Danev
We'd spent the last two weeks preparing for the landing and all stages of it: boarding the craft, the ride across the river in a variety of possible conditions including receiving enemy fire, and the eventual disembarking.
I would have thought that after all that, my stomach would have been more prepared when the time came.
I was wrong.
We weren't even halfway across the river and alrighty I felt like the battle had begun, but against my own stomach rather than the Earth Kingdom. So far, however, I seemed to be winning that battle, which was more than I could say for the rest of Dragon platoon.
In front of me, thirty-seven good men fought their own battles, each with varying degrees of success. Asaih puked his guts out over the side of the landing craft, while Shozi failed even to reach the side of the craft and simply puked in front of his feet, inciting the wrath of Chejuh in front of whom whose boots fell victim to the splash.
Mano sat on the floor of the craft while Murao in his good nature moved from one man to the next to see if there was anything he could do to help. Tosa joked about those unable to keep breakfast down until we reached a particularly bad lap in the waves that stirred his guts enough that he soon joined the ranks of those he mocked just seconds earlier.
Others, somehow, were seemingly unaffected. Sho took bites from a roll of bread he'd snuck aboard as though in insult to the others, Tisai hummed a song to himself, and Chazu leaned against the hull, noting that the water of the river seemed lower today, Penar quickly noting that he'd noticed the same, all seemingly undisturbed by their ailing compatriots.
I looked across the width of our line, and the dozens of other landing craft that moved forwards alongside us, including those of the 114th's other platoons, wondering just how many of them waged war against their own involuntary nature as well.
It was a small wonder to me now why Brigade Command had ordered we minimize our breakfast to only a single roll of bread and cup of tea. That wasn't to say all had done as they bid, but they sure as hell were paying for it now.
It was all I could do to not become a victim myself of my presumption that I could survive an extra half roll, now steadying myself between the halfwall of the landing craft and the canopy of the helmsman who, for the first time since we'd left shore, spoke.
"Approaching halfway mark," he said, loud enough over the breaking water for me to hear.
I nodded. I knew what that meant, and the announcement I would have to give as a result.
I steadied my resolve so as to allow myself to lean off of the wall and gather my breath without retching, and somehow managed too.
"We're approaching the halfway mark!" I announced, recalling the warmaps enough to know what that meant. "We'll be entering artillery range soon, so make any last checks you haven't and-"
"Incoming!" a voice came, I couldn't tell whose, followed immediately by a splash of water directly off our starboard as an Earth Kingdom boulder struck the river directly beside us.
All crew, myself included, immediately hit the deck as the Earth Kingdom's bombardment began, flaming boulders striking our lines in such numbers that I could have been convinced the moon in our orbit had broken apart and sent its rocky remains down unto us with hellish intent.
That may as well have been the case for how polluted the world became in an instant, boulders landing around us, all missing us, some just barely, by some miracle so far.
"You weren't kidding!" I heard Tosa yell out with a forced laugh, his own way of calming himself in times such as this. "Entering artillery range soon, huh?!"
The laughter didn't last long though, not when overshadowed by the sound of an explosion due to our port, set out immediately from the extinguished blasts that would find the water.
A single glance over our hull was all it took to see that an Earth Kingdom boulder had struck true, finding a landing craft of the 117th battalion most likely, though I couldn't tell which platoon, small difference it made, the platoon likely entirely wiped out in a single blast, whatever survives who managed to throw themselves overboard in time to escape the place fated to meet a watery grave as their armor would sink them to the river's depths, shallower than yesterday or otherwise.
What I would have given for Rulaan's reassurances right now, but alas, he was on the lead landing craft with Ant Platoon, still intact and rolling along, as were, fortunately, all other vessels of our platoon. So far, at least.
It'll stay that way, I forced myself to believe, even when, judging by their faces, the rest of Dragon seemed to be doubting that, the loss of one landing craft already, and another soon after appearing to dishearten them. I couldn't blame them, the sight of 40 men erupting into flame because of a single lucky shot reminded one of their mortality. All snacking, all puking, all humming came to a halt as soldiers ducked to their knees as though it would make any difference and the most cynical of men as I'd come to know them over the last near year now broke into prayer to spirits they would have only yesterday denied the existence of.
I couldn't let their minds wander in this way. We all knew how such thoughts, such fears evolved. I needed them focused on one thing and one thing only–the way forward.
"Final gear checks!" I called out. "Helmet and Armor secured?!"
There were some murmurs across the deck, more out of confusion that I was asking such a thing at this time, but murmurs weren't what I needed. I needed soldiers.
"Helmet and Armor Secured?!" I yelled louder now.
"Yes sir," a few scattered voices answered, but I was not satisfied. Not even close.
"Gas masks secure?!"
"Yes, sir."
"Yes, sir."
More voices, but still not enough.
"Infantry! Swords and spears at the ready?!"
The sound of blades leaving their scabbards part ways to ensure proper ability to unsheathe at a moment's notice, music to my ears, even with another boulder crashing down directly beside us, sending a splash of water atop us.
"Yes sir!"
"Yes sir!"
"Yes sir!"
Closer.
A voice from behind me, "5 minutes to landing!"
But I wasn't there, not yet.
"Riflemen!" I called again. "Cannons loaded?!"
"Yes, sir!" one voice from my riflemen all together.
"Infantry!" I yelled. "Arms at the ready! Riflemen! Fix bayonets!"
"Yes, Sir!" was one combined call from the whole of Dragon Platoon, accompanied by the sound of blades sliding out of scabbards and to the ready. And it was there I knew then that the time was drawing near, and that the soldiers of Dragon Platoon were as ready as they were going to be.
"We are 5 minutes from landing!" I announced. "Smoke fired from our artillery should provide covering fire, but the Earth Kingdom will likely still focus artillery and small arms fire on the beach, blind though it may be. We've read the maps, seen the scout reports, we know where their trenches are, and though you will be blind to, you move forward!"
Another boulder, immediately in front of us. Five feet ahead from where we were now and we'd be dead.
But we weren't.
"You get off that beach, you move forward, find cover, and we advance as a unit! Is that understood?!"
"Yes, Sir!"
"We didn't fight for our lives for a single day's worth of scraps for years in Taisho to die here! We know how to fight not because we are soldiers, but because we are warriors, we are Dragons! Is that right?!"
"Sir, Yes, Sir!"
"Then on your feet and prepare for battle!"
And so they rose, a wave of black and red now standing at the ready, the shore drawing ever closer. Close enough that we could see it all, the barricades erected to halt our transports, the pillars of smoke behind their lines from where they fired their artillery upon us, and their frontline, defended by bunkers, foxholes, barbed wire, hundreds of defensive emplacements with earthbender gunners, and us dead in their sights.
Where's our smoke cover? I wondered as I was sure all men aboard, hell, of the entire Brigade did.
It'll come, I told myself, but bracing still, knowing what was bound to come, clear targets as we were, drawing closer and closer. It'll come, I thought to myself again, but something still would come before then.
"Cover!" I yelled to my men, and so sooner did the familiar plink of earth against steel greet us, a hailstorm of earthen shards fired our way from precision gunners.
Dragon platoon soldiers hit the deck, most in time, one or two including Zora taking grazing shots, but nothing serious as all for the most part managed to get to cover in time for the Earth Kingdom soldiers to begin firing, and just in time too for us to be greeted by a familiar smoke trail overhead, headed towards the enemy for once rather than us, and there it was.
Along the coast, like a cheap magic trick, clouds of smoke appeared, obscuring the whole of the beach all at once, the consequence noticeable and immediate.
Earthbender fire immediately faltered in efficacy, some shards still managing to hit, but most landing behind us where last we'd been spotted, and some even hitting the water far ahead of us in a desperate effort to compensate, but the way forward was, and the coast was approaching, sooner perhaps than five minutes and not quite on land on account of the barricades that blocked our transport's way, but it would have to do.
"Lowering ramp!" the helmsman announced.
"Lowering ramp!" I echoed to the platoon.
And as soon as that ramp hit the water of the beach, the real hell began.
Betting on the Earth Kingdom to keep on missing was a bad move no matter the circumstances, even with a smoke cover as we had, and it was a good thing too we chose not to overly rely on it, a spray of rock shards striking against our frontline of shield bearers, the only thing between us and a bloodied mess.
Assisted by Mano who rushed alongside them to erect an earthen wall sufficient to take a good few hits while we moved forward, the front ranks of Dragon platoon began their departure, the rear ranks shambling to keep close behind, and a damned good thing to.
I'd only felt the whole of our landing craft shake and buckle, the anchor releasing from the sand and our weight suddenly shifting backwards as water began breaching our hull before realizing that my ears were dominated by a dull ring, the rear of our craft having taken a direct hit from an Earth Kingdom boulder while my back had been turned.
Our helmsman was dead, our anchor released, and half of Dragon platoon still aboard the landing craft as it drifted backwards deeper into the river, away from the beach where, thankfully, Chejuh also happened to be, taking it upon himself to keep the platoon moving forward.
It was up to us now to catch up, but we weren't going to do so on a rear drifting, sinking, landing craft.
"Over the side!" I yelled as soldiers who'd been drilled in such a situation already began to do so. I helped those struggling over as those closer to the front hatch exited that way, jumping into knee deep water, growing deeper as we drifted away more and more with each passing second.
I helped Tosa over as I saw Murao get Demee over as well before departing himself.
I would have been next out too, checking behind me to verify that the helmsman was indeed gone, which certainly was the case, along with nearly the entire rear half of our craft, but for the sudden realization that I wasn't alone in the craft, its other sole occupant a Fire Nation soldier face down on the ground.
I stepped down from the wall I would have leapt over seconds ago and found myself almost thrown to the ground by a sudden jolt of the craft. A brief inspection of the fallen soldier told me two things, that it was Sho, and that he was alive, albeit unconscious, having taken a hit to his head by the look of the blood that seemed down beneath his helmet.
However alive he was, he wouldn't be long, especially staying here as he was. I still remembered back to one of the earliest things we'd been taught in field training back in Taisho-how to properly carry a fallen comrade.
With the flames from the rear of the craft approaching and us drifting ever further from the shore, I clasping Sho's wrist, turning his body and seizing his leg behind the knee, lifting to place him on my shoulders.
The landing craft's exit was directly ahead and even through the smoke, I could see other men of Dragon Platoon slowly making their way to a shore that would prove an obstacle in itself.
One thing at a time, I reminded myself, taking one step at a time closer to the craft's end and the water's beginning, then took that final fateful leap into the murky abyss below.
I'd known that the water would only get deeper the further we'd drifted from shore, but just seconds ago I had seen Tosa, Murao, and others descend in water that'd gone up to their knees or their waist at most.
I hadn't expected myself, upon entering, to find water instantly rise past my knees, my waist, my shoulders, and my head.
Panic ensued almost immediately upon realizing that I was underwater, weighed down by my armor and an additional man atop me still. I suddenly felt a hundred pounds heavier than I knew I was down, forced down by the weight of the water, feeling my boots dig into the sand to such a point that, out of desperation, I even considered letting Sho go.
But that wasn't going to happen.
I don't know how it was that I found myself able to pull a foot out of the mud beneath my feet, but it was by some miracle that I did, and placed it in front of me too, shifting my weight forward enough so that I actually moved forward.
I could see the surface of the water just barely above me, lit more by the fires of burning crafts than by a sun obscured by smoke, but as the waves lapped against the shore, so too did they retract, and for the briefest of moments, my face was above the water, just able to get part of a breath before back against the shore it went and I swallowed a mouthful of water.
Still, I push, lifting another leg out of the mud to move forward, forcing myself to ignore to the best of my ability the rock shards that shot into the water, just barely missing me, as well as the flaming boulder that found the water to my side, the temperature around me suddenly rising for a brief moment before sinking once again.
Again, the water lapped, and my head was above, this time thankfully staying there, for my sake as well as Sho on my shoulders. Still, near my entire body was submerged and each step after another was a fight in itself to reach the shore as other landing crafts beside me faced their own issues, one managing to reach the shore only to become subject to a hailfire of rock shards as another reached the shore already burning, Fire Nation soldiers throwing themselves overboard just to hit the water and put out the flames.
How Dragon was, as far as I could see, still unscathed but for the injured Sho on my back and a near drowning Rinu who I helped back to his feet, was a miracle to me, and how I was alive just as much so.
But the water was finally down to my waist and the steady rise and fall of Sho's chest against my back was what kept me going even as earth shards landed beside my feet, potshots in the dark, thankfully not directly targetted or I wouldn't be alive to even consider my luck.
But before too long, I was on the beach, falling to my knees and yelling for the nearest "Medic!," answered quickly by Murao who came rushing quickly to my side, a rear echelon of support amidst the chaos of the beach already forming, thankfully.
Within seconds, Sho's helmet was off, a bucket's worth of lake water mixed with blood pouring out, unveiling the bloodied mess beneath, a laceration on the man's head that must have reached all the way down to his skull. By what miracle he was alive, I could not tell, and would have stayed longer to ensure the man's survival were it not for the medic's words, "Go! We'll take him from here!"
I nodded. He was right. I'd fallen enough behind already, and knowing what awaited Dragon Platoon and the rest of the 114th, I had no intention of not doing whatever I could to see them through.
Smoke still engulfing the beach, I continued forward, the Earth Kingdom's defenses having grown desperate, letting out everything they could on the beach, all directionless and misguided, but dangerous nonetheless. Rock shards riddled at the earth and the beach burned from the impacts of flaming boulders sent down upon us, myself grateful that the artillery they'd stolen from us had long since been destroyed or recovered by us, that the last thing we could have used right about now.
It was near the edge of the wall of smoke that I found my company, huddled against the embankment leading further up the beach and properly inland, the rise in the earth's altitude the perfect temporary cover for my men to avoid enemy fire, which I now threw myself against too, a trail of rock shards following right behind me as though guided by an Earth Kingdom spotter's seismic senses, though to no avail, his last projectiles colliding harmlessly against the earth.
"Lieutenant!" Chejuh shouted in acknowledgement of me, reaching up for a salute before a near hit on the embankment above him promptly stopped that act.
"Staff sergeant!" I answered. "Status report!"
"Platoon's mostly accounted for, sir!" he said. "Uzak took a hit and went down, but should make it, and same for Aomolam and Tiason!"
But no deaths, I thought to myself, a sudden weight leaving my chest. So far at least. Good.
"What about the other platoons!" I shouted over the sound of another Earth Kingdom boulder coming down, testament to how important it was that all of the 114th company regroup as soon as possible so we might continue our advance lest be stuck on this beach.
"We're missing Cat!" I heard Asaih shout. "They haven't arrived on the beach!"
"Their transport get hit?!" I asked.
"Can't say," Chejuh answered. "Sir, what do we do? Orders were to advance when all platoons reached the rally point!"
"Where's Ant Platoon?!" I asked, figuring that the answer to that question would have to come from Rulaan rather than me.
Chejuh pointed a finger to my left and so I had a new destination.
I left my position and continued to hug the wall of the inland embankment as much as I could without running into the other soldiers of the 114th, noticing as I passed the end of Dragon, indeed, the majority of our men accounted for, and a good deal of troops from Cat as well before reaching Ant, and the man immediately identifiable by his Captain's uniform, Rulaan.
"Captain!" I shouted upon reaching him, at which point he turned his head to me, eyes wide in evidence to his relief upon seeing another platoon lieutenant alive.
"Danev!" he shouted back. "Dragon Platoon?!"
"At strength and ready to get moving. The others?!"
"Bat and Elephant took some hits, but operational! Still waiting on Cat!"
"We sure they're coming?!" I asked, less out of willingness to believe the worst, but more reluctance to stay stuck on this beach while our window to advance rapidly closed.
"They're coming!" Rulaan shouted, but even as he said so, his words accompanied by a flurry of earthbender fire that caught Eekasu's shoulder, I wondered more and more what difference it made.
"Even so, sir!" I shouted. "We can't wait here! Smoke won't hold up forever and when it's gone, we'll be exposed! We should move now while the moving's still good!"
I recognized the look on Rulaan's face that followed-that of embittered acceptance, knowing I was right but reluctant to accept a change in plans that, at least in his mind, seemed to imply the loss of a full platoon.
But that needn't be the case, and our captain understood that, looking over the embankment than back at me to give me a nod and say, "Get Dragon ready! We move in sixty!"
"Sir, yes, sir!" I answered, leaving promptly to return to my platoon, hearing behind me the shout of Rulaan barking orders at Bat and Elephant to prepare their advance as I relayed our orders of the coming minute to Dragon.
"Hope you ain't comfortable because we're moving!" I shouted, finding my old spot alongside Chejuh and the other soldiers of Dragon who seemed to welcome the news, unsheathing swords and clearing matchlocks of sand and mud, all awaiting the whistle that would call upon the soldiers of this field the next stage of the battle.
We'd made the beach, I reminded myself. That's one step closer. Now just their first line, their infantry, and their trenches.
I swallowed upon the realization of what was ahead and wondered if the knot in my stomach was one in accordance with that grim reality, or perhaps simply a wish that I'd eaten more this morning when I'd had the chance. I put those thoughts aside, however, focused instead on what I could control-getting myself and my men over this embankment and to the enemy, through the thinning smoke, to wherever this battle would end.
"We're ready, sir!" I heard Chejuh say, but held up a hand for them to wait as the time had yet to come, that smoke wall ever thinning as more rocks and boulders shot through until, finally, it came.
A shrill whistle originating from Ant Platoon, and so the time had come.
"Go go go!" I shouted, standing from where I'd been crouched, sword drawn and already taking the first step forward. "Advance!"
The shout of thirty-something men behind me, and over a hundred to my sides, soon followed as we charged forward, through the smoke of our artillery's good graces, and into the storm that awaited ahead.
I watched as we drew closer and closer to the smoke wall with bated breath, eyes closed for but a moment as we pushed through, and bore witness to what lay ahead-smoke and fire.
The first line was as we expected–elevated earth atop which the Earth Kingdom had set up their fortifications with perfect firing angles down upon us. Their fire had still been focused on where they anticipated our landing craft were still reaching the shore and so would have needed a moment to retrain their suppressive fire on us–a moment we wouldn't provide.
Mano was first up, bending away the ground beneath the elevated pillbox that stood directly in our path, the entire fortification now without a solid base, crumbling and sliding down the earth towards us, eagerly awaited by Asaih and Shozu who promptly fired their weapons at the fallen gunner crew, dispatching both.
The pillbox was down, that area covered, a damn good thing too as another to our left had taken notice of the gap that'd grown in their lines and began laying down fire.
"Cover!" I yelled to Dragon, gracious for Mano just as I had been for the last year as he bent a wall from the ground shielding us and providing the time needed for us to reach cover.
We understood the routine well, and so I knew I could rely on Shozi and Asaih as I yelled covering fire, and the two, matchlocks already reloaded, left cover and lay down two shots on the opening of the pillbox, affording me the chance, while Mano maintained cover, to climb the remaining slope that led off the beach and to their level.
Suppressed as they were, the two Earth Kingdom soldiers inside could do nothing to stop me from lighting and throwing inside their barricade a grenade.
The grenade went off, but not soon enough, the soldiers inside having been given the moment, I supposed, to kick it away from themselves and reduce the damage as I could hear them running to escape now. Intending to cut off their exit, I approached the rear of the pillbox, met face to face as soon as I turned the corner with an Earth Kingdom soldier. A bender at that.
It was just as quick that he bent a segment of the pillbox, ready to send it straight into my head but for the intervention of Mano, removing a piece of pillbox wall to stand between me and it, the enemy projectile breaking harmlessly against it, my protection now a weapon as Mano moved beside me and punched it towards the enemy soldiers, crushing the nonbender with ease as the bender managed to dive out of the way in time. He did not, however, rise from his dive in time to prevent me from driving my sword into his chest, killing him.
The other soldiers of Dragon Platoon, the first line of Earth Kingdom defenses breaking before us, bringing us to the second–shallow tunnels meant to move supplies and troops, nowhere near as deep and extensive as the trench network we were soon to come across, but an obstacle in it of themselves, especially with the enemy soldiers currently using them for cover.
As such, we had to act, and staying on event ground, ripe targets for them to fire at with arrows and rocks would ordinarily pose no benefit to us, but that needn't remain the case.
"Crush 'em!" I ordered Mano who promptly took advantage of the opportunity and dug his feet into the ground before slamming his fists against the clay thereafter, sending a ripple along the Earth that nearly felled me, but did succeed in obliterating the structural integrity of a good segment of the shallow tunnel network.
It was not enough to kill the men present, but enough, at least, to remove their edge as they struggled to dig themselves out of the dirt, perfectly vulnerable to me and my men to eliminate with swords and spears.
Some managed to dig themselves out deeper and prepare a defense, including a pair of archers, but our own gunners were quicker, 6 forming a double-ranked line on pure instinct to take aim at the archers, and fired.
The pair went down without a fight. I silently congratulated the musketeers as I advanced towards a fleeing earthbender I had spied until I suddenly felt the wind knocked out of me.
I was on the ground before I could realize what was happening, struggling for air, met only with the sight of two earthbenders at arms against one another, one bearing the uniform of the enemy, and one, our own.
The enemy earthbender stomped into the ground, raising in front of him a pillar of earth, the top segment of which, with a swing of his arm, he sent towards Mano.
Mano dodged to the side and ducked to the ground in time to avoid the lower segment, sweeping his arms across the ground to create an effect that began as rippling dirt, but upon reaching the enemy earthbender, was a flurry of small pikes rising from the earth.
Had the enemy been slower, he'd have been dead, but such was not the case, and so I struggled to rise to my feet as he propelled himself into the air with a column at his feet. Elsewhere, Dragon was engaged in battles of their own, sticking to their training and sending Earth Kingdom forces on the run to their next line of defense but for a few pesky remnants such as the man with whom Mano dueled.
From around my shoulder, I unslung my matchlock, prepared to assist Mano however I could, which, admittedly, was rather insignificant.
From the air, the enemy sent a boulder towards Mano, which, rather than dodging, he tanked, tearing apart the boulder before it could reach him, creating a cloud of dust and smoke, obscuring what happened thereafter.
I could only hear and feel the earth shake below me, but by the time the dust had cleared, it had ended, and I was met with the sight of the enemy bender impaled by a pike of Mano's making, myself aiming only at a dead man.
I lowered my matchlock, slinging it back around my shoulder, and stood, a wave of relief surging through me, recovering my sword and advancing forward to clasp Mano's shoulder in congratulations.
To either side of me, our brigade was moving forward steadily, some still clearing their pillboxes while others already had begun charging past the pillbox tunnels towards the next Earth Kingdom line, that which we had known to anticipate.
The Earth Kingdom had witnessed us charge their trench systems a number of times, and it was pure naivete to believe they would change nothing after having lost one network after another. Lu Ten had considered the odds 50/50 between the Earth Kingdom attempting to hold the trenches alone as one would expect from their unflinching doctrine, but so too had their been the option that they would meet us in a straight fight outside of their holes, and take the battle to solid ground.
Such was the sight that we met now, a hasty line of Earth Kingdom infantry forming ahead of us, flanked by contingents of earthbenders, their rear secured by a still gathering rank of archers.
It was not a pretty sight, and though our artillery back on the other side of the river had done some work in scattering them, we were to be the final nail that would break apart their frontline.
Again, I heard the whistle that hailed from Ant Platoon, from Rulaan, and so knew there could be no time for consideration, for delay.
"Dragon Platoon, guns out, advance!" I yelled, pushing myself to the front of our ranks, now met face to face with our counterpart, yet another platoon or another company of another army, swords and spears at the ready to meet our own, stiff in their step as a good Earth Kingdom soldier was, as unmoving as the earth, but we had trained specially for this.
The hand cannon was not a weapon of precision. Not generally. Perhaps with modern innovations, that might soon come to change, but when first the weapon had been nothing more but an imitation of a firebender's power, its intention was plain and simple–shock and awe. And today too, it would be the same.
"Squad one, rank and fire!"
With that, the platoon in the midst of their charge slowed while squad one did not, and so headed by Chejuh assumed a line at the front of our mass, and fired. 10 bullets soared towards the Earth Kingdom line as I heard similar sounds of gunfire across our line as the method I employed proved to be that which the 114th did as well. Most missed, but some hit, but still, the Earth Kingdom line held.
Squad one slung their rifles and drew their swords as I now called, "Squad two! Rank and fire!"
Now came a second volley, and the Earth Kingdom line buckled, but men began to fall, more than before. Rifles were slung and unslung as squad three approached, and on my command, formed rank and fired once more, Shozi's own marksmanship unmistakable as his bullet found the clear lieutenant of the platoon before us, now shaking under the pressure and standing on the precipice between bending and breaking.
And so as squad four formed rank and fired, their fate was sealed, and their line broken, men scattered, scared, still recovering from the onslaught, the next move was clear.
"Dragon!" I yelled. "Charge!"
So into battle Dragon Platoon charged, and a storm of steel commenced.
My blade came against that of another Earth Kingdom infantryman, just having barely gathered his constitution in time to bring his sword up to meet mine, but still taken aback by the freshness and the strength behind my swing, his composure crumbled, his sword arm bulking backwards from the weight, allowing me the opening to swing horizontal and cut through his stomach.
A spearman to his left hadn't taken kindly to that and so lunged at me, myself just barely noticing in time to dodge to the spear's leg, deflecting its trajectory with a blade of my own. I brought my sword back to prepare for his second thrust and perhaps launch an attack of my own but for Rinu, cleaving his sword into the enemy soldier's neck with enough force to almost bring head from neck.
I continued forward, my attention now on an Earth Kingdom swordsman who fell the second I laid eyes on him by a pike of earth directed from Mano that dug immediately into his heart, felling him in an instant.
So instead I turned left, attracted by the sound of steel on steel, finding Chejuh in a contest of arms with an enemy swordsman. I darted towards the pair, almost running into a charging spearman of our own side who I witnessed get the better of a retreating Earth Kingdom infantryman.
I found the soldier with whom Chejuh contested and dug my sword into the man's side, bringing him to his knees, giving Chejuh the moment necessary to address a threat I'd been blind to, promptly lunging forward thrusting his sword over my shoulder into the neck of an Earth Kingdom swordsman.
Responsible for having saved one another's life, we gave each other a brief nod, and rejoined the battle, Chejuh to his squad and me to find my way to the front. We were advancing, and fast. A growing trail of bodies left in the wake of where the 114th was advancing, using hand cannons as shock weapons as infantry quickly cut through their scattered defenses, then doing the same as a fresh line of Earth Kingdom soldiers approached.
To my left, Chejuh and his squad made their advance while to my right, I could see the flames of firebenders cutting a way through Earth Kingdom resistance, Zihe likely the man responsible. Ahead, Mano took it upon himself to keep Dragon safe, and admirably he did, ensuring not a single boulder of a newly formed earthbender line could reach our friendly troops seeking cover amongst the bodies and the foxholes they'd seized.
It was an earthbender whose upcoming barrage Mano had missed towards which I aimed my matchlock, knelt, and fired. The shot was not my greatest and had missed, but had some temporary effect in startling the earthbender and drawing Mano's attention towards him, allowing him to bring up from the earth a wall of earth which he promptly toppled atop the enemy earthbender, crushing and killing him.
Joining Mano and the front of our advance now it was plain to tell from the smoke in the air that the battle was only intensifying, opposing earthbenders having joined the fray, likely reserves from their trench, and things were not about to grow any easier for us.
Sooner rather than later, the Earth Kingdom forces diverted to push back the diversionary attacks from our marines would be returning here, and I scarce wanted to imagine them added to the enemy's ranks, even with friendly reinforcements coming to join us from across the river, their numbers now joining ours.
"Keep the pressure on them!" I shouted, moving past Mano to slice diagonally upwards beneath the arm of an Earth Kingdom crossbowman who took aim at one of our own, names and positions of allies and subordinates now lost to me now, every Fire Nation soldiers just as important as the last as platoons, squads, and even companies began to intermix.
Lines gave way to the advance of our side and the retreat of theirs, allies and enemies alike to either side of me as was oft to happen, the sole objective of every soldier now one and the same–kill the enemy before they killed you.
Ahead of me a Fire Nation soldier's head was near taken off by a flying discus that smacked right into his helmet, about the only thing saving him from a decapitation, but I imagined not death beneath that metal bucket.
The earthbender at me next hurled a similar disc which I just barely managed to drop to the ground in time to avoid in a near slide, scrambling to get back to my feet in time to face him, quick, but not quick enough.
Already with a rock raised to kill me, I would have thought myself on the ropes were it not for a Fire Nation musketeer who sliced his bayonet across the earthbender's belly, spilling blood and guts alike as he collapsed to his knee only to be finished with that same bayonet, entered through the bender's back and exiting through his heart.
The Fire Nation soldier responsible afforded me only a single glance before a crossbow bolt found his neck, killing him.
I would have killed the crossbowman myself had a Fire Nation's sword not cleaved into his shoulder. I turned my attention back to the enemy, my eyes glancing across the dead Fire Nation soldier who'd saved my life by my feet, face down in the mud, wondering if he was one of mine, but deciding after the dead could be counted when the battle was done.
I stepped over his body, leaping over a foxhole occupied by two scorched Earth Kingdom soldiers to catch a retreating Earth Kingdom soldier, driving my sword into his back and forcing him to the ground. As I did so it was impossible not to notice the ground shaking beneath me, a growing splinter in the earth as created by an enemy earthbender splitting the layer of soil, mud, and rock beneath me.
Scrambling over the growing divide, I rose back to my feet and, catching an Earth Kingdom soldier whose footing had been disrupted by the groundquake, facing the ground, I swung my blade upwards, catching him in the face with its edge, not daring to turn to see his split head fall to the ground, but instead rushing ahead past a mass of skirmishing soldiers towards the earthbender.
Already the earth had begun in our general area to change form, pillars of earth rising from beneath the top layer to begin pounding at friendly soldiers who came too close, claiming at least half a dozen of the Fire Nation's own. It was to his own disservice that the advance of my part of the frontline had taken me past him, his focus diverted in the wrong direction. I felt rather confident too as I made my charge towards him, sword at the ready, but I would not get so lucky.
Perhaps it was something similar to Mano, having been able to feel the enemy tunneling beneath the ground all those months ago, but it was just at the perfect moment, for him, that his head turned to face me, and from the ground with a single stomp, a half-pillar emerged and slammed me in the chest.
Sword fell from my hands, and me to the ground after it.
I ignored the tightness of the chestplate having warped itself around my chest from the impact and focused instead on the earthbender having raised a chunk of earth above me, ready to crush me with it.
Shrouded by its shadow, I rolled to the side as it fell to the ground beside me, now between me and my sword, leaving me virtually unarmed, but only for a moment.
I reached for my matchlock behind my back as the earthbender realized my corpse was not beneath his boulder, but rather, standing and ready to fire.
Just as soon as I had fired, a pillar of earth had risen in front of him to tank the bullet, and it became painfully obvious to me that, from a range, I was as good as worthless, and so I sought quickly to remedy that.
The earthbender would have found as soon as he lowered that pillar that I was only a couple of feet away, matchlock and bayonet raised, ready to strike.
He, however, was quick, and so the blade only caught the scarf around the soldier's head, grazing the skin beneath, a near miss.
I felt the weight of the gun in my hands shift as the earthbender took hold and bent it away from him, shifting my weight as well, bringing me eye to eye with the man, brows furrowed above hateful green eyes, an aged bearded face shifting into a growl that reminded me so much of a wild animal. He was stronger than me, and quite considerably, his free hand clenching into a fist to punch me in the stomach, the chestplate I wore only helping so much.
He was much stronger than me, but I didn't survive Taisho by being the biggest meanest son of a bitch. At least, I hadn't always.
It was a good spit, I gave myself that much, catching the earthbender right in the eye, distracting him for the moment needed for me to slam my helmeted head against his. The impact was mostly of metal against metal, helmet against helmet, but it had the desired effect in taking him aback long enough that I could let go of my matchlock and drop low.
My right hand found its place naturally at my belt–Riu's knife.
Taking hold of it, I released it from my belt and raised it to sink it into the earthbender's gut only for a bare hand to snatch my wrist as I rose, a hateful face looking down on me as he held in his left hand my wrist and in his left, a floating rock he was ready to bring down atop me.
I would be dead in seconds I knew, my armed right hand useless, but my left still free.
And so, I let go.
Riu's knife fell, lost, and my left hand found it. Using the earthbender's arm, as strong as a sturdy tree's branch, I lifted myself up, grip on the knife secured as I too saw his left arm come down, only one of us destined to succeed, but I was just that one second quicker.
Riu's knife found the earthbender's neck, and earth fell harmlessly to the ground beside me.
Green eyes looked into mine once more, and softened along with his grip as he fell to the ground, dead.
It was an endeavor to catch my breath. Much more of one to recover my sword and my matchlock, both having seen better days, from the ground. And by the time I had, I would lift my head to find that the war had not stopped in my absence, and our forces had pushed ahead past a sea of bodies, and now moved one to the final objective of this battle-the enemy's trench.
They weren't the only ones finding their way towards the Earth Kingdom trenchline, its very defenders doing the same, their effort at fighting in a pitched battle above a failure, their last resort now one of maintaining a stiff defense, but it would be too little too late.
They'd overplayed their hand in attempting to meet us face to face on the field, we'd crushed their resolve, and they would be assuming positions in their trenches now defeated, Fire Nation soldiers on their heels. I almost felt bad for them, but there would be time to spare sympathy once the battle was over, but now, as the battle still waged and I ran, sword in hand, to join the other Fire Nation soldiers bombarding their enemy's trench, I put it aside.
There was a battle to win.
It was in a full toe sprint that I ran, past wounded soldiers, over dead ones, and finally, do the den of the enemy, a grenade in the hand which my sword did not hold, armed, and this time, cooked long enough to ensure the Earth Kingdom not be given the time to react.
And sure enough, they did not. Throwing it ahead of me, the grenade fell perfectly into the trench and exploded a second later just as I threw myself to the ground to avoid any ricochet of shrapnel.
Just as quick, I had scrambled back to my feet. Though I couldn't see the soldiers within the trenches, I could hear, I could feel through the earth, as though an earthbender myself, the scrambling feet of enemy forces desperately attempting to assume defensive formations, dig in, retreat, whatever, and knew we had a slim window to stop it.
I had no way of knowing where in the formation I was, if even there was a formation to speak of, but I saw enough ceramic skulls surrounding me to know that I was in the presence of firebenders, one of them possibly Zihe, or possibly not. The order wasn't mine to give, but I gave it anyway.
"Firebenders!" I shouted. "Burn out those rats!"
The order did not go unanswered. Nonbender infantry slowed down knowing what to anticipate and firebenders approached the line from the varying locations they'd been scattered at through the battleground, but regardless, found their way to the trench, and so the earth was lit aflame.
Into the trenches the firebenders released their fury, spouts of flame pouring into the congested lines, burning Earth Kingdom soldiers who sought desperately for escape, but found none as the raging fires like rushing water found its way into every nook and cranny, the screaming of men indistinguishable from the hiss and howl of flames continued, now spreading throughout the line, one group of firebenders having gotten the memo after the next, the flames extending for what could have even been more than a mile of continuous trenches until, finally, it ended.
And for the briefest of seconds, there was silence. No roar of flame, no scream of pain, no beat to my heart, my breath held, forcing myself to swallow down the terror I had ordered, but it would all be for nothing if we stopped now. We had to end the battle, and end it now before more could burn, on our side or theirs.
I could mentally disparage myself later, but that had to wait for the battle to be won, and so for the moment, I yelled again for any soldiers of Dragon around to hear, "Into the trenches, now!," accompanied by a whistle I recognized, that of Rulaan with the rest of the 114th, I imagined, delivering that selfsame order.
Then with all of us on the same page, I knew there was nothing to stop us, and so past the firebenders who were still recollecting themselves with the sight of the burned corpses that'd been their making, I dropped into the trench, my foot finding immediately the hollowed ashen husk of a charred Earth Kingdom soldier.
Later, I reminded myself as I grimaced and tore my foot from the body, resolved to keep moving. The Earth Kingdom wasn't done fighting and, as such, neither were we.
Those who hadn't perished in the storm of fire had been those that'd retreated into the caverns and tunnels of the trench line, and, as such, would be the most difficult to uproot. As soon as I had jumped in, they had already begun to re-emerge, knowing our own forces would be leaping in as well, and it was one such soldier who emerged in a shout of fury that I met with a sword in his chest, and kicked off of my blade so he may fall to the ground.
Another soldier had been behind him, a crossbowman, and as soon as his comrade had fallen had let off a shot that, had I not moved, would have pierced my skull as though it were butter.
It did, however, graze the size of my helmet with a scathing screech that left a noticeable ring in my ear. It was enough to distract me for the few moments it'd taken the crossbowman to discard his bow and switch to a sword, approaching within killing distance of me without me even having noticed.
It was entirely possible too that my life would have been his for the taking had a shot not ringed out and killed the Earth Kingdom soldier.
A single turn of my head was all it took to see that the soldier responsible was Shozi, still alive, of much relief to me.
"Boy am I glad to see you," I said through a scoff, clapping his shoulder pauldron as he reloaded his matchlock.
"Same goes for you," he said. "Lost track of 'bout all of Dragon during that shitstorm up there."
"Yeah, well, shit's still storming," I qualified, motioning towards the tunnel the two most recent Earth Kingdom soldiers had emerged from.
"Firebender?" Shozi suggested, now loading the bullet after having finished with his blasting jelly and powder charge.
I shook my head. "No time." I did not need to elaborate on the fact that our firebenders were busy elsewhere, that by the time they arrived, the Earth Kingdom soldiers could have drastically changed positions, or any other number of things. Shozi simply nodded his head, and as soon as he had done so, said, "Right behind you."
Nodding to Shozi, I drew my own matchlock and moved with him entering a side passage of the trench tunnel, clear in a relative sense, but the sounds of fighting throughout the trench still clear to us, advising us that safety was anything but close.
It was only a side passageway we passed through, likely meant as a temporary shelter in the event of the exact hell we'd wrought upon the Earth Kingdom, but it was when passing through and returning to the main outdoor trench line that we found our trouble, enemy soldiers having emerged from their own hovels to reclaim their trenches.
It would be to no avail.
Shozi noticed first and likewise fired first, catching an Earth Kingdom spearman right in the heart. He fell to the ground with a thump and Shozi turned to reload as I fired a shot at the Earth Kingdom swordsman behind him, nailing my shot as well.
I would have begun to reload too had the sound of a shout not alerted me and I turned to see that behind the two of us was another Earth Kingdom spearman, weapon raised about ready to impale Shozi through the back.
With my matchlock's butt, I managed in time to deflect the soldier's strike away from Shozi, grappling him and pushing him against the wall. The soldier, however, was resilient, landing a kick to my thigh, sending me a step backwards that could have proved my undoing had Shozi not, rifle still unloaded, slammed its butt against the soldier's face, knocking him back yet again.
From there, it was simple to push the soldier back against the wall, giving Shozi the opportunity needed to fully finish his matchlock's reload, and put a bullet with a hollow bang into the enemy's head.
He slumped to the ground, allowing me to finally step back and reload my matchlock as well, recovering the powder, charge, and bullet necessary from my belt to restore its lethality.
In that time, more Fire Nation soldiers had begun entering our trench segment, rendering it, for the moment, secured. They poured like running water into the main trench network, leaving the side passages and subterranean hovels to me and Shozi who proceeded to our next, through a small corridor to, judging by the smell of rot alone, was a field hospital.
And intent on defending their wounded they were, an earthbender's rock heading our way as soon as we'd entered sight. Dodging to either side of the doorway, the rock only struck the door corner, and faced with an earthbender underground as we were, I feared the worst, but thanked the spirits that the man seemed more intent on escorting the wounded away than focusing on us.
It gave Shozi and I a chance to strike.
The brief glimpse we'd gotten was enough. Mostly wounded, but 3 able fighters who weren't retreating.
We looked at one another, nodded, and the decision was made.
We turned the corner in unison, a rock found the doorframe right above my head, and I fired.
A glass bottle exploded somewhere behind where the earthbender's head was. He fell to the ground, and Shozi took his shot too, his at an Earth Kingdom crossbowman who failed to get a shot off in time. From the room, a man left, injured and limping, but bearing a uniform that rendered that all meaningless. An officer.
But there were bigger concerns. The third active soldier, a hand cannoneer, did get a shot off in time, but matched none of the same speed and prowess of us Fire Nation gunner's, his bullet simply finding an earth wall beside me.
The distance between the remaining soldier and me was minimal, and so it was small effort to plunge the bayonet of my matchlock in his belly, sending him to the ground.
By the time I had pulled my bayonet out, Shozi's own gun was reloaded, his eyes now scanning across the wounded in the infirmary, those lucky enough to hopefully survive this battle.
I shook my head, knowing Shozi's concerns before he could voice them. "They're done," I said. "Others will secure them. Officer left this way."
A far more worthwhile prize.
Shozi nodded, and drew his matchlock as I opted for my sword, continuing on out of the medical bay through another corridor that took us back outside, the smell of smoke thick in the air, soldiers fighting on every plane of the battlefield, as above on the surface so below in the trenches.
It was a flurry of earth projectiles flying through the trench that sent me and Shozi back into cover, the only thing stopping us from both blindly firing being that the earth originated from our physical side of the conflict towards the enemy's, but that alone wasn't enough. So it was that with weapons drawn, we turned the corner.
There was no mistaking the relief I felt and I was positive Shozi did too upon seeing the source was not only a Fire Nation earthbender, but Mano himself at that.
"Glad to see your ugly mug," Shozi said with a scoff.
"That ugly mug just saved you too from walking into an Earth Kingdom ambush," he said with a smile, and I remembered then that he must have felt us coming, and when turning to see the two downed Earth Kingdom soldiers waiting right beside the exit that Shozi and I had emerged from, I realized that Mano's claims were likely substantiated.
But there would be time for congratulations later.
"Officer headed this way!" I said, motioning towards another corridor that led back underground, but this one into somewhere far darker and imposing than what we'd faced so far. "Mano, on me!"
"Right behind you," he affirmed.
We could still make out his footprints, the blood on the wall he'd used for support. The tunnel we entered into was different, diving deeper beneath the earth than the others. It brought me no pleasure to be down here like this surrounded by earthbenders, but Mano being beside us was some small comfort at least. Far more than it would have been had Shozi and I been alone.
Light grew to a minimum as we descended, our only hope of finding where we were going that of a faint glow at the end of a tunnel, a shadow flashing across the hall, a noticeable limp in its stature–the officer.
The three of us hurried down the slope, arriving at the corner of the hall where we were awaited, an Earth Kingdom archer firing upon us with an arrow that would have struck me had Mano not bent up from the ground a barricade that took the arrow, lowering it perfectly in time for Shozi to score a direct hit to the neck from his matchlock.
In such tight confines as we found ourselves, the shot rang across the stone corridor and into our ears, a screeching pain that was near impossible to ignore, but demanded precisely that if we were to focus on what was important and catch our quarry.
I couldn't hear my own force, but was partly sure that I gave an order for us to continue after the officer down a corridor that felt as though it was growing narrower and narrower, and so it was that I hardly had considered the fact that the tunnel I'd entered was one without apparent purpose. There were no kitchens, no pantries, infirmaries, barracks, storehouses, only a tunnel that was being dug as we ran through it, the man we were chasing not a mere officer, and not slowed down by an injury, but an earthbender who was leading us into a trap, and was now done running.
He turned to face us, uninjured, unflinching, unrelenting, a scowl on his face directed towards us that could crush a boulder just as easily as he could.
Well, I thought. He wouldn't be the first earthbender we've killed today.
As though we'd all been connected to the same invisible string that was just now cut, we set upon each other at the same moment, the earthbender sending a rock towards me at the front that Mano quickly shielded me from with a pike that formed horizontally out of the wall.
Kneeling to shoot below, Shozi fired his matchlock, the bullet caught by a spike that the earthbender formed out of the ground and then promptly rotated in the air, point towards us, and hurdled our way. I slid to the ground, dodging beneath, and pressed off of the ground with my rear leg to propel myself forward.
The earthbender began to form another wall from the ground, presumably right below me so as to push me into the ceiling and crush me, but no sooner had he done so that Mano disrupted his effort, producing a hailstorm of earth arrows from the ceiling that rained down upon the enemy.
He took his effort away from my demise and more towards his own protection, forming a wall in front of him. The hailstorm of arrows concluded, paving the way ahead for me to charge the earthbender, but he knew of my coming, and sent the wall he'd created hurdling now towards me in two separate halves, top first them bottom, perhaps hoping to split me in half with their combined effort.
But I was quicker. I ducked beneath the top half, then hurdled over the bottom shortly after, lunging my sword forward, catching the earthbender, but only as a scratch, cutting across his shoulder, through his leather pauldron, but my sword returning bloodied either way.
Not half so bloodied, however, as the bullet that Shozi fired next, finding the earthbender's leg, dropping him to a knee, rendering him especially vulnerable to the rock that Mano threw now, colliding with the earthbender right in his stomach, sending him falling backwards to the ground.
He was beat, Mano and Shozi now rushing ahead to catch up to me, the officer, a colonel by the looks of him, well and truly defeated, but there was something about his face, something about the way his fingers now dug into the ground that told me his surrender was not one that would be taken in stride.
"If I'm going to die for my home!" he shouted. "Then I'm burying you all with me!"
And so his grip on the very earth tightened, cracks running across the floor, up the walls, into the ceiling, all originated from where he now dug for himself his final grave, and ours too. It didn't take long for the collapse to begin, and it was only by merit of the few hesitant steps that the three of us had taken away from the earthbender that we were not caught in the first cave-in that claimed his life.
But the quake did not end there, the structural integrity of the tunnels already a thing of the past, daring to collapse atop us all, but for the simple efforts of Mano.
His arms outspread, the falling dust and rocks did not claim us, at least not yet, every effort of his now put into keeping us alive at all costs.
"Move!" he shouted, straining to be heard past the effort he put in.
We obliged, and so together, we moved one step at a time back the way we'd come, the earth around us growing more angry by the second.
Another partial collapse, this one just barely kept away from us by Mano who now was stopped dead in his tracks, feet digging into the rock beneath us as though the weight of the whole world was pushing him down. In a way, I guessed it was.
He grunted, and groaned, just barely able to speak through his teeth, "Go! Just go!"
"Fuck that!" Shozi shouted back.
"Not without you!" I said in turn.
"Fuck's sake, just get out of here!"
That wasn't going to happen, not after I'd brought them into this. The tunnels were collapsing around us, but the way ahead, by Mano's effort alone, was clear for now, though it wouldn't be for long.
I knew what I had to do, and knew that if it went wrong, I would be costing three lives where only one could have been lost prior, but that was a risk I was going to take.
I snatched Mano's wrist and shouted "run!" to Shozi who quickly got the memo and began his sprint.
And so Mano was broken from his spell, cursing me the whole way as I pulled him from his task of keeping us alive, and forced him to run right beside me. His effort had already begun to crumble around him, and so there was nothing more to do. Shozi ran, I ran, and he ran, hot on each other's heels as the world fell apart around us, but ran we did still, the light above us growing, growing closer, just as the wreckage of the world grew closer behind us.
I felt the dust billowing, the clatter of rocks on my ankles, the growing suffocation as the tunnels collapsed, the light ever closer, Shozi out, me almost the same, dirt falling atop my back, Mano right behind me, certainly not close enough until his wrist was in my hand, I was swinging my arms, pulling him in front of me and pushing him ahead just as the weight behind me grew too much to bear, and the world went black.
It was natural to wonder at first if I had well and truly died, but it wouldn't take long for me to learn that if ever there was a time and place to be buried alive, it was right beside an earthbender.
Minutes, seconds, longer or less, light came back to my world, an overwhelming return of sun, of oxygen, of life.
I left my grave coughing and wheezing, two arms reaching around my shoulders and pulling me up from the rock and dirt that'd claimed me, Mano and Shozi to either side of me, laughing, relief all that I could read from their faces.
"You're a damned idiot," Mano sighed.
"That go as well as you hope, Danev?" Shozi asked.
And soon enough, I was laughing right along with them.
It slowly dawned on me that I had re-emerged into a world not at war, but one of quiet and death, bodies, mostly Earth Kingdom, scattered along the trench floor, and ahead, the direction of the enemy, a familiar noise, a constant continuous clamor and pounding–that of artillery.
I could see the smoke rising ahead of us, but more importantly, the red and black of soldiers. Our soldiers.
I shook off Mano and Shozi's hands as they padded the dust away from my armor, my face, and my hair, and pointed them ahead, bidding them to follow as I made my way to the new frontline, wondering just what it was that so caught the attention of our Fire Nation allies.
And so it became clear to me as we did that what they observed was the end of the battle–one they had forced, calling down artillery just ahead of the line we had captured, preventing any Earth Kingdom escape, and any Earth Kingdom counterattack.
And watching the conclusion of the day's affairs were none other, I realized upon approaching, than the men of the 114th.
"Nice of you to join us," Rulaan said as soon as I had limped my way to his side. A single glance at my dust-covered self and my captain scoffed, saying, "What took you so long?"
"Got sidetracked," I said, coughing out the dust still in my lungs. "What'd I miss?"
Rulaan smiled, turned back to watch the artillery coming down, and where he could have said the truth that I would later that evening learn, how he had led the 114th through the trenches, past the Earth Kingdom, driven them out of their trenches, preventing a blind advance, and called down the artillery that'd secured our victory, first to secure the front, and all with no casualties, he instead said simply, "Oh, not much."
And so 'not much' was the word of the day as we were shortly dismissed. It was the word as the dead, ours and theirs were counted, the 114th not unscathed, though just by a mere margin, the words as we cleared the trenches of the remains of the battle, and the words as afternoon gave way to evening, and evening gave way to night, and so we settled in.
Because compared to all that which we had faced since the morning, all that came after could only be considered 'not much.' All, however, with exception to the rations we treated ourselves to that night, because though artillery rained through the air and atop our lines, we took comfort in the depths of the fortifications we had secured, the river we had surmounted, the army we had repelled.
I remembered little of that night, loaded up on the painkillers as I was at Murao's suggestion, the adrenaline of the battle having finally worn off to give way to sores, cuts, and aches, a none-too-pleasant experience. But I remembered enough.
That night, we had celebrated, and had believed ourselves conquerors, heroes, the day we'd dreaded for the last month now a victory we had won at hardly a cost. We ate, we drank, we sang a collection of songs both from Taisho as well as the colonies whose culture Asaih and the other replacements slowly introduced us too. Most importantly, however, we slept, the song of artillery our lullaby.
We hadn't known at the time that in putting ourselves on the other side of the river, we had placed ourselves in the belly of the beast, and that the hell we'd thought we'd surmounted was instead just about to begin.
Aegis
It was a quiet night.
A quiet night to follow a quiet day, one that'd been painfully so.
We'd been told our orders had been to infiltrate Earth Kingdom lines, torment their rearguard with hit and run tactics, raids, skirmishes, but what good was that when the Earth Kingdom simply hadn't been there?
We'd ridden across the stretch of the outer wall for hours, almost all the way to Lake Laogai, and still not a single Earth Kingdom soldier had graced our presence.
I knew the sentiment felt by much of the armored companies-satisfaction, joy, relief. What they had anticipated to be a harrowing hell of our own making had instead been little more than a leisurely stroll through enemy territory, none so much as daring to consider what it'd meant for those on the frontlines, for the 114th.
But at the end of the day, I supposed the forces we had intended to face had ended up making little difference against the Fire Nation's river crossing, news by messenger hawk delivered to us confirming that as of 1430, the Earth Kingdom trenchline across the Taiga river had been secured.
A cheer had gone up across the armored companies upon hearing the news, as though we were in some way responsible, but I had been silent, all I could imagine being the fighting that the soldiers of the 114th had been subjected to, and how I hadn't been there, how I had done nothing to help.
Tankers drank, they danced, they sang all through the evening, and I tried to sleep, because at least that much was easier than extracting joy that I was in no way entitled to. The others of the Shanzi presented their arguments to the contrary, but I wasn't to be persuaded. I was too busy sulking, and too busy loathing myself for it.
By all accounts, I should have been glad, should have rejoiced in knowing that another victory had been won by the Fire Nation, and that we were one step closer to the wall, one step closer to the war's end. Perhaps that was what irked me more than anything else after all, but I refused to acknowledge it, refused to voice the concerns with a crew that already had reason to believe my heart wasn't in the right place.
I felt no need to prove them otherwise, but to show them that what they felt was meaningless next to what I was willing to do to end this fight, but now, even that had been taken from me.
So it was a quiet night for me, and eventually, as the early hours of morning had rolled around and the celebrations had settled down, a quiet night for everybody else. A quiet night to match a quiet day, and I fell asleep dreaming of what could have been.
I hadn't known what I was wishing for, hadn't known that the night was anything but the end of the battle, and that unbeknownst to me, to the crew of the Shanzi, to the 114th, to the whole damned Dragon's Host that the real hell was about to begin.