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
A/N: I'd just like to thank my awesome reviewers. This story has a lot of really thoughtful reviews that've helped me think (rethink? re-rethink?) all this stuff through. You guys are just… the best.
Chapter XXXIV – The Vista
They stood on a vista atop the jagged escarpment that marked the eastern edge of the Dune Sea. The sun shone brightly overhead in a cloudless sky. Behind them the desert began almost immediately, its harsh, alien landscape stretching to the northern and western horizons. Hundreds of feet below the grassy steppes of the middle Earth Kingdom stretched for hundreds of leagues to the east and south. A dry river bed snaked from the bottom of the cliff to meet up with a living river that glimmered like a silver ribbon in the distance.
"Son of a bitch," Nikon commented as he scanned the steppes through his pocket scope.
"At least they haven't crossed the river," Iroh observed, looking through his own.
"Which one is it, do you think?"
"I don't know," the Crown Prince admitted, "probably one of the big tributaries of the Song. Maybe the Chaophraya? Or the Donetz?"
In the distance the Army of the Granite Mountains moved steadily towards the river. Tens of thousands of green clad soldiers marched slowly across the grassy plain. Columns of ostrich horse cavalry poured through channels in the masses of infantry. Hundreds of wagons, filled with supplies, many towing artillery of various sorts, brought up the rear and stretched beyond the magnification ability of their equipment.
"Man, look at the size of those damn things!" the daimyo suddenly exclaimed, clearly focused on something seen through his instrument.
Iroh pointed his own scope in the direction his friend was looking. After a few moments of searching he saw them. Two massive torsion catapults, far larger than any of the others. The glitter of steel plate could clearly be made out in the sunlight.
"You ever seen any that big before?"
"No," Iroh admitted, "They have to be eighty or hundred feet tall each, not even our largest warships have engines that large."
"We can't let those get to Mequon."
"No, we can't."
The green flood continued to move in slow motion.
"They can't be more than a few hours from those big bridges over there," Nikon commented, pointing with his right hand at a bend in the waterway as he squinted through his sight glass.
Iroh grunted in reply. The enemy would ford the river soon.
"We're not going to make it in time… are we?" Nikon asked after a few more moments of silent observation.
"No, my friend, we made up a lot of time… but not enough."
Iroh reflected bitterly on the days spent recuperating at the salt lakes. If it weren't for that delay, they might have made it.
"Yeh… yeh, you're right," the commoner agreed glumly, replacing his scope in his tunic.
Nikon kicked the stones at his feet in frustration. They bounced off the edge of the ravine and clattered down the face of the cliff.
"At this rate they'll reach Mequon days before we do," the Crown Prince concluded.
"Iroh… I don't think we can break a siege, especially not against those things."
The young general did not reply. His friend was right and he knew it.
They had left the Army of the Great Divide the night before as it approached the southern passes of the Dune Sea. The scouts had brought word back that they had finally reached the edge of the desert. The soldiers, sun burnt and weary, nevertheless felt a surge of hope and optimism, for it was clear that the first of their great trials had been overcome.
Iroh and Nikon had decided to see for themselves the expanse of the great eastern steppes and to look for sign of the enemy. They had just seen the realization of their greatest fear. The Army of the Granite Mountains, flowing like a living river of men before them, was winning the race to Mequon.
"We have to delay them somehow," Nikon vowed, "…but how?"
The Crown Prince looked over the edge of the escarpment. Far below the dry river bed stared back at him. He quickly scanned the stark landscape.
"Look at this," Iroh commanded suddenly.
Nikon leaned over to see what Iroh was on about. The floor of the dead river immediately below them was filled with boulders and rocks worn smooth by flowing water, but of water there was not a drop.
The remains of a monorail line were also clearly visible in the ravine as it exited into the steppe. Heavily discolored and covered with moss, the once elegant arches lay silent and broken, testimonial to a remote and glorious past of some ancient and long forgotten civilization. Iroh once again recalled the book he had read during the crossing and then had seen once again on the slight engineer's bookshelf.
"I don't see anything," Nikon finally responded, "just a… big gully."
"No, not the river bed," Iroh clarified, "the cliff wall."
"The one across from us?" asked Nikon, pointing across to a narrow finger of cliff opposite them.
"No, underneath us, look."
The young commoner leaned over as far as he dared. The cliff face underneath their feet was not only smooth, it was utterly featureless. The cliff wall was concave and along its breadth a darker rectangle of stone was clearly seen.
"Wow!" Nikon exclaimed, "What the hell is this?"
"I'm not sure."
"What happened to the top of the cliff face?"
"What do you mean?" Iroh asked in turn.
"Well, look, there's nothing there – the cliff face just stops," Nikon said, pointing to the left and below them, "There's a cavern back there or something."
Iroh looked to where he and Nikon could observe the top of the cliff wall underneath them. All he could see was blackness. The daimyo was right, the featureless cliff was a wall of some type. They were standing on top of some kind of enormous cave.
"Great Agni…" Iroh breathed, finally realizing what he was seeing.
Quickly the young general stood up. He looked around, finally turning back to look behind them.
"What?" Nikon queried.
"The ruin, come on," Iroh broke in suddenly, slapping Nikon on the shoulder, "let's see if there's an entrance."
"An entrance to what?" the young commoner asked, clearly confused.
"Remember that book I read during the crossing, my friend?"
Nikon did a double take. First he looked at the dry river bed and then the living river in the distance. The dust trails showed the Army of the Granite Mountains had almost reached the bridge over the tributary of the mighty Song.
"You're kidding, Iroh, are we really that desperate? I mean that thing was just full of fairy tales wasn't it?"
"The monorails are real enough, we've both seen them now and how many times," the Crown Prince replied as he spread his hands wide, "and besides, you just said yourself we have to delay them somehow. We better hope this is what they talked about in that book or I'm afraid we have no hope at all."
"Right!" the tank commander exclaimed, putting his doubts aside, "Let's go!"
Quickly they retraced their steps. Their komodo rhinoceros mounts were tethered in a lonely copse of evergreen trees nearby. These were the first real vegetation they had seen since they left the Nasu. In the midst of the trees lay the remains of a house that had long ago fallen into ruin. What had once been neat, black iron shutters lay scattered in rusted heaps amidst piles of broken glass. Lit by the same sun as the endless desert they had crossed, the heaps of crystal shards reflected like jewels with a thousand facets.
A single stone gate, perhaps the width of two people, opened on to a short stone path that led to the remains of the front door. Next to the gate a square, white metal post rose from the ground. On top of the post was a metal box painted light blue. The front of the box was open, a broken and rusted hinge the only indication it had once had some kind of lid or cover.
They walked through the gate and climbed the flagstone steps up to the house itself. The stone foundations of the house rose out of the ground to various heights indicating where many of the interior walls had been. A large stone staircase rose halfway to a long since collapsed second floor, and a room towards the back of the floor plan held the rusting remains of a large cook stove.
"This has to be centuries old, right?" Nikon suggested.
"I'm no judge," Iroh answered, "but it is certainly old."
"Why was it built way out here? The Dune Sea was here long before this thing was built, no matter how old it is!"
"Yes, my friend, that certainly is true, but I suspect, if our hope proves correct, that this place was a way station or entrance to a larger complex of some sort."
Nikon cast his gaze about, but for the life of him he couldn't imagine anything standing here but a small stone house. How this could possibly be connected to the gigantic cavern beneath them was beyond his grasp.
"Okay, what are we looking for?"
"I don't know," Azulon's son admitted, "But I'm afraid the only way forward is down, my friend, so let's look for a basement or a tunnel or something. If we don't find any way in here, we'll have to search the cliff tops."
The young commoner made a face.
"That sounds like a wild boar-q-pine chase, Iroh."
"Right, so I sugest we find it here!"
They split up and started searching the ruin. Kicking over stones and thrusting aside layers of pine needles and underbrush revealed nothing except a layer of burned material, suggesting the structure had burned down long ago. The various doors on the rusted stove could not be opened no matter how hard they tried and they decided it wasn't worth the effort to melt it.
Suddenly Iroh heard his friend whistle. He hurried over to where his daimyo stood at the backside of the staircase they had observed when they first entered.
"I see," he observed, "Makes sense."
Before them a second staircase descended into the earth directly beneath the remains of the stairs leading to the missing second floor. The flight of stone stairs, wide enough to comfortably accommodate six or more people, quickly disappeared into the darkness.
Nikon grinned.
"Well, shall we?"
"Yes," Iroh replied, grinning in turn, "I think we should… in fact, I think we must."
The young general opened his palm and a bright orange flame sprang forth. He descended the steep stairs into the blackness below, his friend close behind.
