Chapter 37: Zek
There was no hesitation among the men. We'd been surrounded for the last 30 minutes, watching our numbers slowly diminish. As much of a suicide mission it may have been, nobody atop this cliff was hesitant to take the fight back to them, despite every advantage being held by our enemy. I had one luxury, however. I knew the man I was following. I knew him as the man that had helped me get through an impossible two-year siege alive, and I knew he'd get me through this as well.
Those next to me, however, they didn't have that luxury, and yet I still had no idea how they could so quickly put their faith in a man of whom they knew nothing about. A man who had abandoned this selfsame army and would now take a job from any party so long as monetary incentive was provided, or at least, that's how I imagined the soldiers might have viewed him when Yilie first announced that they'd be supported by a mercenary company. Iroh and Lu Ten had never accepted contracts from mercenary bands. They commanded the respect, the love, the obedience of their Fire Nation comrades, but mercenaries. Them, they couldn't control. I imagined that's how many of these soldiers may have viewed us when we first came along. As loose-cannons, as rabid dogs, as worse, traitors.
Now however, I don't think that mattered to anyone anymore. It wasn't pre-considered dispositions. It wasn't about what one's opinions may have been. It was about one thing. Survival. Their survival, and that of their families down below living in a town that was being bombarded from ashore. The sooner victory was secured here, the sooner their families could be saved.
So we formed up, and like a spearpoint penetrating a pig's underbelly, we charged the selfsame gap we mad made in the line moments before to allow Boss through. He led us through the same weakness, not allowing a single opportunity to be wasted. He drew first blood, shoving the point of his spear in the side of the nearest earthbender before he could even think to manipulate the terrain to his advantage, bringing him to his knees as a Fire Nation soldier's spear was shoved into his chest, ending the man's life.
I ducked in time to evade a flying disk of earth flying at me as a Fire Nation soldier behind me sliced at the culprit's belly, spilling his insides on the ash-black ground of the mountain below us. An Earth Kingdom spearmen moved in to avenge the bender, but I ended his attempt, cutting his spear right below the hilt, rendering his weapon a splintered staff, allowing the same Fire Nation soldier to slice the man below the knee, dropping him before finishing him off. I turned around to my left side now, watching as an earthbender moved in to finish off a Fire Nation soldier who had fallen to the ground, hovering a mass of earth above the poor man's head.
I sliced upwards below the bender's elbow, severing his left arm. The boulder fell harmlessly to the man's side, and I finished off the earthbender with a quick cut to his neck, helping the friendly soldier up as an allied swordsman halted an Earth Kingdom's soldier charge towards us, parrying his sword to the left, reacting quick enough with his limited opening to shove the point of his sword into the Earth Kingdom soldier's chest.
And so we kept up our advance charging ever forward, a new fervor among the men as our formation remained unbroken, headed at the front by somebody who I was now starting to realize was slowly becoming the Fire Nation's closest ally. We were doing more now to serve our Nation than we ever had as conscripted men. In Ba Sing Se, the most we'd ever done was capture a farmhouse, or help to take over an enemy trench line. Since then, we've destroyed an Earth Kingdom destroyer, we've helped a starving fishing village against a threat of pirates, and now stood here defending a Fire Nation fortification against an Earth Kingdom naval task force. Whether we won or lost here, our involvement in this war had truly begun the day we left.
I'd had my doubts, leaving the Fire Nation. Yu Dao had been my home, the chief of Fire Nation colonies. I was a patriot damnit. These were my people; the Fire Nation was my country. I joined the army by my own choice, not by draft because I wanted to play my part to defend my people. Were we the invaders? Yes. Was it our birthright to claim the Earth Kingdom? Despite what they taught us in schools, no. Was it "right"? No. But since the Fire Nation had started taken over the Earth Kingdom, they'd exterminated the regional corruption, ending a reign of warlords within the Earth Kingdom who were loyal to nobody but themselves. They'd raised the prosperity of all people in the region. Was there still class division? Yes. But if the Earth Kingdom were to win this war, to reclaim these colonies, they would leave no survivors. They'd either force all men, women, and children to leave their homes or become enemies of the state, killed on sight. So was it defense? Yes. And I had worried that by abandoning the Fire Nation, I had abandoned them, but as I was here, alongside this same man who had encouraged me to leave the Fire Nation now fighting for it more than ever before, truly defending those who the Earth Kingdom stood poised to exterminate, I was now able to realize that I was where I had always meant to be. The army had its appeal, but it was here, making an actual difference, where I was meant to be.
We had carved a line through the battlefield to the destroyed catapults, but a thankfully mostly intact supply of blasting jelly, dodging Earth Kingdom boulders raining from the heavens above. We had only sustained one casualty: A Fire Nation soldier whose chest had been ripped apart by an Earth Kingdom disk that had travelled faster than an unladen swallow.
"Bring two barrels to the edge of the mountain!" Boss ordered as two soldiers readily grabbed the first barrels, they could get their hands on as the other 6 of us provided cover, rolling the barrels to the edge of the cliff. "Zek!" he yelled to me, throwing me a piece of flint to catch. "Light them for 2 seconds. Push the barrel off the exact moment you light it!" 2 seconds. Didn't leave a lot of room for comfort there. All the same, I nodded, knowing what had to be done. The barrels were on the edge, and the soldiers who had been rolling them returned to the rearguard, defending Boss and me as we stood by the two barrels, directly below us, the earthen turtle shells shrouding the artillery gun's line of fire. I could already hear the sounds of combat still coming from below. Gordez is down there. And deeper down, within the castle, is Ka'lira. I only prayed that the battle hadn't come to her.
I snapped out of it then and turned to Boss who was already looking to me, waiting for the sign that I was ready. I was. And in that moment, we lit the fuses at the line that represented 2 seconds. The fuse lit, I pushed, it fell, and I dived behind me to the ground, my ears becoming a ring not a moment later, dirt, stone, mud, and ash all raining down on me. I turned to my right to see that Boss was there, still alive. The barrels had dropped. I got up, a constant hum still ringing through my ears. I made my way to the edge of the cliff just in time to watch the last large shard of the shell break from the wall and fall to the sea, crashing into the bow of the Earth Kingdom warship, crushing the final ballistae, dropping its last grappling hook, tearing off another chunk of the cliff edge, crashing back to the warship causing even more havoc as it tore a hole in the vessel's hull, the first of many blows this ship would take.
I couldn't hear a word coming out of Boss's mouth, but as 2 soldiers grabbed a final barrel, holding it between them, I knew that the final stage of the plan had begun. I found my sword on my side, unsheathing it as I joined the formation now gathered around the 2 soldiers carrying the final barrel of jelly between the two of them.
The Iron Ram's artillery fire had ceased for the time being, still recovering from the damage dealt to the bow, but it resumed soon enough, taking one more of our men and an Earth Kingdom soldier in a single explosion as the two battled. I could nearly guarantee that Fong's indiscriminate targeting had killed more of his own men than our own. It made me wonder what horrors were happening below us, by the town of Jiaozai. I could already envision the burning boulders raining atop tower, home, hospital, tavern, Earth Kingdom, Fire Nation soldiers, men, women, children too, meteor showers raining down on all alike.
I snapped out of it, blocking the blow of an Earth Kingdom swordsmen, locking blades as a Fire Nation swordsman dug his spear into the man's side, dropping him. I removed my sword, slicing a straight diagonal across the chest of a man who had been stalking behind the selfsame Fire Nation soldier, ready to avenge his comrade. Finally, we had made it to the tunnel. 3 soldiers stayed behind to guard the entrance as me, Boss, and the two bearing the jelly entered the tunnel.
A good portion of the tunnel appeared to be clear, up ahead of us, a skirmish between the remnants of the Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom soldiers in this tunnel system. Boss and I rushed ahead just as a Fire Nation soldier was tossed to the ceiling by the floor of the tunnel moving beneath him, coming back down with nothing but the soldier's bloody remains. Yilie was knocked aside, his chest battered with the blunt of an earthbender's hammer as his last guardsmen was knocked the ground as well. Boss, ahead of me, plunged his sword into the earthbender's side, pulling it out with just enough time to score a final slice across the man's neck as sliced off the arm of the earthbender readying to finish off the guardsmen, giving the friendly soldier ample time to recover his spear and, from below, plunge it into the man's stomach as I jumped ahead, parrying a hostile spear and sword, slicing through the rightmost swordsman's stomach and plunging it into the spearman's side.
I turned to see Boss helping Yilie up as the governor said, "You came just in time. Thanks for the assist."
"Where's Gordez?"
"Right up ahead."
Right up ahead, deeper in the tunnel, was Gordez, an Earth Kingdom Warhammer in hand, smashing it across the face of an earthbender as another poised an attack, siphoning the tunnel walls behind him, ready to throw Gordez into the sea. Boss was already sprinting ahead, and just in time, tackled into the earthbender, the stones falling around the two of them as Gordez brought down the hammer on the face of the bender Boss had brought down, promptly giving his old friend a helping hand up by the time I had reached them, the 2 Fire Nation soldiers directly behind us wielding the blasting jelly between the two of them.
"You got my bender?"
"Our bender's dealing with the second Earth Kingdom ship that just came in."
Gordez's split-second expression of severity was all we would get from him until a second later, he shot right back into the motion. "Fine. Get the jelly in the firing mechanisms. 2 handfuls each. Big handfuls. You can wash them later."
The soldier's unsealed the lid of the barrel as Boss and I reached in, both of us taking out two heaping handfuls each, shoving them into the triggers that on any normal occasion, two firebenders would have blasted into. "You two!" Gordez yelled at the two soldiers. "Load a shell into the barrel now!"
And so they did as Boss and I shoved in the final two handfuls. The second such was done, Gordez was already manning the gun, altering its firing course, aiming directly downwards to the upper deck of The Iron Ram, directly beneath the main bridge, a shot that would hopefully collapse the superstructure and strike the engine.
"Fire!" Gordez yelled.
And so, the fuses were lit, travelling into the firing mechanism as we stood back and waited, until the tunnel exploded into a violent yellow light as the gun fired, and we all watched as the deck of The Iron Ram exploded into a blaze of red, orange, and gold, a second explosion igniting moments later within the decks by the engine, spreading the carnage even further.
"Reload!"
We stuck to our respective jobs as the gun was prepped once more, ready to fire 15 seconds later before the effects of the first strike could even finish their spread.
"Fire!"
A second shot was fired, igniting another explosion within the decks, directly below the command structure, collapsing it as the iron support beams snapped and the wood crackled into ash, splintering at every point, the command structure collapsing forward onto the main deck, snapping through the deck's wooden structure, sinking deeper into the vessel as, like ants from a crushed anthill, the crew attempted to flee the carnage.
"Reload!"
We did, not a second to think otherwise.
"Fire!"
We fired.
And the shell, in one last blast of brilliance, detonated, and the sea spurted up into the ship, and with one final series of creaks and snaps, the vessel split into two, the bow weighed down by the shards of the turtle shell, sinking forward, the catapult emplacements scraping against the decks as they fell into the sea, crashing into an poor sod unfortunate enough to have been placed in front of them.
The stern followed moments later, the last of the crew, burning alive, dived into the sea, only to drown moments later, weighed to the sea floor by the armor they had donned to protect themselves.
And in one final act of irony, the iron ram of the Iron Ram was the last portion of the ship to sink beneath the green waves, the figurehead the last remnant we ever saw of The Iron Ram as any remains of the Earth Kingdom invasion sunk beneath the cold and unforgiving sea.
Above us, the sounds of the war were coming to their ends. We rushed up to finish what was left of the encounter to witness as any and all surviving forces laid down their arms in a final act of surrender.
The fire had stopped falling from the sky. The battle had ended here. And as the ash began to clear from the sky, I rushed into the tunnels of the castle once more, past the corpses of friend and foe alike, past Earth Kingdom prisoners being escorted away, past Fire Nation wounded being carried off or helped to their feet. I sped up the turret of the tower, becoming more and more terrified by how far the bodies went, all the way up to the governor's own personal quarters.
I wasted no time knocking.
I knocked the door from its very hinges, breaking the damn thing as I shoved my way inside, to be met by a single unified sight. In front of me, on the floor that I fell onto, the bloodied corpse of an Earth Kingdom soldier, and above them, as I made my way to my feet, a woman and child, Yilie's family, and in front of them, holding a sword to my face, the new reason I had found to fight, the new reason I had found to fight for a better word.
"Ka'lira"
"Zek!"
The sword fell to the ground with a metallic clang as she rushed to me, throwing her arms around me as I was still on my knees in the process of rising. I let my own weapon fall to the ground as I threw my arms around her, not caring about anything else in the world, not the other Earth Kingdom ship, not what Yilie's plan next was, not the prisoners, not the dead, not the wounded, not the man Ka'lira had killed to fulfill her duty, not the battle ahead, not any of it. The battle I cared about was over, and so I squeezed her with all strength that was still left in me, and it wasn't much. It was over. It was all okay.
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