The sun would be coming up soon. For better or worse. We started our march at the turn of the day. I was assigned company navigator by Captain Ze'lak, and if I was right, the listening post was 15 minutes away at our current pace. We had moved under the cover of darkness for the last 6 hours and that cover would soon be gone. Or maybe it already was gone. I didn't know a lot about earth benders, but I knew enough to know that so long as we're on their turf, waking, running, crawling, it didn't matter what the sun told them. The sun was the tool of people like Luke: firebenders. Not for earthbenders though. They didn't need the sun. They just needed solid footing. At least that's what Luke told me. How is it that he is two years my youth, yet he's seen more combat than me? Was I really complaining? If Zor'ak was to be believed, he was dead. Here I was though, about to fight the enemy that might have killed the only other Hornet left. There was no way he could be dead, though, right? But if he was alive, wouldn't he have come back? He would've delivered the message to the Dragon of the West and come back, so why hasn't he? Is he really dead. Is he stuck in those mountains somewhere, or is he within those walls? A captive?
I shook my head, getting rid of whatever doubts I was having. I wasn't Luke. I may not be a firebender, but I'm more a soldier than he is. Am I? I've survived more than he has. Have I? I'll survive through this. Just like I survived through everything else. Or will I?
The first sign that something was wrong was when we passed the hull of a Fire Nation tank, abandoned. It was abandoned. We walked some more and found another husk. Empty. We continued our march for 10 more minutes. 5 minutes away from the listening post. But where is it.
There was another tank, fire nation, probably empty. "Private Zurang!" called lieutenant Zean'in. Check that tank for survivors.
Private Zurang rushed forward, doing whatever he could to get a promotion as soon as possible to make up for the money he'd lost yesterday. He wouldn't get the pay raise of course until the month was over and April had barely begun. All the same, Zurang crawled up the tank, looked inside, and turned to face the 107th company.
"Just like all the others, sir! Empty!"
Then his body was gone. Just. Gone. My ears were still ringing when I realized I was on the ground. Where there had been a Fire Nation tank, there was a crater. Where Zurang had been, there was smoke.
I was lying on my back, but there were tens of other plumes of smoke rising in the air. Was there more than 1 bomb? Was it a bomb? What the hell's happening. I felt a hand grab me by the shoulder and start dragging me away when I came to my senses and struggled, releasing myself from the grip of a team medic who thought I was dead. I got to my feet and turned to face him. Everybody in the company was running around. Some were shooting bows in the distance. What's happening? Are we under attack?
I had just thought the questions because no words came out and the medic respond. Instead, he just looked at me with wide eyes as though he were looking at a ghost and an arrow, like a needle into a doll, went right through his neck, going in well-made, shiny, and solid, and coming out red and gory.
We were under attack.
I ducked to the ground as a second arrow went above my head, now in the battle that the rest of my company was in. I felt a pang of pain in my head and thought I had been hit in the head with an arrow, but I kept on going. I grabbed my helmet off the ground and tried putting it on my head, but when I tried, it felt like metal scraping against metal and it sent a shot of pain through my skull. I threw the helmet inside, positive that it was broken, misshapen, and it would just impair me rather than help.
I found my short sword in its sheath but had lost my spear. I grabbed one off the ground, unsure if it was even mine as I was now starting to realize the number of new bodies making their way on the ground. Where's Zurang?
I rushed forward to where the tank had been, except it was still there, but a mangled heap of metal scrap, misshapen beyond all recognition, no Zurang to be found, except for his knife, lying 10 yards away from the crater, in perfect condition.
I would have told myself that I would give it back to Zurang when I found him, but I was now enough in the right mind to know that wasn't going to happen. I tucked the dagger in my belt and unsheathed my sword. I could see the battle around me now. Earthbenders, normal soldiers, and archers coming out of holes in the ground. More than 200. They outnumbered our company. We were trapped. We were dead. Did it really matter?
I backed up from the destroyed tank that marked our western perimeter. Most of the company was further east of it. I started pacing backwards, keeping my eyes on that perimeter, watching out for stray arrows, but the smoke of the tank concealed me. That was, it did, until the first Earth Kingdom soldier, battle axe in hand jumped through the smoke, directly in front of me and I remembered what I had been thinking about earlier. I wasn't fighting and enemy that needed its eyes. I was fighting an enemy that already had a solid grip on me. I deflected his first blow, knocking his one-handed axe to the side, and, faster and younger, and wielding a lighter weapon, retracted my weapon and brought it about his throat, where no armor protected him, opening a bloody entrance into him, sending him to the ground, dying, choking on his own blood. I paced further backwards, hoping to regroup with the rest of my company when back through the smoke came another Earth Kingdom soldier, and another, and another. I looked around us, hoping to find a hole in their defenses, but it was a fool's effort.
The arrows had stopped firing in preparation for a request for surrender, but I knew my captain, so I unsheathed the knife, getting a grip on it in my left hand, and turned to face the group of Earth Kingdom soldiers alongside some benders that were gathering at my side of the perimeter. I recognized some of the other soldier from my platoon who were gathering near me, ready to hold this line. I didn't even hear the request for surrender or the denial. Maybe there wasn't even one. I just saw the enemy charge. Did it matter, anyway? I was a soldier. Not an analyst. I wouldn't be critiquing this battle afterwards, making sure everybody played fair. This was war. There was no playing fair. There was surviving. I raised my weapons, locked eyes with the nearest charger and I fought. I didn't fight to serve my commander. I didn't fight to win a war. I fought to survive.