Vendetta
Azula could endure the shame of skulking through the night no longer. She would fight fire with fire.
Oh? Why would the great Daughter of the Sun risk herself for so little? It is true, young Prince, that this little corner of the Shuǐshān Province is just a tiny spec on the map of the former Earth Kingdom, populated by a few peasants, we must not forget that for the people who live there, it is their whole world.
Young and brash, Azula may not have the noblest of intentions when she plunged headlong into a fight with her brother, but my niece always did learn best by doing.
The village of Gao's Hollow was already ablaze by the time Sokka and Suki arrived. A vanguard detachment had come across the stream, supported by artillery from the far bank. It was just like Azula had predicted; a swift attack made without fanfare at the expected center of enemy resistance, to disrupt their ability to stop the rest of the force from building the wildfire.
Sokka stopped atop the last hill to catch his breath. His chest strained against the boiled leather cuirass as he sucked in the ash-choked air. He'd grown since it had been made, put on another stone of toned muscle.
Suki stepped up on his right, slick with sweat. Gray ash streaked her warpaint. "Ideas?" she said.
The village clustered around a t-junction of two roads pressed up against the stream. Lacquered red armor was advancing through the main concourse, while panicked villagers tried to save their families and worldly possessions from the spreading fire. Sokka clenched his fist. "We can't afford to wait for Jet." He drew the double-edged tsurugi sword Suki had given him and marched forward.
Suki caught him by the shoulder. As he spun to face her, Suki's fingers brushed along the short hairs of his neck and pulled his lips to hers. "Don't die. I mean it."
Swallowing hard, Sokka nodded. "You either."
He glanced over his shoulder one last time. Jet and his fighters were still catching up. It would be sensible to wait, to formulate a plan of action. But he could not subdue the passion in his chest. He ran pell-mell into the burning village, with Suki at his heels.
Livestock stampeded, mouths frothing, while grief stricken mothers searched for their children. Red armored men ransacked their houses, looting as they pleased. They were different from the men who raided the South Pole. Indisciplined and lustful, order had long broken down here. The men posted to sentry duty had joined in the pillaging, so no one raised an alarm when Sokka and Suki filtering into the town.
Sokka picked out the man with the biggest epaulets on his armor, brushing past two soldiers who'd laden themselves down with armfuls of rice wine. The officer turned just in time to recoil in shock as Sokka ran him through the belly. With a rough shove, the officer slipped off Sokka's tsurugi, falling onto his back. The two boozed up men barely cried out before Suki slashed at their exposed necks with her katana.
An officer mounted on a komodo rhino had noticed them and raised the alarm. But try as he might to spur on his beast, the flames licking the rooftops and the maelstrom of panicking ostrich horses and gemsbok bulls kept the stubborn mount rooted in place.
Sokka's boomerang whistled through the air and knocked him off his mount. The spirit-bone weapon arced its way back into Sokka's hand, and Sokka let himself have a little smirk. The Fire Nation raiders were reorganizing now. Even with Jet and his men it would be a hard fight. He showed up a moment later, hook-swords freshly reddened from pulling a soldier from his ostrich-horse mount.
"You should have waited," Jet said.
"Would you have?" Sokka responded, not taking his eyes off the Fire Nation soldiers forming into their ranks.
"Fair."
The Fire Nation detachments had not reached the creek yet. But the inferno was just over the hill. Hot embers rained down from searing winds. The air was filled with the cries of stampeding animals rushing through the underbrush. Azula jumped from Ikki's back before she touched down. The water was flowing quickly in the creek, up to Azula's knee at its deepest. It wasn't much but it was the only ally they had against the firestorm.
Katara splashed down behind her. She wasted no time in gathering the rushing waters to her, sending surges of water up the bank into the undergrowth. "This forest is like kindling, damnit," she cried.
The water obeyed Azula for now, but it did not do so readily. Compared to Katara's efforts, Azula's felt feeble. To delay, to bend, it was against her nature. The fire in her blood was screaming for her to fight fire with fire. "Katara," she said, "Keep at it. I will buy you some time."
"Azula! Are you mad?"
Azula marched up the river bank, dodging a fleeing hedge-boar. The air choked with soot and foul brimstone. She could see the flame front ahead, all-consuming yet unconquering, the pines roaring and cracking under its embrace. "Yeah, I'm mad," she answered.
It was just like that stubborn brat to plunge headlong into the inferno. Katara's words fell on deaf ears as Azula sprinted into the dark forest, towards the towering columns of fire. She wanted to chase after the princess, but duty was not pleasant, and foolish or not, Azula wasn't the only one counting on her to stand against the rushing blaze.
So she bent the waters beneath her into a surging tide, up onto the banks into the dry underbrush and accumulated eons of pitch and pine needles that caked the forest floor. She did not stop when she heard the most terrible blast, like an iceberg being sundered, off in the distance. Katara continued to rush along the banks even as she saw lightning arc through the trees.
Panting, body soaked with hot sweat, Katara soldiered on, as her muscles groaned and sinew creaked under the strain. The advancing blaze had been broken at its center, where Azula had charged in. The sundered lines, once advancing uniformly like a battalion in closed ranks, had faltered into an undulating serpent. The tongues of fire did not burn so hot nor lick so high now. But they were nearing the banks.
Katara mounted the river bank, stepping into the moonlight. Wrapped in Tui's embrace, something sleeping stirred inside her. The old legends came to mind, and Katara's shimmering blue eyes lit up with epiphany. The Riddle of the Sea came unwound, and suddenly Katara felt the strength she'd always had but had never grasped. Instinct took her into the cross-stance, low and fluid like the undulating stream. The water answered her call like an old friend, every whip-like strike bringing a torrent into the fire.
Steam choked the air, stinging her eyes, turning the ash that caked to her skin and clothes into a thick black sludge. But Katara did not stop until the roar of the fire was quelled. As the smoke cleared and only embers remained, Katara glared daggers at the six dumbstruck Firebenders watching from across the cinders.
The man in the center, half a head taller than the rest and built like a wine-cask, slapped the soldiers over the head and shouted, "Get her!"
Their fire shot through the air, only to vanish into harmless puffs of steam against the Katara's curtain wall of water. When the veil came down, nothing but an empty forest greeted the soldiers.
"She can't have gone far," said one of the soldiers. They marched forward, swords in hand, into the unburnt land, hacking their way through the wet brush. Cursing the Water Tribe witch, they bumbled forward heedless of the danger. For they'd been staring too long into the fire. Now only lit by the dim glow of distant pyres, they marched past where Katara hid.
The conventional forces of the Southern Water Tribe had been decimated in the first decade of the war. Resistance had continued for another nine decades because their warriors had learned that Tui is not on the side of the grand battalions. She favors the warrior who fights with cunning, concealment and surprise. Silent as the stars in the night-sky, Katara leapt from under the brush.
The man who'd been shouting orders died first. Katara slipped the blued-steel tanto through the gap in the mail under his armpit. The blade bit into his flesh hungrily, into his lungs. Katara's hand over his mouth stifled what little sound he was capable of making with ten inches of cold steel in his chest.
His comrades had begun throwing fire into the brush with little effect. The wet foliage would not burn, and the sizzling steam drowned out the gurgling death of the corporal. Katara is already on them before they notice, slashing the throat of a trooper. Steel tanto in one hand, bone dagger in the other, Katara weaved through the panicking Fire Nation troopers, cutting into the gaps at the joints in their armor.
Unlike the fearsome Southern Raiders who'd reaved across the Antarctic seas, these soldiers were not adept at night-fighting or small-unit tactics. As they fell one-by-one to Katara's blades, kicks or novice bending, they began to rout. Unable to control their breath in the panic, their bending failed them, and they were unable to writhe out of Katara's water whips.
Katara's bone knife had shattered, and her tanto was so slick with blood it had slipped from her fingers. Three were left unwounded now. Tendrils of water wrapped around their bodies like coiling snakes, dragging them prone. The rushing water squeezed the air from their chests and contorted their limbs as Katara dragged them down to the creek. Her heart pounded in wicked triumph, delighting at their screams of terror. Those screams soon turned to gurgles.
It was harder to control the water tendrils so finely amidst the great volume of the creek. One of them managed to escape outright, slipping out of his breastplate. He ran pell-mell into the forest, leaving Katara with two others. She could keep one under wraps with her bending, but it proved to be just easier to deal with the second with her hands. The coursing cold water was only two feet deep, but it would be enough.
"I'm not a helpless girl anymore," she said, almost as mantra, as she wrapped her hands around the man's throat and shoved him back under. He kicked and splashed in the shallow water. It reminded Katara of the wriggling of freshly caught fish. His fingernails dug into her wrists, drawing blood as he frantically clawed at her. But she did not relent. He got his head up for one choking breath, water streaming down his peach-fuzz mustache, golden eyes glinting in the moonlight. Then she shoved him back under, wringing his throat with an iron grip.
It was not a good way to die. Like any child of the Water Tribe, Katara knew all about drowning. She'd been trapped under ice before, tipped from a canoe enough times to know its icy embrace. As far as fates went it was the worst. The ancient laws commanded that all be rescued from the sea, friend and foe alike. As a method of killing, drowning was reserved only for the worst offenses. Katara was dimly aware that she was committing a great sacrilege, but right now she just did not care.
The cold waters were an expedient killer, and to speed this along, she kneed the man under the diaphragm to force the air out of him. After the blow the water filled his lungs and the thrashing became more desperate. Then he became deathly still. It took a moment for the enormity to sink in. Sometime between the time when the second man stopped gurgling and kicking, and when Katara rose, rubbing her sore muscles, it struck her that she'd enjoyed this entirely too much, above and beyond vicarious revenge for her people.
From the first to the last it had been so quick, in such a rush of battle, but now in the stillness after these hands that have killed hung heavy at her side. Maybe it was the answer of some great prayer from frightened Earth Kingdom peasants, or perhaps Tui herself wept for Katara and her sacrilege. Whatever the cause, the first drizzles of rain began splashing in the creek. Their delaying action had turned into a victory, through no credit of their own.
Azula bolted in dead-sprint towards the fire. She did not slow until she skidded to a halt right in front of the blaze. It was a wall of burning malice, licking up the treetops high above. The draft-wind roared in Azula's ears. It mattered not how much it roared, though. This fire would answer to its princess.
Planting herself, Azula reached out with the kama-agni, the fire-of-life that burned within her. She slapped her hands together in the tiger sigil. The great wall knelt before her, flames bolding in on themselves. The orange flame sucked back into the charred wood, leaving a bed of searing-blue embers forty feet across. Three stunned Firebenders stood behind the fireline, gawking like heat itself had been sucked from their bones. And behind them, Azula saw a face she'd never forget.
Zuko recognized her face hiding behind the wolf-paint. His body tensed like a coiled spring as he spat, "Azula! You traitor!"
There had been a thousand things Zuko had wanted to say to Azula when she was inevitably brought back to the Capital in irons. Somehow, the prince forgot them all in this moment, as his sister grinned with murderous intent. Her eyes flashed glowing blue for a moment as she threw her arms wide and detonated the heat bomb.
The blast sent Zuko's soldiers tumbling back like dry leaves before the hurricane. Making the pike sigil with his hands, Zuko bent the blast around his body. But the force still had his feet digging deep furrows in the ash as it pushed his body backwards ten feet. The blast rolled across the flame front, rolling it up like a carpet.
It had been two years since brother and sister had last seen each other. Their bitter duel had ended with Zuko conceding defeat. He'd spent the last two years honing himself for the rematch. But as he stood amid the ruined forest, still feeling the brutality of Azula's own improvement down to his bones, he had to admit it wasn't enough. But he had a duty to the Fire Nation, to his father, to bring the traitor princess down. There could be no honorable Agni Kai between them. Zuko swallowed his pride and shouted for the dazed soldiers to reform on him.
"Fancy meeting you here, Zuzu," Azula said. She cracked her knuckles and rolled her shoulders as she limbered up for the fight. Her wicked grin scythed through the scattered ranks of soldiers, leaving some awestruck and sending others into a rout.
"What are you doing here?" Zuko demanded. "It's bad enough you've turned on your country, but here you are wearing the regalia of Water Tribe savages? Did you take one to bed as well?"
"Oh my my, Zuzu, are you jealous?"
"What? No–" Zuko was about to call her mentally deranged for that insinuation, but his words were cut off by a fire lance aimed right at his head. The bolt from the blue missed narrowly only thanks to his last second dodge.
Zuko returned fire immediately, but Azula deflected his strikes with contempt as she closed the distance. Now up in his face, he could see that his sister had grown considerably in the last two years. When she finished growing, she'd be almost as tall as him. This moment had been built up so much in anticipation that Zuko had to remind himself that Azula was his younger sister. It stung at his pride, but he gritted his teeth and fought back with everything his uncle had taught him since first going into the field with him almost three years ago.
"You fight well, Zuzu," Azula taunted. "But not well enough." Seeing the rage twist on his face was so deliciously sweet.
They traded fire blasts at distance for a moment. Zuko's rage provided formidable power to his attacks. Even Azula had to admit that he was a worthy protege of the great Dragon of the West. But he still lacked focus. So Azula kept her attacks small and tight, her breathing regular, and weaved out of the way, or deflected with the minimum force necessary.
Only two had joined in to support their liege in his battle; Zuko's personal retinue of Imperial Firebenders. The rest of the company were scurrying out of the way of the searing fireballs–both Azula's and Zuko's.
Further enraged, Zuko shouted, "Cowards! You will fight as I command!" Only a few were stirred to action. "Idiots! She can't take all of us."
Azula ducked under one of Zuko's fire-punches, and leapt up under his guard. She delivered a ridge-hand strike to his cheek to knock him back, and only one of the Imperial Firebenders stepping in stopped her from taking him out of the fight entirely. "He's right, you know," Azula cried, smothering the Imperial Firebender's twin blasts by grabbing his hands. After delivering a knee-strike to his chin, she blasted the dazed Imperial guardsman to the ground. "With how many men you've got, you could defeat me. But I will take ten of you with me."
With a quick series of dodges and ripostes, Azula kicked the second Imperial Firebender's helmet off. "Starting with you, Guidon Dae." As he raised his arms to block high, Azula stamped the ashen ground, rippling the earth under him. She turned to another of the Household Regiment attacking at range, "Or you, Cornet Kitano." She sent a curtain wall of flame forward with a kick, a screen to hide the rock she kicked afterwards. It hit the young officer square in his breastplate, laying him out like a cheap rug.
The other soldiers growled and circled Azula. But they did not come any closer or lift a hand, lest they become the next target. Even Zuko; after he hobbled to his feet, the Crown Prince could only seethe as he watched Azula make the thunder sigil, hands arcing with deadly cold-fire.
"Any of you want me," Azula shouted, "you step up with these brave men. And we'll all go together." She recognized Zuko's shifting stance, and tutted at the challenge in his eyes. Maybe Iroh hadn't been totally useless to her. He may not have taught her his secrets yet, but she recognized the fluid stance Zuko took. Part of her wanted to see if he could even redirect lightning with his mercurial temper. But another part remembered that in spite of everything, he was still her brother.
A split second before release, Azula's eyes shifted left. Zuko watched in horror as the bolt he'd thought was meant for him fly past. After the deafening thunderclap, he turned to see his old bodyguard slumped against a charred stump, twitching as he croaked for desperate air.
Zuko's detachment routed immediately, leaving him alone with Cornet Kitano. The roar of the forest fire dimmed, like Zuko's head was under water. The urgent words of Kitano were unheeded as the man stood in front of him, intending to body-block the next shot.
"Your highness!" cried Kitano, "I said go!"
The man's brazenness finally got through the shock. Zuko realized he was biting his cheek hard enough to draw blood. Not from fear; rage.
Azula lowered her outstretched hand. It was strange that the only weight that tugged at her heart was not the life she'd just snuffed out, but what the murder had done to Zuko. "You should see to your friend, Zuko," she said, dropping her guard. "It's the least I can do."
"It's a trick, your highness," Kitano said.
"Yeah, probably," Zuko said. He stepped out from behind his bodyguard, and walked towards the fallen body of Dae. His legs felt like lead as knelt next to Dae, grasping his outstretched hand. "Go get help, Kitano."
"Your highness?"
"I said go!"
"Sire…" Dae croaked out, "Is that you?"
"It is, my old friend. Be still, we'll get you help."
"Too late for that," Dae said, "Your sister, she's got quite the spark."
"Shh, shh, save your strength."
Azula watched with nagging unease, feeling the weight of another life in the palm of her hand. It was lighter than a feather still. The man she'd slain looked to be no older than his late 20s. The stricken face under his helmet was clean-shaven and handsome. The son of a noble house like the rest of the Imperial Firebenders. His death-rattle sent a shiver down Zuko's spine.
"You killed him," Zuko said in a low rumble.
"It's war, Zuko, not a game."
"Traitor."
"Yeah. What are you going to do about it?"
"Don't you feel any shame?" Zuko turned to her, tears in his eyes. "You've betrayed your country, your family. For what? To cast your lost in with these savages living in mud-huts? Turned your back on the glory of our dynasty, all because some ancient spirit whispered in the dark about the duty of the Avatar?"
Azula rolled her eyes. "Are you quite done yet, Zuzu? Don't make me kill you too."
"I want to know why, Azula! What made you turn so easily?."
"I found my reason along the way. I don't have to justify myself to someone burning an entire valley out of house and home. But if you must know, I turned when father tried to have me murdered in my sleep."
Zuko squared up, taking the bow stance. "Don't lie to me. You were always his favorite."
Azula took the empty stance, like a retracted claw. "I suppose this is my karma, that when the truth actually mattered, you wouldn't believe me."
Zuko launched towards her, spewing trails of fire behind him. Shaking her head, Azula accepted his charge, skipping a step back only to force an over extension before she deflected the billowing flames.
Swords glimmered in the firelight. Help had come, once weary sergeants beat the panicking troops back into line, prodding them forward at spear-point. But Zuko's fire was roaring and erratic, and none dared to close into the melee. Azula did not answer fire with fire this time. She moved the earth under Zuko, unbalancing him. Or she would raise a pillar of stone and turn it into a shotgun blast, peppering his onyx-black armor with ugly dents.
"You!" Zuko spat, his words punctured by ragged breaths, "fight me properly. Or are you too cowardly to accept an Agni Kai now that you've turned?"
Azula answered him with an open-palm slap on his cheek. He instinctively turned away the fire in her palm, resulting in reddening no worse than a mild sunburn. But it had the intended effect, leaving him frothing with rage.
"Bitch." Zuko redoubled his efforts. Azula recognized the advanced kata Zuko drilled through by number, called the "Prowl of the Tiger" for its tight but powerful attacks. It was a fierce onslaught for most to defend against, but once Azula was able to break contact, she ducked low under the next fire whip and punched the ground. The rippling earth surged up over Zuko's foot, trapping him in place. By the time he wrenched himself free, a rock the size his head crashed against his breastplate, knocking him flat.
Once he came to his senses, Zuko felt the sharp point of a su yari spear against his throat. A burnt soldier was writhing to his right, a crescent of soldiers stood three paces away. He glared up at Azula, who held the long blade of the su yari flat against his chin.
"Your highness!" one of the soldiers yelped, as if pleading for some order to absolve them of responsibility.
"Yield, Zuzu," Azula demanded. "I will not ask again." Her eyes burned gold, like molten metal, in the dim firelight. The first fat droplets of rain splashed on her cheek. The coals began to sizzle.
"Why should I? You wouldn't even test fire against fire. You have no honor."
"That's always your problem, Zuzu. Too wrapped up in the way you think the world works. Like every aristocrat in the Caldera your only experience is fighting the sons of other aristocrats. It's why a novice Earthbender can best you as long as she's a good fighter."
The soldiers wriggled in their boots, watching the prince and princess quarrel, the way that young children squirm when their parents fight. Zuko could only bite his tongue and avoid further embarrassing himself.
Azula pulled the spear an inch back. "These are my terms, Prince Zuko: retire your forces back to your camps. Undertake no further assaults until sunrise the morning after next. In return, you and all your soldiers will be allowed to recover the fallen and depart here unmolested."
"I suppose you'll want hostages as guarantee," Zuko said, spitting out blood.
"No hostages. Only your word as a child of the Divine Blood of Surya."
It was a hell of a deal, if Zuko was to be honest with himself. His pride though made him accept it grudgingly. "Accepted."
The spear was withdrawn, and Zuko knew she had him dead to rights. The word was given, and he could never imagine lowering himself to the level of a traitor by breaking the agreement. He rejected her hand to help him up, stomping away but never quite taking his eyes off her.
Azula planted the spear into the ashen ground. As the cold autumn rains poured down, drenching the fires and forest, her heart ached. Victory was not supposed to feel like this.
Azula found Katara sitting under a tree canopy, soaked to the bone and shivering, as Katara stared across the water to the bodies on the bank. The princess said nothing as she splashed across the creek and sat down next to Katara.
The bodies on the bank were once Azula's countrymen. Mere months ago she would have bled with them on the battlefield. Bled for them. It defied all reason, but Azula's heart broke for them, and for her friend forced to kill them. The wretched, lowly and damned common infantryman strewn out on the bank. It was easy to hate them for what they did in this war, but Azula had been part of that engine, and watched from on high how its dark and ugly machinations turned men into graves, until it was her turn to be caught in its gears. If they were damned then so was she.
Azula turned to watch Katara's silent, grief-stricken face. This war had been going on a hundred years, and she was certain that none now lived who remembered the time before. All of tonight's fighting had been over a patch of land no bigger than the family estate on Ember Island, a drop of water compared to the rest of the world, and Azula wondered if it would ever end at this rate.
"Were they the first?" Azula whispered.
Katara was silent, till she sighed and sank deeper against the river bank. "No. I killed one man for sure in a raid. There have probably been others that didn't make it from their wounds."
"I struck a bargain with the enemy commander for his life. They will retreat until day-after tomorrow."
Katara leaned her head against Azula's shoulder and shut her heavy eyes.
Even with the rain, she could still smell Jet on her. She should be jealous. Somehow it didn't matter right now. Azula pulled Katara close and held her tight. She only sobbed once, then hugged back. Once the thrill of battle evaporated, there was nothing left to stop the weight of murder from pulling down on the soul.
"Does it ever get any easier?"
It hit Azula like a whip crack. It had always come too easily for her. Tonight she'd killed her brother's bodyguard. Dae was still young, but he had years of experience, and in spite of his job as servant to the Prince, it was obvious to anyone that Zuko respected him immensely. She'd also briefly contemplated killing Zuko tonight. She felt more guilty for that than killing Dae, but cutting the man down in his prime had not been pleasant.
"I hear it does," Azula said. "Uncle says so at least, and the only thing I've seen him lie about are ugly women."
There was little time to dwell on grief. Danger still lurked everywhere, and there were bound to be soldiers who had not yet gotten orders about the truce yet. Jet and his band arrived soon to speed things along.
"There you are," said Jet, out of breath from running. "We were having a hell of a fight at the village when suddenly a rider came with a white flag, and the soldiers began to withdraw.
Azula helped Katara to her feet, scraping some of the mud off. "Armistice. I captured the enemy commander and forced him to withdraw for his parole."
"Armi-what now?" Jet said, cocking his head.
"Truce. A temporary one. All I could get with the hand I had."
"So we run and live to fight another day?" Jet said sourly.
"Yeah. This was just a reconnaissance-in-force. There's at least a full brigade in the van, probably more."
Jet's eyes narrowed. "I'm sure you know all about these matters, but I am going to need to know why you know that if I'm going to tell these people to abandon their homes."
Azula rolled her eyes. "Because the commander I fought was the Crown Prince. The Crown Prince's retinue would never be less than a brigade. Three battalions at least, at least one of them from the crack Life Guards regiments."
Jet loomed over Azula, eyebrows furrowed. "The Crown Prince was here…and you let him leave here alive? Whose side are you on?"
"Be thankful it was me who bested him and not you, Jet. If he had died, my father would have put this entire province to the sword in retaliation."
Jet growled. His entourage whispered among themselves in disbelief.
"My cousin Lu Ten was the last freebie the Earth Kingdom would get. When he died unavenged during the Siege of Ba Sing Se, my father proudly boasted that he would never allow his children to die unavenged like my uncle did when he broke the siege. The Fire Lord does not make idle threats, Jet."
Katara stepped between the two, glaring at Azula and Jet in turn. "When you two are quite done, there's not much night left and we have a long day ahead of us tomorrow."
Katara stormed off, leaving the two to squabble like children. Katara was right, of course. Maybe Azula had let herself get too caustic due to jealousy. And as she watched Katara leave with a forlorn glance, recognition flashed on Jet's face.
Sighting, Azula turned back to Jet. "Katara is right. It has been an…eventful…night for all of us."
Jet glanced over at the bodies on the bank and nodded.
Zuko's wounds were minor. But he could not dissuade them from dragging him along to the hospital tents. The morning sun was still evaporating the rain when Major General Sadao came bustling into the tent, saber rattling at his hip. The staff attending immediately snapped to salute the general, who grumbled "as you were."
"My Lord," greeted Zuko.
"Your highness. Doctors being overly cautious again?"
Zuko strained against the clear white linen wrapped around his bruised chest. "Certainly."
The prince's bed had been quartered off in its own corner, wrapped by thick woolen curtains woven with the crimson insignia of the Fire Nation. The general tucked his helmet under his arm as he removed his leather riding gloves. "Leave the room. Everyone."
The soldiers and nurses cleared out without a word. "General, if this is about the truce–"
"Bugger that, Prince Zuko, best of a tight spot. Ramshackle duster villages are not worth the life of the Crown Prince. I need to know what happened."
"It's not official yet," Zuko protested.
"It might as well be. You fought her last night. Whatever doubts we had, it's time to put them aside. Your sister has betrayed her country and her father."
This was not the way Zuko had wanted to best Azula, winning father's favor only because his favorite had turned on him, biting that hand that fed and pampered her for sixteen years. No glory or pride in this. But Sadao was a good man, stern but fair with his men. It was not merely political favor that caused him to absolve Zuko from fault; if he cared about that he'd have been a full general by now. Zuko felt the wave of exhaustion come all at once, as slumped on the edge of the bed, resting his head in his hands. He'd been up since before dawn the previous day.
"Zuko my boy," the general said, sitting on the stool across from him. "I took a calculated risk beginning the operation last night while we were still sore from the march. Warfare requires risks, and night actions are the most dangerous. Our fire waxes and wanes with the Sun. So when I hear reports of my men abandoning their posts and their prince in the face of the enemy, that concerns me."
"My sister has that effect on people." Zuko gave a grimace of a smile, "I didn't see the whole thing, but the panic started and in the dark the detachment broke all along the front. Only the few actively engaged with the enemy didn't get swept up."
"Bad business. General Marya thinks I should have them flogged. Men stampeding in the dark, away from their own fires."
"Captain Sato rallied them, steadied the line. It could have been worse."
"That should have been the responsibility of the major in command. Very well. Any clue to where the Avatar would be going?"
"None."
"Well, I'll leave you then. Get some rest, son."
Zuko nodded, a thin smile forming on his lips. Normally it would have been impudence for someone to patronize a prince like Lord Sadao did, but Zuko had to admit he rather enjoyed it. Sadao was a good soldier who'd lost both his sons in the war. A little familiarity could be forgiven.
Author's Notes:So I forgot how months work when I made the previous author's note, and forgot the whole month of July existed :P. Next chapter will be up in two weeks, because I am building a PC and it's going to take some time to get everything up and running. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy.