Chapter 10

"Are the trebuchets unharmed?" Bellowed the captain. Looking around the deck, Anson could see that all of the siege engines remained unscathed. If the girl's intention had been to quickly remove those from the battle then she was naive for thinking it would be so easy.

"Sir! The Fire Nation ship!"

...

Anson looked back to the ocean, and indeed the Fire Nation cruiser was once again ploughing a path towards them. He could see soldiers in red armour scurrying around the black decks, readying trebuchets of their own.

Damn it! Even if their heavy weaponry was unharmed, they couldn't load and fire it while the flaming rain was falling! They were pinned down! "How long is that brat going to keep this hellfire up?"

"Not much longer if I have anything to say about it!" The captain roared. "Shoot her down!"

At his command earthbenders across the ship punched forwards, sending rocks rocketing up into the air. Yet gravity was not on their side, and bled momentum from the projectiles the higher they climbed. Before long the rocks came tumbling back to the ocean, having failed miserably to reach the demon star above.

"Captain! The cruiser is in firing distance!"

All eyes turned back to the ocean, where a volley of barrels were being launched from the Fire Nation ship. Within seconds they collided against the deck, spreading wide puddles of black oil that soon caught alight from a drop of hellfire and burst into flames. Within moments a good quarter of the deck was awash with fire.

Yet the nightmare wasn't over yet. Already Anson could see huge round balls of coal being loaded into the trebuchets. "Sir! They're going to bombard us!"

The captain's eyes were wide with the beginnings of panic now, but through force of will he kept his voice steady. "All hands brace for impact!"

Soldiers scurried left and right, grabbing hold of the nearest railing they could find as the coal balls were lit and fired into the air. Each one caused the ship to rattle and screech as they hit, spreading yet more flames across the deck. Yet those weren't the only sounds.

In between the heavy cracks Anson also heard metallic twangs and sharp, thudding impacts. Large harpoons fired from ballistae had sunk into their side, and the heavy chains attached to them now dragged the two ships together.

"They're going to board us!" Anson yelled.

The captain looked around, glaring hatefully at the damage done to his vessel, before firming his expression with grim resolve.

"If that's how they want to play it then fine, let them come! We'll repel their first wave and then push back, counter-boarding their ship while they're licking their wounds. Form up men! Prepare for an assault.

Although still reeling from the brief bombardment, earth soldiers were nothing if not stubborn, and at the sound of their captain's voice pushed themselves forward on unsteady feet to rally at his side.

Great swathes of rock and grit rolled forward like a wave, quenching many of the pools of flame as they formed into a barrier across the port side of the deck: a wall of stone that the fury of the firebenders would crash uselessly upon.

Yet something felt wrong. The air was too clear.

Anson looked up, barely realising that the rain of hellfire had ceased in time to see the demon child rapidly falling from above. Just as it seemed assured that she would crash into the waves the girl pulled up, rocketing across the water at such speed that she seemed like a blur of black and gold to his eyes.

As she whizzed across the starboard side a sharp ribbon of flame lashed out at the soldier's turned backs, causing many to cry out in pain.

With perfect timing a battlecry resounded out from the Fire Nation cruiser as the first wave of red-clad soldiers jumped aboard, releasing fierce jets of flame at the earthen barricade.

Most sections of the wall held steady, but the earthbenders who'd been most badly hurt by the blonde girl's flaming whip could not help but falter under the sudden pressure. Their sections of the barricade broke apart, letting waves of flame roll into the earthbender's ranks.

Chaos descended as the fire soldiers pushed forward, breaking the earth soldiers apart into smaller groups and dissolving the fighting into a frenzied melee. The earth soldiers struggled back, but too many disadvantages had been stacked up against them.

With some pools of flame still scattered about the deck the fire soldiers had the option to attack from many angles rather than just the front, and there wasn't enough earth on the ship for the earth soldiers to defend themselves from so many angles quickly enough.

One by one the patches of resistance faltered and faded before the unrelenting tide of fire.

Anson found himself alongside a ragtag group of remaining soldiers, one of the last holdouts of resistance aboard the deck. Bolt after bolt of fire came flying their way, each one breaking against stone in just the nick of time.

The captain was nowhere in sight, lost somewhere in the onslaught, and with each passing second more and more firebenders converged on his position. A dreadful certainty settled in his gut, and Anson knew that all hope of victory was lost.

"I'd say it's about time to surrender now, don't you think?"

A voice, childishly high pitched yet twinged with a chilling glee, sounded behind him, and Anson came face to face with the blonde child as she touched down daintily upon the railing. In the light of the fires her yellow eyes shone like hot coals, burning with hateful glee as she observed the destruction.

How could anyone smile the way she did in the face of all this death? Surely no child, no human born with even an ounce of love in their heart, could revel in this man-made hell?

The answer dawned on him with terrible certainty. This was no child. It must be one of those vengeful demon spirits in human form, here to dance in the misery and terror spread by the Fire Nation's conquest! He couldn't let this embodiment of evil reach his homeland!

Couldn't let it's path of ruin and destruction reach his wife and daughter in Ba Sing Se! If this was to be his final hour, then let his last act be to take this monster down to the darkest pits of the spirit world with him!

"MONSTER!" He roared, pivoting on one heel and bringing a hammer of rock sweeping towards her head with all his fury. Yet the demon sped forward, slipping down and beneath his arm before it could connect.

Bam!

Anson felt an impact hit his chest with an unfamiliar echo, as if hearing it from very far away. All at once darkness seemed to be creeping into the edges of his vision, and the sounds of the battle around him became muted and fuzzy.

Slowly he looked down, staring uncomprehendingly at the hand of a little girl touching his chest: smoking fingertips gently stroking the edges of the large hole she had just burnt through his chest.

Strange. He had always expected death by fire to feel like a burning agony. Instead he just felt cold and hollow, as if the soul had been ripped right out of him.

"You should have given up while you had the chance." The girl, the monster, whispered in his ear; a faint smirk playing on her lips. "But I'm glad you didn't."

She grabbed him by the shoulder, and the next thing Anson knew the world had flipped over itself as he threw him overboard.

The last thing he saw was her turning her back on him, not even deigning to pay attention to his final moments, before the waves claimed him.