended up with hundreds of innocent vikings on that island being killed mercilessly at the hands of the man who's supposed to be leading them."
"And I find it quite ironic, too, that for so long now Yurlin has claimed that we ought to be in alliance with him given our mutual hatred of Drago Bludvist. Let me be clear, I despise Drago Bludvist for killing my father. However, Yurlin has become exactly what he himself hates, to possibly an even bigger scale, and he doesn't even realize it. I don't believe butchering innocent vikings who had no involvement in Drago's initial rise and subsequent return has any justification, I don't believe savagely having Chieftans of sovereign tribes be executed, to then annex those tribes, has any justifcation. He claims it's all in the name of ensuring that the likes of Drago and Grimmel never rise again to avoid conflicts like the ones we faced with those two, in order to bring the archipelago back to how our ancestors lived?"
"Except he's lying. He's lied all the way. And ironically his actions that he claims are done in the name of preventing conflicts breaking out again have precisely left us with no choice but to declare war. This isn't just about preventing another Drago or another Grimmel rising as he claims, we all know that now. This is about him building up a greater Ancient Tribe, under an archaic brutal tyranny of a dictatorship, which'd eventually go on to carry on annexing tribes firstly across the rest of the archipelago, and then subsequently to the rest of the world, until it's one big oppressive globe where innocent vikings get killed. We're not going to let that happen."
"His actions show us quite clearly, that there is absolutely zero prospect of this man giving up his thirst for territory to eventually impose his horrifying ideology on the rest of us and eventually the whole world of vikings as it is, creating himself a dictatorship in which all would bow down to him or face death. He'll try to achieve this by force. As a result, he can only be stopped by force."
"Ourselves, alongside Dagur, Alvin and especially Mala, will be going to the aid of her tribe and her island and the wider archipelago to ensure Yurlin is prevented from taking over the archipelago for his dark objectives which will mean the end of viking freedom as we know it. We're not dealing with the same kind of threat we faced by Drago Bludvist, and we're not dealing with the same kind of threat we faced by Grimmel the Grisly. We're dealing with an existential threat which, if not contained, will mean that we'll all become subjugated and absorbed into a sphere of darkness where public executions are rife, our freedoms will be destroyed, a world of lawless criminality emerges where none of us will dare speak out for the fear of our lives under a cult of personality. We're going to war precisely to stop those from happening."
"We as a tribe have a clear conscience, we know what needs to be done. This threat is one that needs confronting especially without our dragons here anymore. If tyranny and oppression is allowed to prevail, our dragons may return in some years time to an archipelago and world with all of us no longer here, off the map, and they'd be coming back to a world completely different to the one they left. I can't let my kids grow up as adults with a looming dark cloud of the Ancients and their tyranny looming over them threateningly."
"Listen to me very carefully, all of you in here," Hiccup pleaded, his voice echoing into a dead silent environment as the realities of war struck upon them, "very shortly, you're all going to need to get your gear, your food, your helmets, whatever it is, and your children will need to be taken across to the evacuation huts we've built across our island. After talking to Eret and my family, we'll be issuing a leaflet for everyone to read, and verbally we'll be making clear how we'll go about sailing off to the archipelago for combat. I'm so sorry it had to come to this, and I'm sorry that I failed you all at the first hurdle. The red flags were there, but I was entirely wrong to think talking would get us anywhere."
"But listen...as I said years ago when we left our old island to escape Grimmel, wherever we go, Berk goes. We'll go back to the archipelago, we'll take back our old island, and we will defeat the evil that needs to be confronted. We will swiftly take back the archipelago from the brink of being swallowed into a dark period of brutality and tyranny. In a world where the dragons are no longer with us, it is more paramount than ever that we take the initiative. For our friends, our families, everyone we love - this is an evil that needs to be confronted head on."
"And after all, it is our duty as vikings. After all, as I always used to say to my father: it's our occupational hazard."
The whole hall started breaking out in applause towards Hiccup, their palms clapping so much so that the walls were practically vibrating as loud roars of approval came from the throats of the vikings inside. Dozens of them jumped up onto the platform, overwhelming Hiccup and his family, and they all patted their Chieftan on the back and hugged him.
Their big width bodies completely dwarfed Hiccup's own amid the overwhelming numbers on the platform as loud patriotic Hooligans roared their cheers of approval for Hiccup's brave and bold speech just now.
"Good on you, Hiccup, good on you!" yelled one of them from the crowd.
Hiccup felt two prominent arms around his body, as he automatically returned the favour - he and Astrid embraced each other as their fellow vikings congregated the platform.
"Stoick would be proud of you, Hiccup," Astrid said.
Hiccup gulped. He knew his father would've made this decision after being lied to by Alfa Yurlin, and after it being clear that Yurlin saw no such thing as sovereign tribes, especially with his murderous archaic ideology that threatened the Berkians themselves as well as all the other tribes.
It was official. The first war since the dragons had left the world had begun. The question now was, following Hiccup's declaration, which one was to make the first firing shot. The task and the obvious danger that needed to be dealt with was an overwhelmingly big one for Hiccup.
But for the sake of his children, his family, his friends, the dragons if they ever came back, and all vikings of the world, going to war meant preserving the freedom of all vikings. No matter the daunting size of the enemy he was to fight, it was morally the right thing to do and precisely what Stoick would've done.