Lu Gun watched as the Meteor Knight went down, waited long enough to see if he would rise. It was pathetic really, the way all hard men got that same look in their eye when they realized just how soft they were. Confusion, fear, that distant look as their strength faded.

Some died right away. That was actually more dignified. The best ones usually struggled to stand or keep fighting or say one last thing, but their motions became comically futile, their voices blubbery and weak. This Torun Bo was the latter, making one last attempt to return to lead his forces before slipping in his own pool of blood and realizing he was dead.

Lu Gun looked to General Fong beside him, “I think you can take it from here, don’t you agree?”

“Yes, sir,” Fong grated out. He came from a long line of General Fongs, all preeminent minds of the Earth Kingdom military. Lu Gun knew the general chafed at cleanup duty. History would remember this day as the Earth Kingdom’s first great victory in the Farwilds, and the day would belong to the lowly name of Gun. Fong would be a footnote, if included at all.

As Lu Gun turned to stride out of the tunnel, he could already see that the savages were growing disorganized. Without their more civilized commander to keep them in check, they would lose discipline within the hour. The Earthbreaker assassin only had one more thing to shore up.

He walked alone out of the tunnel, past the thousands more waiting their turn to throw themselves at the weakening defenders, past the engineers working tirelessly to position the siege tower to take the ridge, to the back of his forces, where waited the catapults and ballistae.

“Is it ready?” Lu Gun asked the man beside one machine.

“Yes, master,” the man bowed, though the three circles on his shoulders would suggest that he was second only to General Fong and the Earth King.

“Has it been tested?”

This man rankled too before answering. He was the Chief Engineer of the Earthbreakers, and perhaps one of the most brilliant men to come out of the Earth Kingdom in his generation. Even so, Lu Gun had fought too hard to let a mistake from a pencilbender take it all away.

“Yes, master, it was tested for safety and range.” The Chief Engineer beckoned to one of his subordinates and the man brought forward a clay pot, slightly cracked but otherwise undamaged.

Lu Gun looked up to the northern peak rising from the ridgeline of the caldera and saw where a ballista bolt was lodged three quarters of the way to the top, the absolute limits of its range. A white figure stood above it on the peak. Even at this distance, it was clear the monk was engaged in animated conversation with another, perhaps the leader of the savages.

“Two degrees higher,” said the assassin.

“But, master-”

Lu Gun silenced the pencilbender with a stare.

“Two degrees higher,” ordered the Chief Engineer to the man at the ballista crank. The crank ticked twice.

This particular siege engine was the best of them. It was made entirely of stone, no cheap clay parts, and its critical joints were reinforced with stolen or salvaged Fire Nation steel. It was immensely heavy, incredibly difficult and slow to transport across almost any terrain, and incredibly expensive. There was even gold filligreed etched into the metal.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

This was the Earth King’s pride and joy, Ba Sing Se’s Seige Breaker and it had taken all of General Fong’s stockpiled favors in the upper brass to get it sent here to the edge of the world.

Lu Gun didn’t care about any of that. All he cared was that it fired a ballista bolt larger than a man was wide. Indeed, the clay ballista bolt that the team brought forward was hollow, and once it was loaded and cranked into place, Lu Gun climbed into the space within, fitting the clay door in place himself with his own earthbending.

It was vaguely reminiscent of the metal tomb he had sealed himself in to escape his own sabotage of the Fire Nation ship, and was not unlike the grave he had dug himself when the lightbender’s wildfire had consumed the meadow.

Lu Gun probably should have felt something more at the similarity, but all he could think was that he was about to get the lightbender alone finally. The Earthbreaker army could take the tunnel, they could take the ridge, they could take the whole accursed village in the caldera and put everyone to the sword, but it all meant nothing to Lu Gun if the lightbender had a chance to get away.

The greatest of Earthbreaker assassins had never failed to kill a mark before, and the lightbender had been his last mark. Not only that, but Yaosen of the Light Temple had actually fought back, and he had almost won. Lu Gun would break a nation, shatter a continent, tear anyone or anything limb from limb, if only to prove that there was no one in the world beyond the reach of his power, no one in the world stronger than him.

He was about to prove that not even a lightbender could best the greatest of metalbenders. Lu Gun gritted his teeth and smiled a rictus grin.

“Fire.”

***

Po looked to Kyokoh as she stood by the lever, watching the missile sail over the caldera with awe.

“If he dies, do you get court-martialed?” asked Po.

“No way,” said Kyokoh as the bolt reached its apex and started its downward trajectory. “He’s not officially in charge of anyone. Besides, I’m telling everyone you pulled the lever.”

The missile burst apart just as it was about to smash against the mountainside. The Earthbreaker assassin emerged from the wreckage mid-air, pulled the ground up to meet him and then rippled it outward in a crater to absorb his impact.

“Man that guy is crazy,” said Kyokoh, earning a glare from the Chief Engineer.

“Kind of bad-ass though,” said Po, under his breathe, “Fong would never get inside a missile.”

“Fong doesn’t even boil his own tea.”

“Another word from you Lieutenant, about any of your superiors, and I’ll bring you up on charges,” snapped the Chief Engineer, then he added under his breath, “I’m not dying for you if that bastard lives.”

***

“What was that?” Rook asked.

Yaosen scowled. They had both witnessed the days-long barrage of Shadow Ridge, and they had seen more than enough ballista bolts slam into the caldera to know that Rook knew damned-well what it was. What she meant was why the sudden change in tactics? All the other projectiles had gone into the ridge, or into the city beyond. Now suddenly, only a single bolt had struck the slope of the northern peak, as if calibrating.

“We’re out of range right?” she reiterated.

“They’re preparing something,” Yaosen responded, “I don’t know what. Some new weapon perhaps, or-”

The second bolt came screaming through the air. It shattered into a cloud of clay shards and stonedust before reaching the ground. And then a spike of earth rose up to meet it, before absorbing what was left of the projectile in a crater of volcanic stone.

“What in the shadows’ name?”

Rook stepped forward, as if to walk down the outer slope of stone to investigate.

Yaosen grabbed her arm, “We need to go back…”

His words fell away as they realized something was crawling out of the crater. A claw, half-metal, emerged first, then a mantle of owlynx fur, then a gleeful, horrid face looked up at them above red-stamped metalbent armor. Metal bullets were strapped across his chest, razorback spines dangling from his belt.

Yaosen still held Rook’s arm, but pulled her behind him for an altogether different reason.

“Leave this to me,” the monk said flatly, striding down the steep barren mountainside to meet the assassin.