You'd think I would have spent the winter break writing, but instead I read The Stormlight Archive and watched A Series of Unfortunate Events. Oh well! Hope you enjoy :D
Chapter Two: Splinter
Arthur swung Excalibur lazily in a circle and grinned. "Anyone else want to try?"
The soldiers around him, dressed in red and black like he was, hesitated. Cador, who lay panting at Arthur's feet, groaned.
Valdis eyed the soldiers, then said, "Evening is coming, sire. Perhaps we should stop for today."
Arthur nodded. "You're right, captain." He sheathed his sword. "You're dismissed. Remember what we've practiced, we'll go over it again tomorrow."
He offered a hand to Cador, who took it. "Seven months," the firebender groaned, rubbing his side where Arthur had slapped him with the flat of his sword. "Seven months, and I still can't beat you."
"You're getting better," Arthur assured him, and sent him off to change with a cheerful pat on the back.
Valdis came up to his side, smirking. "Those firebenders didn't realize just how ineffective Nimueh was as a teacher until you came along, sire."
Arthur rolled his eyes. "That woman had no head for training. Why did you never tell her off?"
"Me, tell her off, sire?" She raised an eyebrow.
"You did it to me and Morgana often enough."
"It's different when the person you're criticizing will smoke you with lightning."
Arthur chuckled, leading the way into the cool, dark armory. Summer was fast approaching, and the sun had been hot on their heads.
He looked left and right, then tugged at Valdis' arm. The other soldiers were nearby, removing their leather armor or splashing their faces with water, but no one was too close. Now was his chance.
"Valdis," he said softly. "I have a request. I want to, uh-" Arthur glanced again at the other soldiers. None of them were paying attention. "I want to propose to Gwen," he finished in a rush.
Emotions passed across her face, too quickly for him to interpret, but all she said was, "What do you need me to do?"
At Arthur's clumsy request, Gwen had not returned with Elyan to the Earth Kingdom. Instead, she had allied herself with the royal blacksmith and currently used her slight skill in metalbending to help with his work. Now that she knew the truth about Arthur's past, he had decided to start officially courting her.
There was just one slight problem: Gwen was an earthbender. From what Arthur could gather of the veiled words and allusions others cast at Gwen, they disapproved of her heritage, both as the daughter of a blacksmith and as an Earth citizen.
Arthur's father had spent most of his life fighting back against people who didn't want a non-bender as a Firelord. Arthur's birth, as another non-bender, had set off a rebellion which climaxed in the death of his mother and the illegalization of bending in the Fire Nation. The people of the Fire Nation were proud of their heritage as the children of dragons; Arthur felt ill when he imagined how they would react to an earthbender on the throne.
"I need allies," he admitted, shaking all these thoughts from his head. "You know how everyone feels about Gwen."
"Gwen is a fine woman," Valdis assured him, unwinding her long silver hair from its sweaty bun.
"I know, but many people won't see it like that," Arthur said, twisting his mother's ring. "All they will see is a peasant earthbender on the throne."
Valdis looked at him closely, her gray hair gleaming in the soft light. "You know I respect Gwen. What are you really asking me, sire?"
Arthur hesitated. "We have fire in our blood, Valdis," he said slowly. "And sometimes passionate people do things they regret. If anyone disagrees with my decision to marry Gwen, they might . . . try to stop it."
Valdis took in a breath and nodded. "Gwen is a good woman, sire," she said. "I will stay by her side-as long as she remains on your side."
Arthur clapped Valdis on the shoulder, relief filling him up. "I knew I could count on you."
Valdis nodded and returned to removing her armor. "When will you announce it, sire?"
"I'm asking her tomorrow," Arthur said. "Hopefully, I will announce within the week."
"Then, starting tomorrow, I'll begin protecting her."
Arthur opened his mouth to thank her, but the sound of a banging gong interrupted him. "Is that the alarm?" he asked incredulously.
A young firebender, Owain, skidded into the armory and barely remembered to sketch a bow to Arthur. "My lord! Ships! In the north!" he panted.
"Ships?" Arthur demanded, breaking into a run with Valdis and Owain behind him.
"An army, my lord!"
Arthur cursed and sped up. The lookout posts were a good five-minute run from the palace, but even the puffing Owain kept pace as they darted through streets and side-passages. Soldiers and citizens milled around, occasionally calling out to Arthur for guidance. He didn't answer except to order the captain of the city watch to evacuate the lower city around the shore; if there really was an army of ships, he didn't want innocent civilians in the way.
Gwen had reached one of the towers looking over the rim of the caldera with a few other soldiers and citizens when the three arrived. Arthur gripped her hand as he took his place at her side. He had never seen her look so fearful, but he understood why as he looked to sea.
Owain had not been exaggerating with the word "army." A host of a hundred ships or more, with curved bows and blue sails, broke cleanly through the northern waters of the bay, moving faster than normal sailing ships.
"What is this?" Valdis asked, her mouth dropping open and her eyes narrowing furiously. "Cenred attacking from the south?"
"Those aren't from the Southern Water Tribe," Arthur said, his hand tightening around Gwen's. "They're too big, and they have the crescent moon and the waving sea on their sails, which would make them . . ."
"Northern," Gwen finished. They had both spent weeks traveling in a Northern ship; they knew what they looked like. "But Olaf's our ally! Why would he attack?"
"Perhaps he means not to attack?" Owain asked doubtfully. "Maybe . . . maybe he's here to recruit you to attack Cenred?"
Even as Owain spoke, the sea around the ships surged. The surf at the beach far below pulled away from the beach in a rumbling line.
Arthur turned to snap at Valdis: "Ready the airships!" She dashed away, Owain at her heels. Arthur felt a surge of relief that he had ordered the shore evacuated. Now he could only hope it would be enough.
"What are they going to do?" Gwen gasped as Arthur pulled her in the other direction.
"Tsunami," he answered. "We can't fight something like that, of course-but we can attack from above."
"Attack?" Gwen repeated. "Arthur, you don't even know why Olaf is attacking! You should try to talk with him first!"
"Gwen, it doesn't matter why!" he said shortly, still pulling her down the stairs at a run. "What matters is, he is attacking. Whatever friendship we had is gone."
She took her hand away to run properly and didn't answer.
The warning gong rang continuously, echoing around the caldera city. Even as he ran, Arthur felt the ground trembling as the tsunami approached. They wouldn't have time to reach the airships before the first wave hit, but hopefully they could mount a counter-attack before the waves got high enough to destroy the docks and lower town.
Owain appeared before Arthur again, panting so hard that his message of "Airships-flying" was barely comprehensible. He stayed behind, gasping, as Arthur and Gwen turned the corner into the airship yard.
Three airships, the smaller cloth kind, loomed above their heads. Servants and soldiers scurried about, loading bombs, oil, arrows, and other weapons into the cramped baskets.
Gwen took Arthur's hand again. "I'll stay and defend the palace," she said. "I'm more use on the ground." Arthur nodded and raced to the nearest airship.
"We'd better hurry," he told Valdis. "The first wave should reach any moment."
The ground rocked. Even in the caldera, Arthur felt the tsunami crash into the shoreline.
They would have to wait for one of the bigger, metal airships to be ready before they could launch a full-scale aerial attack. For now, each smaller balloon could only carry six people who would harry the ships with bombs. Eighteen soldiers, including Arthur and Valdis, jumped aboard and drew the ropes in.
Arthur turned to watch the ground sink away as firebenders forced hot air into the balloon. Gwen had her head turned up toward the sky, but she quickly fell out of sight.
The balloon rose higher and passed over the edge of the caldera. Arthur leaned over the side, anxiously scanning the ground below.
The gates leading into the harbor were gone, smashed to bits by the tsunami. Closest to the docks was the royal plaza, a long open space surrounded the cliffs that had often served the Fire Nation well in sea attacks. It left attackers exposed against war towers on either side. Behind the towers looming over the plaza was the lower town, a conglomeration of residential and commercial buildings scattered in the gorge that led up to the palace.
The first wave had reached up past the royal plaza, the narrow opening behind the docks tunneling the water right into the lower town behind. The cliffs had protected most of the town, but the houses and shops in the lower gorge were simply gone.
And the water was pulling back again.
Arthur gaped at the destruction. The plaza, which was mostly open space, looked about the same, but the war towers were smashed to bits against the cliffs and one of the statues was leaning dangerously.
"Olaf will pay for this," one of the soldiers behind Arthur growled.
Arthur's hands clenched into fists. Yes. Olaf would.
His eyes slid to the approaching war ships. A hundred ships could not be beaten by three airships, but they would surely try. Until their last breath.
"How did they get past the sentries at the bay mouth?" another soldier muttered.
Arthur didn't have an answer for that. A fleet this huge should have set off a chain of alarms that would have reached the capital long before the ships did. He felt cold at what must have happened to prevent those alarms.
"Ready the bombs," he ordered. Even with waterbenders pushing the ships, the swift airships would still reach them before the ships had reached the shore. "Let's blow them out of the water."
The soldiers obeyed without hesitation, heaving the heavy contact bombs into the light. He held it very carefully as he helped a soldier haul it up to the basket's rim. They were almost over the first wave of ships.
A second wave was building toward the shore, even larger than the last one. They were too high up, but Arthur still imagined he could hear it roaring.
"Release!" he roared.
They heaved their bombs over the sides, with the other two air balloons following suit. Arthur leaned over, watching carefully. Most of the bombs wouldn't hit a ship, but that wasn't the point.
The bombs detonated as they hit the ocean or when the Tribesmen tried to slap them out of the air with their bending, the wooden containers spraying shrapnel and sending fountains of water high into the air. The bombs were recent inventions from Morgana's reign, specifically to fight waterbenders. The contents exploded on contact with water.
Only one ship started sinking, but Arthur was satisfied to see other ships slowing down, probably to plug holes blown in them from the bombs. "Keep them coming!" he ordered, bending over to retrieve another.
The second wave hit, demolishing what was left of the war towers and smashing farther into the lower town. Most of the warships weren't at this dock, which was Arthur's only consolation as merchant ships splintered against the cliffs, spilling precious cargo into the water.
Arthur pushed the next bomb off the side by himself, anger and energy thrumming through his veins. He wondered if this was what firebenders felt like all the time.
"We've incapacitated a few of them!" a soldier cheered, watching a few more ships slow or stop.
Arthur ground his teeth. "Not enough. They're almost to the docks!"
There was no one on the docks, of course. His army wasn't that stupid. They would be waiting in the gorge higher up, hopefully above where even this huge force could push a wave. There, they would trap the Water Tribe army.
"We should head back soon," Arthur said. "We've done what we can."
He turned to signal to Valdis in the other airship, when something huge and metal burst through the bottom of the balloon, impaling the furnace. The furnace lurched and spewed fire in all directions. The pilot screamed as burning wood fell onto his lap, setting fire to his clothes.
"Sire! Missiles!"
Arthur could see that. He struggled to wave smoke out of his face as the firebenders quenched the spreading fire. The balloon lurched . . . and started to fall.
There were only two firebenders on their balloon; they took turns punching fire into the sagging balloon, while Arthur pushed the sobbing pilot into another soldier's arms and took the rudder.
"We'll have to head for the cliffs!" he yelled over the commotion, inwardly berating himself for not noticing the Water Tribe had ballistas. Bolts like spears shot up around the three air balloons, but so far the other two had avoided a direct hit.
The attack had happened so quickly . . . they had been totally unprepared. Why had Olaf done this?
Arthur's grip on the rudder tightened, the metal squealing. It didn't matter. Whatever the reason, Olaf would pay for this unprovoked attack.
The firebenders, though both were gasping for air at the point, managed to keep the balloon in the air, even pulling ahead of the Water Tribe fleet, which was now entering the main dock area and streaming full speed ahead toward the royal plaza. A third, final tsunami was rising in their wake, lifting the ships as it streamed toward the dock.
They were almost to the cliffs-which was of course when another missile streamed through the air and punched a hole right through the envelope. The balloon lurched, throwing everyone against the side. Air screamed out through the holes, and the balloon plummeted.
"Keep it in the air!" Arthur yelled over the wind, not knowing where to look- the cliffs, or the approaching tsunami. The world spun around them sickeningly, a blur of blue sky and brown earth.
"It-won't!" one of the firebenders yelled, throwing a huge blast of fire at the envelope, which of course lit on fire.
Arthur threw himself at the soldiers, knocking them to the floor of the balloon, as they crashed into cliff, a good twenty feet from the top. Arthur slammed against the furnace, which belched flames. He yelled, jerking away from the burning metal, but someone had landed on top of him and he couldn't move. He smelled his skin burning.
With a rumbling boom, the balloon slipped and fell the rest of the way into the plaza. The basket finally gave out, some of it smashing to pieces on the ground, other pieces catching fire.
Arthur groaned, struggling to his feet. He couldn't feel his burned arm, but there was no time to worry about that. They had made it to land, but not to safety.
"Get up. Get up!" he urged the soldiers. The ground shook and wind tore at them, stinking of fish and brine. "We've got to move now."
At least one of the soldiers was dead, crushed under the smoking furnace. Another could barely walk.
"The tsunami," the burned pilot whimpered.
Arthur yanked him to his feet with his good arm. The other airships were turning frantically to reach them, lowering ropes, but-
But it was too late. The tsunami towered over them, a foaming wave roaring toward the cliffs with deadly force.
The pilot collapsed again, whimpering. Arthur let him, but did not release his arm. Someone was running toward them on Arthur's left, yelling, but he didn't look. The other soldiers crowded around Arthur, like they were trying to protect him or something. Protect him against a tsunami?
What a stupid way to die. Killed by his own supposed ally. He should have known that Olaf would never really trust a murderer like him.
As the water blocked out the sun, Arthur closed his eyes.
The blow never came. The water roared in his ears, but he did not find himself flying backwards into the cliffs.
He opened his eyes, gaping.
On his left: a woman with dark hair looked back at him. She had one dark green eye, and one bright green eye surrounded by dark fur like a cat.
On his right: a tall, blond man with huge muscles and lots of weapons.
They were both waterbending the tsunami around them, redirecting the water to the sides and above. Some water sloshed around their feet, but that was it.
It took several minutes for the water to subside, dragging and leaving ragged wood, house tiles, and bodies in its wake.
Percival and Freya turned to face them, their faces pinched up with worry. "Arthur! I can't say how glad I am to see you-" Percival began.
Arthur yanked Excalibur out of its sheath and lunged.
Freya stepped in front of him, and he froze. Oh spirits, he couldn't kill Freya with the sword she had given him! "Arthur! You have a right to be angry. But please, listen to us!"
He clenched his teeth. "What are you doing here?" he snarled. Behind him, the soldiers drew weapons and ignited fire.
Percival raised his hands placatingly. "We snuck off the ship. Olaf doesn't know we're here. Arthur, he's not thinking straight-we tried to talk some sense into him-"
"Wh0, Olaf?"
"If you just come talk with him-"
Arthur lowered Excalibur unwillingly. "I'm not talking until you call the attack off the city," he snapped.
"But he thinks you attacked first! If you just explained-" Percival looked desperate.
"I'm not talking with Olaf until he calls the attack off!" Arthur yelled, his eyes narrowing. Freya flinched. "My people are dying here! Olaf was supposed to be my ally, and I don't know what he thinks he's doing, but I'm not-"
He waved his left arm for emphasis and almost passed out from the sudden pain. The arm was definitely broken as well as burned.
Freya and the soldiers grabbed him to steady him. "Back off, waterbender," the remaining firebender snarled, pushing her away.
The pain cleared Arthur's head somewhat. "Wait, wait." He had gotten them into trouble by rushing into the offense without thinking first. He knew Percival and Freya. They would never betray him . . . without cause. And Gwen had been right: He should have tried to find out what Olaf was thinking before attacking.
The two remaining air balloons loomed over them. The tall Water Tribe ships had restrained any other waves and were pulling into the plaza at their side. From what Arthur could see of their soldiers, they didn't look happy. In his side vision, he could see three other airships, the huge metal kind, rising from the caldera, and troops marching down the paths from the palace.
He sheathed Excalibur. "You'd better talk fast. Looks like we don't have much time."