The marching of boots from not too far away caused the earthen walls to tremble and loose dirt to fall from the ceiling. Mozi reigned in the bubbling claustrophobia as he and the soldiers of 1st and 2nd Battalions waited in the near darkness of their underground chamber. Thanks to their earthbenders, it only took half a night to shape the earth, and with their skill they were able to create the void far closer to the enemy army's route than previously with wooden covers.
Xing's training regime had made the loyal earthbenders of the 11th just as knowledgeable and proficient as their Earth Kingdom counterparts, even if they might not be as powerful. That competence allowed them to falsify ground density to fool earthbender scouts with impressive effectiveness, while building a far more comfortable and ventilated hiding hole.
It definitely beat waiting in an oversized coffin.
As usual, they hid underneath rougher terrain like islands of shrubs or rocky outcrops, to further minimize detection.
Redesigned periscopes gave a discreet view of the surface. Smaller and lighter than those used in the navy, Mozi found these devices rather useful, even on the surface. The scouts were definitely happy about owning them, allowing them to gain a better vantage point without having to stick their necks out as much.
The 3rd and 4th Battalions were on the opposite end of the approaching force, so the enemy was marching between them right now.
But a pincer ambush was not the goal here; It'd reveal the regiment's trump card unnecessarily.
Instead, they patiently waited for the army to pass before the earthbenders carefully created a ramp up to the surface.
Now safely in the enemy's rear, the majority of the 11th Regiment regrouped in the safety of a trench, but not before taking their time to prop up the wooden boards they brought with them in their hiding holes and roughly hack at the dirt walls with shovels.
A 'red herring', as Xing would say.
Mozi didn't know why it was called that, considering that there was nothing about red herrings that were misleading or cunning. As far as he knew they were caught rather straightforwardly like most other fish, and showed no remarkable skill.
Maybe it's because Xing got fooled by their taste?
The gathered battalions waited for evening and the Earth Kingdom army to set up camp, and only when their earthen walls rose did the soldiers breathe a sigh of relief. The more speculative part was over, now they could move forward towards far simpler objectives.
Captain Sungho and his scouts broke away from the battalions to disappear into the dusk, while Mozi finalized the plans with the captains.
General Sho had requested for the 11th to deal with this group before it joined up with the Earth Kingdom coalition. It would also serve as a reminder of the regiment's abilities to the rest of the Northern Pacification Army, after chasing away smaller and less threatening forces for a while now.
Mozi and the other officers didn't begrudge the general for that, they knew about the necessary games of politics, even within the supposedly meritocratic Fire Nation Army. Reputations must be cultivated, and merits and honors dispensed fairly (or at least seem so) to not only placate the other commanders, but also win them over to the princess' side.
This was officially her operation, after all. Allowing the commanders to gain commendations here would leave them at the very least more favorable to her, or at best wholly tie them and their influence - however little it might be right now - to her will simply out of gratitude.
So the main army would be preparing to face and break the gathered defenders of the Earth Kingdom in a few days' time, while the 11th would deal with minor details like this. It'd probably be a bloody but decisive battle, with plenty of feats to sing about.
A shame that Mozi and most soldiers of the 11th never liked those kinds of songs.
And it's not like there wasn't any honor to gain out here.
They were about to assault an army at least four times the regiment's size, and even at night it was nothing to scoff at. The important part was to ensure that casualties remained light, to shut up the court generals back home before they could spout excuses of desperate gambles and reckless bravado again.
Cricket songs began chirping, bringing back a clearer picture of the enemy perimeter. There were heavier patrols, but that would not be important tonight, not with how they'd be attacking. Rufen's battalion was only slightly off course, but the main initiator of the plan would still work.
The earthbenders began to slowly tunnel their way closer towards the camp, keeping to a zig-zagging pattern as Xing's doctrine dictated. It minimized visual detection somewhat, but also gave the troops some cover in case of retaliatory fire. All but useless in conventional sieges against enemy earthbenders (or even waterbenders, if they had enough water to flood the trenches), but definitely good for surprise attacks like this.
As the soldiers crept closer, they finally heard the cricket chirping that signaled the 5th Battalion's deployment. The tunneling ceased, and the soldiers of the four battalions prepared themselves. Soot and dirt was reapplied on their armor, the integrity of naphtha jars double-checked, and reminders were dispensed in harsh whispers.
"Any time now, Rufen," Mozi muttered, never liking the churning anticipation before a fight.
And then eventually, finally, he heard the first signal.
Improvised speaking trumpets hidden underground along with a choir of soldiers roared out a song on the opposite end of the camp to draw the attention of the defenders.
Stand up all the night and call the fight,
Let your mind go wild before the light,
Here we come, the army of the night,
Mater Maria!
Nobody bothered asking where Xing had picked up the harsh song, or what some of the words meant, but boy was it catchy.
Immediately the periscopes picked up movement from within the makeshift fort. The patrols froze in confusion for a moment, before running back into the safety of their walls.
Smart guards, at least this enemy commander learned not to offer up their squads piecemeal to the darkness.
Lined up side by side and bound to pray,
Sent to die and fight the final day,
Army of the night, we came to stay,
Mater Maria!
Mozi clung to the wall of the trench as he spied the unmistakable rise of naphtha smoke coming on the other end of the camp. The naphtha slingers were probably fleeing into their hiding spots before the enemy found them, or luring any pursuers into ambushes.
Hopefully the former. Less risk of casualties.
The song continued to echo into the darkness, and the first hints of the enemy being spooked revealed itself in the form of a rising cacophony of hollering and cries. More columns of smoke snaked up to the heavens; Rufen's slingers must have remained comfortably undetected.
Regardless, the building chaos suited Mozi's liking. The guards on the wall were being pulled away to the front, leaving only a skeleton crew to watch the sections that weren't subjected to loud singing and noxious smoke. They probably thought that they'd have enough time on their earthen ramparts to alert the others in case their foes tried to flank around.
It was a tried and tested option against other Fire Nation forces, after all.
Mozi almost broke into a grin as he looked forward to dashing their expectations once more.
The second signal was given, in the form of a bolt of fire streaking up into the heavens. Rufen should be feinting a siege now, laying down concentrated fire against the walls from some distance away. If the defenders didn't sally out, their earthbenders would be stuck repairing the bulwarks throughout the night and risk being too exhausted when the true assault came.
Another stream of fire shot up into the sky. Mozi let himself grin this time even as the captains behind him chuckled darkly.
The enemy were moving out. Now came the important part: Timing things just right.
After years of fighting together, Mozi trusted the captain of the 5th Battalion to maintain a healthy distance from the enemy, even if they somehow managed to send out the whole army to chase the battalion down. He'd have made Scout Captain long ago if the job didn't require him to keep his mouth shut most of the time.
Straining his ears, Mozi picked up the cricket song, and his grin grew wider as he received the good news. The enemy was emptying most of its forces out of their walled camp. Two-thirds, at the most. It was good enough.
"Go," Mozi whispered, and the earthbenders took little time to lower the trench wall into a ramp.
The metal blades glinted in the starlight like a swarm of glowbugs as four battalions poured towards the enemy's walls. Arrows from the hidden scouts silenced the guards on it before they could raise the alarm, further reducing the time for the defenders to react. With how close the trench was, it didn't take much running to reach the base of the wall.
Earthbenders quickly punched their hands onto its surface and almost literally blasted out a hole, with firebenders sending out loud but useless blasts at the same time to simulate an explosion of blasting jelly. Mozi joined in with tedious but necessary subterfuge, and then quickly followed the troops through the new entrance. Fire bolts flew in the air as four full battalions of the 11th Regiment spilled into the Earth Kingdom camp, sowing confusion amongst its defenders.
The majority of them were stuck at the other end, clumped tightly together as they were in the midst of sallying out. Kai and Ping led the more skilled firebenders surging out, fiery explosions propelling them through the air towards the packed formation. Naphtha jars were flung liberally to smother the camp in noxious smog, while sheets of flames set tents and carts alight.
A number of the enemy officers were caught flatfooted as they were in the midst of organizing the sallying. They were the first to fall as the firebenders dove in like mantishawks to plunged blades and burning fists into them.
And then the real butchering began.
The rest of the 11th Regiment fanned out, killing the confused and panicked defenders in their way. A ruthless, constant barrage of fire into the choking and coughing silhouettes within the thick smog reaped a gruesome tally.
The crests and feathers on the helmets of enemy officers marked them out to be targeted and swarmed upon to keep the enemy disordered.
Mozi himself spied an Earth Kingdom general and quickly rushed over, with a few squads following after him.
The prey was hacking and coughing alongside joining his bodyguards as they tried to maintain formation, too busy trying to breathe to bellow out any orders. Mozi and his men and women crashed into them, spearheads breaking from their shafts as they plunged into the heavy armor of the Earth Kingdom elite. But then the daggers quickly came out, and brutal close-quarters fighting ensued against the survivors.
The unique fighting style of the 11th Royal Regiment forced the opponents on the backfoot as the troops kept uncomfortably close with their opponents, and kept them from so much as stomping their foot to earthbend.
Daggers were jammed into armpits and throats. Fire seared the exposed feet of earthbenders. Non-bending infantry aimed low or tackled the enemy to the ground to keep them from bending effectively.
Mozi sent a kick into the groin of an Earth Kingdom bodyguard, and then forced his chi out through his knee to properly incapacitate his foe. He promptly dodged a slash from a broadsword, and replied by swiftly pulling a dagger from his belt and shoving it into the neck of its wielder. He then shot an elbow between the shoulders of another foe, fouling an attempt to strike at a prone firebender. Mozi didn't linger and let the trooper finish that opponent.
He found a clear path to the general.
Said commander was doing a good job of staying alive, considering he was constantly coughing as he fended off 11th's soldiers. He was forced into sloppy earthbending thanks to the constant harassment, but it was still potent enough to impale overextended soldiers with rocky spikes.
His glaivework was similarly impressive as well. Despite his eyes squinting hard from the stinging fumes, the general's glaive batted aside spears and flames almost casually, and even as Mozi dove in, the massive blade was swinging up into a sergeant's gut in a powerful chop that bit into armor and flesh.
The unfortunate sergeant didn't waste her last moments, grabbing onto the blade stuck in her belly with the last of her strength to keep the general from withdrawing it. Mozi quietly saluted the dying woman's resolve, and thanked the opportunity it gave him, as the enemy's stubbornness to retrieve his weapon left him open for the briefest of seconds.
As the general finally yanked out his glaive and kicked the dead sergeant away, Mozi flew in with a flaming punch, delivering a literally explosive blow right in his face. The man barely dodged aside, and screamed in pain as he got away with only a seared face. But credit to his skill and combat instinct, the commander did not drop his weapon, and instead he squinted through the burning agony and wove the glaive around in a warding pattern.
A shame that the pattern was one of the more common Earth Kingdom styles that the 11th trained their non-bending combat against.
Mozi easily slipped past the guard, slapping the blade away with a bare hand before sending a knee right up the surprised general's chin. This time, the burst of flame enveloped his head, the force of it actually sending his helmet flying and bursting his eyeballs.
The fighting continued, actually becoming harder as the sallying army finally turned around to force their way back in. Some of them retained enough wits to get their camp walls earthbended down, allowing more of the army to pour back in. The battalions flung the last of their naphtha in response, and dove into the thick smoke screen.
In the nearly-blind conditions, the regiment's earthbenders were free to let loose, stomping up columns and spikes to crush what little was left of the enemy's coherency. The sudden bout of earthbending against them caused the Earth Kingdom ranks to devolve further into chaos, and Mozi heard calls from the remaining officers to stop getting in each other's way.
"Cut it out!"
"Watch your targets!"
Mozi reveled in watching the enemy fall into complete chaos and have their spirits be dragged down by the gravity of crumbling morale.
Finally, after dozens of minutes of fighting, the first of the Earth Kingdom soldiers began to drop their weapons and fall to their knees, coughing out their pleas to surrender.
It was a highly infectious call. By the time the smog finally dissipated enough to see beyond a few feet, pretty much the whole Earth Kingdom army and its cowering camp followers were on their knees, empty hands held high or behind their heads.
Mozi waited for the final tally before he allowed himself to smile.
"87 dead on our end, with at least three times that many wounded," Kai reported. "In exchange for four hundred or so bodies from their side, most of them piled up by the gate there. We're still counting their wounded, considering some are still bleeding out rather badly, but it looks like about maybe…a thousand?"
"Prisoners?
"Including their wounded? Looks like we've bagged about a half of the army. The majority of those outside the walls have fucked off when they heard the surrenders, but Rufen's team got some."
Good. That was very good. Around four thousand bodies for less than a tenth of total casualties. The princess would no doubt be pleased with the results, and it would further add to the 11th's string of feats without stepping on anyone's toes.
The light of dawn was beginning to paint the sky as Mozi returned to the regiment's camp - which was guarded by General Sho's own 16th Regiment - to put the good news into ink. He found a sealed message waiting in his tent, with no signs of tampering.
General Sho was a surprisingly considerate field commander.
Mozi broke the seal and unfurled the letter. He quickly read through its contents, finding and decrypting the simple cipher with practised ease. He coughed in disbelief at Xing's report, and then slowly reread the whole thing to make sure he hadn't gotten the wrong cipher pattern.
A third attempt confirmed that Koshi wrote what he wrote, and Mozi found himself sitting down on his bedroll, sighing aloud.
The major got up, and then dragged himself out of his tent to gather the captains and quartermaster. Hopefully between them, they'd be able to figure out the logistical and political challenges of hosting and hatching dragon eggs.