CHAPTER 54: Inspection
As war loomed across the archipelago, the regular vikings of Ancient Island seemed to carry on with their daily lives. Not one of them seemed remotely phased by what their council & leader was doing beyond the seas, the brutality to which they were doing it, and the ruthlessness. Not one of them seemed to care about the countless sovereignty violations their own tribe had committed against outside tribes.
It was just like any other day on the island. Catching fish, heavy cigars in the mouths of elderly vikings, younger vikings camping out in the forests to train up to become members of the army, and wives and women collecting crops of vegetables.
It was even more striking that, following the 'night of the burning huts', quite a lot of the vikings walking along the village, past the numerous propaganda wooden boards emphasizing Yurlin's leadership as their savior and god, seemed as normal as they did prior to all of this occurring.
Across the central village, the vikings were benefiting from the fallout of the night of the burning huts. Many Ancients who hadn't previously owned their own huts were provided with the same rebuilt huts that used to be owned by the vikings who went on to become victims of that deadly night. The Yurlin council initiated this as a systematic policy in its desire to wipe out any trace of the unvikings in its tribe.
As a result, although the tribe had its secretive doubters due to the risk their lives faced if they spoke out, many of the vikings were content, and they didn't seem to care about the crimes that their council was committing against its fellow vikings it was meant to be leading, as well as the actions it was taking overseas.
Families who devoted their whole lives to showing loyalty to Yurlin's cult of personality since he became Chieftan benefited greatly by being given the opportunity to take over previously 'unviking' owned huts that were now being rebuilt from the fallout of the night of the burning huts. Anvil vikings who were dismissed from their roles from being perceived to be unvikings had their jobs replaced by loyal vikings, among many things. Fishermen who were also perceived to have been unvikings and who perished from the night of the burning huts had their jobs lost and were promptly replaced by other Ancient vikings.
All in all, the vikings of the tribe were treated like royalty and the second coming - provided they adhered to the tribe's cult of personality strictly. They found it very easy as a result to ignore the morality of the actions their tribe was undertaking overseas and the crimes committed against its own. Food on the table was all that mattered to them, and the vast swathes of acquired territory from the annexations had certainly given the Ancients their fair share of accessible food as well as future living space for their tribe to utilize in expansion.
Gathered in a large group that easily numbered over 100, a large number of young boys were lined up all together in a single file line across a plain field just on the outskirts of the village. These boys were apart of the training program that the council had made mandatory, and they were set to be inspected. They had metal gear on, their helmets were as tall as the horns on a bull, and they had sturdy belts carrying many weapons.
Some of the boys remained as still as they could, they were taught to stand in formation together for significant events, to which this was one of them. It was completely silent and not one of them spoke a single word. Not even the village behind their instructors could be heard, and all that they could hear were the vast echoes of the chirping birds in the trees some distance away.
The wind blew a gentle breeze across the boys as the grass gently danced to its tune. Standing shoulder to shoulder with metal shoulder pads, looking like miniature warrior vikings, all of the boys kept their eyes firmly locked on their instructor as he, alongside two others, stood in front of the formation. These programs had long become a paramilitary of sorts for the young boys of the Ancient Tribe.
"Listen to what I am about to tell you all. You have all worked hard for this moment. You have all pledged your loyalty to our savior, our great leader, Alfa Yurlin. Your lives will be devoted to serving our leader and ensuring the race of our tribe thrives for many years to come. Today, we are to be inspected. Today's group will be inspected as will the others over the next few days."
The instructor viking, who had a width similar to Stoick the Vast and had a long beard, was commanding his voice to the boys like he was their general - in theory, he was. These mandatory training programs were ultimately to feed the indoctrination of the Yurlin ideology into these boys and to make them fighting vikings for the survival of the Ancients, and for when they'd be conscripted into the army of the tribe.
"Group A, step forward and permit yourselves to form a single file line in front of us," pointed the instructor.
He'd pointed to the left side of the single file line of hundreds of young Ancient vikings. Each group contained about 20 of these young vikings. Right away, like they were marching, the first lot of 20 walked and formally marched like they were in the military into a single file line directly in front of the inspectors.
Their foreheads were covered with sweat, their throats were practically dry, and their eyes focused on nothing but the instructors. Discipline was the rule of law around here and that was the first thing that was hammered into the heads of the boys above all else, hence their ability to formally march side-by-side with no errors.
As they proceeded to stand shoulder-to-shoulder in front of their instructor vikings, with their backs facing the main line of young Ancient boys, a huge delegation emerged behind the instructors, like a circling of vikings was approaching their area. None of the boys were given advance notice of who was to actually inspect them, so seeing such a big delegation approach them was surprising.
Collective steps of brown boots hitting the dry mud and grass thumped their way into the ears of all the boys as the delegation emerged. Some of the vikings surrounding whoever was in the middle of them kept bumping into each other, and some of them nearly tripped over. But eventually, as the instructors gave way and sidestepped away, the delegation suddenly cleared up and in the middle of them was none other than Yurlin himself.
The Ancient Chieftan, Alfa Yurlin, was the one who was to inspect his youthful soldiers in waiting. The reveal of his presence from the sidestepping delegation caused the boys to be even more disciplined, so much so that they remained as still as a frozen body in a block of ice.
"Our Yurlin, my leader!" said the main instructor, bowing down directly in front of Yurlin as the Chieftan acknowledged the greeting.
"Thank you," said Yurlin.
Yurlin's steel helmet dwarfed all of those on the vikings surrounding him, especially the young boys in front of him. He was wearing a coat which seemed to be made from yak fur, in a brown colour. He was here for a specific reason, given the imminent plan to invade Caldera Cay. He was here to inspect his youthful soldiers in waiting, to ensure discipline was being met, and to just do an overall inspection on the competence and progress of the boys.
To Yurlin, these boys were the future of the tribe, not just in terms of ensuring the tribe would go on to last for a full thousand years from now vastly expanded, but also to ensure the unvikings were kept at bay, and to ensure the Ancient race was preserved and not to go extinct. Yurlin's perception of the Ancient Tribe had now gone beyond just a group of vikings at this point.
He'd considered the tribe's vikings to be of a superior race of sorts, a race by blood. A race that'd go on to dominate other viking 'races' for the unified vikingism of the world under his ideology. As a result, he was not only coming to inspect the youthful vikings in their training sessions today, he was also planning to implement a new decree of sorts upon the tribe in the event of war breaking out - not that he thought Hiccup would actually declare war, but he felt like the overhaul of the archipelago was imminent given the threats made from the outside tribes.
Such threats had also pushed him to perceive his tribe as not just merely a tribe but a race of vikings who had a destiny to dominate other human races for the benefit of a pure viking world. Hiccup's words had simply encouraged Yurlin's twisted view of the world to morph and morph.
Yurlin placed his hands behind his lower back, holding them together, and he paced up towards the first half of the group of 20 boys stood in front of him in a formal line. The sound of his boots hitting the twigs and collections of dry grass prompted them to maintain their frozen-like stance.
They felt like they were on a very fine line, with the smallest error or mistake prompting them to fall off that line and into the abyss. They could hear their heartbeats in their ears as their eyes watched the blank spaces ahead of them, not even daring to look at their leader for the fear of looking disrespectful. Their chests felt like they had heavy weights inside them and their legs felt like they were having their circulation cut from them given how still they were. They weren't fearful, but merely in pure awe of their leader, to the point showing him respect was of their upmost priority, hence their drastic frozen-like stances.
Yurlin looked at the helmets of the boys, and slowly took a turn to the left, stopping in front of the second boy. He reached his arms out and swiftly adjusted the angle of the helmet on him. He looked at him and reached his hand out to the young viking. In turn, the trembling arm of the youthful soldier in waiting reached Yurlin's own palm and the two shook hands.
"Keep up the good work," Yurlin smiled, "you'll be coming a long way for our tribe, I can assure you that much."
Hearing those words from his own leader had prompted the boy to smile. To hear those words from someone who was basically an Odin-like figure to him, given the cult of personality, it was a dream come true. All of the boys viewed Alfa Yurlin like their god, so hearing his voice alone was enough to make them feel like they were in the presence of Odin.
Yurlin carried on pacing down the line ever so slowly, watching the young boys as they stood formally on the dry mud with the wind gently breezing around them. The instructor had suddenly issued a command to them with Yurlin pacing down the line.
"SALUTE!" yelled the instructor.
Right away, all of the boys, like they were robots, swiftly raised their right arms up and planted them up to their heads, their palms directly facing the grassy grounds below just next to their boots as they saluted Yurlin.
Yurlin nodded with approval, looking to the left and right as he studied all of the boys from one spot. Upon turning once again to face the right side of the group, he slowly took a few steps to that direction, his boots once again cracking off some of the twigs and dry grass, and stopped in front of another boy.
He slowly reached his arm out to the saluting boy and gently adjusted his arm - the salute of this one wasn't quite matching up with the others, so Yurlin had taken it upon himself to correct the boy. The instructor had quickly noticed this and glared at the boy in question, to which he gulped with anxiety.
"Don't you worry," said Yurlin, ducking down to the height of the boy, smiling at him, "I know you're well disciplined and you're going to be a formidable one."
He patted the shoulder of the boy, which had greatly decreased his anxieties. Hearing Yurlin say to him that he shouldn't worry about having his arm salute not be quite at the same angle as the other boys not only made the boy feel relief, it also made the instructor relieved. Yurlin's word was the final word. If Yurlin wanted to, he could override ANYTHING the instructors demanded of the boys and the instructors would be utterly powerless.
Yurlin stood back and watched the boys as they maintained their stance. He took off his helmet and held it in his other arm, raising up his free hand to salute the boys back as they all stood smiling at him.
The opportunity to meet Yurlin was a proud moment for the boys. Their whole educational journey in the tribe since Yurlin came to power had been devoted to serving him and the ideology, and meeting him in person, something which they never would've actually expected, had only encouraged them to further serve the ideology and ensure the future of the tribe and its 'race'.
And all of this was happily conducted in an aura where war seemed imminent. The moral standing of Yurlin was completely irrelevant to a vast majority of the Ancient vikings given his standing in the archipelago and their utter admiration of him given his achievements for them, achievements that they thought were supposedly fair and free of crime.
The complete cult of personality surrounding Yurlin was unseen in viking history on the Barbaric Archipelago. It further underlined that the values of the Ancient Tribe were far gone from those of the Hooligans or the other tribes. Never before did a tribe have such a dictatorial cult of personality surrounding the Chieftan, to the point the young vikings of such a tribe were stood in formation in front of the Chieftan, saluting him and treating him as anything but a regular person.
A world culminating in that sort of cult of personality would be an extremely unpleasant surprise for the dragons to return to in however many years time if they ever decided to come back out of The Hidden World - all the more reason for Hiccup and the other outside tribes to take a stand against the Ancients and their archaic twisted ideology.
It was imminently time for Yurlin to declare who his secretive friends were in terms of a coalition partner in any upcoming war against the outside tribes - this inspection was among many steps the Ancient Chieftan was undertaking given the words of Hiccup Haddock - the other steps were to be revealed in due course.