In the end, Yaosen hadn’t needed to convince the Meteor Knight to stand and fight.

“If we run now, we’ll never stop running,” said Torun.

“So we’re agreed?” said Yaosen “We fight to defend what we’ve built.”

“Hmph.”

While Yaosen redoubled his efforts to master lightbending, he deferred to Torun to arrange their defenses.

“Walls will do us no good against an advanced earthbender. Raising pickets is a waste of time and energy. Your Earthbreaker can undermine and topple them with a glance. Even traps won’t help us much, when most advanced earthbenders can see without seeing,” Torun had said, “But arrogance is a type of trap, and I’ve trained my whole life to stop the best assassins.”

Yaosen went to meditate by the river, with absolute faith in the Meteor Knight.

After another frustrating session of aborted lightbending, Yaosen was eager to see what Torun had come up with.

What he saw almost made him give up and flee then and there.

“I thought you said walls and traps and pickets were useless against Lu Gun?”

Torun shrugged. “He’ll see the traps and toppled the walls, and flatten the pickets, but what he sees as one type of trap is a different type of trap entirely.”

“What do you mean?”

“It's all wood and rope and timber. Chances are, he’ll go right through it all when he wants to, thinking we’re stupid of desperate. But what he won’t realize is that it's all just meant as kindling.”

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“Kindling?” Yoasen looked around. The walls were all made of felled trees, bark stripped, the pickets were the same but saplings, even the traps were highly flammable. “Like a huge bonfire!”

“Hmph. Feel the wind? Feel how dry this wood is? I figure either you lightbend like you say you will, or worst case scenario you light everything up within twenty paces. He can block fire, but not from every direction at once, not for long.”

“But what about the razorbacks?”

The herd of wolfboar were scattered around the camp in a rough circle, tied to pickets, but otherwise mowing happily on mushrooms and leftover scraps.

“Earthbender assassins can muffle their footfalls on the earth,” Torun explained, “But only an airbender can hide their scent. We’ll stay within the circle of wolfboar until they catch his scent, then we’ll release them to scatter. We just need to know when and where he’s coming from.”

Yaosen nodded. He’d feel guilty about using the wolfboar as an alarm system, especially after hearing the mountain spirit’s request to drive them off before Lu Gun arrived. But when Torun showed him how they were all cleverly tied to a single line – apparently there had been no shortage of rope to salvage from the wreckage of their ship – Yaosen was convinced that Torun could free them at a moment’s notice.

“But how will you get out of here if I explode?”

“The brook is deep enough to cover us, as long as we can hold our breath while it carries us out. I figured this won't be much use against a metalbender, so we might as well use it to hold us down while we make our escape.”

Torun showed him to two bundles of his meteorite armor, ready to roll into the creek.

“I thought you said that the armor was your honor, and you’d no sooner cast it by the roadside then cast it off in battle.”

“What are you talking about? I’m using it in battle. Just not in the way it expects to be used, and not in any battle it would recognize.”

Yaosen considered it all a moment, trying to think a way around, trying to understand his enemy and how it might be subverted. Finally, Yaosen clapped Torun on the shoulder.

“It's brilliant Torun. Thank you. Now, is there anything left to do to prepare?”

“Nothing but rest.”

“You mean sleep?”

Torun shrugged.

So they slept. And when they awoke in the dark of night, razorback wolfboars snorting concernedly and testing the wind with raised snouts, they could hear a rattling, clinking on the wind.

“What is that?” whispered Yaosen.

“I think they’re… chains?”