Fluke
I still had my arm.
It was right there, by my side, invisible to me through layer upon layer of bandages, suspended from the ceiling of the new medical tent that'd been erected after I'd burned the last.
Oops.
I chuckled to myself.
It hurt.
Hardly anything didn't.
The only improvement was that the pain was a different variety now, a subtle numbness across my entire body rather than a sharp stab isolated to individual parts of it. Relatively speaking, however, even that was an improvement.
The only downside of not being in nearly as much pain was that I no longer had a single-roomed surgery tent to myself. Instead, I now shared one with what looked to be around two dozen other soldiers in a communal tent housing us in our differing states of disrepair.
It would have been nice to say that I was a special case, be it the most messed up one there, or perhaps the one most already on his way to recovery, but the truth was that I was middling more than anything. Appropriately demonstrating that were the two soldiers nearest me. The one to my right was in good enough condition that he was able to tell me his name-Shom, inured during the attack on the wall, of course, fracturing his arm on account of shrapnel.
He was chatty too, always striking up conversation with the nurse whenever he came around, asking about the situation at the camp, how things were on the front, one and on until there really wasn't much more to talk about. I picked up details here and there from overhearing, knowing that winter had indeed come in force, and that plans for future attacks were on standby for the moment. I learned as well in the midst of professional talk that the man to my side was infantry, missing his company in the time he spent here, but now was well on the way to recovery and set to get out in just a few days or so.
Lucky bastard.
Certainly luckier than the man to the other side of me, the opposite extreme. He, unlike the first, was in no condition to say his name, nor do much of anything else. His entire face was in bandages after having had most of it blown off by a shrapnel grenade during the battle. He'd been confined to his bed for the entire time I was here, being fed through a small hole where his mouth was twice a day. Were it not for that and the fact his chest rose once or twice a minute as he breathed, I would have otherwise thought him dead.
I wasn't counting on him going home anytime soon. I imagined the poor man would have died the very second he was disconnected from the number of tubes that kept him sustained for the moment, but for the time he was here, he was an ever-present reminder of the fact that my own predicament could have been worse.
All it did, however, was make me want to get out of here all the sooner.
That, however, didn't seem bound to happen any time soon.
"It's a big enough miracle it didn't become infected," one of the nurses set to check on our tent told me when I'd asked when I'd be able to fight again. "As for getting your arm back, don't get your hopes up."
At this rate, my arm really was no more than a suspended, bandaged, slab of flesh that would have been better off severed from my body, but I had to tell myself I could get it back, that it would heal, find a way.
"As for getting out of here," the nurse continued as he inspected the bindings that kept my arm suspended. "There'll be a medical escort going through the Serpent's Pass in the next month or so. You should be good enough to catch a transport by then."
"I'm not leaving."
"Ah," the nurse chuckled. "So that's you, then. One who made a scene?"
I didn't answer that. By the way he said it, it was easy to assume that by 'scene,' he meant burning down a medical tent and pleading to be returned to active duty. The whole incident, on account of the poppy milk I'd been forced to drink, was little more than a blur in my memory, but it was there.
"Well," the nurse clicked his tongue. "If you mean returning to the field, that's gonna take a small bit longer if you even do. Can't throw a one-armed man at the Earth Kingdom and all."
"Can use my left," I proposed, half-joking.
The nurse scoffed. "Try writing your own name with your left. Tell me after how good a plan that seems."
He was done with me after that point, checking on the others within the tent, feeding a tube into the bandaged man's mouth hole for a few minutes, then leaving the tent entirely to either resume his day or check on one of the other dozens of medical tents that lined the campground. I hadn't seen the outside in weeks but for that one attempt to run away from an imminent arm amputation. I had no idea where in the field I was, how near or far from the fighting, from command, from Danev I was.
I supposed none of that really mattered anyway. There were other things to consider first, namely making a recovery, but all the same, some company would have been nice. It'd been around 3 to 4 days that I'd been kept in this tent with only a few other companions in good enough condition to talk, not meaning they did. Does he even know I'm alive? I wondered, thinking in regard to Danev. I imagined that Lu Ten would have told him as it was he himself who'd saved me from my surgeons, but all the same, I wondered.
I felt naked, sitting here, especially during the Winter day. It'd become a lot colder the last few days, and so I struggled to reach down towards the left side of my cot where I kept my belongings–the bag I'd recovered from my tank and my armor and uniform, neatly-placed and folded on the ground. I found my jacket there too, the same one I'd pulled all the way from Citadel.
It was no easy task putting it on with only one arm, and even then, I could only half clothe myself in it, the thought of getting the sleeve around my right arm an impossibility. I settled for the partial warmth it provided, however. It would have to do.
I naturally turned to face my helmet where it also lay on the ground, and so reached for it too, placing it down on the bed next to me to do what I hadn't had time to do any of the days before. To remember the dead.
They'd confiscated my weapons, perhaps worrying that those of us in confinement and stays of disrepair such as this might opt for a quick end on our own terms as opposed to a life spent withering away. As such, I didn't exactly have anything to carve the numbers onto my helmet with, and would have spent the time just staring at those marking the lives I'd already taken had a voice not come from my left, asking, "Need a knife?"
I turned to look at where the voice came from. It was Shom.
"You got one?" I asked, knowing full well such items were kept from us here.
"Promise not to snitch?" he asked with a smile.
I didn't need to answer as the man had already determined my intentions for me, and so reached down beneath his thin mattress to grab the hilt of a blade he now removed, flipping it in his hand to offer me by the hilt.
I accepted it, naturally.
Though I wasn't planning on asking just how, it seemed that Shom was nonetheless in a mood to divulge his secrets as to how he got his knife in, saying, "nurse owes me a few favors. Let me keep a few possessions. Didn't seem to mind. Guess he didn't think me much of a danger with it." He chuckled. "Not sure if I should be offended by that, now that I think about it."
"Hmph," I grunted. "Don't think I've quite got that same luxury."
Shom smiled in response, then went back to what he'd been doing prior, reading a book by the looks of it, back to two propped up pillows, leaving me to turn my helmet in my hands, one of the eyes still blown out from shrapnel, and look at where my markings had last left off. I counted them again in my head. 42. Forty-two was what it'd been before that day. Since then, how many?
It was easy enough to remember the first, the one who'd emerged out of the wall. He was forty-three, that much was clear. I remembered his face easy enough, primarily how his look of focused determination had so quickly shifted to one of shock when he'd lost his grasp on the wall and fallen to his demise.
I made that first etching, and I didn't need to try writing out my name to immediately recognize just how right the nurse had been. It was far more effort than doing this exact same maneuver with my right hand. It was a simple downward cut, but the pressure was wrong, the angle of my wrist was wrong, everything felt…wrong. I had no idea how I would manage to write my name with perfect precision, much less hold a sword, bend an accurate spout of fire, fight.
I shook the thought aside. That could wait for later.
I remembered well enough too that forty-four and forty-five had fallen together with a single blast. Their faces I couldn't remember as well, perhaps in part due to the reality that they'd fallen together and so they're images blended in with one another. I did not have that same excuse however for forty-six. I forget how that one had died, however, only that he had, but I told myself that me forgetting his face was because the battle had grown to such a ferocity at that point that I hadn't had the time to remember what he'd looked like.
Nor how forty-seven had looked.
Or forty-eight.
Or 49, 50, 51, 52, and onwards until I began to reach the sixties, and I found myself struggling to remember just how high I'd gotten. I was on sixty-four.
Were there more?
There likely were, but how many or how few, it wasn't coming to me. Had sixty-four been before or after we'd lost our first hook? Just how many had I killed?
I didn't know…
I was stuck there, on that number, trying to remember just who else had died at my hand. How many people I had killed.
I couldn't remember for the life of me, and so just stared at that helmet, over twenty marks added to it, and still not enough. I really had lost count. Damnit.
"Everything good over there?" Shom asked at some point in the midst of my hesitation.
Snapped out of it now, however, I looked back towards him, clearly still waiting to have his knife returned to him. "I um-yeah," I said. "Sorry." I flipped the blade back over in my hand to return to him, once again by the hilt.
"No sweat," he said, reaching over to make up for my lack of mobility to grab it. In doing so, he also became privy to my small project, the helmet and its attached meaning, and so said, aghast, "Spirits. That how many you kill?"
I nodded, not sure whether or not to show pride in that feat.
"How many is that even?"
"Sixty-four," I answered. "I think. I…I lose count."
"Lost count," Shom chuckled. "This fuckin' guy." By this point, he decided what we were having was a conversation and so shifted his position on the bed, now sitting on the edge rather than lying on it, facing himself towards me. "So by a helmet, I'm guessing you're a firebender then."
I answered by conjuring a small flame in my left hand, keeping it there just long enough so he'd notice before quickly snuffing it out lest I burn another medical tent to the ground.
"Figures," he said. "Kinda makes sense then."
"And you?" I asked, unsure why I was engaging in conversation. Maybe it was because it would have felt rude to say nothing, or maybe there was a small part of me that'd gone without real conversation for too long and needed to hear the voice of somebody who wasn't a doctor. "Infantry?"
He nodded. "191st Company. Took some shrapnel to the arm during the battle."
I nodded, having already known that from overheating his nurse, but entertained his desire to divulge anyway.
"How about you?" he asked.
That didn't mean, however, an equal enthusiasm to be the one to do the divulging.
"Tanker," I answered, figuring it harmless.
"And your injury? I mean, shit, that doesn't look small. Hell happened?"
I fucked up.
"Bad luck, I guess," I shrugged.
"Hmph," the man replied. "Isn't it always? Still, that's an ugly looking wound."
"Broken, burned, and torn apart," I said.
"And they let you keep it?"
Barely.
I didn't have time to respond. I might have said something that would have clued in my bedmate to who I was, but he was sharp in spite of his appearance, and so was able to put the pieces together on his own.
"Ohh," he said. "So that was you, then? One who burned down his tent to not get his arm amputated and shipped off."
"Ah great," I said in a somewhat joking sigh. "So everyone knows then."
"Well, you don't just cause a scene like that and have nobody bring it up."
Fair. All the same, it wasn't exactly the best of feelings.
"Can't say I get it though," Shom said shortly after. "Taking a risk like that. Hell, I'm attached to my arm too, but I wouldn't let the damn thing get away with killing me. Worked out for you now, sure, but why risk it?"
I would have responded to that, maybe, though no precise reason had come to mind. Instead, I could only shrug. Shom, fortunately, would take that as an answer enough, and decided not to pursue the subject. Seeing that he himself was done with the conversation, I felt the pressure of needing to answer leave, and so I just set my helmet to my side, and tried to sleep.
When I next woke up, the man was gone. I couldn't tell how long I'd been asleep, if only a few pivotal minutes, hours, or maybe even a day, but one way or another, he was finally discharged, leaving me alone again with an empty cot to one side, and an unresponsive patient to the other.
For days longer he would be my only company, and in that time still, I never caught his name.
He wasn't as much of a conversationalist.
That wasn't to say that I did much to try to talk to him. It seemed that the man was dealing enough with his plate already just trying to stay alive. I considered the possibility of asking his nurse about him, but couldn't bring myself to do so. I wasn't sure what it was that stopped me. It wasn't a lack of interest as the man certainly aroused my curiosity enough in the time I was beside him. It could have been on account that the man's odds of living weren't exactly the best, and I didn't want to get close to somebody who'd more than likely be leaving in a body bag. Or maybe I simply wasn't in the mood to talk. Even I wasn't quite sure why I avoided him, but he seemed keen on returning the favor, and so never made the effort to speak to me as well.
Not as he stayed awake throughout the nights because the pain wouldn't let him rest, not as his nurse confessed to him that he would never quite look the same as he had before and that a full recovery was not to be expected, and not as others in the medical tent began to trickle out, not being replaced, leaving us as the few remaining there.
I was there for about another week after that until he finally did speak his first words for me to hear, and they were quite simple.
"Kill me."
He was facing me. Or at least, his bandaged head was, knowing I was there only by my presence rather than by sight, his eyes as bandaged as the rest of him, the only movement on his face that of his mouth as he said, "Please."
I didn't.
I wouldn't.
I would just stay still and pray that he thought I wasn't asleep or there to answer, but he knew. Whether he could see through the bandages or felt my presence in the room, he knew I was there, refusing to answer, to acknowledge the thought even.
He wouldn't end up needing my help.
He bit off his own tongue in the middle of the night. Bled enough with nobody around that by the time he was found, he'd already bled out. I was woken by the sound of the nurse calling for help from other staff only to realize that it was already too late. His body was taken away that morning.
I was one of the last ones in the tent after that, the rest having been discharged or succumbed to their wounds. I was one of only four left. It was quiet those days, and would stay that way for a time until I would get my first visitor who wasn't an ethereal entity or a nurse.
I'd had no way of knowing when he'd come in, only that I'd woken from sleep one night to find him already there, sitting on a small wooden chair next to my cot, almost asleep himself by the looks of it, on hand on his lap, and another on the left side of my bed.
"Danev?" I asked, still waking.
He pulled it back immediately, and my hands suddenly felt colder. Was he-
"Fluke," he said, as though surprised to see me now stirring. "You're-"
"Still alive," I scoffed, pulling my good hand to my side to help prop me off, feeling warmer than it ought to have.
He nodded, his eyes still wide, looking at me, as though I was a ghost. One couldn't help but think that by the look he was giving me, he might have thought me dead. Hell, I could only imagine what news of what'd happened to the 64th had been like from here, hearing how thousands of men had been cut down in the span of a single day. I wouldn't have expected somebody like me to have survived either.
"I imagine Lu Ten told you that much," I said.
"Needed to see for myself," Danev said. "Make sure he was telling the truth."
"Well," I said, trying as best as I could to muster a smile while motioning my arms to over-exaggeratingly present myself. "In the flesh. Most of it, at least. Nice of you to take your time in coming though so you wouldn't see me at my worst."
I knew it was a backhanded comment as I said it. I'd been here for a week. A week since Lu Ten saved me from amputation that day. And Danev had only come now. Why wait? What the hell took you so long?
Danev was a smart man. He knew precisely what I was really talking about as soon as I'd said it, and so if his expression was one of concern before, it became one of partial regret now.
"I wanted to come sooner," he said. "But things at the 114th, we…got hit hard too. I had to be there, make sure things didn't get any worse."
Of course, I thought. Man was a commander now. A platoon lieutenant. He had his own people to look after them, and I wasn't one of them. Not anymore. I didn't respond right away. I felt guilty enough myself now to have thought I had the right to his attention more than the men and women under his command did. I knew that putting me in my place hadn't been his intention, but all the same, it was an unintended consequence of him needing to remind me of just what else his attention had been on. But now I needed to know too, not just for the sake of knowing what'd been so important to keep him there while he knew I was out here, dying alone, but to know just what had happened to the other slumdogs of Citadel. "How bad is it?" I asked.
Danev looked down. "We got caught in their counterattack," he said. "Had our armor moving up the walls with infantry ready to storm the breach. We were making progress, but, at a certain point, enemy reinforcements came in. Too many to handle. Armor got pushed back, Earth Kingdom sent their guys over the wall to catch as many of us retreating as we could, and us infantry had to cover them. We got hit hard. Lost a lot."
"Who?" I asked.
Danev held his tongue as I imagined he was being forced to find the names in his mind once again, digging up that same pain and defeat. "Raosem," he started. "Holan, Mahung, Mori,"
"Mykezia?" I asked, interrupting him, my mind for some reason wandering to her, perhaps one of the few of the 114th I actually felt like I knew, got along with, as well as perhaps other reasons too. I had to know. "Did she make it?"
Danev shook his head.
Mykezia was dead.
"Oh," I said, realizing.
"I'm…sorry, Fluke"
What for? I thought. I knew Danev, knew him since Citadel and knew that he wouldn't have hesitated to throw himself in front of whatever boulder or arrow had killed her had it been an option. He wasn't the one who needed to be sorry. His men shouldn't have been on the front in the first place. The mistake wasn't his. It was my division. The 64th. We'd acted out of line when we shouldn't have, put personal glory first, botched the offensive, gotten people killed. Gotten my friends killed. The initial mistake, the treason, wasn't my own, but all the same, I should've done more. I should have pulled through, gotten us to the top of the outer wall, given other tanks the chance to follow suit. Hell, I should have killed our commander right when he killed his own messenger, when everything first got fucked.
"Don't be," I said.
Danev sighed. "Lost a lot more people. Had to reorganize the 114th and 122nd into a single company. Guess it simplifies things that Captain Amala died in the fighting too." There was a pause of neither of us talking until the silence would be broken by Danev speaking again to ask, "What the hell happened, Fluke? We heard from other survivors, but none of it makes any damned sense. You guys had your orders, we sent people to make sure they were followed."
"And Deming killed 'em," I answered. "Had his mind set to take the glory for himself from the beginning."
"Spirits," Danev said through a sight muffled by him placing a hand over his mouth.
"Tried to scale the wall," I continued. "Finish the job anyway. Went about as well as you could expect."
"And all the rest came back to us."
I nodded.
"I'm sorry," he said again.
"What for? Wasn't your division that fucked up. Nothing you could have done."
"Not that, I…I shouldn't have gone."
Stay, I remembered, the thought coming back to me of the moment he'd left the 64th, left me behind. Stay.
"Then you'd just be dead too," I tried to tell him and myself.
"I shouldn't have left you there alone," he insisted, louder now. "I knew the kind of commander Deming was. I should have known he'd try something, and-"
"And what?" I asked. "Would've fragged him? Killed him? You'd be dead, and nothing would have changed."
"I could have helped you. Gotten you out of there. Maybe-"
"Stop," I said, not as strong as I would have liked to, however.
"I should have been there for-"
"Stop."
It was louder this time. Loud enough that he did, in fact, stop, only looking at me now. I'd finally just managed to rationalize in my head why he'd left, and I settled with that fact. I didn't need him digging into it again, picking at old wounds. It was done. He left, and I saw the world burn around me. That was that.
There was nothing left to say or do.
All I could do in that moment was return Danev's gaze as he looked at me with the same eyes he'd looked at me with all the way back in Citadel when first picking me out of the Hornet jail cell. It was the last thing I needed then–his pity.
"Don't give me that look."
He recognized the look he was giving as well, and so stopped at the sound of me reprimanding him, bearing a look now not too different to that of a kicked dog. I didn't need the pity, I didn't need anything but to get out of here, back on the field where I belonged, not the source of one's sorrow as I sat motionless in a bed unable to do so much as push myself out of bed without help to use the bathroom.
"So why come now?" I asked, wanting to change the subject, and perhaps a bit curious too. "Nobody in the 114th left need looking after?"
Danev shook his head, seeming to almost regret what the answer was. "We were passing through," he said. "We're being sent out into the field."
And I was just on the way.
I sighed. "What for?"
"Division command wants our battalion to help in the search for wounded from both sides, put down any resistance, clear the way for us to expand our lines, make sure the Earth Kingdom can't break out."
"Everything out there is dead or dying," I said, having seen it myself well enough during my slow walk back that night.
"Probably," Danev agreed. "But a job's a job."
"Then you should get to it. Others'll be waiting for you."
"Fluke…"
"I'm fine." Fine as I would get anyway. There was nothing Danev could do about it. The man wasn't the problem, nor was he the solution. The issues at bay went beyond him.
"Just," he said. "Keep fighting."
"That's the plan," I said.
I would be soon enough, I knew. I wouldn't let Danev continue to be the only one of us fighting out there as he left to do so now. I was done being somebody to be pitied and looked after, unable to protect themself like I'd been in Citadel. I wasn't that kid anymore. I was a soldier, and I would fight for as long as I needed until there was nothing to fight anymore.
But that day was a long day away. For the time being, I still had a way to go.
Danev
That'd gone just about as I'd expected, and far worse than what I'd hoped for.
I supposed it was my own mistake for praying for something I knew was hardly achievable, however.
What was I thinking? I asked myself as I let the flaps of the tent close behind me. Show up only now while passing through, never check on him earlier, why the fuck wouldn't he be pissed?
I sure as hell would have been in his position, I knew that much.
I had wanted to see him earlier, I really had, but, with everything else in the 114th, I couldn't bear to leave them, not as they'd been left off after the battle. Mykezia was only one of many who we had lost there, it pained me to admit. I couldn't leave them to see Fluke, not yet.
I still should have come. He's as much family to me as the 114th.
But all the same, I'd had a job and a duty to those under my command, and we were soldiers. That had to come first. Before anything else, be them my own personal feelings or otherwise.
I shouldn't have come at all, I now thought, changing my mind on my previous thoughts. Not coming at all would have been better than coming later, showing that I could have come earlier but just hadn't bothered finding the time to do so.
Idiot!
I should have just let him sleep. He was when I got there. I just had to grab his hand. Stupid.
I did what I could to shake the thought off. It wasn't important now. The 114th had been given an assignment, justifying why we were here within the 217th Brigade's lines in the first place. I had to keep my mind focused on that. Not on Fluke's recovery, not on how much he may or may not have been hating me those days, but on the fact that the Fire Nation here had just suffered one of its worst defeats, and we needed to pick up the pieces.
Because damn were there a lot of pieces.
Not even our worst-case scenario predictions could have matched just how horrifically things had turned out for the Fire Nation the day of the assault.
Not only had we failed to take the wall because of Deming's actions with the 64th, but the Earth Kingdom had been given the opportunity to retaliate, to go over their own walls and rush our lines, and so they had done just that.
Nearly all of Deming's division had been wiped out, and judging by the fact that we'd heard from none of their commanders, it was safe for us to assume that they'd all been killed or captured, leaving thousands of other men dead. Roughly 5% of the 64th's forces had made it to the Dragon's Host. It was suspected that many had defected, and a good many more still were injured on the field of battle. Ordinarily, we would have expected the Earth Kingdom to hold onto the territory they'd captured, only they hadn't, pulling back towards the wall only the day after their victory, leaving hundreds to thousands of wounded on the field, both theirs and ours.
That was where our job came in.
It'd just been over a week since the battle. Other battalions from the other brigades had been sent in their own time to secure the battlefield, check for survivors, and clear the ground for us to further stretch our forces and ensure a continuous defensive line around Ba Sing Se. And now, it was our turn.
We'd already secured the desert fortress, the lines for many of the other brigades, leaving us just one final stretch, the old camp of the 64th brigade, my old brigade. I wondered for a time if the assignment had been intentional, but I doubted it. It was just as luck had it that the 114th would be going home to scour the remains of what we'd left behind.
It was mid-afternoon when I reached the 119th Battalion's staging area, and where the 114th company was gathered. I was greeted there by Captain Rulaan of the 114th as well as the rest of our men who weren't still recovering from injuries sustained during the battle such as Reesu and Shozi. I would have been more concerned for them had I not already been confidently assured that they would make full recoveries soon enough. Just shrapnel and a few cuts. Nothing nearly so bad as Fluke who I doubted would ever see a battlefield again. At least, not with both arms.
"Well," said Chejuh, now commander of Dragon Platoon Squad 1, first to speak to me upon my arrival. "How's the kid?"
"'Bout as good as can be expected," I answered, opting to take a seat on a crate near the trucks that would be used to transport us to the battlefield soon enough. Already, coal was being loaded into the rear steamers in preparation for the journey. They would drop us off in already cleared ground, I assumed, well enough from where there still may be danger lest we lose valuable hardware in addition to personnel.
"He gonna be back on the front any time soon?" Chejuh asked, persisting in his inquiry. I couldn't blame him. Fluke was a slummer like all the rest of us, sharing a common history. The issue hadn't been much of one before when there were a good deal of others like him in the ranks of the 62nd. But as those had whittled down with each failed patrol and disastrous skirmish, the survival of Fluke and his crew was something we kept looking after. Nobody here didn't view the boy with some degree of respect, especially after seeing the way he'd fought. I would have been so bold as to say that a few more growth spurts and battles won and Fluke just may have gotten his chance with Mykezia after all. The thought gave me a sad smile, but Chejuh had asked a question.
"Don't know," I said. "Arm's still fucked to shit, but…I don't know. Maybe it's best he doesn't?"
"And what? Get sent back to Citadel?"
Damnit, he was right. But still, with just one arm, how the hell would Fluke make it through the rest of this war. Even if it did recover, by some miracle, what then? Fighting through this bullshit for what could have been months, maybe even years yet?"
And would Citadel be any different?
"Damnit, I don't know," I sighed.
Chejuh didn't pursue the subject. He was giving me an out. A chance to change the subject.
So, I did just that. "And the situation here?" I asked. "All set and good to go."
"Good as we will be," Chejuh said. "Boys from the 122nd still finding their footing around here. Turns out Amala was a right bitch by the sound of it."
"We'll make sure they feel at home. Need to move as one out there tonight."
"Hey," he assured me. "Once a slummer, always a slummer."
I smirked. "Damn straight."
It was an unnecessary fear on my part. I knew a good deal of the men from the 122nd, and was confident that even with the way their numbers had been assimilated into our own, this being our first time acting as one, we would manage.
We had to.
We couldn't exactly afford to lose many more of us.
We'd come to Ba Sing Se with five-hundred slummers from Citadel. Now we were down to three-hundred, reorganized into a single company, and being sent out once again.
It's just cleanup, I told myself. There was no reason for us to sustain casualties. No reason but for the fact that enemy elements could still be out there in addition to traps, artillery targets, or any other array of things that could put me and my men at risk.
It changes nothing. We lose nobody tonight.
I continued to tell myself that as we sat in the backs of our trucks, six in the formation in total each with fifty men apiece. Captain Rulaan was in the head vehicle with Ant Platoon, leaving me to mine own with Dragon, in charge of reminding us all of what we were doing here, and just how we planned to do so.
"The other brigades have cleared out everything west of here but have been kind enough to leave this particular spot for us. Anyone want to guess where that is?"
"They leave the door into the outer ring wide open for us?" Tosa asked, met with a few scattered chuckles.
"Tragically not," I responded, glad at least for Tosa being around to lighten the mood when such a thing was needed. "You might remember the 29th's old positions. I'm sure you all know what that means." By the looks on the faces of those in the truck with me, a mix of amusement and determination, they understood. "We're headed back home."
We wouldn't go straight there, of course. That ground had not yet been covered and very well could have been in enemy possession for all we knew. As such, our truck escort came to a stop a good couple of kilometers on ground we'd already long since secured. One could easily tell by the lack of bodies polluting the land that such was the case, Fire Nation losses having been brought back to camp for logistics to sort through and Earth Kingdom casualties burned lest they spread disease.
The dead had been tallied, of course, from both sides. It didn't speak well of how the 64th had tried to hold out, losing at minimum three times the Earth Kingdom's numbers, but more likely around five.
It was around the old lines for what had once been the 42nd brigade where we were dropped off. Even though the bodies had since been clear, the signs of battle still littered the battlefield: caved-in trenches, craters as left by artillery, discarded shell casings, and the abandonment most of all, everything devoid of life.
The 119th Battalion deployed itself in disparate groups vaguely connected by company. Closest to the wall was the 42nd company, furthest the 59th company, and us at the 114th went right down the middle, ensuring no main or auxiliary trench line was missed. Though this ground had already been covered, we remained vigilant, ready for an attack at any moment, which was further reason why even our own divisions were further divided, traveling by the platoon.
I and Dragon had the lead on this one, meaning we were responsible for paving the way ahead of us, looking out for any threats that may endanger our battalion. The three companies were spaced out far enough that we were not in constant communication with one another unless by flare or messenger in case of emergency. Notwithstanding, losing either flank or our center to unexpected guerilla warfare would put the entire combat group at risk, so we not only needed to be flexible, vigilant, and fast on our feet, but a stone wall in case any issue arose. Because they did soon enough.
Tosa must have been just about two feet away from walking directly into a thin wire left standing between two trees before Murao, fortunately right beside him, placed a hand in front of his chest to stop him with a frantic "Woah woah woah woah!"
The company turned to look, stopping in palace for a fear the alert may have been meant for any one of them.
"Tripmine," Murao said, pulling Tosa back a few paces as though a single strong exhale could have triggered the wire I now saw to be connected to the spark-starter of a grenade strapped to either tree, ready to trigger both at the slightest push.
"Spirits," Tosa breathed out. "Thought the fucking 217th already cleared this place?
"Not very well, apparently," I breathed out, approaching the site, checking the two grenades. Yeah, I thought nearly out loud to myself. This would need defusing. "Match!" I called out. "Got a live one for you!"
Initially a soldier of the 122nd Company, a lot had changed since the first assault on Ba Sing Se's wall, including his unit. No longer was Private Match of Bear Platoon of the 122nd Company, but Corporal Match of the 114th's Dragon Platoon, filling in as our firebender since the loss of Mykezia, whose absence in our ranks was a void that the quiet man would never quite fill.
As befitting his reputation, the replacement shuffled his way forward from where he'd previously been at the rear of our line. Though the man was not exactly trained in bomb defusal, as the resident firebender, the responsibility naturally fell to him, most capable among us of mitigating the damaging effects in the incident of a worst case scenario, namely, an unwanted detonation.
Thankfully, the trap was primitive enough, Match able to disconnect the wire from the grenade quick enough to remove it from the tree and say, "Grenade's Fire Nation."
"Fuckers are using our kit too," Penar groaned from our ranks. "Isn't that just peachy."
So they were setting up traps in already cleared areas, using our kit at that. Damnit, we were going to have a night cut out for us.
"Alright," I said for the platoon to hear. "We know the Earth Kingdom's still operating here. Might be a main force, or might just be some scattered survivors trying to hold us off. Either way, can't have our guys moving to hold the area with them still here."
"Think they're clogging up the trenches to our rear?" asked Murao, newly-made commander of Squad 2.
"Could be," I said.
"Thinking we double back and clear the rear?" Chejuh suggested.
I shook my head. "Can't afford that. We'd be leaving the 42nd and 59th without a center. Would leave them completely exposed. We continue forward. Squads 4 and 5, double our rear watch. Make sure we get no surprises. Need to get word to the other platoons and companies too so they're aware.
"Want me to fire a flare, sir?" asked Rinu, another transfer from the defunct 122nd and certainly eager to serve at his new post.
"No. Would only alert any Earth Kingdom holdouts of our position. Let them hunker down or, at worst, set up an ambush. Run a message to Captain Rulaan. He should be with Ant platoon, then run the same to Ukao with the 42nd. Private Chazu, you do the same for the 59th and Captain Chorun. Don't risk running back with a response. Attach to their units until rendezvous. Understood?"
The two messengers saluted their affirmation, and so left to spread the word, leaving us with two less men, but the objective hadn't changed. We were still forward reconnaissance, and if there was a dormant enemy out here, it was our job to find them and eliminate the threat before they could do the same for us.
It was a blessing that the moon was out today. I imagined it would have been damn near impossible to safely navigate the terrain without it alerting us as to where the ground depressed as a result from artillery strikes, dead bodies stretched across the terrain, or where bombed-out trenches lined the field. The only detriment of this was that just as much as it made our surroundings more visible to us, it did, in turn, make us more noticeable to those hiding within our surroundings.
We relied in our strength in numbers, hopefully still more than whatever hostile survivors waited around us, but even so, we wanted to get through this without a single man lost. As did our own men, not about to let themselves be killed after the battle had already been thought. As such, panic was the first and most logical emotion felt when a hand popped out of the ground and grasped onto Tosa's ankle.
"Oh, fuck!" I heard him exclaim behind me, prompting me to turn and immediately unsling my hand cannon from my back, aiming it towards the ground where a gloved hand had near reached out of the earth. Only, it wasn't done as a form of attack, nor what it an arm that belonged to an enemy. Close as I was to Tosa, I was able to make out as dozens of hand cannons and spears were raised around me that the man who'd grabbed onto Tosa hadn't been an Earth Kingdom soldier out to deal one last blow in his service, but a Fire Nation soldier who just now finally was seeing his own men passing by.
"Help," I could just hear him groan even as less-aware comrades around him readied themselves to end the threat they believed he posed.
"Hold!" I yelled out before such a thing could happen. "He's friendly! Friendly!"
Weapons stayed up, but without a sword swung, spear thrust, or cannon fired. It gave Tosa the time needed to, in his panic, free himself of the soldier's grasp and for me to kneel down beside him and push off of him the body of a fellow Fire Nation soldier that had near completely obscured the grabber's person.
He was Fire Nation, alright.
"Help me," he said again.
"Spirits," I couldn't help but say under my breath as Murao was next beside me, crouching down to a knee to offer the soldier a canteen of water, helping prop the man up as he put the metal him to his lips to give the man the first taste of water that he must've had in the last week plus, lying here.
The man drank for what seemed to be an entire half of a minute, not stopping, worrying me for a small moment that he may just end up accidentally drowning himself before Murao had the sense to pull it away for the man to finally breathe out and suck in a full mouthful of air.
"Thank you," he croaked out as soon as his breath was his again. I gave him time to further grab air while now, finally, my men of Dragon platoon lowered their weapons, realizing the soldier as one of their own, and huddled around as though struggling for a better look, some quite possibly wondering if the man's face was one they'd recognize.
Most likely they wouldn't. I could tell right away that the man wasn't a slummer, but there still was equal chance that he was of the 64th brigade as not.
"You injured?" I asked, still keeping myself on a knee to ensure our eyes met rather than forcing him to further stress himself by looking up at me.
"Can't…can't feel my right leg."
"Murao," I said, prompting the platoon medic to turn his sights then to the man's right leg. It was a good thing for the moonlight as it allowed the man to give the leg a proper look, feeling around it as he checked for visible wounds, finding nothing but for a pained grunt from the soldier as he shuffled around with his leg.
"What's your name, private?" I asked the soldier to take his attention off of Murao for the time being so the medic may do his work.
"Private Juzak, sir," he said, raising an arm to salute even in his condition. It still was a strange feeling, being saluted. I'd only held the rank of unit commander for nearly a month now and rarely enforced saluting within my own ranks. Seeing it from somebody outside of my assigned unit, however, recognizing my authority by my patch alone, it was an odd feeling.
"What was your unit, Juzak?" I asked.
"136th Infantry, 112th Battalion."
The comment had soldiers of Dragon platoon instantly mumbling to each other. They recognized that designation.
"29th Brigade," I said for clarification.
The soldier nodded, and asked in turn, "You?"
"114th Company."
The soldier's eyes widened, a unit number he clearly recognized, and so he smiled. "So you boys finally come home then, huh?"
I returned a soft smile in turn. That we had, but our work here wasn't done. "We ran into some traps further back. Tripwires between trees, killholes, the like. That your handiwork?"
Of course it wasn't. I knew that. This man seemed to have been stuck underneath his comrade's corpse for upwards of a week now, just barely holding onto life. So, obviously, he shook his head.
"Know who did?"
"Back by the 42nd's lines?" he asked.
I nodded my head. "Earth Kingdom?" I asked.
He shook his. "Saw…some other Fire Nation troops moving back that way. There was some fighting back here, and they were chased off by Earth Kingdom. Must've…must've set up traps for them."
"When was this?"
"'Bout two…three days ago?"
After the brigade before us had cleared this area, and before our arrival. So the field really was still hot. That checked out, at least. It was good to know the traps weren't meant for us, but then why the hell hadn't we seen these other Fire Nation soldiers?"
"How many were they?" I asked.
"Earth Kingdom or Fire Nation?"
"Either; both."
"Couldn't say for sure. Maybe…fifteen or so Fire Nation? Twice as many Earth Kingdom. Our boys took some hits like…that one over there."
He turned his head and pointed towards a corpse on the ground, more recent by the looks of it, corroborating Juzak's story.
"Earth Kingdom pursued them and…there was some fighting. Reason I didn't come out. Wasn't sure who'd find me."
"Know where the Earth Kingdom went?"
"Back," he closed his eyes, unable to ignore the discomfort of Murao poking around, now attaching what looked to be a splint to the leg. "Back to the 29th's lines. Probably still there. I thought they finished our guys off, but…if they're still setting up traps, I guess not."
At that, he smiled, and for fair reason. Our boys weren't out of the fight just yet.
By now, Murao had finished doing his job, and so looked back up at me to say, "Broken" in regard to private Juzak's leg. "No outwards wounds, lucky him. Would've long since bled out if so."
That's good at least.
"Murao," I said, standing up. "Get Juzak back to the vehicles. Pick three men from Squad 2 and search for survivors back the way we came when you're done. We still got boys out there, and I want you to find them. Watch for traps too."
"Yes, sir!" Murao said, now saluting me too before reaching down to grab private Juzak below the armpit to raise him up, using himself for support. Even with Murao to put his weight on, the injured private grunted from the strain. He was weak. I could only imagine how he'd made it this long, likely needing to ration his water and that of the comrade atop him for a week, having nothing for the last few days. It was a miracle he was alive even.
"Hang in there, Private," I said. "We'll get you back in no time."
"Thank you,...sir," he said, raising his arm to salute one last time as Murao selected three more men from his squad, privates Zora, Sho, and Aomolam, and so proceeded to leave back the way we'd come on a mission to rescue the man he carried and as many more as were left hiding somewhere behind us, still believing themselves against the world if they were so lucky to still be alive.
Now as for the rest of us.
"Alright!" I said, ensuring the attention of the platoon was back on me. "You heard the news. We got hostiles ahead using our old home for cover. Keep alert, stay quiet, and search for any sign of the enemy. Mano, we can trust you to keep us in the know?"
"I'm keeping an ear our, sir," he said, giving me a thumbs up, noticeably digging his bare feet an additional half inch into the ground. His abilities had only improved with time. If there was a man I could trust to find the enemy before they could find us, it was him, and so I nodded, and we continued our march.
Slowly, but surely, the world around us became all the more familiar, though only as a hollowed out husk of what it'd once been. Where lines of grand tents had dotted the ground, only thin wire frames remained. Where once row upon row of artillery cannons had sat with barrels facing the sky, there was only a fifth left of what'd once been, four out of five stolen by the enemy, and all that was left reduced to molten slag.
Defeat had never been so certain as it was now, but for me at least, it was near impossible to think about how much we'd lost as opposed to how lucky we'd been to not have been here when it'd happened. And all because we'd been lucky enough to be at the front lines during the Battle of the Outlier, all because a single colonel who served beside us from the Dragon's Host happened to be the Dragon's son himself. All because he had shown us a mercy that nobody else ever would have and determined we were more use to him than to Deming. For that reason alone, we were the ones who had lived to see this day nigh unscathed. Comparatively at least.
Not all had been so lucky. The bodies here hadn't been cleared. I recognized the unit designations of the corpses we passed now, soldiers belonging to the 112th, 84th, 17th, and even the support units. My mind traced back to the medic who'd tended to Murao and Chejuh after our first face-to-face engagement with the enemy, Zurom, our head logistician whose calculations were never wrong, for better or for worse, and for the command staff who could have avoided this disaster if only they'd cared more about their duties than their personal glory. So many men killed for nothing,a dn the survivors hardly any better off.
My mind went back to Fluke, alone now with a medical tent to himself, wasting away, wishing, I knew, that he could be out here, serving, fighting, helping. I'd only made things worse, I knew, but all the shame, I shook the thought aside. There was no time, especially as Mano, near the front of our formation, just beside me, held up a closed fist for us to stop.
I knew where we were. I recognized the terrain here all too well. We were home. Citadel. At least, our battlefront version of it. And we weren't alone.
Mano pointed down below, towards the underground bunker that he himself had forged for us, carving it out of the earth itself to house us when the weather outside was unforgiving, to shelter us from enemy shells as they rained from the sky, and to give us a home away from home, located right between the Liángshí and Jiāyuán streets. The enemy were using our home for cover. Little did they know, however, that its owners had returned, and for once, home court advantage would not be on the side of the defenders, because nobody knew our own turf better than us.
"That's our fucking home," Chejuh gritted between his teeth as he took a position beside me, sword already at his side.
"And we're taking it back," I said.
"Got a plan?"
I nodded. "Mano, take Squad 3 and take up positions right above Nàilì." It was the name we'd given the sheltered area, named after the Nàilì district of Citadel, a reputed safe zone away from the conflict between the Rats and the Hornets. "Chejuh, take Squads 1 and 4 to Liángshí and cover the exit there. Keep yourselves hidden and stay quiet. I'm taking Squads 2 and 5. We'll hit them from the Jiāyuán entrance. Mano and Squad 3 will hit them from above at the same time, we'll take out as many as we can, and drive the rest into a retreat."
"And straight towards us," Chejuh smiled.
I smiled in return. "Remember, private spotted thirty, but odds are good there's more down there. This is a cleanup op. I don't want any casualties, so let's keep this quiet and keep this clean. Understood?"
I was met only with affirmation.
We had a plan, we knew the play, but that was only half of getting it done. What came next would be most important. We split apart there, each squad to where they were meant to go. With Murao's absence as squad 2 commander, I filled the role, leading squads 2 and 5 to our offensive point, past the old sign reading 'Jiāyuán' that we'd first painted when making this trench our home back months ago when we'd first come to the understanding that Deming would never rotate us out. It'd taken a complete transfer of divisions to finally have us part ways with it, and now, we had returned, ready to take it back. We hadn't been noticed, and judging by the apparent lack of fighting from anywhere in the trench line, neither had the other squads.
Already, I could make out Mano and Squad 3 in position above Nàilì, ready to make their descent. I could've sworn that I heard voices from inside the trenchline, but it was Mano's nod of affirmation and thumbs up that sealed the deal. The enemy was inside, chattering into the night, only a minimal guard, the rest likely asleep. There was no better time to strike. I nodded to my men, and weapons were out. There was no need for hand cannons here. We would be engaging at short range. As such, our swords were unsheathed. I could only assume now that Chejuh and his men were in place, me having no way of seeing them now. I would have to have faith. So, I gave the order, and as any leader should, was first into the breach.
I turned the corner. The voices were louder. I turned another corner, and could see the faint glow of a small fire lit just beyond. After one more corner, there they were, in what had once been our barracks, perhaps a dozen men currently up, four time as many asleep on the floor or in stolen bunks. They noticed me as I turned that last corner, but not quick enough. Not quick enough for them to raise their weapons, and not quick enough to even finish yelling, "Fire Nation" before my sword had pierced the screamer's chest and for Tosa's next to me to cut across the chest of the man beside him.
Though the man I killed had not quite had the time to finish the content of his yell, his voice did still sound across the compact room, turning the attention of those awake directly towards us, and inciting those asleep to begin stirring out of their sleeping positions, but not soon enough. Behind me, the rest of Squads 2 and 5 rushed in to join the battle cutting through at least half of those who'd been a wake as I cut through a second man, our comrades also intercepting roughly a quarter of those waking before they could grab their weapons.
However, that left three quarters of those waking now fully awake, still in their smallclothes, but armed and dangerous all the same, ready to put up a fight. They would not get the chance to do so however before above them, the ceiling suddenly opened, allowing in the light of the moon as well as ten Fire Nation soldiers with Mano at the lead, suddenly jumping down into the center of their position, taking down between five and six in that first moment, giving my own men time to resume the engagement.
I cut through the thigh of another underdressed soldier armed only with a spear while three more around me were cut down, leaving at most only half of the Earth Kingdom survivors' remaining forces, and perhaps understanding their predicament, they fled, down the only route still available to me. I needed to hold a hand up to my side to remind my men to follow at a distance. There was no point chasing them. They only had one way to go, and we knew better than anyone exactly where that was.
We kept our distance as we trailed down the corridor after them, and so had the liberty of watching these men make the last turn necessary, fleeing directly into the Liángshí trenchline into Chejuh's waiting trap.
Suddenly, the trench line was alive with fire. A dozen Earth Kingdom soldiers had made it out of the tunnel, thinking themselves finally free only to be caught in a blast of fire created by Match in an instant, torching them alive as they screamed for their spirits and families back home before falling to the ground, dead. They had never stood a chance.
Now stuck between fire and steel, the dozen and a half remaining men turned to face us, fear in their eyes alongside a bitter understanding. There was no way out. All it took was for a single man to throw his sword to the ground, and the rest immediately followed. They surrendered, and in the span of those lone three minutes, the battle was over. We had retaken our trench, our home.
Such was Dragon's role in the scouring of the 29th's positions.
As instructed, privates Rinu and Chazu had run their messages to the other companies, though it had proved unwarranted. The Earth Kingdom's organized resistance had been isolated to the 114th's old lines, and so there they'd met their end at the hands of the old occupier of those whose trench they'd seized.
A week and a half after the battle, not many more survivors had been found from either side. The damage here had been done, and would stay that way. The most notable news would be that major general Deming's body had been found, by the looks of it, cut down by mere infantrymen, no less mortal than those he'd sent to their deaths regardless of whatever rank he'd held.
Most equipment had already been seized by the Earth Kingdom's main force who, by the looks of it now, truly had fled back to their wall for a purpose I could only imagine. As far as command was concerned that night, however, we had retaken the 64th division's positions in full, finding that night nearly two dozen Fire Nation survivors thanks to Murao's efforts with the guidance of Private Juzak, now back at camp receiving medical aid. In addition, we had covered twice as many Earth Kingdom soldiers, our final guarantee by their unanimous hate-riddled assertions that the Earth Kingdom had left.
They had won their victory, and just as quickly, their army had left.
Nobody was left without questions. We wondered why as we returned to camp that night aboard our trucks, not a man lost between any of our battalions. We wondered why as we slept that night, and we wondered why the day after when the order was given that the 91st Brigade, our brigade, would be stationed to fill in the 29th's old position. So even as the 114th settled back into their new old home, I wondered why. I wondered why the Earth kingdom had left back to their wall, and found myself wondering as I looked upon those impenetrable walls again that new day, just what inside those walls was more of a danger than the enemy at their gates.
Long Feng
I didn't much like being in other peoples' offices, much less military offices. Officers had a tendency to treat their offices as no different from a battlefield, happy to approach a conversation as though it was a pitched battle, using information and words like infantry and artillery.
Ordinarily, I would have tried to have this encounter in my own office, but after my actions, I didn't get the feeling that the cards were in my favor to be making requests of general Hondu, especially as he questioned me now to ask, "What…the hell…did you do?"
The task I'd been given was a simple one, one far beneath me, if I was being honest with myself.
Finding a single rock hurler. It was laughable. My agents had tracked him down and found him before nightfall that very day. He was as insignificant as one could get. He wasn't a draft-dodger, deemed too unfit to serve. He hadn't lost parents to the war, his father having left shortly after he was born and his mother still living in marginal comfort in one of the lower city's better districts.
He hadn't had some grand political motive for throwing a medium-sized rock at an Earth Kingdom soldier who'd proceeded to greatly overreact about his injury. He'd been a bored teenager who, when taken into a safe room by my Dai Li agents, had spilled both his bowels and whole life story in front of us. I hadn't even needed to bring him to Lake Laogai for him to divulge every detail and secret he ever held without even being prompted. His bravery extended as far as blindly throwing a rock from the midst of a large crowd and not an inch beyond.
General Hondu's desires on what to do with the boy had been clear-to make an example of him. If the boy had been a legitimate threat to Ba Sing Se's stability, then I would have felt no hesitation in making him disappear. The only barrier to that, however, was that the kid was harmless. To make him disappear into the dark would have only presented Earth Kingdom authorities as all the more cruel, and incite further rebellion. As such, we'd let him go, dropped him off in the middle of a populated town square where everybody could see him on full display in his soiled pants, tears and snot streaming down his face, pleading for mercy.
My agents had had their names cursed, of course, as they did so, but not nearly to the same extent that they would have if they'd done what was asked of them and allowed General Hondu to make a public spectacle of a stupid kid.
As such, I answered the general's question in the only way that made sense–with the truth.
"I made a judgment call," I said. "Making an example of the kid would only have incited further rage from the citizenry. Capturing and releasing him demonstrates that we have a firm hand in being able to find those who violate the law, but that we also do not treat our own people as though they are the enemy."
"He brutally attacked an Earth Kingdom soldier."
"He threw a rock, and my sources have it that private Goni was returned to active duty that same afternoon. There was nothing 'brutal' about this attack."
"He could be connected to growing partisan activity within the lower districts!"
"I assure you, he isn't. My agents were thorough in their questioning."
Though they hardly had needed to be. The poor kid would have told me about the snide remarks he made as a school student behind his teachers' backs if my agents had pressed him to answer such.
"How can you be sure."
"I am," I answered. "The suspect has been returned to the streets, demoralized, made an example of, as you requested."
"You know this is not the example I had in mind! The punishment for striking a servant of the Earth King is-"
"Removal of the offending limb. I am well-versed in our Kingdom's laws, cultures, and traditions, generals."
"Then you should know that a lax approach is-"
"Better than an unproportionate response."
The general was not taking kindly to my habit of interrupting his statements, but Hondu would have gone on tangents for tens of minutes at a time if I'd let him. I needed to maintain control of the conversation's flow if I was to stop him from steering it into the ground and proclaiming victory for himself as a result of him simply having spoken more. My thoughts needed to be heard, and they needed to not be put on standby until my turn came.
General Hondu sure wasn't seeing things that way in the moment, however, eyes glaring at me. There was silence in the office for a time, until he finally spoke. "Assaults on Earth Kingdom soldiers cannot go unpunished, but there's not exactly much more I can do about this perpetrator now, is there?"
"If you're asking if I will divulge his information, then I will not."
"I figured as much," the general said. "Then I will ask one thing of you–that you not get in my way. If you are so intent on handling punitive measures in your own way, then my soldiers will handle preventative measures, and ensure that such incidents are not allowed to happen in the future, even if that means quick and decisive punishment."
What the hell does he mean by that?
"Meaning?"
"Meaning that I deployed my troops for a reason-to prevent a revolt, and I will do everything in my power to ensure that objective is met.
And so just like that, we were preparing for war.