CHAPTER 67: Encirclement
The approaching, barely noticeable boats, as they closed in on Outcast Island, froze every single Outcast as their bodies struck with apprehension. They didn't look like Berkian boats at all, given that Hiccup had only deployed one boat to Outcast Island. The black gloomy skies above alongside the subtle hints of fog made it hard to make out exactly where these boats were from, and what was even more horrifying was that they were approaching the island from every single direction.
Like the island was being surrounded and encircled. Alvin didn't know what to do, nor how to react. Were they Berkians? or were they the Ancients? if they were the latter, they had to open fire literally now.
Gone was the phoniness of the war, three weeks after it begun, it seemed - the fighting was truly about to get under way.
In the far distance was the ACTUAL Berkian boat, and the Hooligans onboard also noticed vast swathes of other boats closer to the island, so much so that it was hard to even see the lit up portion of the shores. All they could see were pitch black boat shaped colours blocking the distant view of the island.
"Who are they?" asked one of the Hooligans, as the long bearded men quickly scrambled up the steps on their boat to get a clearer view.
"Uh...I'm not sure," said the head Berkian on the boat, "they're definitely not our fellas, Hiccup only sent us to them, there were no others?"
A sense of urge gripped everyone on the boat, like a thunderous storm had overflown the skies directly above their boat. They all froze in place as the realization struck them of what these boats ahead were.
"We need to-" he couldn't finish.
Out of nowhere, a giant boulder came thrusting from the air, smashing into the decks of their boat. The boulder utterly crashed through the wood and left a gaping hole to which vast swathes of ocean water began pouring into. The boat was now sinking.
"FELLAS?!" yelled the head Berkian, "WE'VE BEEN HIT BY SOMETHING!"
All of the Hooligans on board scrambled and adjusted their weapons, as they felt the weight of the boat ever so slowly tilt to the left. The ocean was coming for them. The cold depths of the ocean water awaited them.
A second boulder, the sound of it crashing into the boat hitting their eardrums with fiery and vicious pain, struck the already hit boat. Many of the Hooligans slipped upon impact, and a few of them had slid directly on their backs across the floor of the boat. The angle of it was tilted further to the left. The second boulder was even worse because it made the hole much bigger, allowing for more of the ocean to utterly sink into it.
"IT'S THEM, I TELL YOU!" cried a panicking Hooligan as he struggled to hold onto his grip on the floor of the boat.
"HOW DID THEY EVEN GET HERE BEFORE US?!"
The situation was quickly becoming apocalyptic. Faced with a brutally cold ocean to which they were shortly set to be engulfed into, with the only land being what appeared to be an inevitably occupied island, the Hooligans on board were seriously looking at none other than death itself.
Those encircling boats around Outcast Island? the Ancients. They've launched a surprise attack on Outcast Island and they quickly spotted the lone boat of Hooligans in the distance, to which they swiftly launched their own made catapults of boulders to. Yurlin had officially broken the phoniness of the war, and the war was truly about to get real now.
The Ancients' intent with invading Outcast Island was to force the Outcasts to surrender and knock them out of the war. The Ancients had no scruples about getting dirty in their tactics, and given that the Hooligans, Outcasts and Berserkers had declared war, the Ancients saw fit to take their words seriously, there was no hesitancy on their part. Their plan was to take out the Outcasts, Hooligans and Berserkers, occupy them and keep them subjugated, so Yurlin could concentrate his efforts entirely on what he'd been working towards this whole time since becoming Chieftan of the Ancients, which was to the core of his ideology of the world - slaying and conquering the Warlords and eradicating them as a 'race' and alongside that, the 'unvikings'.
They would then go forwards with their deliberate famines across the territories that they saw as being living space for their vikings, to starve out the 'unvikings' and groups they considered non-human on those territories, and to then eventually move Ancient vikings over and essentially colonize those islands and turn them into extended islands of the Ancient Tribe.
This attack on the Outcasts was the prelude to all of this, and so for Yurlin it was essential that he quickly capitulated and occupied the other tribes before concentrating his efforts on the Warlords, in order for him to avoid fighting the war on multiple fronts.
"MAN THE CATAPULTS, FELLAS!" yelled Alvin, as his vocals strained his already dry throat from sprinting all over the place.
The Outcasts quickly assembled and scrambled across the island, some of them evacuating into the tunnels. Their maces and spears clashed with one another, the metal thuds echoing into the night skies as their sprinting bodies caused their belts to rapidly shake. In the background, distant cries of all the kids in the villages could be heard. The Ancients were here, and they realized it.
"Get inside, get inside!" yelled one woman, as she quickly and desperately grabbed her children and those of other vikings into her hut.
"What's gonna happen to us?" cried one of the children, a young boy whose tunic was becoming a minefield of tears from his eyes.
"It's alright, it'll be fine, go and get yourselves warm-"
The outside sounds crept into the inside of the hut like a thunderstorm, the bouncing of boulders from the Ancient ships were striking the island like avalanches. They sounded like bombs going off, so much so that the structures of the hut were actually shaking. The woman Outcast subsequently grabbed all the children and held them in a guarded, protective embrace.
"It's okay, I'll cover your ears, it'll all be fine, your dad will fend Yurlin off, he will..."
The ships were closing in on the island. The problem was, the Outcasts were completely encircled on all fronts of the island, so despite the fact they were concentrating their arrows towards the ships on the front shores, they were not at all prioritizing the ones closing in behind the island.
"FOR THE FREEDOM OF VIKINGS!" cried Alvin.
The ships ahead remained stagnant, nothing but brutal medium sized boulders came thrashing down from the catapults on board as the Ancients looked to take the island quickly and rapidly. He saw this battle for his island as his redemption for his past tactics with Hiccup - fighting for the freedom of the viking world to prevail, in his opinion, was the least he could do for Hiccup. All this time, Alvin had a subtle sense of guilt that stuck in his head, and he was wholeheartedly willing to pay the debts back in the form of fighting a common enemy in the Ancients.
"MY SHOULDER!" cried one Outcast, as his whole body tumbled backwards onto the cold stone, as an arrow struck his shoulder as fast as a whirlwind.
From Alvin's perspective, all he could see were the ships ahead - what he didn't know, however, was that the ships behind the island were already loading off Ancient troops - they'd already hit land.
"Go, go, go go!" yelled one Ancient viking to his designated group of troops as he quickly hopped into the shallow depths of Outcast Island's isolated shores on the opposite side.
Hundreds, well into the five hundred range, of Ancient vikings unloaded off the boats and quickly charged and sprinted, their weapons and helmets dripping with sea salt as they charged forwards like one giant wave onto the stone territory of Outcast Island, completely undetected due to the Outcasts' attention being diverted to the front. NONE of them knew they were encircled all the way around.
"WE CAN'T SEE THEM, ALVIN, WE'RE GONNA NEED TO TAKE IT BACK TO THE DUNGEONS!" yelled another Outcast, as dozens and dozens of their fellow vikings looked to be taking the same idea.
Dozens of them were now backing up and sprinting, their bludgeons scraping right against the cold stone grounds of Outcast Island as the odds became ever more stacked against them. Boulders from the catapults of the ships ahead continued raining down ruthlessly onto the huts in the distance and the shores, turning Outcast Island into a shower of dislodged boulders scattered with the intent of harming its vikings.
"I CANNOT GO DOWN WITHOUT A FIGHT, I CANNOT! MEN, DO NOT LET THEM CROSS ONTO OUR ISLAND!"
"ALVIN!"
"WHAT IS IT?!"
"WE'VE GOT COMPANY BEHIND US!"
"YOU WHAT?!"
Back at the village, the arrival of the wave of Ancient troops were getting closer and closer, and now hundreds of arrows from crossbows on either side were flying past the huts like a shooting range. Outcast Island was half occupied, the other half being the portion of the island closest to its main shores. The horrifying sounds of war crept through the walls of the huts.
A vicious, thunderous bang against the door of the hut could be heard pummeling its ruthless, eardrum damaging self through the wood, causing the woman with all the kids she'd encouraged to get inside for their own protection, to shake with utter fear.
"OPEN YOUR DOOR!" yelled a voice from the other side.
The woman's palms were physically shaking like she had some sort of disease. The young kids kept their eyes closed to the point they were crunched shut, they were too scared to open their eyes to see their surroundings. The voice that had just come through from the door sounded monstrous, it sounded violent and with bad intent. More boots could be heard congregating around the front of it from the outside.
Another thunderous bang emitted through the wood of the door to the inside, the frame of the door losing its grip. Ancient vikings were trying to kick the door in to get inside - the woman Outcast, whose husband's fate was now unknown due to the Ancients officially being on the island and pretty much at this point on the verge of being encircled, had barricaded the door from the inside with numerous barrels filled with rainwater, but they were quickly losing their strength.
"OPEN YOUR DOOR, I WILL NOT ASK AGAIN!" cried the vicious predatory voice in which the vocals were so strong the door practically vibrated.
Amid the sound of flying arrows and triggering crossbows around the outside of the hut, a few seconds had passed from the latest demand from the voice.
Out of nowhere, a third thunderous bang collided with the wooden door from the outside, this time slamming the door out of its frame of the hut, falling onto the two rainwater filled barrels. Right away, revealed amid a dark night background were dozens of Ancient troops, with their tall helmets, their faces painted in partial black as a camouflaging tactic.
Ancient troops, about five of them, quickly pushed the barrels down to the front, allowing all the rainwater to soak onto the floor and towards the desperate Outcast and all the children she'd tried her best to protect. The Ancients swiftly charged into the hut and grabbed her by her armpit, lifting her up to a standing position. The Ancient troops were all young men, none of them older than 30, and they were conducting this invasion with the upmost ruthlessness. The woman Outcast felt the tight, painful grip of her armpit from the Ancient in particular who held her.
He looked to his fellow Ancients as more of them stepped into the hut. They noticed the children at the back of the hut.
"Grab them," commanded one of the other Ancients.
The panicking voices of numerous Outcasts echoed into the dungeons as they evacuated. They were prepared to carry on the fight for as long as possible, despite being forced to evacuate due to the encirclement that had took place, with Ancient troops crossing the frontier of Outcast Island from the behind, and the sides.
"GRAB THE BLUDGEONS MEN, GRAB YOUR ARROWS, THEY'RE HEADING INSIDE HERE, SHOW THEM WHY THESE DUNGEONS ONCE HOUSED THE MOST SOUGHT AFTER DRAGONS OF ALL TIME!" yelled an Outcast, his voice echoing into the isolating structures of the dungeon.
The dozens of Outcasts inside rapidly reached for their belts and took their maces and battleaxes out, ready for direct combat with the enemy, who had quite clearly crossed onto their territory.
"WHERE'S ALVIN?!" roared another Outcast.
Upon hearing that, a distinct voice could be heard from nearer the entrance of the dungeons, it'd come from one of the Ancient troops.
"WE HAVE YOUR CHIEFTAN IN OUR GRASP, YOUR WHOLE VILLAGE IS UNDER OUR CONTROL. YOU CAN EITHER COME OUT RIGHT NOW AND SURRENDER OR WE WILL PUT YOUR WHOLE VILLAGE, CHILDREN INCLUDED, INTO SIEGE!"
All of their hearts dropped upon hearing that voice, many of them didn't want to reply to it - there was no way the Ancients had already captured Alvin, they refused to believe it and still continued readying themselves with their spears and bludgeons and arrows.
Outside the dungeons, within the central shores, hundreds and hundreds of Ancient troops covered the whole vicinity of the shores, village, and a few dead bodies, including both Ancients and Outcasts, scattered around the shores. Arrows were no longer flying in the air, Ancient troops were forcefully bringing the numerous Outcast wives outside their huts as well as the children, for they had managed an incredible feat - overcoming and overwhelming the Outcasts.
"You heard our commander, 'Chief'," boasted one of the other Ancient troops, as Alvin was viciously gripped by both sides, and the back of his neck, "tell them to surrender, and surrender your whole island to us, or the wives and children inhabiting this island will surely be as skeletal as a neglected animal."
"IT'S OKAY FELLAS," cried Alvin, the fierce grips on the back of his neck sending a tumbling pain down his spine, his chest feeling frozen as if his heart wasn't beating due to the horrifying reality of his capture, "COME ON OUT!"
The Ancients made it very clear - the Outcasts could surrender and live under their occupation, or they could carry on a 'hopeless' fight and lose their wives and children in a deliberate siege. Alvin didn't want the latter to happen in the SLIGHTEST, and being in this situation made him feel wholeheartedly remorseful about his past behavior in the past, the brief conflicts he had with Hiccup back in the day when they were much younger between their respective tribes.
Alvin was not one to cry, but right now he was about to.