Chapter 25.2- And so the Dragons Danced

“Part of me doesn’t even want to ask if you have a plan for Goaling.” Toji said, moving his Ostrich-horse to my side as we rode down the distance that separated us and the Earth Kingdom City.

To be honest, part of me didn’t even want to think about it. My plan making so far hadn’t been the nest of things after that mess up in the swamp. Losing a fourth of my men to long term injuries or death while trying to cross a swamp of all things was probably going to kill a lot of the goodwill I’d been building at Central Command. Of course, there was the thought of not reporting casualties until after we had taken Gaoling, and then reporting everything as a lump sum. It was the kind of ‘smart accounting’ that I would have derided when I was younger. Ones failings and successes should be equally regarded as learning opportunities, I’d thought, and while I still agreed with that and even had a bias towards failure for the successes therein, using something as a learning opportunity and allowing it to derail your career were two different things. Two fucking different things.

“Would a direct storming of the wall be unconscionable?” I asked Toji with an assessing look at the City’s wall in the distance. We were still two hours or so away, but I was sure that by now word of our presence here had spread thoroughly. After this, I knew the Earth Kingdom military would be able to ignore me no further, and that meant I should probably be trying to minimise casualties. On the other hand, I didn’t have the equipment for a long siege against earthbenders with a wall in front of them. If the Kingdom’s military met us here in the middle of a seige, then I had little hope of anything other than a quick death for me and my troops.

“Looks strong, but I bet I can go over. So could you. Maybe another two hundred of the soldiers could make it across in time to be useful. How many do you think they have over there?”

“At most? A thousand. It’s a big city, but it’s no Omashu. We’ve also never really taken them before and been content to just ignore and march around them so they probably don’t have any experience against Fire Nation aggression”, I said, beginning to come to terms with what I was about to order. A good portion of those who made it over the wall first would die. I’d be there leading the charge, but even the Dragon of the West lost men when he fought and I doubted I was as good a fighter as the mythical General Iroh in his prime.

“I think we could do it” Toji agreed, also realising what I was planning.

“Good. We march there. We set up camp like we’re going for a siege and strike by noon tomorrow,” I said in reply to him.

“Well, let’s go get ready to kill ourselves some earthbenders. At least these ones will be able to to fight back” He said, and I nodded. Just like me, he wasn’t completely comfortable with what we’d done at the Swamp. Those people. They hadn’t been fighters. They didn’t sign up for this. And yet, I’d killed and captured them all the same.