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Chap. 5

As the son of farmers, and a young man who had been a farmer himself before joining the Earth Kingdom Mustered Soldiery, Dukashi Lin loved rain. He loved the petrichor odor of its passing, the smell while it was raining, the sound of it, and most of all the life-giving nature of Water that it carried to the parched lands near his tiny home village, so small it didn't even have a name.

"Fucking rain," the soldier marching to Lin's left grumbled, his wide-brimmed jingasa not enough to keep the water off his broad chest or his supplies. Another, on his right, agreed with a long expletive of curses.

He loved the rain, but just then, Lin privately agreed. Three days ago, the worst thing any of the soldiers had to contend with was a long march and the dust kicked up by their compatriots marching ahead. As Lin's squad had drawn the short straw, they were marching in the back that day and had the worst of it. But even though Lin himself was probably the least-skilled Earth Bender in the whole Army, he was good enough to at least mostly keep it out of his lungs. The day after, rain had come. Mud wasn't bad, at first, because the parched land in southern Jiuquan Province had needed it so badly that the land had turned to clay at worst.

They had marched thirty miles since then, and it had rained two more days in a row. Steep, cold downpouring rain that fell in sheets lashed by a wind just fierce enough to occasionally gust the water into their faces, or down their necks, rather than let it fall downward like rain was supposed to. With every step, a hazard presented itself to each soldier in Birdfox Company: either slip and fall, twist an ankle, break a knee, or go very slowly and carefully, expending twice as much energy as they should have for each step.

The surviving members of Birdfox Company, anyway. Lin didn't know because of who, or how, it had happened, but somehow the bandits south of Qiquan, their first targets, had known they were coming. Known, and been prepared.

The first ambush had critically wounded Lieutenant Chansan of the Nighthawk Platoon as they were climbing through a mountain pass, two days out from the bandit's supposed camp. Thirty two other casualties, almost half of them dead and not simply maimed or forced to withdraw due to injury that would heal had resulted from that first attack when a powerful Earth Bender in the Bandit's forces sent what felt like half of a cliff-face down on the marching soldiers. It wasn't a sixth of their forces, but the loss still stung as fewer than seven bandits had been killed during the counter-offensive, and the Bender who had brought down the rock slide on Lt. Chansan's head had escaped.

Four days later, they had found the camp only to be ambushed again. There were no civilians, no supplies, nothing but old, worn-out tents and three dozen straw dummies made to resemble people from a distance. While they had been investigating, Captain Taijin's unit had come under fire from the same Bender and at last sixty archers. They had acquitted themselves well, and Captain Taijin had reported that he had at least wounded the enemy Bender, but the archers had largely retreated. They had just six wounded and four dead, while the archers had lost about twenty.

But as Sandseal and the remains of Nighthawk under the command of their senior sergeant had gone to reinforce the Captain's command unit, they had been outflanked by spear-men and a trio of Benders, too. Lin had, at first, panicked. But somehow, even though his pulse had raced and the screams of the wounded and dying melded in his ears with those of the last- and first- battle he had fought in, he had recovered quickly. "Left face, men! Ready shields! Shields up!" It had been late, but the call had been answered quickly. For reasons Lin could not fathom, the call had been echoed and repeated by Sergeant Eneri of Nighthawk Platoon, and her own forces moved to reinforce his.

Eneri was a veteran of twelve battles the last Lin had heard, and as hard-nosed as any non-commissioned officer in Qiquan, but she had reinforced him, not the other way around.

The way he had intended. Lin had expected Sandseal to shore up Nighthawk's counter-offensive, since they had taken most of the damage in the initial wave of lancers, but the more experienced Sergeant must have had her reasons, so he rolled with it as best he could.

The end result had been that Nighthawk lost a total of six more men, and Sandseal lost twenty-one, including both of the corporals under Sgt. Eneri. In return, sixty-four well-trained spear-men and two of the Benders who had attacked the unit's flank had been killed, and another four captured.

At the end of the day, Captain Taijin, with a bandage over his forehead and one arm in a sling, had personally congratulated both Eneri and Lin for not only their determination and the speed at which they had attempted to aid the command unit, but their skill and tenacity in driving off a surprise outmaneuvering that had taken them all, himself included, off-guard.

And, at least for the duration, the weakened Nighthawks were sent home to escort the prisoners, twelve in all, back to Qiquan Fort.

After a walking into their second trap and ambush a days after they were supposed to have already crushed this camp and made their way toward Pingjin in Anchang Province, it still took another two days to find the actual camp two valleys further south, right on the border of Anchang, and two more to route them. This time, no prisoners were taken... but again, that same too-skilled Earth Bender escaped.

Lin had seen him, gotten a good look actually, as he and a few others had snuck into the Birdfox camp, taking out their pickets as they went, with surprising skill the night after they had actually raided the camp... and Lin had been the ranking officer when the attack happened.

Neither Captain Taijin nor Lieutenant Jo Gai outwardly blamed him for the attack that had killed Taijin's assistant and six others soldiers. Instead, Jo Gai privately told Lin that it was likely his timely reaction had saved Taijin's life, as the Captain had time to don most of his armor before he was attacked himself, and Jo Gai had seen it deflect one soldier's crossbow bolt.

Then, rain. Rain to turn choking dust into sodden muck. To make fingers wrinkle and sinuses swell. Even the smarter soldiers, the veterans Lin tried to emulate where he could, were overwhelmed by the duration of the downpour. They were used to dry conditions, they could handle that. They brought with them ample water, and Earth Benders skilled in finding or creating wells and springs if needed.

They were not prepared for the water, though. Tunics and robes were used as ponchos, but those soaked through within the first day. The wide-brimmed steel helmets helped more, but on the third day when the wind picked up, the only parts of any of their heads that was dry was at the top, directly beneath the hats themselves. Everyone, from Captain Taijin down to the newest recruit just out of training (Lin's brothers in arms, he thought, for he still felt himself one of them), was cold, wet, miserable, and more than a little pruney by the end of the first day. At the end of the third, all of them just wanted to go home.
Forget the mission, forget their duty, forget everything except their (relatively) warm beds in the windy but dry barracks.

It was bad enough that a couple of the men had even whispered about just turning around and going home, claiming they 'got lost'. But Jo Gai, decent leader that he was, had stopped that when he heard the grumbling. "You know we're closer to warm beds in Pingjin, right? It'll take another two weeks to slog back through the mountains to Qiquan, but Pingjin's three days away. Maybe four."

Privately, Lin thought to himself the heavy-set soldier (who was looking just as miserable as the rest of them, though he was starting to lose a little of the excess weight after a march twice as long as their last one, and more fighting too) was being overly optimistic. They were soldiers, they could march twenty li a day if pushed, but in this muck, they were barely making six, less than half their usual pace. True, they had crossed into Anchang sixteen hours or so ago, but the hills and valleys here were rough going, broken spires of stone ranging from a dozen to hundreds of feet high, with sharp, rough rocks that were unpleasant to say the least on the bare feet most Earth Benders preferred even while on the march.

Of course, being soldiers and wanting to conceal their numbers from any far-ranging scouts the bandits might have, Captain Taijin had ordered their own scouts to find a path through the lower areas, and to use roads whenever possible to make it look like they were simply a unit being transferred to another location for the time being.

It was strategically sound, and Lin wouldn't have minded most of the time, but traveling on the low ground in the long-lasting storm system just made everything... worse.
Deeper mud for one thing. Now that it had been raining for so long, the algae and moss and other water-heavy plant life that spent years and years dormant in this climate were springing to verdant life again, green and stinky like a forgotten marsh or bog.

If the rain kept going for a few more days, Lin was worried it would get even worse. He was familiar enough with the area that he had seen these once-a-decade storms twice before. He barely remembered one in his youth, but he had been working the fields alongside his older brothers and parents when the last one had come. Entire crops were washed away, but it was the secondary effect that hit them the hardest: Mold.

It was grew everywhere, feasting on the insects, plants, and animals that were sickened or just too stationary in the inclement weather. He knew soldiers who had lost feet, or entire legs, to similar things. His grandfather had spent a day nursing a sick calf in that storm, and lost a leg for his trouble. He'd died of illness from that same leg a year later.

Basically, he liked rain, but just then, in that particular storm, he hated it with a passion just like the rest of his men.

But as the soggy mud continued to squish between his filth-covered toes with one plodding step after another, slowly, the li moved by along with each passing hour.

Too slowly, but as inexorably as time and distance had ever gone.

Sianjiang District, the northernmost in Pingjin, was one that Lin was familiar with. It was where his father, his older brothers, and for the last two years before he joined the Army himself, Lin himself had taken their produce and older sheep and goats to market. On a good market day, their father would take them to one of the local inns. On a poor market day, when they either hadn't much to sell or had not gotten prices his father considered fair, they would sleep on the street, huddled with their backs together and knives in hand, just in case, down some dark alley. Nothing had ever happened, but Lin and his family had been raised on the dangers of city life, and so took no chances. It hadn't escaped him, with his more recent experiences, that just being prepared had perhaps prevented the trouble.

Normally it stank of sweat, animals and people alike in too close a proximity with insufficient sewage. One of the few benefits of Qiquan, Lin thought, was that as a city both newer and smaller, its sewage system was more modern and largely underground, where Pingjin's ran along the streets in gutters. Now?

Now it was worse. A hundred times worse, because on top of that the sewer gutters were overflowing with rainwater, carrying the offal, moldering meats, rotten grains, and literal shit everywhere as his bare-footed men and himself lead the way into the city. It served him right, he thought, for daring to be from nearby: everyone assumed he was an expert, and was now relying on him for advice on which inns or hostels to bivouac at.

He knew precisely one, which had maybe five rooms available at any given time.

"Well, this is the one inn I know," Lin said, trying not to huff in exasperation as Lieutenant Jo Gai caught up to him.

"Sennjia's Rooms, huh? Never heard of 'em," the portly soldier chuckled, "but I suppose that's to be expected. This is really the only one you know?"

Lin nodded, "Yes, Sir. I don't know why Captain Taijin thought I would be an expert, but... I've never even been to other parts of the city, just this one neighborhood and market."

"Hmph. Well. I suppose if this is the best room you know of... is it good enough for the Captain's tastes?"

He could only frown, shrug, and shake his head, "Probably not, Sir. I... It's the only inn I've ever stayed at here, but I couldn't say it's any better or worse than a roadside village's. You can get a meal for a couple Zhu, and the last time I was here a cheap beer was a Zhu, a room to hold me, two of my brothers, and our father for the night was a single Sho."

"Now that's good to know," Jo Gai said with a smile, "Rooms big enough for four men... let's go see how much they have. Wait here, I'll be right back."

Lin nodded and bent his focus toward coordinating with the Lieutenant's other Sergeants to get the men separated into their proper units and hopefully, maintain some semblance of formation and organization when the Captain's more rigidly disciplined unit came up the street.

Jo Gai came out of the building with a neutral expression about ten minutes later. He glanced about quickly for Lin, then waddled his way there. "Alright, I've arranged for you and your platoon to have these rooms but it won't hold more, and I'm not of a mind to kick everyone else out into the rain. Captain Taijin will just have to accept that there's no room and we'll split up."

"Captain Taijin will be fine accepting that, as long as we have rooms for all the men at the end of the day," said veteran grumbled from behind the Lieutenant, which made his slightly smaller rolls jump. "I care less for the common folk than my men, but in a city this size there's going to be plenty of rooms for us, even if we have to spread out. Sergeant Kyukei, I'll leave keeping track of who's where to you, along with spreading the order to the men to report back to the market we just passed a few minutes ago no later than midmorning tomorrow. If a squad is late, they'll be considered deserters... but I'm willing to let them have the extra time to get a hearty meal in and take a bath. Ancestors know we probably all need one after the last couple of weeks."

Jo Gai laughed along with the more nervous chuckles of a few of the other sergeants, and for once, Lin was glad that Taijin hadn't assigned him the extra work of organizing and keeping records of where each of the men were staying. It seemed he had been getting all the extra work lately, and he was sick of it. Even this last test, finding inns, was just the latest in a long line. True, it was the first one he had failed at, but that was hardly his fault.

Still, he was a bit surprised when Jo Gai followed him back into the crowded common room of Sennjia's Rooms. It stank of tobacco smoke and mildew, and there were at least four buckets on the ground and tables to catch leaks in the wood-shingled roof, but it was far dryer than outside, so Lin was not about to complain.

"Sir?"

"After your men are settled, Sergeant," Jo Gai murmured quietly, waving him on, "Get to it. My platoon wants to get inside, too."

"Yes, Sir," Lin said with a hasty bow, and turned to his squad, "Alright, men. Follow me. This man here is Sennjia. Mr. Sennjia, you have rooms for my men? They can crowd in, four per."

The innkeeper made no sign that he recognized Lin. That wasn't all that surprising, he'd only seen the man once before. It had been memorable for Lin in that he had never stayed at an inn before, but he imagined Sennjia had hundreds of different faces to try and remember each week. That didn't explain his nervousness hand-wringing when he responded, but Lin tried to ignore that in favor of listening, "Y-y-yes, sir. Five rooms available, and that'll be- with four heads per room- twenty men."

"You don't have one more room?" Lin asked, "I need twenty-three total beds."

The innkeeper glanced once over his shoulder, at Jo Gai he thought, then shook his head, "I'm s- sorry Sir, but I don't. I'd have to kick paying customers out, and- and the Earth Kingdom isn't... Well, they aren't the best at paying us poor roadhouses what we're supposed to get. S- Sir."

"You don't need to kowtow," Lin grumbled, embarrassed, and in front of his men and commanding officer, no less. "I just need the rooms. We've got a voucher for the rooms, we aren't going to cheat you."

"I understand that, Sir, but I... well," he trailed off, glancing about the room for support. But most of the commoners and peasants, people Lin identified with, were carefully avoiding looking anywhere near him, the innkeeper, or any of the other soldiers.

"Sir," Corporal Chonji hissed from Lin's right, making him jump, "Maybe show him...? My uncle used to run an inn. Soldiers put him out of business by saying they had vouchers and never paying up when it was time. They said it was the innkeeper's duty to house the soldiers, Sir."

Lin frowned, then turned to the person who was probably his closest friend in the Mustered Soldiery. "Is that true, Chonji? That's why your family had to sell the inn?"

The Corporal, who had gained that rank the same day Lin had but was junior by about five minutes on a technicality, nodded. Lin scowled, though not at him, "Well, we aren't in wartime anymore, so there's no need to be stingy. And I'm not pocketing the vouchers myself. Here... you see? Payment for five rooms. I've got one more, but I can't give it to you without the room available, Mr. Sennjia."

The businessman's eyes widened at the signed and stamped order for funds to be withdrawn from the Jiuquan Provincial Treasury to pay for the lodging and support of the men. "I wou- Wouldn't even know where to take that, S- Sir."

"Thought this might be a problem," Jo Gai mumbled from some way behind. Lin felt him as much as he smelled his commander's presence, the lingering odor of clammy skin and unwashed road-sweat pungent even amid the pipe-smoke filled room. "I'll take care of it, Sergeant. Let's see... five... well, let's make it ten Sho. And I'll take that voucher, recover it out of my payment."

He wanted to protest. It was simple corruption, in one way... but he did see the tin coins leave the Lieutenant's hands and enter Sennjia's before Jo Gai snatched the voucher away and rolled it up before sliding it into his satchel.

Lin wanted to complain... but he understood how the world worked, and it wasn't like Jo Gai was actually cheating the innkeeper. He had almost paid double! Even if he would likely be padding the voucher with a bit more than he had actually paid... it wasn't Lin's business. Not anymore. Nor was he about to argue with his superior officer.

... He couldn't very well complain when Sennjia then muttered quietly, "I'll see about convincing people to move their rooms, yer Lordship."

"Good man," Jo Gai replied, suddenly all smiles and jovial expression, as usual.

Lin... frankly did not know how to feel about the whole interaction. He knew Jo Gai cared about his men, and in general did what he could to follow the rules. He also didn't put it above the innkeeper to overcharge an obviously well-to-do military officer, even one whose insignia denoted him as from a different Province. He knew he would do what was best for himself first, of course, and as a minor noble Jo Gai could certainly afford to give up that much pay to keep his men happy. Probably considered it worth it. Lin would have paid for the men himself, too, if he could afford it on his newer Salary, but even that was beyond him currently. But that voucher was essentially blank, and Jo Gai could fill it out for any amount of money. So he was essentially loaning the Earth Kingdom, or Jiuquan Province in particular, money. Doing it without asking... and quite possibly charging as much interest as he wanted.

Lin wanted to think he wouldn't do such a thing, if it were him. But he had grown up too poor, and did not think that, if it came to it, he could ever truly pass up that kind of temptation. Jo Gai was a minor nobleman, and grew up far more comfortably than, Lin imagined, his whole village. Could he? Or was he so used to a life of relative luxury, of living off the backs of the common folk, that he would think nothing of taking a bit more?

Either way, he supposed it was done now. A few people staying at the inn would either be tossed out, or forced to share with strangers, perhaps, but his men, the people Lin was legally and morally obligated to look after as their Sergeant, would be warm and dry for at least a night before they had to march back out into the torrential rain that was only mostly stopped by the roof overhead.

Jo Gai gave a last smile in Lin's direction, returned Lin's salute with a half-hearted gesture, then dipped his jingasa one more time at the entire room before he headed back out into the rain to try and find his own inn.

Which meant Lin and his squad were the first people in Birdfox Company to have beds for the night. The men seemed overjoyed about it, as Sennjia handed them the wooden chits that would act as their sign of rental for the evening, laboriously counting out one for every four men, then handing two to Lin himself. "I'm not sure how you want to arrange your own room, Sir, but I've given you our best room for the night."

Lin swallowed. He should be sharing with the men. He should, at best, have a Corporal's room with the other Corporals. But he knew what custom dictated. He knew what the men expected. There were two chits, and three rooms. A sigh escaped his lips as his eyes came up, fighting to ignore the guilt that, by rights but not what he believed should be, he should have what he was about to request. "Corporal Chonji, Corporal Yuya, I hope you don't mind you'll be sharing a room."

The young woman, a fresh recruit but from what Lin had seen quite a competent soldier in her own right, blushed as she looked at the only slightly-older Chonji. "It's not a problem for me, Sir."

Chonji, of course, was suddenly subjected to much laughter from the men and women in Lin's platoon, but he accepted it with his usual good nature. It wasn't like Yuya's burgeoning crush on her counterpart was a secret to anyone.

Maybe they would actually find themselves compatible?

He had to hope so, anyway, as he handed Chonji the chit and bade his two assistants and his men a good night. After that, still inwardly protesting that he felt obligated to take an Officer's quarters for himself, Lin stepped after the innkeeper as he led the way further into the small inn.

Dreams came fitfully for him as Lin tried to make it through the night in an unfamiliar bed, in a building he'd been in once before, and a city he had been in exactly twice.

He dreamed of pleasant things at first, imagining a summer rain feeding the beets they were growing that year, and of pretty girls in simple dresses at the harvest festival. Of seeing his parents after years since leaving home, of his older brothers, no doubt both married and with a child or two of their own, perhaps one more little sibling on his parent's end to help till the fields in a few years.

That lasted about an hour, if that.

After the first few nicer reveries, Lin's dreams shifted to darker topics. Shadows filled with the scent of ash, of fire, of blood, and the tang of steel on his tongue. The ring of blade against bled, or the soft slither of steel moving through skin and muscle to grate harshly against bone, making his fingers vibrate. The once-soothing touch of earth beneath his feet turned painful as the very thing he was supposed to be a Bender of turned against him, stabbing and throbbing through his soles in needles that wracked him with pain as they scoured the nerves of his feet. Of torture, bright and dark, and three bright lights that were one light, and spinning shadows and voices that had no face, and...

He jerked awake, bolting to a sitting position in an unfamiliar room.

Somehow, his hand fell on the handle of his spear, but it did not move from where he put it. He didn't dare react like that, not when the white-painted face stared down at him impassively. "The Earth Kingdom Prospers," the woman said, her tone as expressionless as her face.

He shuddered, terrified of what she meant...

Then he remembered, "E- Eternally," he mumbled.

"I'm glad you're still alive," the woman said, relaxing slightly, though her posture was still rigid and tall, towering over where he sat on the cot of the inn. "... You don't recognize me?"

"Sh- Should I?"

She sighed deeply, and her shoulders sunk with apparent depression, "I guess not... you were too busy eyeing Mai and Ty Lee back then. Come on, they want to talk to you."

"Who are you?"

The woman sighed again, then slipped a bit of the black robes she was wearing aside to show that over her bosom was a deep, Earth-Kingdom green with a distinctive low cut. "I was the one who asked Ty Lee about the Dai Li being wiped out. Remember? I thought the Avatar and his team finished them off?"

It had been weeks and more, but as she said it, Lin remembered the pretty face, painted more than just stark, ghostly white. "Oh! Y- Yes, I do remember you."

"Good, that's great," she smiled, all-but beaming, "but come on, Mai and Ty Lee need to talk to you before everyone else wakes up, and it's nearly four already. We have to get a move on. They can't be seen coming here."

"Wh- Why?"

"Because this is a Dai Li hideout, that's why," the young woman murmured quietly, "and they have eyes everywhere."

Lin didn't think his blood could run any more cold as he lurched out of the bed, forgetting he was nearly naked in front of a pretty young woman as he hurried to throw on clothes. This was far worse than he had feared.

But... did that mean that Ty Lee and Mai, or other Kyoshi Warriors like this one, were the reinforcements? The ones who General Quon had said asked for him, Lin, specifically...?
What would it mean if they were?

And why would they ask for him? What was so special about a nobody from a no-name village?

He had no answers, as he slipped out the window and followed the suddenly-sprinting, too-fast, too-silent woman into the rain- and shit-soaked streets of Pingjing City.