2 Months Later
The artillery signaled the first day of the siege, the morning after Danev and his new squad, Blackfyre, had left. I remembered the boom of when, the artillery emplacements, lined for kilometers across the horizon, evenly spread for maximum effect, fired at exactly the same moment, shaking the ground beneath me, waking every single one of us soldiers in that camp, and, likely, even the city that was the intended target of those blasts.
And so, at the sound of that simultaneous boom across the camp, it became apparent that the Siege of Ba Sing Se had really begun. And I knew, that no matter how it ended, it wouldn't be a repeat of last time. It was all or nothing this time around. There was no second camp somewhere ready to continue the fight should we fall, there were no transports waiting at the Serpent's lake ready to evacuate us, there was no way out of this one unless we decided to pack up and leave right now, but everyone from this camp to the core of Ba Sing Se, after 2 months of fighting, knew that wasn't going to be the case.
The artillery, however, after those initial blasts, never let up. I knew what their purpose was. It was to break the morale of the defenders as much as it was to destroy those walls. Thing about long sieges, it's hard to keep one side happy while making the other miserable. Because sitting in that camp, even closer to those siege batteries, albeit far further from the firing range, wasn't particularly a treat in its own respect. I fell asleep with the rumbling of the earth beneath me and an artillery blast somewhere every 5 seconds. They didn't keep their synchronization of the first blast, as firing crews rotated, more and more synchronization was lost to the point it seemed the Earth was never quiet. I dreamed of seeing the explosions, and the wasteland that laid just beyond those massive stone walls.
After 2 weeks of nonstop artillery, you began to forget where you were. I would leave my tent in the morning, still groggy, eyes sore and adjusting, expecting the light of the sun, but I'd step out, and there'd be no sun. I'd wonder if it was the middle of the night until I remembered it was day. Hell, I had woken up as late as noon sometimes on my days off only to see, or rather, not see the complete lack of a sky. Clouds gray with sulfur surrounded shrouded the blue sky beyond for what seemed like an eternity. The last time I had seen the sky had been 2 months ago. I forgot what shade of blue it was at this point.
I would wake up, looking at those walls, finally showing their marks of damage and weariness that spelled illusions of hope and sparked thoughts of "maybe". Whatever crews the Earth Kingdom had manning those walls were completely and utterly put on an indefinite standby as walking onto those walls or anywhere within a mile of those walls was an instant death sentence. There had only been one group of 5 so bold as to brave the rain of fire and they met their end the way it had been expected. When Zek tapped my shoulder and pointed at the silhouettes on the wall, they had been blown to even smaller black blips on the horizon before Chez could even wager on how long he had expected them to last.
Those who had been injured 2 months ago now appeared as though nothing had ever happened to them. No broken limbs, no handicaps, nothing. Well, excluding me. The arm was no longer suspended, but still in a cast. I could move more of it now without severe pain, but functionality ended at the forearm, but, in the 2 months of time that had been given to me, I had been forced to make accommodations.
I had somewhere found a balance between my expectations and those of my squad where I found the time it took to adjust well enough to my left arm as far slower than I had hoped for while they seemed to view it as a miracle, citing on friends of theirs who had lost their primary arms and never made the adjustments after years of practice, losing their military careers in single swift, and deadly, strokes.
They credited my youth, and my lack of proper training in swordsmanship in any regard, saying I hadn't come yet to favor any one arm and I would now have trouble returning to my right. I didn't want to think that to be true. While maybe I could react right with my left, it would never feel right, natural. I still felt my right arm even when I knew I didn't, feeling an itch that, even when I scratched, wouldn't go away. A phantom pain, Killstreak would call it. Killstreak, despite the colorful name, was our division medic. Zek said he'd gotten his name for having a higher kill count than any one else in the armored division.
I had never gotten a chance to ask the man in question about his thoughts regarding his name. I wondered if he'd brush it off, play along, or perhaps show anger at the apparent slight to his profession the nickname implied. I figured maybe it'd be best not to ask the question unless I found myself confined to that tent for an extended period of time.
In the last week, well, you could tell the bombardment was coming to a never-too-soon end. First the trenches were abandoned. Any ideas of a counterattack had been abandoned. If the Earth Kingdom was preparing to attack us, breaking out of the city, which was impossible given the fact the city was being completely besieged and we'd sealed off the secret tunnel behind squad Blackfyre, they would have done it already. No. That idea was out the window. The next move was ours. And it was coming.
After the trenches had been abandoned, filled with mud due to the insistent rainfall of late summer/early autumn, the tens were whittled down, the watch towers torn down ad burned for firewood, and lastly, the assault teams assembled. And last night, when the moon came up, a perfect white circle, shining through the smog of our siege against all odds, we knew the day had come.
So this morning, or, at least what I assumed was the morning, I helped Zek and Hizo tear down our tent, packing it into the back of our tank, knowing we'd just be setting up another camp on the other side of that wall, only for what I prayed would be for a much smaller timespan. And after tearing that tent down, gathering all of my possession and anything I didn't wish to lose to the natural processes of the world around me, I looked at the perfect formation of tents directly in front of me, knowing, this time around, what lay ahead on those walls. I had been through it before.
I had already had to deal with boss and his reluctance to have me in the tank. Squad Iron Fire was to join in the initial climb. We'd be near the front. Again, nothing I wasn't used to. I told him just that, but he was persistent.
But his complaints were hollow. I could see it. He could see it. I was going, and there was nothing he was going to be able to do to stop me.
I was going to fight today. I had done this all before. I had survived. But this time around, however, it wasn't about survival. I had already done that before. Today was something else, because today, we wouldn't simply survive. We would win.
Today, Ba Sing Se would see the first day of its fall.