Danev
It would have been gratuitous to call it a battle.
The fact was more that it would have been more accurate to liken it to hell raining from the sky.
"Down!" I called in an attempt to be heard over the ring of the first shell and the whistling of the second incoming. "Down!"
I imagined it was hardly my screams though that ushered the soldiers of the 114th down to the ground of their trenches and into them from up above should they'd been unfortunate enough to be there as much as it was the first explosion.
All the same, by the time the second shell came down, a good deal further but still close enough to amplify the ringing already going through our heads, we were all on the ground, hands above our heads.
If we'd thought the first staggered barrage had come as a shock, a stark blast in the middle of what'd been empty nothingness only a few seconds ago, then what followed after was an orchestra of explosions, some closer than others, but all keeping us nearly motionless for fear that standing a single inch higher would find us in the direct path of a piece of fragmentation or something else that'd end our life just as quick.
Tosa was clutching his helmet tight to his head and Shozi had dived face first into the selfsame pile of shit he'd been complaining about earlier.
But there had been little other choice. We were being bombarded, and not by the Earth Kingdom siege equipment that should have been vastly out of range of us, even if placed atop the wall. These weren't boulders flung from distant catapults or even trebuchets. These were explosive munitions.
"Where the fuck did they get artillery from!?" Tosa struggled to yell over the explosions that erupted from the selfsame munitions he questioned.
"No idea!" Chejuh called back, nigh inaudible in the midst of all else.
Shells flew on top of us, rocking the earth beneath our feet and shaking the earthen walls that threatened to collapse in on us at any moment. The explosions came in waves, brief intervals of mere seconds separating the rounds of volleys until one was interrupted by fire, much closer, accompanied by the sight of shells flying overhead, but from the opposite direction.
"What the fuck!?" Tosa called out, likely expecting that we were now suddenly caught in the crossfire between two lines of artillery–one near the wall and one from the forest, the worst of both worlds that we'd been betting on. Fortunately though, the way they still were ascending into the sky overhead told a different, far better story, that, granted, was little consolation in the moment.
"Those are ours!" I called out to Tosa and anybody else who may have been wondering that very thing.
"What the hell are they firing at?!" Chejuh asked, likely doubting that we'd somehow managed to acquire a read on the enemy's position in this short amount of time. I imagined that suspicion was right too. We weren't firing back to hit. We were firing for the hell of it.
"You think they fucking know?!" I yelled.
It made no difference. We were stuck here all the same. We couldn't afford to stand, to poke our heads out for even a second to find out. We were under constant bombardment, and we were hiding.
I would have thought that'd work out just fine–the cowering and fleeing. We were six feet down, the walls of our trench stretching higher than most of us, all of us if we were down on the ground as we were now. Anything short of a direct hit theoretically shouldn't have affected any of us, but there were always mistakes, always chance hits from the enemy, and so a few yards down the trench, the distinct voice of a man screaming could be heard.
I didn't know who it was, only that it was originating from our section of our trench line–Dragon's.
By the time I realized I'd asked myself, 'who's hit?,' I was already on my feet, in a crouched position, being yelled at by Chejuh, "What the fuck are you doing!" and by Shozi, "Get the fuck down!"
I would listen to neither of them, of course. The yelling wasn't far off, and it sounded to me like there was a momentary break in the fire.
That 'momentary break' however, would prove to be nothing more than an illusion, however, the mere result of the last few shells further away from our position, as another struck down right by the lip of our trench, throwing me to the ground, accompanied by a good few chunks of earth, and the horrified yells of the soldiers of Dragon right by me, namely Tosa and Mano who huddled by one another.
I scrambled back up to my feet and kept on moving, faster now to the source of the screaming, aiming to get there before another shell could come down and delay me any longer.
The wounded man was Azao, lying in Murao's lap as the latter applied pressure to a wound in the former's side.
"What happened?!" I asked, struggling to be heard over the intermittent landing of shells
"Took shrapnel in his side! I think-" he was cut off by another shell landing nearby us, thankfully back up on the surface, but still enough to make us duck for cover.
Murao lifted his head again once it'd passed to look at me, and said, an unmistakable fear in his eyes, "I think it's bad!"
I looked down at Azao, and only realized now that I hadn't before seen Murao's hands where he was covering and applying pressure to the wound, just as red from the blood, seeping through between the fingers at a fast enough rate that it meant something serious. Something really serious.
"Need to get him help!" I yelled.
'Help' would be in the form of a medical support unit a few hundred yards behind our position, tucked away in the center of the camp, most likely nigh inaccessible right now given the bombardment, but more important than ever.
I saw the look in Murao's eyes. He knew what had to be done, and while every part of him was consumed by fear, there wasn't an inch of hesitation to do what he knew needed to be done.
He gulped and nodded his head to before grabbing Azao's hand to place it on his wound, saying, "Keep pressure there." He looked at me now. "Lift him on three," he said.
I nodded back. "One!" I started, moving my hands in position to rest beneath Azao's shoulders in the hopes it would give me a good point to carry him from.
"Two!" I was in the process of shouting again before being interrupted by the fall of another elusive Earth Kingdom artillery shell. We almost let go of Azao on the last one, far too close for comfort, but we held onto him all the same. We weren't letting go of him. Not like that.
"Three!" I called, and we lifted.
Azao yelped from the sudden movement, nearly losing his hold on his shrapnel wound before Murao yelled as a reminder, "Keep pressure."
I could see Azao nod, feebly. He was losing energy. Energy he desperately needed to stop half of his body's blood from rushing out of a single wound. We had to get him to the medical unit quickly.
"This way!" I called out to Murao, looking further down our line to the nearest intersection in the trench line that would take us further southwest, deeper into the heart of our siege camp.
We moved together, me holding Azao by his shoulders, and Murao by his legs, past the rest of Dragon platoon and no shortage of familiar faces. Mano clung to the wall as though relying on the earth for support, or perhaps the other way around. Mahung clutched his helmet to his head, screaming as though in a battle of his own against the artillery barrage to be heard above it. Even Mykezia looked frightened, her eyes to the sky watching as shells passed by overhead, seeming to wonder if one might stop in the midst of its flight and fall directly atop of her.
Not a single person wasn't terrified, and that included me. No time in the streets had my heart beat this fast. No time in the slums had I thought death was this close, but it hadn't changed a thing that death was closer to Azao than it was for me, and so long as that was the case, I couldn't sit still and do nothing, looking after myself alone.
I had to help him.
Or at least I had to try.
That sentiment would not be shared by many others, however, as amongst the soldiers of Dragon was our lieutenant, Aozon, watching us pass by, and immediately yelling, heard even above the explosions, both distant and near, "Staff sergeant! What are you doing!"
"He's injured, sir!" I answered, figuring the real answer of the medical unit would be made obvious.
"You're not going anywhere! Get down!"
"He needs medical attention!" I yelled back. Azao would die without it. There could be no disputing that. Even the lieutenant had to be aware of that fact by a simple single-second look alone. Right? Or did he just not care?
"We have orders to maintain our position! We will maintain position!"
"Damnit, Danev!" Jame chimed in, logically to be found near Aozon, a man he for some reason respected again all odds. "Just get down!"
"Shut up, Jame!" Murao screamed.
Another shell fell, kicking dirt and mud up from the ground atop us, inciting all of us to duck for cover, though neither Murao nor I even considered letting our grip on Azao weaken.
"He'll die if we don't do something!" I yelled, now more a plea than an attack, but it would change nothing.
"And more will die if you abandon your post! Now let go of him and stay in cover or it'll be your precious platoon to pay the price!"
His own platoon, he would make suffer to get me to fall in line. And it was no idle threat either. I knew him that well.
There was nothing I could do. I looked back at Murao, and the look in his eyes…it was desperation, pleading for me to keep on fighting, to go regardless, but at what cost then? There was nothing we could do, not against Aozon's orders. But that wasn't surrender. It wouldn't be. At least, I couldn't let it seem that way. Not to Murao. Not now.
"We'll tend to him here!" I called out. "We'll help him."
I didn't know if I was lying when I said that. Maybe I'd believed it, or maybe I'd known that I was just saying. That didn't change a thing about the fact that we'd tried.
We had.
We'd placed him on the ground, stripped away the piece of uniform around his room, used them as rags to clog the wound, put pressure on it, tried to keep him awake, but there was only so much that could be done.
Still, we would try, with whatever little we could as other comrades around us could only switch between watching helplessly and ducking for cover when they heard the whistle of a shell yet again.
Shells would continue to rain overhead, yet another night of rain, but this one of fire rather than water.
Azao was dead before the bombardment had ended. He died with his eyes looking at the sky of shooting stars–shells trailing smoke and fire behind them had flown through the heavens.
It was only when the bombardment was finally over that I allowed myself to pull my head away from Azao's chest where I'd tucked it, perhaps out of comfort to him, or perhaps more to myself, and finally closed his eyes for him.
We hadn't known it then, but he'd been one of the lucky ones that night, all things considered. His death had been somewhat peaceful, helped to ease into it by his comrades around him. He hadn't died screaming, buried beneath rubble as we'd come to learn dozens to hundreds more had that night.
He was dead, and for the first time that night, the world was silent as none of us dared to breathe for fear we'd bring back the storm yet again.
But it wouldn't come. Not that night. They'd softened us up sufficiently and they'd given us a reminder: 'we're not going anywhere.'
Fluke
Between Gan, who looked through the limited visibility of the viewport left uncaved in, me poking my head out, helmet equipped, above the hatch as I could no longer see through my turret window, damaged beyond functionality, and Gunji, still huddled in the back where he'd been for hours now, not one of the three of us knew what we were looking at.
Our siege camp was still there. It hadn't disappeared in the blink of an eye as those soldiers of the 32nd had, but for all we could identify, an entire month of constant war and fighting had passed as opposed to a mere few hours of us having been gone on patrol.
I supposed though, that it was a pot calling the tea kettle black to say that the siege camp was worse for wear, near unrecognizable when it was us returning with one tank of ten, three men out of forty. A part of me wanted to believe still that we couldn't have been the only survivors, that we couldn't have been so lucky to be the few out of so many to actually make itOur arrival must have seemed the furthest thing from what the remains of our camp had expected, and given the bodies, craters, smoke, and fires we passed by on our way through a perimeter, I hardly would have put it past them to be on edge.
So, I could hardly blame them when a blast of fire ringed out from somewhere near the perimeter, colliding against the side of our tank, forcing me back down into its bowels lest the next one take me in my head, helmeted though it was.
"Shit!" Gan yelled, ducking his head while Gunji, finally beginning to calm down, threw himself back down the steel ground of the tank, huddling into a ball and whimpering to himself.
The blast of fire was nothing compared to the earth boulders that'd been hurled at us all day, but all the same, it was enough that another soldier by the siege line called out loud enough for even us to hear, though addressing his comrade, "Fuck are you doing?! That's one of ours!"
But just in case there was any doubt about it, I raised my hands over my head, out of hatch, calling, "Friendly! Friendly."
Thankfully, they'd already figured that out on their own, as was made evident by the lack of a followup blast. Seeing as how we weren't struck again, Gan took the chance to raise his head and crawl his way through the distorted entrails of the tank to join me in the gunner's bay, telling me to, "Get up" so as to make room for him.
I figured the coast was now relatively clear, and so poked my head out, watching the two Fire Nation perimeter guards approaching, and proceeded to push myself up onto the upper hull of the tank, greeting them there.
"Sorry," one of them said, likely the one who hadn't shot us given the fact that he didn't wear a firebender's uniform. "Just got hit hard. Didn't know what to make of a lone tank."
"How you mistake our tank for one of them?" Gan asked, joining me up above.
"Like I said, we got hit hard."
"Hell happened?" I asked, looking around the darkened camp, only lit by scattered fires, and not controlled ones. I didn't recognize where in the camp we'd found ourselves, or even if it was our camp, but it had to have been. I'd made sure to navigate us to the right spot, and I was good with directions. Maybe back in Citadel.
The soldier shrugged. "We found the Earth Kingdom. Well, they found us at least. Hey, what unit are you with?"
"62nd Armored," Gan said. "2nd platoon."
"Where's the rest of your platoon then?"
"We're it."
"Fuck. Where's your commander?" the soldier asked, likely noticing the lack of indicating stripes on Gan's uniform.
"Dead inside."
"Spirits," he sighed. "The hell happened to you?"
"Same thing as you. Earth Kingdom found us."
The look on his face, not as obscured by a firebender's mask as his companion, was clear. Things were far from good. For any of us. I think he was more surprised to hear there were any survivors at all after hearing we'd encountered the Earth Kingdom, and he wasn't about to take any chances in losing us now. "Come on," he said. "Let's get you back where you belong. Tank good to move on its own? Looks beat to shit."
"Where are we now?" I asked, curious about just what part of the siege camp this was, praying it to be nowhere near where the 114th was deployed. Thankfully, it wasn't.
"112th infantry," the soldier responded, a far cry from the 59th infantry battalion, Danev's. Thank the spirits. "What's left of them at least. Now can you move or not?"
"We can move," Gan said with a nod as he crouched back down into the tank to put us back into motion.
The soldier we'd been talking to walked up to the tank and helped himself aboard, climbing onto the hull, saying when met by a curious glance from me, "I'll show you there."
We knew the way, but I wasn't about to say no to the company. From the impression I got of him, he was just as eager to get away from his post as we were to get to ours. Turning our headlights on revealed why quickly enough. We were surrounded by the dead. Our dead. Judging by the convenient positions in or adjacent to craters, I suspected they were corpses created by the hell of artillery fire this place had endured.
The firebender who'd been with the man we talked to, the one who'd fired at us, shrugged off his comrade's choice to come with us and simply turned to head back to his foxhole alone.
Once both my position and the soldier's were secure atop the tank, I knocked the heel of my boot against the hull to signal we were good to go. Soon enough, the engine flared up once again, and we were on the move, navigating alone by our single still-functioning headlight and the flames that raged around camp.
"Got hit hard," I observed.
The soldier nodded. "Came from the wall. Thought we were out of range. Using our same guns apparently."
"Guess they're done hiding," I said, thinking back on how convenient it was that the Earth Kingdom chose to announce themselves to multiple contingents of our men at nearly the same time. And quite the effect it had. I must have counted at least dozens of uniformed corpses on the trail in front of us. "How many you lose?"
"112th?" he asked.
I nodded, and he shrugged.
"Only started counting now," he said. "They didn't aim for the outskirts, where our trenches were. Knew they'd be too entrenched. Aimed for the center, the belly where we were exposed. Think it's hundreds. Two, three." he shook his head. "I don't know. So, you the last ones left?"
"Of our platoon," I confirmed. "Yeah."
"2nd, right?'
I nodded. "Know anyone there?"
He shook his head. He wasn't after information. His hands were still shaking. He hadn't yet come to terms with the barrage being over. His hands were shaking. I wondered if he still had the ringing of the explosions in his head. He just wanted to talk to somebody and to hear a voice that wasn't that of horrified screams, most likely.
Had Dojai said anything when he'd died? I wondered. Had he screamed? I couldn't remember if he had. I think he'd been in the middle of giving orders, cut abruptly, dead within the second.
When'll they hit next? I wondered, but didn't ask, figuring that being the last thing the soldier next to me needed to think about right now.
"Should mark her, you know."
"What?"
"The tank," he said, patting the hull as though a dog's back to make his meaning clear. "First taste of hell and still alive to tell about it. Worth remembering."
I had my doubts if it was anything I wished to remember, but the soldier beside me made forgetting it near impossible, so eager to focus on the hell somebody else had gone through rather than his own.
Fortunately, I wouldn't need to think about that for long as we'd arrived at the 62nd armored's position soon enough, certainly better off than the 112th had been comparatively speaking, though that wasn't saying much. Tanks still burned, bodies still were being heaped atop one another in organized piles, but at least there was a sense of order, enough so that our arrival was noticed and we were stopped at the sector perimeter by a pair of guards, both armed with crossbows directed at me and the soldier beside me.
"2nd platoon!" I called out, inclining them to look promptly at one another with a degree of surprise, perhaps as initiated by the fact that any of us were still alive. They nodded us past them, ushering us deep enough inside that they figured they could leave us off with others to see to our unique position.
Identifying who was in charge of the brigade was a challenge in itself. Attempting to locate colonel Chaasa was comparable to searching for a needle in a haystack what with the living still trying to be searched for amongst the dead. The most we could settle for was a platoon lieutenant helping to direct the separation of injured from dead and critically wounded. A number of bodies among the deceased still moved, but I supposed were considered too far gone to have been worth the supplies it would have taken to save them.
Our tank was directed to come to a halt, and another kick to the hull from my boot was enough to inform Gan of that. We screeched to a halt inches away from the lieutenant who motioned I and the soldier from the 112th beside me to step off.
"Where's the rest?" the lieutenant asked.
"Ambushed," the soldier beside me answered in spite of having had nothing to do with the attack, simply having overheard enough during the ride to take the initiative into his own hands.
"You're with them?" the lieutenant asked, clearly noticing that the soldier's uniform wasn't one belonging to armored.
He shook his head. "112th, he said."
"Then get the fuck back to your unit," the lieutenant said.
The soldier who I still had yet to learn the name of, and likely wouldn't care to, did as he was bid and sulked away from the the 42nd's staging area back to whatever company he belonged.
By this point, Gan had already ascended from out of the tank's interior, joining the lieutenant and I.
"You the commander?" the lieutenant asked, still clearly looking for stripes that were present on neither of our uniforms.
"Dead, sir."
"Inside?" he asked, nodding his head towards the tank.
Gan nodded.
"Fuck's sake," the lieutenant said as he shook his head, no doubt having had to deal with more than enough casualties over the last few hours for this to be anything close to a welcome change in pace. "Get him the hell out then."
Doing as we were told, Gan and I retreated back to the rear of the tank, disengaging the hydraulic lock to allow it to creak open, requiring some manual effort from us on account of the warped metal, however. We managed to get it open soon enough, met with the quivering image of Gunji who still lay in a puddle of his own making.
"Out of the way," Gan said, shoving past him as he crawled inside en route to the driver's cabin.
The boy pushed his back against the hydraulic pipeage of the tank, looking up to me as though expecting me to come to his defense. He would be left waiting for a while. While I bore for him not quite the same resentment that Gan did for failing to act when we'd finally needed him to, I was far from being open to coddling him.
I made an effort to not meet his gaze, pushing past him to assist Gan in the driver's cabin where Dojai's corpse still rested in his seat, kept in place by merit of his safety straps alone, little safety they'd provided.
Dojai's face had never been a recognizable nor a memorable one, but now, torn to shreds as they were by the embedded shards of earth that'd pierced his flesh and skin, there finally was a unique aspect to him that stood out.
"Get his straps," Gan said, unable to pull him out of the seat alone.
There would be no unstrapping him, the steel of the floor bent in on itself, obscuring the buckle. The knife by my waist solved that minor issue though, freeing him from his confines soon enough as he fell straight into Gan's arms, the weight of himself finally too much to bear.
Gan caught him, dragging him out of his seat, a subtle nod of the head enough of an indicator for me to take his legs, which I promptly did. We dragged our tank commander out of his coffin and to where the lieutenant was waiting for us, pointing in the direction of the pile meant for the dead and those not considered worth saving.
Sure enough, if they hadn't stopped breathing their last breaths just yet, then they were inches away from doing so, lungs, stomachs, or other critical organs pierced by fragmentation or entire limbs severed altogether. The addition of Dojai to the pile wasn't a significant one, not even in light of the once gold stripes that adorned his shoulder pad. I pitied the logistics unit that would need to sort through the dead and recover said stripes just to slap it onto another poor bastard's uniform.
"FInd yourselves a hole to sleep in," the lieutenant said. "Maintenance'll handle the rest."
We nodded, neither of us about to object to the prospect of finally getting some shuteye. It'd mean pulling Gunji out of the tank first though, and with precious minutes of sleep on the line, Gan was not about to take the subtle approach.
"Come on," he said, slamming his hand on the hull of the tank enough to startle the boy, jumpy enough to think the impact of gloved fist against the hull no different from that of an enemy projectile. "We're going."
Gunji looked between the two of us, eyes wide with fear. I would have said he didn't recognize us, but I think that recognizing who the two of us were was about the only thing stopping him from screaming at the top of his lungs. Instead, he could only mutter the makings of what probably was a probably a coherent thought in his before Gan got impatient enough to say again, "Fuck's sake, Gunji. Gonna freeze up again?"
The boy's mouth quivered, refusing to cooperate with whatever it was his mind was so clearly trying to express.
"It's over, Gunji," I said, trying for a softer approach. "We're home now."
Still, he didn't budge, thinking the few inches of steel between him and the outside world his only saving grace. Little good that'd done for the commander.
"Fuck's sake," Gan said as a groan, clearly lacking the patience to put up with Gunji any longer.
An arm shot forward, clutching Gunji by the wrist before proceeding to drag him out by force. You would have thought that an animal had been caught in a bear trap by the way he screamed. It was fortunate that nobody else could have been bothered to pay any attention to us, and so Gan's abduction of his crewmate went unnoticed and unperturbed as he successfully dragged Gunji out by the wrist and proceeded to throw him to the ground.
The kid just stayed there, rolling himself into a ball as though trying to minimize the size of his target. He was gone.
"Find your own way back," Gan said, turning to leave in search of wherever there would be an unoccupied foxhole available to us. Given the recent casualties of the 42nd, however, I imagined it wouldn't be too hard to find.
I would leave Gunji there, figuring to join Gan on the way back.
"Shithead almost got us killed," he said.
"He froze up," I said, an obvious assessment, and perhaps meant as a justification of sorts, not that it helped his case much.
"No shit," Gan scoffed. "Doesn't change a thing."
I didn't bother arguing it. It was something that could be tabled for another time. And besides, I was too tired to think about it, to think about him.
"You're bleeding by the way," Gan observed, tapping the leather collar of my uniform that I couldn't help but notice now, illuminated by the burning fire as it was, a thin trail of blood streaming down.
I pulled off my helmet, keeping it clasped in my left hand as I reached up to my head with my right. And sure enough, right where I'd been hit and subsequently saved by my helmet, a distinct wetness. I didn't think I'd been hit that bad. Hell, I'd hardly felt a thing, and still barely did now, just a faint numbness.
"Got a concussion?" Gan asked, to which I shook my head. I knew what concussions were like, and this wasn't one. "Should still get it looked at."
I shook my head. A simple dent to the back of my skull was hardly worth the time of the medical unit, especially when they would be dealing with a hell of a lot worse tonight. "I'll be fine," I said, to which Gan didn't bother objecting, instead spotting a foxhole that still seemed reasonably habitable but for the tattered pieces of uniform belonging to its prior occupants.
He plopped himself down, leaving sufficient room for me to set down beside him. There was no need for talk now, not as the sun was finally beginning to rise over the woods to the east. We only had a few minutes to an hour at most before it was high in the sky, and we were going to make the most of it.
There would be plenty of time to worry about things when morning came.
Danev
It was no easy thing to even know where to begin in regard to picking up the pieces left by last night's barrage. The only thing we were capable of knowing was that delaying was going to do us no good.
We'd been hit pretty hard over the night, and shaken rather sufficiently. When the realization had started to dawn on us, however, that we'd been spared of the worst of the night'd offered, we changed our tunes rather quick.
But it was day now, hard though it was to tell what with the way both cloud and smoke joined forces to obscure our view of the sun where it rested lazily in the sky.
None of us quite knew what the rest of the siege camp had endured as we were ordered not to leave our trenches until given direct instructions to do so, but we weren't blind. We could see the smoke that rose from deeper within, the trucks from the medical company bringing doctors to the sites of chaos, and trucks from the logistics division bringing bodies away.
I'd begun walking the trench line after asking Murao if he was okay for me to leave Azao's body with him. A weak nod was all I'd gotten, but I had to check on the others. Surprisingly, we'd been spared the worst of things, and rumors as to why were already circulating.
"Earth Kingdom attacked from behind," Mahung said. "Just like I said."
"Fuckers didn't attack from behind," Chejuh countered. "We'd be dead if they did. THey attacked from the front. Just overshot us."
"How you miss a target as clear as us?" Tosa asked.
"They weren't aiming for us," Mykezia said. "Were aiming for the soft underbelly. Hit right where they wanted.
"Fucking idiots," Chejuh said with a sigh. "Put us right in range of the Earth Kingdom."
"They couldn't have known," Jame chimed in, always the advocate for the Fire Nation command structure. "They're using our guns."
"How you think they got 'em anyway?" Mahung said.
"Could've stolen them from the 32nd," Mykezia suggested. "They got hit right before us. Could've gotten the guns from there."
"Not likely," I said, choosing the time as one to butt in lest an inaccurate theory start circulating. "Were infantry companies that got wiped out. Wouldn't have been carrying artillery with them."
"A different unit then," Mykezia said. "More than one've been hit. Started hearing talk that a few armored patrols got ambushed right before they turned the heat on us."
Armored?
"Which units?" I asked.
Mykezia shrugged.
Damnit.
"I'm sure he's fine," she said, knowing quickly enough who and what I was thinking about. I nodded. I was sure he was too. He'd gotten out of tighter scrapes, but, then again, none that'd involved a surprise attack by hundreds to thousands of Earth Kingdom soldiers, if only that few.
I would have said something to that effect, but wasn't given the chance to do so as lieutenant Aozon's voice shot, breaking the brief silence, "Dragon Platoon!"
We were long past standing at attention whenever he addressed us, especially now where a good deal of us were too shell shook to stand, but we did at least turn our heads towards him, gracing him with our attention. He would need to take it as it came.
"Orders have come in from Brigade command!" he said. "The other battalions have taken a hell of a beating while we at the 59th have come out with minimal losses."
There was almost a sense of pride there, as though not being immediately in the crosshairs of the enemy was something worth celebrating. Then again, considering we were still alive to brag about it, I supposed it was.
"Brigade command has assessed the damage dealt to central trench lines as opposed to ours and has decided that additional work is needed to improve our defenses. Private Mano, you are being sent as a temporary support attache to the 112th to help fortify their lines. The rest of you will be pulling lumber duty again."
It ordinarily would've been met by groans in light of how we'd just come back from the wood around twelve hours ago, but nobody was arguing about the prospect of getting out of these trenches. I was hardly focused on the prospect of getting away though as much as I was on Mano being sent to the 112th. Even within the 114th, there was a deal of residual resentment for Earthbenders, mostly wiped away on account of us all being Citadel slumdogs at heart, ethnicity aside. With the 12th however, colonial born if not even from the mainland, that was a whole new can of worms, and Mano was being sent there alone.
"Lieutenant!" I called out, snatching his attention for myself. "Permission to accompany private Mano, sir?"
"For what reason?" he asked, narrowing his eyes as though suspecting I may have some ulterior motive. Why lie? I wondered. The sanctity of his platoon's strength was one of the few things safeguarding his position. He would be wise not to lose any more people.
"To make sure no harm comes to Mano, sir," I said, figuring Aozon was at least capable of understanding why it was cause for concern. And perhaps now with the casualty reports coming from the other battalions, he would think twice about so easily surrendering his men to death. "Figure we should try to keep as many of our men still standing as possible."
He knew what I was referring to-Azao, and the way his eyes did not lose their narrowness in the slightest confirmed it. All the same though, he seemed to understand my reasoning, and so said, "Very well. You may accompany him. Rest of you! Transports for the forest leave in twenty! Grab some chow and get aboard. Anybody not onboard will retain their post on the frontline!"
As good a motivator as any, as indicated by the men promptly standing from where they sat, en route for the siege camp's interior where they might get a hot meal, or, at least a meal.
I wasn't in quite as much a hurry, opting instead to find Mano first so we might grab our bearings and agree on what to expect before departing, but was stopped in my path by lieutenant Aozon, looking me hard in the eyes before saying, "If you have something to say to me, private, you say it to me directly. Not in front of the platoon."
So he does know.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"I didn't take you as one to play coy, sergeant. Was I wrong?"
Is he? I'd been careful not to say too much before. I knew enough about how the army worked at this point to know some things were best left unsaid. But this was man to man now, and if the lieutenant was smart, he would have come to realize by now that it wasn't him that was keeping the platoon together, and discarding one of us would mean discarding all of us. He was right, I wasn't one to play coy.
"Permission to speak freely, sir?"
"The fuck do you think?"
I would take that as a 'yes.'
"You allowed private first class Azao to die last night."
"Oh for spirits'-"
"He could've been helped, sir, but you chose to let him die."
"He couldn't have been helped."
"He could have."
"Then what? I send two more men over the trench to carry his body into the center of artillery fire? Lose two more too when they get hit?"
"So you do nothing instead?"
"No. You follow orders and hold position. This is what you don't understand, and the reason 'staff sergeant' is the most you'll ever see of command. There's a difference between being liked by your men and leading them."
"And telling them to sit by and watch their comrade die is 'leading.'
"Yes. You're a soldier. Your job is to follow orders even if you don't agree with them. I'm a commander. Mine is to ensure that a job is done. It's not a question of 'if' but 'when' doing your job means sacrificing the lives of some of your men, then you do what needs to be done. You decide how to follow your orders effectively, and you do it. Our orders were to hold position and weather the storm. My job was to keep my men alive. If that meant staying put to watch one die as opposed to sending two more men up above with a slim chance in hell of saving him, then that's what I'd do. Being a commander doesn't mean being friends with your men. It means understanding that, same as myself, they are assets, not to be wasted, but used and managed effectively."
"And Azao was an asset worth losing?"
"No. You and Murao were assets not worth losing."
I had no response to make to that. Not at the top of my head at least. He'd made his view clear. And is he wrong? From his perspective, his position at least, I could see how he thought things were that way, but…is he wrong?
"Is that understood?" he asked.
"Yes sir," I said, knowing that at least to be the right answer.
Aozon nodded. "Now go," he said, brushing past my shoulder to wherever it was he believed himself needed. Strangely enough, however, I couldn't find it in me to curse him out in my own mind this time. It was far from admitting anything close to respect, but, maybe it was worth considering just what his own responsibilities were as a man forced to send others to their deaths if, no, when the time came.
It was easier not to dwell on it however. At least for now when there was something far more pressing needing done, namely, watching out for Mano.
He seemed to understand the precarious nature of his assignment as much as I did, and so was hardly about to object when I walked up to him and told him I'd be coming along too.
It was a mostly quiet walk en route to the siege camp's interior, neither of us about to make small talk while we could see, in plain view, fires now finally burning out, devastated equipment being discarded, wounded being guided to the medical unit, and dead being thrown onto trucks and, when those ran out, the backs of horse-drawn wagons.
So too did we pass by a contingent of soldiers from the 112th, far more silent in their boasts about us replacing them on the front lines now. They couldn't have been at over two thirds their original manpower. How many had been killed last night? Relative to them, we must have looked untouched, nigh invincible. By the craters that littered the ground, we'd been hit to only a slightly lesser degree, but the disparity between how bad it'd impacted us was clear as day.
Their fortifications of wood and steel had nothing for the trenches, completely and utterly collapsed, now being excavated now so as to try and recover the men buried beneath, some still lucky enough to be alive. The fortifications of our own trench line had been stripped from the walls and stolen as though by a band of meddling pirates by the weary men of the 112th we passed now, but still, our line had held, and not on account of engineering, or better support, beams, but by something else entirely.
"We held out because of you," I said to Mano.
He looked down at me on account of the difference in height, a curious look in his eyes as he seemed to wonder just what I was talking about.
"Your earthbending," I clarified. "Saved our asses. Our trench would be dust otherwise."
He shook his head, as though unable to believe himself a part of the reason we were alive, much less the key. "I…I don't think that's."
"Look around you," I said. "Why d'you think you're being pulled back? Want you to work your shit on the rest of the line. Get it ready for another attack."
He looked around. There could be no denying the state of the rest of the siege camp, nor the influence he was meant to have on changing that. So too around us though were stares that soon evolved into glares. The other soldiers recognized Mano's uniform, the key markings that separated him from the rest as an earthbender. I wouldn't lie to Mano, make him think that he would be welcomed as some messiah.
"They need you," I said. "And they'll hate you for it."
He sighed, and nodded. "I know."
Of course he did. He'd already endured enough of it in Citadel to actually believe he would be seen as some conquering hero, much less a savior come to deliver them. As far as the rest of these soldiers were concerned, he was the enemy, a prisoner of war at best in their uniform. I couldn't see today passing without trouble, but that was my reason for being here after all.
We found and reported to the commander of the 112th, Lieutenant Colonel Charum, somehow still alive. His way of addressing the two of us felt already like an early, but accurate indicator of what to expect, looking at Mano like a caged beast, little more than a dog brought out for a hunt–helpful, but lesser in every way imaginable.
The way en route to the trench Mano was set to fix up first was hardly any better, drawing the attention of more than one group of Fire Nation soldiers, but it was when he set to work that the trouble really began.
One would think that having their trenchline and technical home put back together would make one grateful towards the person doing it, but such was far from the case as a few soldiers passed by as he worked, making the occasional comment along the lines of "Fuck's an earthbender doing here?" or "We're letting him build our trenches," or, the far more common, simply-put "dirt-eater."
Still, Mano did not acknowledge them, and rightfully so. They were little more than passing nuisances. When they started to stop in their tracks, however, gathering in groups to watch Mano at work, as though just waiting for an excuse to tie a rope around his neck and string him up from the nearest tree, it became a bit more difficult.
I stood side by side with Mano, sword still in my sheath so as not to instigate if I had the chance not to, though hand resting squarely on the pommel.
"So let me get this straight," a soldier of the 112th said. "They bomb the fuck out of us, destroy our lines, kill our friends, and now we ask them to rebuild for us."
"Recipe for disaster if you ask me."
There was no use in trying to reason with them, and help them come to the more than obvious conclusion that Mano, by merit of him being here alone, was an ally rather than an enemy. They weren't here to understand though. They'd just endured a night of hell, and they wanted payback. The Earth Kingdom was miles away, hiding behind thick walls and rows of artillery batteries most likely, and thus out of reach. What was within reach, however, was one of their 'kind,' sitting right in their trench.
They were here for a fight, and I wouldn't waste breath giving them more ammunition, but I wouldn't instigate either. Not yet.
"No fucking different from back home," a soldier said. "Family's house'd been up for over a decade. We start letting refugees in and it collapses, and guess who gets hired to fix it up."
"Fucking scum, ey? Killing us ain't enough. Want to come in and replace us, half ass it, and only make it easier for them to kill us again."
I had no idea how Mano was holding it together. Were this back in Citadel, I would have started swinging after the first insult. The second if I was feeling patient that day. I would have done so if the odds were 1 to 1, 1 to 2, or, as they were now, nearly 1 to 10. I could tell it was getting to him though. Even as he erected the walls, higher than there were before, reinforced and padded them, the words were getting to him.
'Ignore them,' I wanted to say, but how could he? Especially when their assaults only grew louder and all the more vicious.
"How 'bout it, dirt eater?" one soldier asked Mano directly. "That what this all is? Soften up our walls? Make sure the next bombardment buries us all instead of just half?"
"Nope," Mano said. "Just you."
Well shit.
"Fuck you say to me?" the soldier asked. Mano didn't answer, his face revealing that he was already internally scolding himself for having responded, but it was too late. There were no take backs for that.
"I asked," the soldier repeated. "'What did you say?'"
He took a step closer. One too close, and so I stepped to my side, into his way.
"Back up," I said.
"Fuck out of the way!" the soldier said, trying to push back, met only instead with my gloved palm against his chestplate, catching him by surprise as I shoved him back. He didn't fall to the ground, but he did stumble back, enough of an embarrassment to flare the rage in his eyes.
"Fuck are you doing protecting him? He's one of them!" He did not wait for a response. His hand went to his belt, for his knife, and he stepped forward, met once again by me, face to face as I leaned my head forward to ensure the steel of my helmet met that of his. We were only inches apart in an exchange that would have been almost intimate had the circumstances been different. With my hand on my own weapon though, knowing damn well I could draw and stick the business end into his gut before he could even think to slit my throat, that was far from the case.
"I said, 'back away.'"
Moment of truth. I was not going to repeat myself. If he stayed put, failed to retreat, steel would be drawn, and blood would most likely be shed as a result. I was not going to stand down, not when I knew what it would mean for Mano if I did. It was all or nothing now.
Thankfully, blood would not be spilled. Today at least.
The soldier let go of his blade, allowing it to slide back into its pommel before backing away. "Come on," he said to the others of the crowd. "Dirt lover's not worth our time."
A consensus I was more than content to agree to. I sheathed my blade as he backed away, turning his head so as not to look me in the eye as he rounded up his buddies to make their retreat.
We were rid of them, for the moment, but they would be back. If not those exact soldiers, then others. It was bound to happen.
The real enemy was just out of reach of us, and for as long as they were, when the face of the enemy itself was unknown, we would begin to see them in every shadow. We were fighting our own paranoia, our own anger more than we were the Earth Kingdom, and that was just how they wanted it. I didn't know when the next artillery barrage would come from them, if even we would. It wouldn't matter. The damage had been done. All they needed to do now was sit back and watch while we do their job for them and tear each other apart.
Colonel Eemusan
It was a miracle that we were alive. There was no other way to look at it. We'd only barely avoided being hit. All around the command tent, we'd lost equipment and men, including our very own personal guards. All it would have taken was for the shells shot around us to have only been slightly off in their trajectory, and we would have been dead. Had their intent been to hit everywhere around us, I would have thought to congratulate the Earth Kingdom gunners for a job well done, but no. Our survival wasn't by purpose, but by sheer luck.
Luck that Deming was not about to put to waste.
"I…I should check in with the other brigades," he said.
A pathetic excuse. It would have been simpler for both parties if he'd just said what he meant. He wanted to get the hell out of here, away from where hell rained from the sky, and where he was actually at the same risk as his men.
I shook my head, and not simply because I was keen on not allowing him to butt out of things so soon and so easily. I did so because the idea in it of itself was idiotic. "That isn't a good idea, daimyo," I said, turning his attention towards me with an exasperated look that might have been intimidating on some occasions, but now, without his helmet, hair damp with sweat, was only pathetic.
"Why not?" he questioned harshly.
"We need to assume we're surrounded, sir," I said. "Our armored patrols have already been ambushed to a disastrous extent. The 42nd is at a fraction of its manpower, requiring reinforcements. They're waiting for us out there."
"But the other brigades-"
"Have done just fine this long without you. They can handle a while longer."
Much as I despised the man's command, one thing was clear. He was in charge, and by his title alone, holding the division together. Losing him would be nothing short of a considerable blow to the siege. We needed him alive, and for that, he needed to stay put, little intent he was on that, however.
"Then how do you suppose we launch a counteroffensive in our current position?"
A counteroffensive? Had he not read the room? What part of him can possibly think we're in any state for that?
"Sir, with all due respect, the brigade is in no position to even think about launching any form of offensive movement. We're still counting our casualties and should focus more on reorganization. Our logistics are in shambles."
That they were. We were still running the numbers on how much we'd lost both in terms of manpower and supplies. By the fires that'd greeted me this morning, I estimated we were down quite a few vehicles and mounts. We were lucky enough that our own artillery batteries near the rear of the camp had gotten through relatively unscathed. It didn't change the fact though that we'd taken a beating, and our strength was simply not what was needed for such a bold move.
"We simply don't have the numbers," I finished.
"All the more reason for me to establish contact with the other brigades," he said. "You said it yourself. The 29th doesn't have the manpower to counter the enemy on their own. We should focus our efforts on re-establishing centralized division command and pushing back these Earth Kingdom nuisances."
He wasn't wrong. At least regarding the ultimate goal. But how the hell did he actually plan on doing that?
"We can't get word out to the brigades," I said. "Earth Kingdom archers will shoot down any bird we send, and you'll be ambushed the moment you're outside of our perimeter."
"We need to draw their ambushers out of hiding," he said. Draw them out? What exactly is proposing?
"And how do you plan on doing this, sir?"
"We spring the trap. Send mobile units out to draw them out."
"Sir, we've already had entire patrols destroyed by a mere handful of earthbenders. What'll make this any different?"
"We won't send them out as single patrols, but as a combined armored spearhead. They'll draw the Earth Kingdom out, and have more than enough armor to reinforce them and dispatch them."
"There'll be losses, sir," I said. Losses of my men. From my brigade. A fact the daimyo seemed to take lightly.
"But they will be less than if we choose to stay here. We need to seize the initiative, colonel. Before the enemy does it for us."
"Who do you suggest we send out? The 240th?"
"It was the 62nd that has already encountered the enemy, is it not?"
Do not tell me he plans on sending them.
"Yes, sir, but with minimal survivors. Colonel Chaasa did not survive last night's bombardment either. Their command is in shambles."
"But their men are more seasoned than any others we have. They were ambushed once. They'll recognize one if they come across it again, be more prepared, turn the tables this time."
"They're barely above two thirds strength."
"Then still at fighting capacity."
Damned technicalities, I thought, grimacing to myself. An archaic Fire Nation military standard that went as far back as the beginning of the war. If a military unit, ranging from a single squadron to an entire division, was considered to still be of fighting capacity if at two thirds of its intended strength or above. Below that, and reinforcements would be considered. Such standards fail to account for the difference that third could make depending on the unit, be it four men for a single squad, or over a hundred for an armored brigade.
Now, it was the perfect excuse for Deming to commit an already battle-weary unit to this maneuver. I understood his reasoning. We needed central command to be restored within the division if we hoped for anything remotely close to a fighting chance, but the truth behind the move was clear as far as Deming's own desires were concerned. He wanted out. The 29th brigade had lost its novelty, no longer safely housed in Citadel but now at the forefront of the war. His intent was to go where the wind took him, which hopefully was as far away from battle as possible.
To hell with it. If it would get him away from my men, then it would be worth it, at least to those who would still be alive by the time he was gone. Until then…there was nothing I could do.
"I'll give the orders then," I said.
I was met with an approving nod from Deming as he said, "I want them on the move by tomorrow." It was the nod though-a single action I somehow despised more than the entire conversation that'd transpired. The nod was approval for the fact that I was sending men who'd just barely endured hell right back into the meat grinder. But orders were orders. And so back into hell these men would go.
Fluke
"The fuck do you mean we're not getting a replacement?" Gan asked, aghast as he confronted the logistics attaché to the 62nd armored, a stout man by the name of Zurom who somehow had found a way to take care of his image even in the wake of yesterday's bombardment. "Our tank commander's dead. Pretty damn sure that's something need fixing."
"Your tank unit is at two thirds strength, operating capacity."
"We're a tank crew of four!" I said. "We don't meet that mark 'till half of us are dead!"
"And then I'll be able to offer a replacement," the logistician said, quite clearly failing to understand just why that was a point we were none too keen on getting to. He was doing things by the book, but with one outdated by what was perhaps a few centuries, unacquainted with the realities of combat, and to a frightening degree of accuracy.
"So you can reassign us to a new platoon, but can't replace a single man?" Gan asked.
"Your armored platoon suffered casualties of nine out of ten tank units."
"With only three survivors out of forty."
"That number is unimportant for this. One third casualties to a military precipitates reinforcement, two thirds casualties, reassignment. There is nothing within my power to do for your tank that I already haven't."
And what already had supposedly been done was a brief maintenance job that, after only a day of work that we had yet to see, did not particularly instill me with confidence. I supposed we would find out now as we were headed back to our staging area, knowing full well that in just a few hours, we were being deployed. Again.
"It's bullshit," Gan said, grumbling under his breath. "May as well fucking be at half capacity anyway with Gunji's bullshit.
I couldn't dispute it. The position we were in, our commander dead and another one of our crew shell shocked, it wasn't good. But that's temporary, I told myself. It was his first time seeing action like that. He'd snap out of it. We could work with three. Hell, Dojai hadn't been doing much anyway, just a navigator. Gan could handle that himself, or I could step in when needed. We'd be fine.
"He's just shaken up," I said, referring to Gunji. "He'll snap out of it."
"Really think so?" There was doubt in the question.
I wanted to think so at least, and so I could hardly respond truthfully to Gan's question, forcing me not to answer at all.
He quite clearly noticed the lack of one, the implication clear. "We'd be better off getting rid of him," he said.
Wait, what?
"He's just slowing us down right now, will get us killed, and if he's gone, we can get reinforcements. Spirits know we need 'em."
"You're talking about killing him?"
"Fuck. No. Not like that. I'm just saying, Fluke. Shit. Look at him. He almost got all of us killed. He's bound to get himself killed one of these days. Just, when it happens, we let it. Don't get in the way of nature and all that, maybe help it run its course even."
So letting him die then. Maybe even incentivizing it. Not exactly a far cry from doing the dirty work ourselves.
"Spirits, Fluke. Don't give me that look."
"He's one of us, Gan. We're not killing him, not leaving him to die, not anything like that. He's just shaken me you didn't freeze the first time your ass was on the line?"
"First time my ass was on the line was when you Hornets started bombing Jiāyuán," he said with a scoff.
Spirits, I thought. How long ago had that been? Just a little over half a year? It now felt a lifetime ago, the furthest thing from today. But how far off really? We were still fighting, just not Rats against Hornets anymore, but still fighting all the same, at war, only with sharper metal and bigger explosives. And still the Fire Nation acting against the Earth Kingdom and vice versa, just not through proxy anymore. All the same shit.
All the same, Gan's comment was not one of malice. Just pointing out the facts as they were.
"So you were newer then," I said.
He nodded. "Mhm. Fell for Janick's bullshit too just like the others."
So he admits to it then. He finally came around to believing what I'd said. Granted, it was true; the evidence was all there. It'd been his personal vendetta that, while perhaps didn't start it, did bring things to their bloody confusion, and like Gan said, he'd had everyone under his thumb. Well. Almost everyone.
"Not Reek," I said, remembering how it'd been him to warn us at the end.
"Him too," Gan said. "Hell, from what I heard it was him who scouted Janick out in the first place. He was just as fooled as anyone else. He just figured things out before the rest of us did, but…by then…"
"Was already too late."
Gan nodded. "All the same, when shit went down between us, it was my first time. I shaped up. I didn't, I'd be dead. Gunji got lucky to survive once. Don't want him dragging us down with him, when it happens next."
"It won't," I said, though I had no way of knowing that. Not for sure. I could just hope.
Gan seemed just as unsure as I was, but at the very least, there was a new subject to turn our attention to-our tank now that we were back at our foxhole, the armored behemoth parked directly beside and, somehow, still in one piece. I'd half expected the entire thing to be little more than a pile of spare parts, but the damn thing still held together. Barely.
The hull was still banged up, horrifically bent and warped, the marks of the battle still more than clear, but the viewport was unobscured, the tank turret hydraulics repaired, now capable of being used again. It was a patch job, but I supposed the best we were bound to get, and sleeping in the back, as we noticed upon passing by the open rear of the tank, Gunji.
Gan groaned. "Lazy fuck," he said to himself before passing by to ignore the boy for as long as he could until we were set to deploy. He didn't even wait to speak until he was out of supposed earshot. "I'll be amazed if the boy doesn't get us killed today."
I crawled up onto my usual perch atop the tank, looking inside to see that they'd at least done something of a job to wipe the blood from the interior. I could only make out a few remaining specks and streaks of Dojai across the inner hull.
My focus was drawn away, however, by the distinct scraping of metal on metal, and turning to my left revealed Gan already at work with his knife on the hull of the tank.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"What that soldier said."
I craned my head to get a better look, and saw what he was scraping–a single line, and so I remembered too what that soldier from the 112th had talked about–marking our battles survived. I wondered if we'd be lucky enough to carve a second by this time tomorrow.
"Should do the same," Gan said then to me.
"On the other side?" I asked, not quite sure what he meant.
He shook his head. "On your helmet. If I remember right, you took out two during that ambush, right?" He was. There was the first one that I'd shot straight through the chest and a second that, though I hadn't hit him, had been caught in the fireball. He wouldn't have made it.
I nodded.
"Should mark 'em down," Gan added. "'Fore you lose count."
I held my helmet in my hand, no longer the spotless steel helm it'd been when first it was assigned to me back in Citadel. A size too large though it was, I remember being so damned impressed by it, always a sight to behold when watching the soldiers wearing them as they passed or stood guard, now knowing I had one for myself. I remember trying to tell myself I would keep it that way, a wonder to behold. Now though, it was a far cry from that first day, dented, dirtied, and even bloodied.
What harm will another scratch do?
I drew the knife from my belt, put its tip to the top area of the helm, directly above the facemask, and made the first cut, the man who'd threatened to bury us alive, shot straight through the chest by myself and killed with a single bolt of fire.
Gan, done with his own on the tank, looked over to watch as I scratched my second, a man who'd tried to hurl a boulder at us and crush us beneath its weight, but instead had been consumed by an explosion of my making, killed as well.
And then there was another, one that predated those two and the battle that'd transpired, but went back further to where this really all began. I scratched my third, met with a curious gaze from Gan.
"There was a third?" he asked. "Who?"
"Janick," I said. "Back in Citadel."
The curiosity on his face did not wane. "That…wasn't part of this."
It was all the same war at the end of the day. Nothing had changed. "Yes it is," I said.
I'd killed three men. A year ago, I couldn't think myself capable, physically or mentally, of even trying with intent to hurt another. And now, three men were dead, and because I'd been the one to kill then.
I would not be given much time to swell on the subject as, soon enough, a horn from deeper inside the 42nd's position blared. We're being deployed.
"Fuck me," Gan said, climbing aboard the tank with a helping hand from myself as I sheathed my knife with the other. "Go wake the coward."
I figured quickly enough who he meant, and so descended deeper inside the tank to find him in the back, already stirring awake. I wondered if he'd heard Gan's comment.
"What's happening?" he asked.
"We're moving out," I said. "We believe we know where some Earth Kingdom soldiers are camped out, and we're going to clear away from us to get back in touch with the other brigades."
There was a look of surprise on Gunji's face, dread even, but it passed quickly enough as he simply nodded. "Okay."
Maybe I should have just accepted the 'okay' at face value, but after all I'd talked about with Gan, I couldn't leave it at that, and so had to place a hand on his shoulder to set him back down before he could rise too quickly.
"Gunji. What happened back then. You got scared. You froze. It happens."
"I know," he nodded. "I'm sorry, I just…I didn't know what to do.
"I know, but you do now. It's not just your life on the line, but mine and Gan's too. I need to know that it won't happen again. I need to know that when shit happens again, you'll be able to do what you have to."
"It won't," Gunji said, referring to the prospect of it happening again. "I'll be fine. I know what I have to do. I promise."
I didn't know then whether to believe him or not. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, that much was true. He seemed sincere in the moment, and he seemed aware of what'd happened. So, I decided to believe him then, to trust that it wouldn't happen again, and to trust him to do what needed to be done.
But some people weren't worth trusting.