There was no fanfare in Zilang this time to welcome the soldiers. Instead the town's main roads were kept clear to allow for the regiments of the Northern Pacification Army to march through unimpeded.
General Sho led the way with his 16th Regiment, taking a straight route out of the colony to head north. Interestingly, Colonel Hwa found her 51st Grand Company trailing right after them. She'd expected the other groups to go after the general's command, they were all better acquainted with him after all. But instead, her Grand Company had taken the next highest place of honor.
Perhaps the general was trying to reassure her?
If so, Hwa appreciated the gesture. She was well above it, but being the odd one out in a core group of otherwise familiar friends made for some awkwardness in the main command tent.
Why the crown princess saw fit to pick her for this army was beyond Hwa, but the colonel was grateful for it. And she was even more grateful that the general had kept the blabbering Dao at the rearmost position.
Almost rearmost position, anyway.
Honor and courtesy demanded that Dao's 4th Regiment be ahead of the regiments and companies that attached themselves to the army after the crown princess' involvement was made public. It would be unseemly if the core groups, the ones picked by the cunning princess herself were relegated to the back of the line.
The army of about 30,000 soldiers - discounting camp followers and supply staff - moved in surprisingly good order and speed, with the 11th Royal Regiment serving as a whole as scouts. Rather interestingly, the crown princess' soldiers were always sent ahead of the army. General Sho fully trusted their abilities, as did Dao, Yashen, Koda, and even a few of the other commanders.
Hwa had to admit feeling rather impressed with the colonel of the Defiant 11th. Young Xing was far more intelligent and cunning than his detractors whispered. And he was humble too, never once giving any airs about his rank as a Royal Champion. He only voiced his thoughts when the general or the other commanders asked him about it, and had so far never made any requests for his regiment's placement.
It would be easy to mistake his humbleness for meekness, but Hwa was not fooled. The boy had fended off King Bumi, after all. She'd heard the excited chatter of the soldiers first hand, and there was no way such awe could be falsified.
And any doubts about young Xing's abilities were quickly dispelled when messengers from the 11th brought back news of an Earth Kingdom army moving to intercept them barely two weeks after leaving Zilang. It was a smaller force than the Northern Pacification Army, which suggested that there might be other groups on the way to support them.
"Colonel Xing requests permission for the 11th to engage them," the soldier reported, and General Sho grinned as he nodded.
"Tell him to leave some for us."
"They're going to engage the enemy force?" Hwa had asked, speaking for the other stunned colonels and captains. The enemy army had been reported to be a small force, but still, it was just one regiment against several thousand soldiers. "Is that wise?"
The general nodded with some amusement. "Don't worry, I trust Xing to be a good sport and leave us a satisfactory piece of the fighting. He's just going to tie them down."
Any words she wanted to sputter in protest were interrupted when the blowhard Dao opened his mouth. "Ah, calm your tits, Hwa. The boy's been bleeding the Earth Kingdom for a while now."
Hwa strode up to her chuckling colleague and feigned a kick between his legs, which he dodged as she expected, allowing her to redirect the momentum into a powerful downwards strike that decked Dao across the face and knocked him down on all fours.
"You're a colonel and a nobleman," she spat angrily. "Act like it."
While the other commanders stared in horrified silence, General Sho and Colonels Yashen and Koda were grinning and chuckling. "Well said," the general offered, and then glanced at his friends. "Eight from me."
Hwa blinked confusedly at that.
"Sounds right. Eight as well," Yashen replied with a nod.
"Seven," Koda added casually.
"What?"
"Your score," the colonel of the 31st Cavalry blandly remarked. "Would've been a solid eight or even a nine if you used an uppercut instead."
"Eh, I'd have preferred a low blow myself," General Sho commented as Koda yanked Dao up. "Anyway, make ready your forces, commanders. If we move quickly enough, there'll still be an enemy to fight."
It took the better part of two hours before they came across fleeing Earth Kingdom peasants, many covered in soot and smelling of shit. Hwa had her troops double-time it to the sounds of fighting, only to find a battlefield covered in thick smoke and broken earth, and littered with bodies.
She didn't find the banners of the 11th, but the enemy army seemed disorganized…and were looking the other way with their backs generally exposed to her. Not questioning the opportunity given to her, Hwa quickly ordered her ranks to tighten up and prepare for a wedge charge. Beside and behind her, the other commanders were adopting similar orders with their regiments and companies.
The Earth Kingdom army did not react in time to the flanking charge. A storm of fire swept away the surprised soldiers, and earthbenders were quickly overwhelmed by the sheer ferocity of the initial barrage. Hwa herself dove into the fray with her flames channeled to her sword. She ignored the conscript chaff and seared a path towards officers, cutting many of them down as they tried desperately to restore order to their ranks.
Hwa kept a stony, grim expression as she dueled and bested her enemies, the cold battle trance that settled on her lending Hwa clarity to her senses. She ignored the battle roars of her allies, or the fearful cries of her enemies. At the back of her head, Hwa made note of the flow of battle around her, and she had short moments of awareness to bark out orders.
Other than that, Hwa enjoyed the meditative violence of combat. Any who stood in her path were cut down in short order, by flame or by blade. The colonel cut and stabbed and burnt anything that wasn't Fire Nation, and her final blow was against something that tried to pounce at her from behind.
"Whoa! Easy there colonel! It's me, spirits' sake! The battle's over!"
Hwa snapped out of the battle trance, and she extinguished the flames on her sword as she withdrew it from the bind with Dao's axes. "I know," she said with a snort, absently flicking the ash and soot off her weapon before sheathing it. "A shame you had to block."
Taking a glance around, the colonel realized the shattered enemy around her fleeing or surrendering. Finally she saw the banners of the 11th, waving on the other end of the field.
Seemingly picking up on her unasked question, Colonel Koda appeared out of nowhere. "I got a month's wage that Xing pretended to be a larger army to draw the enemy's attention away from us."
Hwa gave him an incredulous look. "What if we didn't reach in time to support him?" To pull off such a ploy with just one regiment against a whole army was almost Dao levels of stupidly risky.
Her colleague shrugged a bit too easily, tugging at his thin beard. "He'd have pulled back and kept them running in circles. Won't be the first time." Such casual faith in Koda's voice made Hwa regard the banners of the Princess' Fire Lancers with undenied awe.
"Oh," the colonel suddenly said. "Eight…for getting Dao to block with both axes. If you tripped the oaf, it'd be a full ten."
*****
Zuko forced himself to steely calmness. It was his fault that the Avatar escaped. He was man enough to admit it. He should've remembered that a young face did not necessarily mean an easy challenge.
Xing was proof of this.
At least none of the crew suffered any serious wounds. The worst damage any of them suffered were bruises to their warrior's pride, being bested by inexperienced children.
Zuko looked at the massive pile of ice and snow that half-buried his ship, and then turned to the skies where his prey had escaped to before sighing. "All hands on deck. The sooner we clear ourselves away from this glacier, the sooner we can continue the hunt. That means my uncle as well. Send someone to wake him."
"Should we return to the village?" a soldier asked, referring to the collection of fur-skin huts that the Water Tribe called a settlement.
"No," Zuko answered without hesitation. "The Avatar had escaped us, but there was no grave dishonor from his actions, even if he had help from the tribe." And the prince remembered Xing's dislike of punishing innocent civilians. "Besides, we have little time to waste."
It took the rest of the day to melt and shovel their way to freedom, and the ship limped back to the nearest port for repairs. With nothing else to do but wait, Zuko spent the coming days refining his firebending with his uncle, as well as honing the non-bending combat with the crew.
The Avatar had been far more nimble than expected, and his small size gave him an advantage that the prince hadn't considered until he was being led around in circles in a vain attempt to land a hit. The close quarters combat that Zuko had learned from Xing was ill fit to face an opponent that was much faster and could soar through the air.
Improvements had to be made to the fighting form, and to that end Zuko did his best to remember his encounter with the Avatar, despite the bitterness of the crushing defeat. The men with him could not replicate the airbender's agility, but a degree of simulation could be achieved by having them throw a barrage of firebolts for Zuko to evade and strike.
Uncle Iroh had been concerned about such an extreme regime, but the prince was not worried. After surviving the flames of his father, getting hit by small blasts from the crew felt no deadlier than harsh gusts of wind.
Granted, Zuko would not be able to firebend at all if not for Xing's unconventional help. The trust he fostered with his prisoners was educational, and had given the prince a second chance at life. The Fire Lord's wrath had almost roasted Zuko's lungs and heart, to the point where just speaking above a raspy whisper seemed like an insurmountable challenge, and simply standing straight invited stabbing pain to his damaged organs. For a while, Zuko had to struggle with the fact of being virtually invalid for the rest of his life.
Then the closest thing Zuko had to a friend had locked him in with some cackling waterbenders, and they'd healed him. Just like that, with no reasons or excuses given. Uncle Iroh had said it was a necessary subterfuge, but it took the younger prince weeks of pondering before he realized the ugly reasons behind it.
Having both exiled princes be locked in with the 11th Regiment's prisoners for days… When put like that, it sounded like a grave humiliation was inflicted. Xing had masked his intentions of giving vital aid, and would continue to do so in the years after that.
But why?
Politics. Appeasement.
Zuko did not truly mind the open whispers about that event, or being the subject of amusement or pity. But when he heard how his father had officially commended the colonel of the 11th for 'properly hosting' his son and brother, the young prince felt a pang that hurt far more than the intense blast from the Agni Kai.
Had he shamed his father that much to earn such spite? Was Zuko that much of a disappointment that Xing could only aid him under the guise of being a bully?
Zuko spent many sleepless nights trying to trace the possible points of his failure in his father's eyes. Father had always been stern and harsh, and while he showed no pretense in favoring Azula, there had been no clue of the depths of his wrath until the Agni Kai.
Surely there was more to it than just speaking out against General Bujing. That act, however rude, could not have earned Zuko his father's ire. Or his dark, unbridled glee when dispensing punishment. There had to be some past transgression the prince had overlooked, some unknowing offense… Or had his father simply had enough of Zuko's mediocrity? Was the lessons he took with Xing and the generals not enough?
Uncle Iroh could offer little assurance. "I wish I knew what goes on in my brother's mind," he admitted sadly. "Hopefully, he will see the error he has made, and recall you back in time."
The words were a poor attempt at comforting him, and Zuko could only find comfort in the fact that the chance of regaining his honor and his father's favor was not as impossible as many made it out to be.
If he pulled this off, maybe the Fire Lord might even be proud of him.