DRAGON OF THE WEST
Prologue
The skies above the Earth Kingdom were a dark, ruddy red, with swirls of black dispersing with painful slowness, scarring an otherwise cloudless sky like ink poured over a beautiful landscape painting, forever ruined. The sun was retreating slowly, casting it's light fitfully through the thick soot, it's light dwarfed by the events below.
Shen Pingjing was burning.
It was not a natural act; forests in the warm Earth Kingdom burned of natural causes regularly, a process of renewal and rebirth, the spirits cleansing overgrowth, keeping balance. This was the work of men; where a fire would have stopped at rivers or ravines, it started on the other side. The fires spread on a carefully determined pattern, timed precisely to intersect and burn each part of the wide forest in turn, spreading across a green landscape as far as the eye could see. In the distance, one could see more fires advancing, surrounding the seemingly endless forest, closing rapidly on it's heart. The fires burned unnaturally hot, leaving nothing but soot and dead ground in it's wake. Nothing would ever grow here again.
On a rocky outcropping overlooking the landscape, a man sat calmly, overlooking the devastation, meditating on the power of fire. Inside that verdant ocean, he knew, the remains of the Earth Kingdom's elite Zhaoze Huli Raiders were dying, and with their end the last resistance against the Fire Nation's invasion was gone. Now, there was nothing to stand between the grand army and the walls of Ba Sing Se.
Iroh, Crown Prince of the Fire Nation, allowed himself a smile.
Three Years Earlier...
High General Kuzon Silpae was not having a good day.
It had started innocently enough. He had woken up to one of his advisers with the morning report, which Silpae, as usual, would have nothing to do with until he had breakfast and some good tea, which thankfully was waiting for him.
The report itself was grim indeed; the 404th, his most elite scouts, had finally returned with little over half their number from the cautious probing of the Western Pass. Not only was the loss of his elite troops unfortunate, but their report itself was cause for deep concern; the scouts confirmed at least five tuán, which meant nearly two hundred earthbending officers and several thousand peasant levy, guarded the narrow pass. To make matters worse, their spies had confirmed the presence of yet another "elite guard" unit out of Ba Sing Se, this one called the Terracotta Guard, who wrapped themselves in protective shells of earth and stone and who had been responsible for the majority of the 404th's casualty count. If Silpae took his army into that rocky pass, they would never come back out.
Then had come the supply issues. The scrubland the army was currently holding was unable to provide for his army, and the supplies coming up from the coast were being raided daily by resistance forces. The forests on the other side of the Western Pass would provide forage and game enough to keep his army fed on the way through, but not if he waited and let the Earth Kingdom's armies take it all for themselves. He couldn't stay he, he couldn't advance, and he most definitely couldn't retreat.
The worst problem, however, was waiting for him in his command tent.
"Why wasn't I informed!" he raged in his lowest whisper at the nearest subordinate the moment he glimpsed the silhouetted figure occupying his spot behind the map table. Though he couldn't see the man himself, the distinctive shape of his headgear left no room for interpretation. An Inquisitor of the Court, here? No matter what the news, it would not be good. Feeling weak, the general forced his face into a configuration he hoped resembled the sort of noble detachment fitting of his station and, with great effort, compelled his legs to carry him towards the tent flap and confront his fears head-on.
The inquisitor himself was a small man, who seemed to be made of more angles that was strictly nessesary to create a human form. He looked for all the world like a newly dead corpse compelled to pull on deep crimson robes and stand to attention for his fearsome masters, though his golden eyes were alive with a malevolent energy that was apparent even behind the thick, round specticles that clung to his face. He spoke in tones both strictly official and deeply threatening despite producing a scratchy voice that seemed to eminate from no place in particular.
"General Silpae, as you know, the Fire Lord demands victory, not excuses. In the year since you have taken command, you have consistently failed to meet the invasion timeline set out by the Lord Generals. Clearly, you have not produced results, thus, we are expecting to hear some good excuses."
"Casualties are down 48% since I to- took command..." Silpae came to a stuttering stop as the piercing eyes of the inquisitor fell on him. Not a good enough excuse. It was quite clear, the general thought, how the inquisitor had found his calling; the man was unnerving in not just his appearence but his every movement, like the action of moving his limbs were unfamiliar. Not really a man, just something shaped like one.
"Casualties are down, general, because you refuse to advance. Fifteen kilometers in three weeks? We could walk faster than that with a broken leg." The man-thing's dismissal of Silpae's efforts infuriated him.
"Resisted every step! And under-supplied! We've been forced to stay where the ground is soft, and each step we advance gives our enemies the advantage! You ask me to send this army to rush to it's death in the Great Mountains!" Silpae slammed his hand down, hard, on his map table to illustrate his point.
"You ask me to do an impossible task!"
The inquisitor looked on with disdain, unimpressed with Silpae's impassioned defense.
"Then you will be relieved to hear you are no longer in command."
"And furthermore... wait, what?" It took a few seconds for the words to sink in. "But, who is replacing me?"
At this, the inquisitor smiled, a predatory look that sent a chill straight up the general's spine.
"The Crown Prince has had a vision that the Impenetrable City will fall to him, and he is on his way now to make that dream a reality. Therefore, you have become somewhat obsolete." With that, the Inquistor turned to the tent flap, pausing momentarily to deliver the final blow. "You best enjoy the last three days of your command, and hope that the Crown Prince is more merciful than his reputation suggests." With that, the inquisitor stepped out of the tent and disappeared, leaving Silpae very much alone as his dreams silently crashed down around him.
There would be no victory parade, no acknowledgment of his genius from the Fire Lord, no place in the court and seat in the Lord General's council. There certainly wouldn't be any of the cheering women throwing themselves at him, which were usually a key part of these ambitions. If half the things they said about Crown Prince Iroh were true, he'd be lucky if he retained his position as an officer, never mind a general. He might well be executed for incompetence, as a warning to others.
Mercy was not a trait one associated with the Dragon of the West.
Chapter One Notes
So, hey! My first story starts publishing. I plan it to be an exploration of Iroh's character, relationship with his son, and motivations, a deeper look at the 600-day siege and the events leading up to it, and an examination of warfare in the Avatar universe with an eye towards sensible strategy and tactics as well as "realism". The first chapter is rather short but is basically a glorified set-up so I can jump in to real action next chapter.
In case you are wondering, yes, there will be OCs as main characters alongside Iroh and his son. Silpae is the first of them, you'll meet the others later. This is somewhat nessesary, seeing where the story is placed in canon.
Regarding warfare thus far, I've mentioned only a few small details. The first is that the Earth Kingdom armies are divided into smaller units called tuán, which consist of about forty nobles with knowledge of Earthbending who lead the unit and a varying number of their subservent peasents who follow them and fight with spears and light armour, some of whom may have basic Earthbending skills that they've picked up (breathing excercises and chi control, for example, which help ground the unit; an Earth Kingdom infantry block is hard to shift from a location because many of their experienced members are literately rooted to the spot) Riffing on the Terra Team, we hear of two examples of "elite" units from Ba Sing Se itself; the Zhaoze Huli Raiders and the Terracotta Guard. The Impenetrable City provides many such units, who have the good fortune of living in a city instead of on rural farmsteads and thus are able to train full time as professional soldiers, unusual for the Earth Kingdom.
In this fic, I'm working with the assumption that anyone can learn bending; they are martial arts, not magical powers transmitted by vague, random Hollywood genetics. The inability to learn multiple arts is simply a result of each individual one being difficult to master, plus cultural blocks. The Avatar's accelerated learning due to his past lives allows him to bypass this and master all the elements.