Avatar: The Last Airbender Created By: Michael Dante DiMartino, Bryan Konietzko
Avatar: The Last Airbender Owned By: Nickelodeon, a subsidiary of Viacom
All original content and characters © Acastus
Chapter XX – Simply Murder
Something was wrong. They could all feel it. In the belly of their tank Nikon's crew exchanged tense, worried glances of quiet desperation. The unease was palpable, but the source could not be identified. The fog continued to swirl. The slow, rhythmic drone of the Fire Nation war machines continued to fill the air.
Iroh's friend craned his neck forward for what must have been the hundredth time, but saw nothing. He looked backwards and saw the machines behind him for a few moments before they were swallowed by the mist, only to reappear a few moments later. He looked to his left towards the lake. He could see the sand and rock of the beach, but not far enough to see the water. His search revealed nothing.
Then he identified it. He hadn't heard a wave against the shore for some time. It had been part of the background noise, but the beach had gone strangely silent. How long it had been that way he couldn't be certain. Disturbed, but unsure what the realization meant, he bent down to tell his driver to stop the machine. The order was never given.
Nikon felt the rush of displaced air before he heard the boulder come crashing down a few feet in front of them. Reacting automatically as he had countless times before, he crouched down and pulled the upper hatch shut behind him. Before he had time to speak their machine crashed into the rubble that just hit the ground in front of them. The impact knocked the gunners out of their seats and slammed Nikon into the hull. The engine whined as the left tread climbed over the crushed remains of the fallen projectile. A second later the machine came back down with another disorienting crash.
"Goddamit!" the young tank commander screamed in his head. Clenching his fist deliberately this time, he struggled to suppress the feelings of rage and impotence that welled up within him.
"Right turn! 90 degrees! Battle speed!" he screamed, his voice cracking.
Outside the ground shook with a dozen other impacts that came in quick succession.
Jin yanked the controls savagely. The machine quickly gained speed and lurched to the right.
"Stick to the plan! Get us some defilade, Jin!" Nikon instructed the driver before turning to the others and shouting, "Gunners, stand by to convert!"
His mind quailed, but he refused to show it. With a twist of the handle and a sudden push Nikon popped the top hatch open once again. Standing up and straining his ears he could tell from the hoarse shouts and sounds of combat that Earth Kingdom cavalry had swept down from the foothills and was now driving into the exposed Fire Nation right. Worse, the huge volume of stones and the storms of arrows dropping on the column and the long, sloping arcs with which they fell spoke eloquently of the large numbers of earthbender artillerymen and archers who occupied the tops of the surrounding foothills.
The fact that his fears had just been proven justified provided no comfort or satisfaction whatsoever.
"Damn them! Damn them to hell!" he clarified bitterly. He never hated anyone at that moment as much as he hated Tien Shin, Chieng, and to his utter surprise, Xian. With an effort beyond any that should be required of a man, Nikon crushed the pointless question of "why?" and forced himself to focus.
The machine now faced west toward the approaching sound of battle, a dull roar which only seemed to increase in intensity all around them. Within a few hundred feet they ran into a shallow depression at the base of a low hill. The driver cut the engine right before they crested so that the firing ports now looked out over open sky. Beside them the other tanks of the Fifth Brigade began to follow suit.
"That's the best I can do, Commander!" came Jin's pleading voice up the communication vent, "The main fight seems to be shaping up in front of us and the plan was –"
"Shut up, Jin, it's good enough!" Nikon yelled in reply. He was right, the angle wouldn't provide much cover from the overhead bombardment, but it was better than nothing. From this position at least they could begin indirect fire against the enemy hilltop positions.
Below him the crew moved into action. Quickly and efficiently they removed steel plates on either side of the tank's rear section. Between the openings was a thick metal shaft that ran through a large winch mounted above the engine case. A huge length of rope was coiled tightly around the winch. A simple hand brake locking mechanism prevented the taut rope from discharging its reservoir of energy. With the plates removed and the shaft exposed to the outside, the gunners pulled open lockers at the back and began to pull out more equipment.
Shifting his attention from the work taking place below, Nikon watched with grim satisfaction as three more vehicles pulled up behind them and began the same process.
"If we live through this," Nikon promised himself bitterly, "I'm going to kill that son of a bitch, I swear it." At that moment even he wasn't sure who he was referring to. All he knew is that he wanted to wreak vengeance on someone for the miserable predicament he and his soldiers now found themselves.
A boulder hit the front of the farthest tank. The machine and crew disappeared in the mist for a moment after the impact, but when they reappeared it was clear the projectile had exploded into bits of rock and did no damage. The crew of the stricken vehicle had dismounted despite the blast, which was still undoubtedly ringing in their ears, and were now attaching shaft extensions and catapult arms to each side of the tank as if nothing had happened. Nikon allowed himself a moment of pride in the men who refused to panic in the face what was obviously a wretched position.
A single glance below indicated his crew was ready. Nikon hopped lightly out of the hatch and stood on the deck plate. The side gunners climbed out behind him and jumped down to the ground.
On a sudden impulse Iroh's friend jumped to the ground and mounted the crest of the hill in a few steps. He was joined moments later by the lieutenants from the other tanks now defiladed on the hill.
"We're ready, Commander," spoke the youngest of them breathlessly, eyes wide with apprehension, "should we start?"
Nikon did not immediately reply, instead looking intently down the hill towards the sounds of combat. The fog still obscured everything around them, but the sun had risen high enough that everything moving beyond the edge of the misty veil appeared as vast shapes wreathed in glowing nimbuses of light. Through the fog they could see the outlines of the bloody cavalry battle in front of them. Shadows of men, ostrich horses and mongoose dragons could be seen like ghostly apparitions, punctuated by the orange flames of the firebenders and the resounding impacts of the earthbenders' art.
"Yes, Lieutenant," their commander finally replied, "get the catapults going as soon as you can, don't wait for me."
The lieutenants didn't move. The pride he felt a few moments ago was instantly replaced with concern at the worry he saw in these faces. "They look like kids, but they aren't more than a few years younger than me, are they? How did I get here?" he wondered.
Shouting confidently over the tumult he taunted, "Hey, what's this? The mighty Fifth Brigade afraid of a fight? What will Fire Lord Azulon say if he hears of this?"
The lieutenants shared a glance of mutual shame before turning back to Nikon.
"Come on! Use your heads!" He gestured at his own tank, where the crew was fitting the last catapult arm into place, and then at the tank which had just been hit.
"They're not doing anything different than before! Those rock bombs can't touch us. Let the cavalry do its job and fog or no fog we'll get the hell out of here! So get over there and let's answer their artillery with our own!"
As if to emphasize Nikon's point a large stone impacted the hill crest near them, followed quickly by two more. Showered by a hail of rock fragments, the lieutenants needed no further incentive and quickly ran back to their machines. Iroh's friend did not flinch, but instead watched calmly as all four tanks began to load and launch projectiles of flaming pitch at the hilltops in front of them. Soon the mist to either side of them was alight with flashes of orange and red as his men and Ryu's farther up the road began to engage.
"This is bad," he admitted to himself, "but it's not a disaster – not yet…"
The sounds of combat grew ever louder. The mist, cool and wet before the fighting had started, had become a smoky, dust filled liquid that quickly began to burn Nikon's lungs. The dull roar of battle had become unbearable, but beneath it, almost beyond his senses ability to detect it, Nikon felt an ominous, low rolling drumbeat, like a peal of thunder stretched over many minutes.
Finally acknowledging the risk of his exposed position atop the hill, Nikon jogged back down towards his men. Just as they had planned in case of an ambush, he could see a third row of tanks now setting up their catapults behind the first two. The fog continued to swirl, but seemed to be dissipating. Nikon felt relief at this new hope, but the ominous sound he identified earlier had only intensified, and now had taken on an additional rushing quality, as if a vast amount of air or liquid were moving around them.
Nikon reached his machine and began to mount, casting a quick glance toward the lake.
He froze in place, stupefied.
At that moment the fog parted to reveal the shoreline. There was no water. The break in the mist might last a few more seconds, but at that moment he could see clearly over hundreds of feet of beach and empty lake bed. Much later he thought he might have had time to wonder whether the tide had gone out. On the other hand, he might have imagined it.
The next moment was burned into his memory for the rest of his life. The fog in the distance turned suddenly dark as the source of the deep, rushing thunder revealed itself in stark silhouette against the mist. Before Nikon could utter an exclamation the tsunami shattered the milky white veil that concealed it.
Stretching from one edge of his vision to the other a wave with a crest higher than the fabled topless towers of Ilium rolled relentlessly toward them. To his thunderstruck eyes it seemed as though the lake itself had risen out of its basin and bore down on them with inhuman fury.
Nikon himself remained frozen, his mouth agape in utter horror, his eyes transfixed on the most glorious and terrifying display of elemental mastery ever witnessed by man. The crown of stone and men could be clearly seen atop the monstrous wave, but Nikon did not notice them. His mind was overflowing with the single, clear thought that rang in his head.
"We're going to die."
Ripping himself from the spectacle, he screamed into the open hatch below.
"Move, move, move!"
"But, wha-"
"Now, now, now!"
Hearing panic in his commander's voice for the first time, Jin obeyed. The tank lunged forward, cresting the hill within a few seconds. Nikon pulled his head out of the hatch to steady himself as the machine accelerated. Nikon screamed and motioned wildly to the crews of all the nearby vehicles, but few heard. As they pulled away he could see the lieutenant of the adjacent machine turn to see what Nikon had been looking at – and freeze. He never moved again until the water hit him less than a minute later.
Speeding westwards down the back of the low hill, Nikon quailed as the air was rent by an earth shattering roar from behind them and to the left. The wave had already come ashore farther north. A moment later the ground began to heave beneath them as the shock of the impact propagated along the surface.
Within seconds the noise and rush of combat was replaced with what seemed a single shriek of terror, as the minds and hearts of many thousands of men were seized at the same moment with the certainty of their own deaths.
Hanging on to the hatch cleats, Nikon bounced back and forth in the well as the shocks reverberated. They had mounted the nearest ridge and were climbing again at breakneck speed. The driver cursed loudly as their machine plowed right over two Fire Nation mongoose cavalrymen who had the bad luck to appear suddenly out of the mist in front of them.
Iroh's friend saw none of this. Transfixed, he stared backwards in horror as the monstrous wave broke along the shore now a few thousand feet behind them. Soon after he saw the first and second lines of the Fifth Brigade disappear beneath the wall of water, followed swiftly by the tardiest of the vehicles that had heeded his shouted warnings.
He turned right at the sound of tortured engines to see the shadowy outlines of two tank trains and dozens of tanks that had escaped from the disaster on the northern part of the beach racing up the slope of the ridge to their northwest. Closer still he could see that a few tanks of his own command had reacted quickly as well and were now ascending the ridge with them. He could also hear the heavy pounding of cavalry fleeing to the high ground, but could not see them.
Regaining his voice Nikon shouted below, "Faster! Faster! We've got to climb! It's our lives!"
"I know! I know! Please, Sir, I'm doing…" Jin left the sentence unfinished as the controls again demanded his undivided attention.
They reached the top of the ridge, allowing Nikon to look down onto the crest of the looming monster. Without emotion, for shock upon shock had numbed his senses, Nikon finally saw the truth of their predicament. Clearly now he could see the stone battlements of the tidal wave and the blue and green clad warriors who populated them.
"We are beaten then," he thought with only a touch of sadness, for such was all he could muster. He thought of wily old Nifong and his bogus letter and concluded absently, "A genius after all."
Nikon's perception of reality wobbled sickeningly as the wave smashed into the base of the ridge. As the water and the allied army borne upon it rose up the slope to meet him, images of his friends flashed before his mind. Iroh. Gan. A childhood friend who had died in the slums long ago. Master Chen. Xian. The prostitute murdered in that Shinjuku alley. A simple summary that he accepted without complaint.
Then, suddenly, the slow motion, nightmarish stupor that had descended upon him the moment he had seen the silhouette of the liquid monster against the fog lifted. A mad rush of action followed. The wave, broken by the front of the ridge, but still powered by tremendous forward momentum, flowed up and over the crest of the top of the long hill as it diminished.
Water swirled around the treads of the tank and within seconds rose up and over the deck plating to slosh against the low sides of the top hatch. He heard panicked sounds from below as water rushed into the hull through the exposed catapult ports. The machine's engine stuttered and died as the exhaust pipes went under water, but their forward motion barely slowed as the water pushed them down the backside of the ridge.
"Come up top, all of you!" he screamed below as he swung himself out of the manhole and on top of the deck plating. The water came up to his knees, but did not rise farther.
As the crew exited an enormous stone loaded with green and blue clad soldiers flew by at high speed before disappearing into the grey mist that still hung over the deluged battlefield. They were cheering loudly. Moments later two smaller rocks passed by, both equally laden with the enemy.
Nikon turned his attention to the water around them. The dingy brown liquid began to subside almost as suddenly as it had appeared. The tank had stopped moving and was now just another obstruction around which the water flowed.
He looked back up the hill. Evidently the wave had deluged the top of the ridge and was now cascading down the backside, but the wave's energy had been spent. Only a small portion of the monstrous wall of water had sloshed over the top. Hope sprang within him for survival, but was almost instantly overwhelmed by the painful realization that every one of his men who had stayed put, panicked or fallen behind was now dead. The Fifth Brigade, entrusted to him by General Xian and the Fire Lord himself, was gone, destroyed in the space of a few minutes.
Jin emerged from the top hatch, the last of his crew to do so. The surly tank driver surveyed the devastation around them as the water level dropped below the deck plating once again.
"What now, sir?" he asked, raising his voice above the din of the water rushing down the backside of the ridge.
Nikon did not immediately reply. The sound of more enemy soldiers atop their transports of stone echoed through the rapidly diminishing fog as Nikon stared blankly at Jin. Iroh's friend was aware of his crew's terrified eyes upon him. He turned to his left to see if any of the machines he saw moments earlier were still with them. One was about thirty feet away. There he saw the young lieutenant from before and his crew looking at him with the same huge, devastated eyes.
"Commander?" Jin prompted after more time passed, the worry evident in his voice at his leader's lack of response.
Nikon turned away from their haunted eyes and looked at Jin. He tried to refocus, but failed. The sun, liberated at last, pierced the mist that had concealed much of the blood, if not the horror of the day. The light and warmth comforted no one. Nikon's gaze shifted to the pretty young rear gunner who had taken the place of the one killed at Cam'ron. She was clearly in shock.
"Are we going to die?" she asked in a small voice. He didn't even notice that she'd forgotten to address him correctly.
He didn't have time to reply. Without warning their tank, abandoned to its fate, seemed to heave itself up off the ground and flipped clean over onto its top. The belly of the tank lay exposed to the now bright sunshine, its surface gleaming, smooth and unpainted.
A moment later another protest of groaning metal attracted their attention farther up the hill. Two other Fifth Brigade tanks that had crested the hill above them were flipped over as the mud and rock underneath shifted of its own accord.
Nikon unfroze. He panned around and saw orderly formations of green clad soldiers advancing up the hill and no less than half a dozen Earth Kingdom artillery positions on the high places around them.
"Run!" Nikon ordered. Sprinting down the muddy backside of the hill without looking behind him he heard the boulders begin to fall on the exposed bellies of the surviving machines.
"Faster! Faster, damn you!" Chieng screamed as she slammed the steering column forward. It hit the dash with such a resounding clang that she was afraid it had broken.
Below them the monstrous wave had broken against the ridge and was now chasing Chieng and her flagship tank train, Corona, up its steep slope. Corona's mighty engines labored to outrun the watery monster that threatened to drown them.
Behind her the engineers worked feverishly to increase their speed, each trying desperately to avoid looking out the view ports at the aquatic horror rapidly catching up to them, and barking commands through the communication vents to the engine room below.
A massive explosion rocked the train from somewhere behind as it sped up the ridge. The shock loosened the top layer of ground and Corona began to spin her treads. Panic gripped the bridge crew as their ascent slowed.
"No! No! I won't let you!" Chieng cried through gritted teeth as she cut to the left and then back to the right to allow the metal titan to regain its footing and climb from a different angle.
"What the hell was that!?" yelled the Chief Boiler Operator behind her, "Did we get hit? Station managers, damage report!"
"Moron!" she screamed over the din, "Spitfire's gone! Boiler explosion, she must've gone under! Cold water, hot metal, don't you get it!?"
She thrust aside the images of the other tank trains which had already suffered the same fate. When the fog had parted to reveal the tsunami she and her crew had reacted swiftly to save their lives. Others were not as lucky. Meteor and Starliner had been no more than a thousand feet from the beach and were drowned instantly under many dark fathoms. Rocket had made it halfway up the slope before she was consumed. The rest had been lost in the fog and it was on these missing children that Chieng placed her hope.
"Please," she prayed desperately as she fought the controls, her mind's voice betraying weakness she would never show the outside world, "Please, if there are spirits in heaven, save the others!"
Foul mouthed, violent and highly critical, she was nevertheless fiercely proud of her people and cared for them more than she ever allowed herself to admit. The thought of losing them terrified her. Worse still her mind teetered dangerously on the brink of facing responsibility for their deaths.
"Look! Look! We beat it! Thank the Elements!" yelled one of the junior engineers.
Everyone turned to look out the port side windows. The tsunami had broken against the ridge, its momentum played out. Corona had outrun the specter of her death.
Jubilation turned swiftly to horror as everyone saw what the wave had been carrying. The water was already receding from the side of the hill, but it left behind hundreds of large stones festooned with thousands upon thousands of Earth Kingdom and Water Tribe warriors.
"Sweet Agni!" cried the Chief in astonishment.
"So that's it!" exclaimed Chieng with grudging respect, nodding her head in acknowledgment of the blue clad warriors scattered amidst the sea of green.
The surly engineer yanked back on the yolk as the Corona crested the ridge. The machine halted with a single, gut wrenching jerk. Releasing her seat belt and standing up in a single fluid motion she took a quick survey of the situation outside. The fog had burned off at the higher elevations and Chieng found she could see not only the entire length of the ridge but also the tops many of the surrounding foot hills. Many of these were clearly occupied with earthbenders who were now retraining their fire on them.
Chieng's heart leapt in her chest as she saw two of her warforged children waiting for her. Their markings identified them as the Sunrise and Phoenix. Around them lay a few dozen tanks, the survivors of Tien Shin's brigades and what appeared to be the bulk of the mongoose cavalry. In a display of iron discipline after such a catastrophe the daimyo's men and machines were quickly forming a firing line on the edge of the ridge.
Farther south she could see more tanks, probably either Tojo's or Ryu's.
"But Nikon must be dead..." she thought, for his unit was closest to the beach in the vanguard formation, "...he was right...and I... I...was..."
She stiffened, horrified to discover herself suddenly choking back a sob. Refusing to succumb, she wrenched her mind away from the black chasm of despair. She took a deep breath and refocused.
More survivors from Xian's men might yet lie to their north and east, but she couldn't see in either of those directions. The blow had been devastating, she admitted, but if the goal had been to destroy them at once the gambit had not succeeded.
"I will make them pay for this!" she vowed silently, using the sudden flush of anger to drive away the self-recrimination that had threatened to incapacitate her a moment before.
"Sir," the communications officer interrupted, "a message from the Comet astern of us!"
The young man handed her a hastily transcribed note which she scanned instantly. Her head exploded in renewed fury and hope, her mind ringing with the thought, "Xian's alive!"
A moment later she whirled around and addressed the bridge crew.
"Listen to me, all of you!" she announced, "This isn't over yet! Do you hear me? Do you!?
Blank stares were her only reply.
"Stop gaping like a pack of frightened children! General Xian is launching a counterattack against the hills northeast of us! We've got to cover them!"
"Are we going with him then?" asked the Chief.
"No, we've got to keep those filthy savages down there busy, but if we don't get a perimeter set up now this place is going to be our god damn cemetery – now move! Move!"
She then gave a series of sharp, concise orders and all at once the bridge again became a scene of focused and determined action.
It was late afternoon. The leader of the Army of the Granite Mountains looked down onto the beaches of Myojin's western shore directly below him. The fog had burned away across much of the battlefield and the magnitude of the devastation was progressively revealed with each passing moment.
The water from the massive wave was still retreating back into the lake from whence it came. Thousands of bodies in red uniforms floated grotesquely in the surf, many of their limbs bent where no joints could possibly be. Scores of dark shadows scattered amongst the shallows were the only traces of the Fire Nation machines, now reduced to watery coffins.
The amphibious landing was more terrifying than Nifong had ever dreamed. The Waterbenders of the North had summoned a monster beyond all comprehension and it had done their bidding with neither mercy nor discrimination. Many of his men had no doubt perished when the wave had passed over the lowest foothills. Still, hundreds of Fire Nation machines, including many of the massive metal dreadnoughts that haunted his men in their darkest nightmares, had been destroyed.
The Army of the Great Divide lay mortally wounded, but, he knew, the final blow had yet to be struck.
"There is time...," he thought, closing his eyes, "... time enough."
The sounds of an ostrich horse at full gallop caused him to open them once again. There was no need. His aide had returned with the report.
"Sir, best estimate is that the wave wiped out about a third of the enemy machines."
"And the rest?"
"Hard to tell, but at least another third – but probably more like half - has been destroyed by hitting the belly armor. The mud slowed the survivors down as we expected and made them easy to flip, but…" he hesitated uneasily.
"Yes?"
"We can't account for more than four or five of those metal monsters, General."
"Not good, Captain, but expected. We were never likely to get them all in one blow."
"No sir, I guess not," the aide conceded, biting his lip.
"What else?"
"The enemy has reorganized very fast, they've managed to overrun our positions on hill 103, the long one, 106 and 107. We have a report that at least one of the dreadnoughts is up there, but I haven't got confirmation of that yet. 106 and 107 overlook the northern and the two northeastern exits, sir. They'll probably try to break out there."
"You sound surprised, Captain," Nifong observed.
"Well," the younger man replied slowly, "You'd think they'd have broken after getting hit with such a disaster. It scared the hell out of me, sir," he admitted, "and I was just watching it from here. Half of them just drowned, the rest are surrounded. How can they go on fighting?"
"Because they are disciplined. Because they are fighting for their lives. Because they are driven by pride, ambition, and fear of surviving only to return home in failure and dishonor. Did you really expect them to simply lie down and die?"
"No, sir," the younger man replied with some confusion, "but I thought they'd have tried to surrender or just disintegrated. Anyway, it won't change the outcome, will it?"
"No, it won't."
"Then this battle will be your greatest victory," the younger man concluded with certainty.
"This isn't a battle, Captain," Xian's opponent disagreed quietly, "It's simply murder."
