Chapter 115: The Siege of the North (V)
For a moment, the only sound on the command deck was the sizzle of fading ozone and the gentle lap of water against the hull where Zuko had vanished. The officers and crew stood frozen, a tableau of shock and dawning terror. They had just witnessed the Crown Prince, the architect of this invasion, the Sunbreaker, be struck down by his own sister.
Princess Azula slowly lowered her hand. The faint, acrid scent of her lightning still hung in the air. She smoothed a non-existent wrinkle from her armor, her expression one of serene, unshakable control.
"Princess Azula!" Vice Admiral Takeda's voice was a strangled mix of fury and fear. He took a step forward, his face ashen. "The Fire Lord's orders were explicit! The Prince was to be taken alive! His execution was to be a public spectacle in the capital! This… this was a direct contravention of…"
Azula's head turned slowly, her golden eyes pinning him in place. The air grew cold.
"Vice Admiral," she said, her voice soft yet cutting through his protest like a whip. "My brother chose to resist arrest. He forced my hand. Or are you suggesting I should have allowed a condemned traitor to potentially harm the rightful heir to the throne?" She took a single, deliberate step toward him. "The will of the Fire Lord has been served. Justice has been delivered. Now, you will focus on the siege in front of you."
Her gaze swept across the entire command deck, silencing any other dissent before it could form. "The plan remains unchanged. The wall is broken. The city is vulnerable. We will not let this opportunity falter because of… sentimentality. Is that understood?"
A chorus of "Yes, Princess!" echoed across the deck, sharp and immediate. Takeda bowed his head, his jaw clenched so tight it looked ready to crack. He had no choice. The viper had taken the nest.
Azula turned her back on them, striding to the forward railing where Zuko had stood just minutes before. She looked upon the breach, her eyes alight with a cold fire. "Signal the landing parties. Full assault. Drown them in fire."
A horn, deep and mournful, blared from the Inferno's Heart. It was answered by a dozen others from the surrounding fleet. The black waters around the ships churned as dozens of metal landing craft were lowered, swarming with Fire Nation soldiers, their armor and spearheads glinting in the hellish light of the burning city.
The siege had officially begun.
The first landing craft crunched onto the jagged, steaming ice at the edge of the breach. The ramp dropped, and a squad of firebenders emerged, moving in a disciplined phalanx. They were met not by a solid wall, but by a desperate, ragged line of Water Tribe warriors and benders.
"For the Tribe!" a warrior roared, hurling a spear. It was deflected by a shield of flame.
The firebenders responded as one. They stomped, and a wave of fire, ten feet high, rolled forward. It wasn't aimed at individuals, but at the ground itself, melting the ice, creating a moat of boiling water and steam. A waterbender, a young man with a face set in grim determination, thrust his arms forward. A wall of water rose from the canal behind him, meeting the fire wave with a deafening hiss. The resulting explosion of superheated steam scalded both sides, the air filling with the screams of men whose skin was instantly blistered and melted.
This was the new, brutal reality. It was not a clean fight of element against element. It was a meat grinder.
A Fire Nation soldier, his face a mask of battle fury, broke from the phalanx and charged a waterbender who was trying to reform the ice. The waterbender, a woman, saw him too late. She turned, a whip of water forming in her hand, but he was already inside her reach. He didn't use fire. He drove his armored fist into her throat. There was a sickening crunch. She dropped, gagging, as he plunged a dagger into her chest. The snow around her turned a deep, violent red.
On the left flank, a group of waterbenders worked in unison, their movements a fluid dance of destruction. They pulled a massive wave from a canal, freezing it in mid-air into a barrage of jagged, spear-like icicles. They hurled it forward, and the projectiles slammed into the Fire Nation line with the force of ballista bolts. Men were impaled, their armor offering little protection. One soldier took a shard through the eye, the point exploding out the back of his helmet in a spray of bone and brain matter. Another was pinned to the molten ground, the ice spear through his gut, his screams a high, piercing counterpoint to the battle's roar.
But the firebenders' discipline was terrifying. They didn't break. They saw their comrades fall and advanced over their bodies. They concentrated their fire, not on the benders, but on the ice under their feet. A section of the battlefield, where a dozen waterbenders were holding the line, suddenly glowed orange and gave way, collapsing into a newly created pool of boiling water. The benders thrashed and screamed, their own element turned against them, their skin cooking until they fell silent and still, their bodies floating amidst the chunks of melting ice.
Azula watched it all from her command post, her expression one of clinical appraisal. She pointed a single, imperious finger. "That pocket of resistance, there. The one near the collapsed tower. Concentrate the trebuchet fire. Obliterate it."
A messenger relayed the order. Moments later, a massive, flaming projectile, larger than any before, arced over the wall and crashed directly into the position Azula had indicated. The explosion was cataclysmic, vaporizing warriors and benders alike, sending shrapnel of ice, bone, and metal scything through the air. When the smoke and steam cleared, there was only a smoldering crater.
The Fire Nation troops, seeing the display of overwhelming force, let out a guttural cheer and pushed forward, their boots slipping on the blood-slicked, melting ice. They poured into the city streets, a tide of red and black, meeting the desperate, blue-clad defenders in brutal, close-quarters combat. Swords clashed against clubs and spears. Fire met water and flesh. The air grew thick with the smell of blood, burnt meat, and ozone.
The grand strategy was over. The brilliant maneuvering was done. This was no longer Zuko's war of intricate plans. This was Azula's war. A war of annihilation. And as the Princess of the Fire Nation looked down upon the carnage, a faint, satisfied smile touched her lips. The ice was breaking. And she would ensure it was ground to dust.