The enemy, which outnumbered us, drove our army for over an hour. Eventually, General Iroh's force would have grown exhausted, and he would have been forced into a full-scale battle, which would undoubtedly have been costly for the men, as for many, their own life is the most precious thing they possess, and the coming fight promised to be bloody.
Iroh was a clever man, however. From the very start of the retreat, he had been directing his soldiers toward a specific location where he could nullify the enemy's numerical advantage, as if he knew that the Earth Kingdom soldiers would not leave us in peace. We were approaching the Serpent's Pass.
The Serpent's Pass is a narrow trail situated between two lakes, connecting the northeast of the Earth Kingdom to its western part—the area where the Fire Nation colonies are located. This is where we could receive aid and shelter. This is where the Earth Kingdom army would not dare to venture, fearing a complete rout themselves.
General Iroh's army began a hasty crossing of the pass. Unfortunately, we had to abandon all military equipment and most of the supply trains. They weren't human. They couldn't navigate the narrow passage. But the tanks would not be left there to rust idly. They would make their final stand.
Due to the narrowness of the pass, marching the entire army across it would take time, and Iroh, along with volunteers, decided to buy that time by engaging the enemy. Many Fire Nation soldiers wanted to stay with the General, as he was respected. Iroh even had to conduct a small selection process to filter out some of the eager participants. He managed to gather the best fighters from his army. The rest were sent toward the Serpent's Pass.
The enemy army, which had fallen slightly behind ours because it was occupied with brief negotiations and merging with the Ba Sing Se defenders, arrived near the pass entrance and was met with a devastating barrage. All the tanks, catapults, and ballistae that had previously been shelling the capital city's defensive walls simultaneously unleashed their might on the enemy's front ranks. However, General Iroh's troops failed to completely seize the initiative. A commanding shout from one of their fierce officers brought the panicking Earth Kingdom soldiers back to their senses.
Earthbenders did not always require specialized equipment to shell their enemy's positions or fortifications. They could temporarily become living catapults themselves. Several benders, working together, had the ability to launch a boulder the size of our tank with such force and speed that the previously mentioned engineering marvel of the Fire Nation was instantly flattened into a metallic disc. But Iroh had foreseen this, ordering the tank crews to constantly keep moving. Never stop. To be chaotic. It became very difficult to target our tanks, though the same could not be said for the catapults and ballistae.
When the enemy realized that the tanks were merely approaching the Earth Kingdom lines to taunt and provoke nerves, they focused only on defending against the tanks' fire and directed most of their forces against the more destructive catapults. These were quickly scattered, turning into piles of splinters and metal fragments. Occasionally, two stone projectiles launched by opposing sides would collide in the sky, causing a deadly rain to fall onto the soldiers awaiting the command to engage in close combat.
Seeing that the enemy Earthbenders were no longer distracted by the tanks, Iroh issued a new order to the commanders of these iron monsters: launch a real offensive. Earth Kingdom soldiers, who were certain the tanks would turn back without ever reaching their positions, were greatly surprised in their final moments as the machines began to crush them.
"Full speed ahead!" I yelled at the mechanic responsible for the speed of the tank, where I was filling in for a commander wounded during the battle for Ba Sing Se.
The tank groaned and rattled, but still moved a little faster. Terrified Earth Kingdom men barely managed to scramble out of our path, but this didn't help them much. Through the small slit in the machine's turret, I launched jets of flame, sparing no effort, trying to make it as hot as possible. Screams of pain, audible even through the tank's roar, confirmed the success of my attacks.
Suddenly, the machine lurched, and then one of its sides began to rise higher and higher. They were trying to tip us over. And the enemy succeeded. But their joy was short-lived.
Fire Nation tanks were equipped with a unique system that allowed the turret to be returned to the correct position. The mechanic soon engaged it. The crew cabin was back to normal. However, the rest of the tank remained flipped. But this was not a problem. The top and bottom of the tank are identical.
Through the slit I was firing from, I could see the surprised expression on the face of the Earthbender who seemed to have flipped us. In the next moment, his eyes reflected the oncoming flame I shot in retaliation for the bump I received.
The tank should have continued its movement, but for some reason, it couldn't. The steam engine was working at full power, but the machine itself wouldn't budge. Opening another slit on the turret, I nearly lost my head to a flying boulder and saw that the tank's treads were pinned down by earth. This was the work of more experienced benders who knew how to fight enemy machinery. In the very next second, the tank began sinking into the ground.
"Evacuate!" I shouted.
The mechanic pushed me, trying to be the first to use the turret hatch to escape the tank, which was already half a meter deep in the earth, but he instantly died just as he poked his head out. His corpse, with a fractured skull, tumbled back into the turret.
I didn't have to scramble for a quick rescue plan. Two of our other tanks appeared from behind, driving away the Earthbenders with their fire. Thanks to them, I was able to escape outside, where the fighting was now raging between the ordinary soldiers.
Despite being clearly outnumbered, the Fire Nation soldiers were putting up a fierce resistance. Most of the men under General Iroh's command who were now fighting the Earth Kingdom army were hereditary military personnel, and they were defending not only their comrades but also their own children, their sons, who were passing through the Serpent's Pass. If the soldiers didn't hold, their children would be next. For this reason, the resistance of the ordinary warriors and Firebenders was so strong that the Earth Kingdom army wavered.
To our great disappointment, the Earth Kingdom army was not commanded by just a general, but by the incredibly charismatic King of Omashu. Therefore, after a few shouts from him, our enemies quickly recovered, and when King Bumi personally entered the fray, their eyes lit up just as brightly as those of the Fire Nation soldiers, who were ready to fight to the last man.
King Bumi was an incredibly powerful Earthbender. Even his age didn't prevent him from tossing entire rock strata weighing several tons, along with the tanks standing on them. Perhaps he would have completely shattered our holding force had General Iroh not engaged him in combat.
A bolt of Lightning launched by Iroh almost instantly pulverized the rock slab King Bumi had raised above himself. All the earth fell directly onto the enemy commander. But such an easy and quick victory was not to be ours. Bumi burst out of the ground with a joyful look and loudly shouted:
"Iroh! So it's you! Then things won't be boring!"
Immediately after this shout, the ground beneath the feet of all combatants trembled. Bumi was ready to use something extremely powerful from his arsenal, when he was stopped by one of his own soldiers:
"Your Majesty, think of us!"
Bumi clicked his tongue in displeasure and lowered his hands. The trembling of the earth immediately ceased. A clear space opened between Iroh and the enemy commander. There were no brave souls willing to interrupt their duel. Bumi took advantage of this, sending all the earth that Iroh had pulverized with his lightning bolt forward in a sharp strike.
The King of Omashu's attack should have simply swept away our General, but Iroh threw both hands and one leg forward, slightly crouching on the other, and erupted flame from his limbs. Hot, dense, fast. To my surprise, General Iroh's fire managed to intercept the earth, completely nullifying its momentum. Even after that, the flame continued its path.
Bumi himself now had to defend. But he managed this more easily. The King of Omashu simply dove underground and emerged behind General Iroh. The two commanders began fighting in close quarters, exchanging words with each other.
Distracted by General Iroh's superb Firebending skills, I almost missed the moment someone tried to sneak up on me from behind and strike me with a spiked mace. A jet of flame was shot at the treacherous enemy's face from my raised heel. As a result, he dropped the mace onto himself.
Picking up the heavy weapon, I spun and sent it flying, taking out two Earthbenders who were pressuring a Fire Nation soldier. Leaping back from the earthen walls that were meant to trap and then crush me, I launched several fireballs at the enemy. Honestly, no matter where I aimed, I would have hit an enemy anyway. There were significantly more opponents than allies.
I spun again, but this time launched jets of flame from my hands, driving the Earth Kingdom soldiers away from me. I stopped and immediately intercepted the arm of one of the enemy fighters who had ducked down and closed in on me. I knocked the sword from his hands and struck him directly in the temple with the pommel. I challengingly twirled the sword in my hand, which the soldiers took as a challenge to a cold steel battle. One soldier rushed forward with a smirk, holding a sword identical to the one I now held.
"In the mastery of the sword's path… cough…" He couldn't finish his sentence, as he choked on the blood from the blade that entered his throat.
I used my free hands for Firebending and created small jets of dense flame in them. One touch from a fire-dagger and there was one more corpse on the battlefield. The enemies couldn't react as I cut through them, pushing toward my allies, the rest of General Iroh's forces, killing them.
Earth spikes abruptly appeared in the path of my retreat. I leaped over them, increasing the range and height of my jump with jets of flame from beneath my feet. I didn't extinguish the flames after landing, and this allowed me to literally slide through the Earth Kingdom soldiers toward General Iroh's main positions. And just in time. We had bought enough time for the other part of the General's army to retreat and slightly increase the distance between us. General Iroh shouted the command to retreat.
The small handful of still-living soldiers who remained to hold the enemy back joyfully executed his order. The King of Omashu and his fighters pursued us onto the Serpent's Pass, but the numerical superiority of their troops was completely neutralized on such a narrow strip of land.
Bumi tried to destroy us with his bending, but General Iroh, running at the tail end of the column, always managed to thwart him. And at one point, with a blast of Lightning, he even bought us crucial time by shattering the narrow path beneath the King of Omashu and his troops' feet, forcing them to bathe in the waters of the suddenly merged lakes.
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