CHAPTER 62: Mala's breakdown
The war had been declared and technically speaking, the archipelago was now at war. On one side you had 'The Grand Alliance' including the Hooligans, Berserkers, the Outcasts and the very small remainder of Defenders of the Wing who'd got out of the island before the invasion occurred. On the other, you had 'The Coalition' - The Ancients, and the Warlords. No fighting between these tribes had actually occurred yet, over the past week since Hiccup declared war, but still, the message was crystal clear. The Barbaric Archipelago was now under a state of war.
It'd been a full week since the invasion of Caldera Cay, and a week after Hiccup had declared war on Alfa Yurlin. Alvin and Dagur were back at their respective islands, and their respective tribes had rearmed themselves to the teeth, smelting more weapons and gear. Dagur, Mala and Heather were all gathered within the hidden confinement of Dagur's hut, where he was doing his best to confront his wife, Mala.
The invasion of her island, so swift and so ruthless, prompted her to be a crying mess over the past week. Sleepless nights, episodes of shaking as if she was suffering a seizure, and nightmares whereby the Ancients had captured her all haunted her.
She was in her husband's arms, just crying waterfalls from her eyes. She no longer had a tribe as they'd all been invaded, and she felt like a complete traitor to her own vikings. That was the thing that hurt more than anything for her. Having to spend the rest of her time on Berserker Island, as much as it was her husband's tribe, made her feel empty inside.
"It's gonna be okay, Mala, I promise you!" assured Dagur, as he hugged his wife with the upmost love.
Berserker Island was on a war footing. Nearly all of the vikings there were geared up, having smelted fresh battleaxes, bows, helmets, all of the sort - some of the Hooligans were set to come to the island as a sort of stepping stone, for the prelude of launching an attack on the Ancients themselves.
"It's not okay, Dagur," cried Mala, "I had to abandon my island, the great protector would've dropped me into the ocean had they still been around to witness that."
Dagur fully understood the emotions. He too was emotional, because they were married, Dagur was essentially the second in command of the Defenders of the Wing, and he knew a very good chunk of them personally. The loss of Caldera Cay mattered as much to him as it did Mala.
"Listen," he said, looking to Mala as the two of them took a few steps back from the comforting embrace Dagur had been giving her to keep her calm, "this war will be over in a couple of weeks, we'll take back the island and you know what we'll do?"
"What?"
"We'll try and bring the great protector back. Yeah, that's a plan that we'll formulate with Hiccup as well. When all of this is said and done, we'll try and find a way of bringing the great protector back as we rebuild the island."
Mala liked the idea of that, it wasn't enough to instantly calm her emotional self as her whole face felt like it was about to melt from all the tears, but it was enough to at least bring her back from the brink.
"How..." Mala whispered, wiping her eyes as she sought to get rid of the tears, "how would we even go about that, Dagur? they're all in that hidden world."
"Precisely my plan. When all is said and done, my precious angel, we'll gather Hiccup and we'll make a trip to the entrance there and we'll seek out the great protector."
"Is...is that even possible?"
"Hiccup reunited with his Night Fury not too long ago after his little Snoggletog performance, as he told us, don't you remember? it wasn't that long ago. If he could do that, we could definitely achieve this."
Mala nodded. For as emotionally broken as she was, feeling like a Chieftan who didn't even deserve to be given that title due to her self perceived failures letting her vikings fall under Ancient occupation, the idea of going to the hidden world was one that'd act as a spark of light at the end of what was assumed to be just a small week long tunnel of darkness, because Dagur had just claimed that the war would be over around that sort of time period.
"You stay put here, alright Mala? I'm gonna check up on the men. We're going to make inroads as we embark upon our first and last offense in this phoney war - Yurlin's vikings will be on the back peddle like sinking sand when they see us."
"I'll need to sleep. I need to just sleep away all of this...this...this darkness. What is our world coming to?" Mala asked, "I never thought it'd be possible that we'd be facing this sort of evil, the sort of evil that can just eradicate tribes like this."
"It's a dark moment for all of us right now, Mala. As vikings, we've never faced this sort of existential threat. Like I say, Yurlin's already missed his boat, he'll be thrown overboard, to speak metaphorically. He's already missed his chance."
Mala shrugged her shoulders. She once again wiped her eyes as she stood up to find somewhere easy and comfortable to nap in the hut. Dagur loved Mala with all his heart, and seeing her this way was the most heartbreaking thing he could've ever seen. It only motivated him to see this war to the very end, the fall of Alfa Yurlin, and the restoration of the free viking archipelago.
Utilizing the maze of caves within the central mountain of Berserker Island, the vikings had used them as their weapon storage, as well as fallback positions. The Ancients wouldn't have a clue of their existence if they ever came within a whisker of attacking their island. Dagur walked in there, with a torch in hand, past all of the assorted weapons, barrels of gunpowder, and general gear. They were used as storage caves.
A significant number of Berserker vikings had been stationed inside these tunnels of caves. The ice was no longer in them as it'd melted, the same ice created by the Bewilderbeast all those years ago when younger Hiccup, alongside Krogan and Johann, battled for the possession of a Bewilderbeast egg. It was no longer the same vicinity it was at that time.
Nonetheless, they made for fantastic fallback positions, and positions well hidden from the external view of the island to which no incoming enemy would expect. The sea stacks surrounding the edges of Berserker Island also meant that they had some form of natural barricade.
"How goes the preparation, gents?" Dagur asked, as he held his torch up.
Torches were already scattered throughout the caves to keep the field of vision easy, but Dagur carried one just so he didn't have to constantly double look to where he was going. He knew the way in and out of these caves quite easily, much like the other Berserkers did - but when the Hooligans, a good number of them, arrived, they'd have to be shown the way in and out. They were coming here precisely to join forces with the Berserkers, after all.
"We're all ready to get going. Oswald would've hated this, no doubt 'bout that!" replied one of the larger Berserkers as he smashed his battleaxe repeatedly into the wall in an unorthodox attempt to sharpen the blades up.
"Just need you all to be aware that we are expecting some of Hiccup's guys to join us here shortly, they're going to send a good amount of them to our island. The missus isn't taking this well at all, for what it's worth."
"She wouldn't be, would she, considering what's happened on the old 'Cay. It's been attacked unprovoked and mercilessly!"
"Which is why, when the Hooligans get here, we cannot hold back on our own form of attack. We have to be ready to set sail and meet them head on. The 'Cay Offensive' as we'll call it, will take us directly to the occupied island whilst a number of us remain on here with some of the Hooligans, to launch an attack on the Ancients. They can't be allowed to occupy that island and turn it into their own territory whilst simultaneously butcher our fellow vikings."
"Aye, we hear you Dagur. We'll remain put down here for a bit with the guys then we'll hop on out to meet the Hooligans with you."
"Alright," Dagur nodded, approving of what he'd just heard.
The 'Cay Offensive' wasn't the formal title Dagur was giving it, but it was the one he was going to use. Essentially, the plan was for the Berserkers, Hooligans as well as the Outcasts, to simply sail to Caldera Cay under occupation and launch their own invasion of the island to take it back from Ancient hands. Alvin had already been consulted on it and he too was going to send some of his vikings to Berserker Island to prepare.
They all thought that this upcoming offensive, the Cay Offensive, would be the sealing of the deal - all they needed to do was sail to Caldera Cay, launch their own attack, and the war would be quickly won. They genuinely thought the Ancients didn't have it in them to go beyond what they'd already done considering how brutal their invasion of Caldera Cay was - which gave them the impression that it'd only be easier to ultimately facilitate the downfall of Yurlin's regime.
They were all secretly hoping an internal coup would occur inside the Ancient Tribe, once they realized how much of a deranged maniac their Chieftan was, and when such a coup happened, the 'alliance' as it was called, would steamroll onto Ancient Island and force them to surrender and subsequently oversee the collapse of Yurlin's council and regime.
"Dagur?" Heather asked, catching him by surprise.
"Heather, I didn't know you followed me down here, I was just heading back up, we're due to meet Hiccup's guys on our shores in the next hour, give or take."
Dagur and Heather started walking side by side as numerous voices could be heard echoing throughout the caves as dozens of Berserkers continued arming themselves up and discussing possible manuveres in the event of a hypothetical attack by the Ancients.
"I was just thinking...something you said to Mala really stuck out to me. The idea of them going to the entrance of this special world the dragons now reside in."
"Yeah, what about it?"
"I mean...let's face it, this war is a very very quiet one right now, we've not had any physical fighting on our fronts yet, so why don't we take advantage of that - get Hiccup to go to the entrance of this hidden world as it's called, get his Night Fury back, and then we'll automatically have an advantage over the Ancients?"
Dagur stopped directly in his walking as soon as Heather uttered the idea. He had no idea why he hadn't thought of that himself. The biggest reason this war had the potential to dwarf the other wars in the past was precisely because the dragons were no longer here - they were long gone into the hidden world.
The Ancients automatically had an advantage. They didn't have to worry about being pushed back and prevented in their authoritarian, dictatorial, archaic and annexing ways by the dragons. The whole formation of the Yurlin regime was possible precisely because the dragons were no longer in the world to keep a 'check' on the archipelago order, to prevent instability resulting in their emergence with the Yurlin regime.
For Hiccup and the Hooligans, fighting a war post-dragons was a daunting prospect because they'd always been used to having the dragons on their side, which had always given them the advantage over their adversaries. Suddenly though, they had to face fighting a war for the first time in years WITHOUT their dragons, and that was why the Ancients were just as, if not more dangerous, than Drago and Grimmel put together.
"You know what Heather?" Dagur said, "when the Hooligans get here, I'll throw them that curveball. You're right - you're 100% right. We might actually be able to shorten the length of this war from a week to just one day if we can pull that off with getting the dragons back."
Suddenly, amid a gloomy atmosphere, Heather's idea had given Dagur a boost of optimism, like the war wasn't even underway. The idea of the dragons coming back to help defeat the Ancients, shortening the war to a mere day or two rather than a week or two which Dagur thought it'd be over in, was a no brainer.
There was only one person though who could make that happen - it was Hiccup. The Cay Offensive was still something the alliance intended to wage upon the Ancients, but Heather's idea, something that was a pretty obvious thing to attempt from the moment Hiccup declared war on Yurlin, had given the whole war a new angle. Getting it to come to fruition would be the tricky part.
"You seen Mala?"
"Yeah, I saw her. She's pretty rough at the moment, but who can blame her, given what's happened on that island?" Heather said.
"What I said to her was that Yurlin had missed the boat. He could've, following his invasion of the Cay, made an immediate attempt to overwhelm us and the alliance, but he hasn't. He's completely missed the boat to do it, figuratively speaking. That missed boat gives us the chance to get the dragons...to happen, you know? to get them to come back to the world and turn the Ancients into ashes."
Heather now was also getting the beam of optimism her brother had. She couldn't believe nobody else had thought about it as a potential idea. Nonetheless, now that it was a known and fully realized solution to the war, Dagur was now going to try and get the ball rolling on it, and only Hiccup could make it happen.
Dagur genuinely believed Yurlin had 'missed the boat' by failing to instantly attack his island, or the Outcasts. In failing to 'catch the boat', Dagur sensed that Yurlin had massively miscalculated and would therefore struggle to counter any incoming offensive from the alliance.
"Let's face it, in a month's time, it's not going to be any of us suffering under Ancient occupation, it'll be the Ancients suffering under their own facilitated defeat when they decided to annex gradually, one by one, all of these innocent other tribes," said Dagur, with the upmost confidence and certainty.