To Run Is to Live

  Chapter III

  Houshima

  As soon as he was sure his footsteps wouldn’t be overheard, Houshima started running down the tunnel; years of experience made the quick-change, well, quick—it didn’t matter if his pursuers caught up to him if they couldn’t recognise their quarry…and since they hadn’t even seen him in the first place, it was probably a somewhat excessive precaution. Which was exactly why he was taking it: precaution was how Houshima had survived, how he had come to flourish—it hadn’t failed him yet, no matter what had come after him, and he wouldn’t let just one earthbender (no matter how competent) change that. A tiny seed of guilt formed within Houshima as he put on the fake beard, growing as he began to climb the ladder; he had left the others behind to fight in his stead—without even attempting to stop the danger he’d fled from it, casting it behind him as if it wasn’t his problem. But before that seed could plant its roots, Houshima shook it off; he wasn’t running away, he was creating a diversion. The children would be fine, half because they were neither threats nor targets, and half because he was…or at least, that’s what Houshima told himself.

  Within ten minutes, ‘Lee Laofong’ was tending his stall, the main street spot hard-earned after months of its previous (recalcitrant) owner being mysteriously harassed by the orphans of Omashu. Tinted glasses made the overcast wintry sky dim, the sun’s brilliance all but stolen from Houshima’s sight—in a way, it helped with the role, a supplement for the several decades in age he was missing. In stark contrast were his customers, the youngest of whom were probably still old enough to remember a time before all the chaos—a time Houshima had only heard details of through fond remembrances. That was simply the way of the dying era he had been born into, children brought into the world to inherit nought but the air in their lungs and the barren earth beneath their feet. Which was exactly why they had to find positivity where they could, like from within the purses of gullible adults.

  “Normally, I would sell this lucky elixir for five silver pieces…” Houshima looked up at the woman in front of him, her jewellery as expensive (and new) as usual, “but for you, my dear, I will ask for only three.”

  In reality, the various grasses, herbs, and weeds that made up the bulk of the concoction could be acquired for only a couple of copper coins—or entirely for free if you were content with foraging (and minor theft); the only remotely expensive part was the flavourings which, coincidentally, Houshima also got for free due to a deal with a teahouse—though said teahouse had yet to discover this fact.

  “Oh, you charmer! I’ll tell you what: I wouldn’t want to cheat you, so I’ll pay four.”

  “No, I insist, for a lady as enchanting as you any more than three would be an insult.”

  “I’m paying four silvers and no less, Lee, or I’m giving you five.”

  ‘Lee’ sighed, “Very well, though it pains my heart. Thank you for the business, and here is your elixir. It’s been lovely as usual, Baohui.”

  “It has indeed. See you next time.”

  They had an exchange like that at least once a week, and every single time—without fail—Houshima fleeced her; he’d feel bad if not for her excess wealth and that the extra confidence his various products provided seemed to do her some genuine good. Not a second after he waved Lady Qi off, a vaguely familiar disgruntled man made his way to the stall, clearly having been waiting for longer than he wished; the sour expression on his wrinkled face made him look ancient, (despite probably only being in his fifth decade) and the bald island in an ocean of luscious silver locks was enough for Houshima to remember him.

  “Potion man,” he started the exchange rather bluntly, “I followed your instructions down to the letter, even waiting fifteen days after the third day moon, yet nothing’s changed—is this some kind of scam? If I don’t get a refund, I might have to report you to the city’s council of commerce.”

  “There’s no need for a report, young fellow; if the product did not work, then a full refund would only be appropriate. Now, it was the hair growth topical cream you purchased, yes?” Houshima started counting out the correct coins from his purse, making sure the act took long enough for the gruff customer to process the words he’d heard.

  “...Topical cream? I bought a potion.”

  “I’m rather sorry, but you must be mistaken—a hair growth potion would be awfully ineffective; far less efficient than simply applying a cream to the desired area, and I sell only the best. You must have misremembered the exact contents of your order, for I make no hair growth potions, only hair growth topical creams.”

  Houshima’s mark blanched, his (fabricated) mistake plainly stabbing through to his very core, “I thought it was awfully lumpy…” he muttered.

  “You drank it? Oh dear…”

  “What do you mean, ‘oh dear’!?” the walking money-pouch’s face contorted to one of panic, voice rising nearly to its limit.

  “The cream stimulates hair to grow on whatever tissue it’s applied to, and in this case, well, I’m afraid that tissue would be the inside of your stomach.”

  With those words, the fool had fallen hook, line, and sinker—he was devastated, clearly assuming that having hair within his digestive system would have major consequences.

  Always quick to assuage whatever worries he could, ‘Lee’ rushed to comfort his customer, “Ah, fret not! Though I can’t give it to you for free, I happen to have a hair loss topical cream in stock—it might be unpleasant to swallow, but I think it may be the only solution to your problem.”

  Already reaching for his money, the client shouted out, “Oh, thank the spirits! How much? Whatever the cost, I’ll pay it!”

  “I wouldn’t want to charge you too much given the circumstances, so I’ll ask for only half price,” Houshima quickly estimated how much he could get away with, “So that would be just six silvers and three coppers.”

  Without a moment of hesitation he forked over the coins, and in return the hastily relabelled topical cream entered his hand. Perhaps the ominous feeling building within Houshima was nothing; his spoils so far would be a perfectly respectable day of business, and he was far from done.

  About twenty minutes later—as Houshima deposited the clinking reward from yet another deal gone well into his purse—a smooth voice addressed his turned back, “Excuse me,” and without a delay the boy spun around, ready to tend to the potential customer—he was a tall man with streaks of grey throughout a meticulously styled dark beard, wearing a slightly more elaborate variant of the distinctive green-and-beige attire belonging to Omashu’s city guard.

  Ah, thought Houshima, trouble. Since his natural response to danger was (of course) to flee, he began to do exactly that…only to be immediately halted by a handcuff of sturdy stone rapidly extending from the nearby wall, forcing him to stop lest he dislocate his shoulder. Well, time for a backup plan.

  “May I ask what the meaning of this is, dear sir?” looking around Houshima found that the main street had been more or less vacated for about fifty feet in either direction—only half a dozen people or so remained, most looking up at a street-facing window.

  “We both know very well who you are, so I’d appreciate it if you would just drop the act and cooperate.”

  “Act? I don’t know if that’s really a polite thi-” a slight pain—though still enough to yelp from—stabbed through Houshima’s jaw and upper lip, his false beard torn off by the guard officer’s cruel hand.

  “Unfortunately for me, I’ve been following your ‘career’ for quite a while now,” the man smiled in satisfaction, “and if you hadn’t made this particular ongoing scam of yours quite so overt a certain discrepancy may have gone unnoticed: despite being properly registered to run a stall, ‘Lee Laofong’ shows little evidence of ever having ever existed outside of that, let alone entering the city,” he paused for a moment, not noticing a pair of individuals leaping out of a second floor window as Houshima did, “So, I’m sure you’ll enjoy your time in jail, young ‘Foxweasel of Omashu’—I know I wil-”

  Preceded by a circular twirl of his free hand, Houshima jabbed his opponent straight in the neck with two fingers; the technique wasn’t exactly potent enough to be useful in a fair fight, but spirits be damned if it didn’t work wonders in a surprise attack. The guard slumped to the ground as his consciousness temporarily retreated, leaving Houshima with only one issue (for the moment)—he recognised the pair of teens as they landed on the street, a horizontal column of flame raging above them; the earthbender would be able to free him with ease.

  Snatching back the fake beard, Houshima stuck it to his face as best he could in a mere five seconds before calling out to his potential saviours in his best pathetic old man voice, “Would you be so kind as to free me, children?”

  In complete silence the girl (Lin, or something like that) effortlessly fractured the cuff…with a kick as opposed to bending, for some bizarre reason, allowing him to slink down the wall—the people left on the street were forming a loose perimeter around the intrepid benders, and a fight was sure to break out: a fight Houshima had absolutely zero intent of getting involved with, much like whatever else was about to go down in Omashu; he’d be sad to leave the city behind, but that was life. Crawling as desperately as one could, he headed past the loose wall of battle-ready benders (who paid him no heed) and started towards the gate as soon as he was far enough away that he felt secure in standing.

  But he barely made a single step before the smooth voice called out to his back once again, “This may be the first time we’ve met face-to-face,” the city guard captain was on his knees, having escaped the combat much as Houshima had, “but I’ve studied your actions: I know you, and I know you care—if not for the city, then for its children.”

  Houshima didn’t respond, taking another step; the kids were capable, more so than him in many ways. They’d be fine on their own, probably better off without him, in fact.

  “I wasn’t sure why he made the order, but the city guard is rounding up children on the king’s behalf…only now I doubt he’s the one who made it in the first place,” the man’s forehead touched the ground in a formal bow as he continued to plead, “Please. Nobody can stay hidden forever, and on my own I stand no chance of helping anyone. Without you, Omashu’s people will suffer. Omashu’s children, your friends, will suffer.”

  The man calling out to Houshima was wrong: the street crab urchins weren’t his friends—if they were, he’d be open with them, he’d trust them. No, they weren’t his friends…but they were his responsibility. As much as he longed to run, to flee everything again, he simply couldn’t. Not this time. Pushing down his logic, his tactics, and even his urge to avoid danger, Houshima chose to follow his instincts for once—a momentary decision that would surely upend his life.

  “So, what’s the plan?”

  The man before him was shocked; clearly, he hadn’t expected his appeal to work, and it took a few seconds for him to respond, “One of us needs to infiltrate the palace and free the people being held there, while the other makes a distraction—inciting some people to riot, enough to get some of the enemy forces away from the palace. After that, we’ll need your gang to lead everyone into the tunnels and out of the city. But as for how those roles will need to be assigned, well, I’m sorry-”

  “I have to be the one to enter the palace,” Houshima started stripping away his disguise, “because some of the traitorous guards would recognise you on sight.”

  “Precisely,” he finally stood, “But before we part, I’ll need your name.”

  “Why?”

  He let out a slight smile despite the grim circumstances, “So that, no matter what happens, I know who to thank.”

  “Alright then. The name’s Houshima.”

  “Swarna. Good luck…we’ll both need it.”

  When Houshima had told Swarna that he had a tunnel exit right into the palace’s barracks, he wasn’t exactly pleased—but he did have to admit that it was incredibly convenient at that moment. After the two set off in their separate directions, Houshima had immediately headed for the nearest portal into Omashu’s tangled intestines; even though it might have been quicker to travel through the city itself for a bit further, this way made him feel safe.

  Listening through a pipe to the room above, he waited until a particularly chatty pair of guards left to make his entrance. Pushing the loose floor tile up wasn’t easy for someone of Houshima’s scrawniness, but that didn’t stop him; the exact location he emerged into was a changing room of sorts, with various bits and pieces of equipment lining the walls, some even strewn on the ground. Cobbling together a full uniform that fit him wasn’t particularly quick, with the end result having boots a few sizes too big (although that did mean they could fit comfortably over his own footwear) and pieces from at least four different sets—he’d be caught out if someone was overly sensitive to such details, but he sincerely doubted any of the guards carried around a length of measuring tape.

  Once he was fully kitted out, Houshima made his way to the main hall where the people were being held; indeed, the majority were children (only two of which were from his group), but there were still a good number of adults, no doubt those who had been resistant or otherwise a pain to whatever this operation’s purpose was. Excluding himself, there were nineteen guards placed about the hall, one of which approached him—for a moment Houshima worried he’d been identified as an imposter, but the words that came towards him cast those concerns away, “Finally, a shift change—thought it’d never come.”

  Semblances of a plan were forming within Houshima’s mind, and there was a question he needed answered, “Have all of the prisoners here been surveyed for any potential threats? Powerful benders?”

  “‘Course they have; the people in charge of this whole coup thing are outsiders, but they sure ain’t idiots.”

  “Right…and those determined to be dangerous have been separated?”

  The guard looked at Houshima as if he were stupid, “Well, what else’d we do with ‘em? We have cells, ‘course we’re gonna dump a few people in ‘em.”

  Houshima shrugged as his conversation partner walked away, “Just curious.” Scanning the crowd more properly, with a certain person he was looking for this time: an earthbender his age, a former street rat who had refused to be under Houshima’s command—it didn’t take long to spot her, on the outskirts of the opposing side of the room. Knowing her, she had probably concealed her bending abilities, patiently waiting for the right opportunity to escape—an opportunity Houshima was about to give her.

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  Gradually skirting his way around the perimeter of the kneeling prisoners, it took a good few minutes to reach his target without attracting attention, and in that time a messenger of sorts had whispered something in one of the guard officer’s ear—shortly after seven guards left the hall through one of the side corridors, probably reinforcements against Swarna’s riot. Fortunately for Houshima he wasn’t one of those picked, meaning the plan wasn’t scuppered right then and there; in fact, the momentary distraction allowed him to crouch down, lockpicking tools already in hand—everyone kept prisoner there was bound in iron cuffs, that amount of metal a rare and expensive sight even in Omashu; whoever bankrolled whatever was going on had to be wealthy.

  “Keep quiet,” he whispered to Lanyu, “I’m here to help.”

  If he could see her face, she was probably narrowing her eyes, “You. Of all people, why did it have to be you?”

  “Shh. Now, once I’ve got you free, I need you to bend a way down to the tunnels beneath the palace and help people through them; some of the kids here know how to navigate them.”

  “I’ll need a pretty big diversion for that,” now that Lanyu was aware Houshima could actually help her, she completely dropped any argumentativeness; despite their rocky history, in that moment they were united against a common foe.

  “I’ll figure something out,” he was almost done with the lock, though his pick wasn’t happy about it—the bindings were of much purer metal than his tools, and the lockpick was bent beyond repair by the time the cuffs went click. Houshima stood, careful to avoid notice by the actual guards, evaluating his options as he copied their loose meanderings; he’d need to get a few more of the wardens out of the hall, which would require a scape-goat monkey…

  Glancing here and there throughout the throng of captives, it was difficult to single one out to throw under the wagon, but it had to be done—they’d be put in some relative danger for a little bit, and without employing the strategy nobody would get free. It was quite a quandary…well, until he matched a description to a face, that is: earlier in the day, one of the orphans had described (in their words, not his) a ‘fat old waterbender’ who’d knocked them over, and gave what turned out to be a rather apt report of the elderly man’s appearance—he looked a little less mean and didn’t have pointy teeth, but Houshima was still certain it was the same man. And so, he got to work.

  “Sir,” he called out to the most senior officer in the hall in a panicked voice, pointing at the elder he’d singled out, “that man…he must be restrained!”

  The officer looked baffled, “That man? And why would that be, Cha-” he cut himself off, clearly not certain if that was the name for Houshima’s face, “soldier?”

  “That man…I remember it clearly as if it were just yesterday: it was back before I came to Omashu, before I left my home village…” he faked a held-back sob, “He came to town one day, asking if we would take pity on a traveller down on luck. Our family ran the inn, and we didn’t hesitate to feed him—it was all fine until we served him tea…he took a single sip before casting away the cup, yelling that it was too cold. My mother raised her voice, asking him to show respect…and in the next moment, she was dead, boiling water driven through her nostrils straight to the brain… The rest soon followed, and by the time he was done I was the only one in the village left…” Houshima went silent for a moment, to really sell the sorrow of his tall tale, “I begged him to kill me too, but he refused—he said that he had to leave a survivor, or else his legend would never grow. That man is Raklo Snaggletooth, the deadliest assassin since Avatar Samten‘s time! If we don’t lock him up properly, he’ll wipe out everyone here! We’d better take him to the highest security cell—it’ll need at least four of us, just in case.”

  All that the officer’s face displayed was shock and sheer terror, much like the rest of the room (bar Lanyu, who was seemingly struggling not to laugh), but in the end he spoke, clearing his throat first, “Make it five.”

  Aside from Houshima, four particular guards grimly volunteered for the hasty detail, each taking on the task with every bit of seriousness they had in their bones. ‘Raklo’ was bound, gagged, blindfolded, and all-in-all not a threat, yet none treated him as anything other than an existential danger to everything they ever cared about—if he made a single move out of place, they had permission to end his life right then and there. Naturally, the terrified old man was forced to simply go along with Houshima’s ploy, especially since his mouth was covered before he had the opportunity to tell his side of the story: an assassin of his calibre could kill with words alone, after all.

  The procession was silent the whole way to the jail, at which point two of them stayed behind to guard the way they came—the only entrance, and the only exit; all other walls were nothing more than sets of cells—around half of them were empty, while the largest one served as a sort of catch-all place to put people who were troublesome but not threat enough to be dangerous. Initially, Houshima had only planned on going there to buy Lanyu time to act…but he recognised two of the prisoners in that large cage, a kind elderly couple who ran a food shop—they’d fed Houshima on occasion when he’d first entered Omashu, a great help for a boy on his own in an unfamiliar place; they were talking to a young air nomad (yet to earn his tattoos), and in that moment Houshima decided to expand the scope of his infiltration.

  He glanced toward the side of the jail, where one of the guards (probably the highest rank one) was explaining the situation to a woman who was clearly in charge; she was tall, so much so that Houshima would look short stood next to her, which certainly wasn’t helped by the top-knot her dark hair was styled into—combined with her golden eyes and the shades of red she wore, she was no doubt a fire national. That said, there was one curious part of her appearance: on her shoulders, wrists, and ankles was odd-looking metal armour, thin plates of a light-coloured metal that looked awfully expensive for what it was. Disregarding that, however, the thing that most interested Houshima about her were the keys at her waist, secured only by a hook upon which the ring rested; with her attention elsewhere, it was the perfect chance to grab them—given her stance (not to mention the eyes around him) stealth wasn’t an option, so sneak attack it was. Much like he had against Swarna, Houshima struck out with a two-fingered jab, lunging to reach the woman’s neck. For a moment, he was certain his attack had landed…only to notice that his left wrist had been caught in an iron grip, held such that any lateral movement would surely render the joint broken. In the next instant, before Houshima could properly react, a barrage of strikes connected with both of his shoulders, all from one of his adversary’s knuckles on her free hand; all feeling in his arms faded, each every muscle and tendon giving up—including those that controlled his right hand’s fingers, forcing the release of his contingency.

  Smoke filled the jail as soon as the capsule hit the ground, Houshima took the opportunity that was presented to him; the lady would notice his escape, but with perfect execution it was possible she wouldn’t notice the missing keys—provided he managed to get them where he wanted, that is. Hoping he correctly recalled the guards’ positions, Houshima kicked off his left boot in the vague direction where one had been, then the right boot straight upwards, letting the momentum spin him into a backflip; the first shoe’s thok sounded out (accompanied by a slight groan from its target) as he grabbed the keys with his toes, casting them towards the largest cell while the second boot colliding with the floor to cover up the jingling—since there was no audible clattering from there, Houshima surmised he’d correctly managed to fling the keys at the air nomad. At the crest of his flip Houshima’s wrist came free, though the limp arms limited his options only to fleeing—not that he’d have made a different choice otherwise.

  Ensuring his footfalls were as loud as possible, Houshima started to run, jumping over a spot where one of the guards may have been just in case they hadn’t moved; he broke out of the smog midair, sprinting as soon as his feet found purchase. He had no clue what that woman had done to him, but his arms were like noodles, uselessly waving as they trailed behind him. It didn’t take long for a few of the angry guards to exit the jail after him, smoke clinging to their uniforms as if it wanted to drag them back into its nebulous embrace; despite having a hefty head start, Houshima’s limp arms made his running inefficient enough that they were gaining on him—well, until he took a detour through a side room, emerging into another corridor. He’d never actually been inside the palace for longer than a few minutes before, and the layout was fairly foreign to him: such large buildings were unnatural, perfect symbols of royal and upper-class excess, and Houshima was sure even people living within the place got lost every now and then…in his case, it was at pretty much every turn, sheer luck (and stupidly big rooms) being the only things keeping him from getting caught as he led the guards on a wild goose eagle chase.

  When Houshima’s mad dash finally took him to the gallery overlooking the main hall, Lanyu’s plan was reaching fruition: select sections of the fancy tiled floor were collapsing, gradually undermined by her earthbending such that whatever guards failed to dive out of the way fell down into pitfall traps, while the prisoners dropped onto gentle slopes that would deliver them right into the labyrinth below (some of them shrieked, clearly not informed of Lanyu’s secret scheme). It was the second time that day Houshima had witnessed an awe-inspiring feat of earthbending—first the short girl making a controlled earthquake, then this. Despite both being from the same broad discipline of bending, the two acts were drastically different; from what little he’d seen (and what little he knew about bending), he got the impression that while Lanyu had less raw power, her bending was much more precise—the other girl probably would have been able to simply drop most, if not all, of the grand hall’s floor down to the tunnels’ level without any preparation, but he doubted she’d be able to exercise the degree of control Lanyu flaunted.

  For a moment Houshima lamented such a talented individual not being one of his own assets—as she could have been—until he was forced to focus on the here and now by a hefty chunk of stone flying towards his head, spinning on one heel to dodge it whilst getting a look at how many pairs of feet were chasing after him (six indistinct guards, having both gained and lost pursuers during his escape-in-progress). Just as Lanyu was still fighting on the lower floor, leaving herself as the last to descend to safety, Houshima had a job to finish…albeit a slightly less heroic one; avoiding another earthen projectile, he vaulted over the railing down to the hall’s ground floor (a little clumsily, seeing as how his arms were still useless), landing on one of Omashu’s brave soldiers and running for the door—before he could reach it, however, a stream of enemy reinforcements surged in, blocking his route. Seeing as how even Lanyu, an earthbender, was making her (downwards) departure from the crumbling palace, Houshima chose to improvise lest he be crushed by falling blocks of ceiling: without any doubt as to whether or not he could pull off the manoeuvre, Houshima sprung as high as he could towards a pillar, kicking off of the vertical surface and repeating the movement on its rapidly diminishing twin, hurtling through a gap in the wall that would traditionally be considered a window.

  It took every bit of strength in Houshima’s legs to prevent himself from sliding off of the green shingled roof he landed upon (taking note of some oddly missing tiles); if the prior night’s snow had stuck, he would’ve fallen straight into the enemy’s clutches—he had bought himself time with the vertical exit, but before long the guards would surely be hot on his heels, at which point Houshima would (ideally) be long gone, so he lingered not and started running again. A slight hitch in the plan was that the ongoing scenario had actually caused Omashu’s cart-bound mail service to stop for once, meaning Houshima had to hop onto the track itself rather than into one of the convenient sleds, disallowing him from spending even a second off his feet.

  About thirty seconds after resuming his graceless sprinting (arms still flailing behind him), Houshima risked a glance over his shoulder, expecting to see the city’s former defenders giving chase—it hadn’t occurred to him that he really wasn’t a priority, to such a degree that nobody had bothered to follow him; in the eyes of the invaders and the insidious, he was a mere bother, one that had exhausted all moves but running away. That, and they were much more focussed on evacuating the palace; whether it had been intentionally planned or not, a flaming boulder was soaring through the sky straight towards the grand edifice, and those within the already structurally compromised building clearly had advance warning. That boulder was the start of a new artillery volley, more of its kin following one after another as the palace fell in on itself, the flames of its designated projectile still burning within the caved-in skeleton. Similar vestiges of earlier barrages were all around, some merely smouldering and some seeding massive blazes that ravaged what little wood was woven into the city. Until that moment, Houshima could have told himself that Omashu would be fine, that things could go back to how they were…but it wasn’t so: the city was doomed, not merely under siege, and even if it was reclaimed the repairs would take months, if not years. Even though he had yet to pass through the gates, that period of Houshima’s life was over.

  Despite not being pursued, Houshima didn’t stop running until his path came to an end, not too far from the city’s only convenient exit—one of those boulders had hit the cart’s track, a good portion of it lying around said oversized rock three dozen feet below. He stopped to survey the area about the gates, on the lookout for an opportunity he just knew was there. It took a good minute or so to spot the unusual outlier, a slowly rolling wagon full of some kind of green mass with a pair of dark spots that looked an awful lot like peoples’ heads (hopefully, ones attached to living, breathing people). Seeing as how it was heading towards the great stone monolith that served as Omashu’s doors, and taking into account the fact that there was another person nearby, earthbending the gates open about as subtly as one could, the gradual movement so far avoiding notice.

  Not wanting to waste what windfall the spirits had granted him, Houshima leapt across a rather wide gap onto the nearest rooftop, darting towards its edge the second he landed. It was theoretically possible he could catch up through a more conventional descent, but Houshima outright refused not to use the gifts he had been given—flinging himself an exact distance, he hooked his feet over a clothesline, launching off with even more horizontal momentum than he had started with. Houshima flew, guard uniform flapping in the wind, diving into the cabbages with a bizarre combination of whump and crunch.

  The two people already in the cart blinked a few times at his presence, one of them a woman probably in her forties and the other a tall water tribe boy with odd eyes more green than blue, the colour of a tropical sea. With a sudden slam the gates crashed fully open, their operator clearly having given up on her previously slow approach when she smacked the back of the wagon with a column of stone, rapidly bringing it up to speed (and through Omashu’s gates) as she joined the others in the cabbagey bed; she looked at Houshima with quizzical eyes, not yet recognising him as he recognised her—after all, she and the boy had never seen his face back down in his cavern. Now that they were out of the city, the ‘siege engines’ consisting of a few dozen earthbenders each were fully visible, the closest about a half mile away, the boulders coated with tar before being lit by firebenders.

  “So,” Houshima began as the cart hurtled down the mountain path, feeling finally returning to his arms, “I think now’s a good time for introductions.”

  “Liên,” the girl stated, staring daggers at Houshima, clearly having figured out his identity through his voice, “and my guard, Xīn Yí,” she said, gesturing towards the older woman.

  “I’m Massak, from the southern water tribe,” the boy responded next, clearly having not figured out Houshima’s identity.

  “My name is Houshima,” he began to remove the guard uniform, revealing the dark fabric below, casting the pieces of clothing out of the cart, “nice to meet you,” he finished, straightening his eyepatch as his sole green eye fixed upon each of his compatriots in turn.

  A few of the cabbages stirred, a head with short brown hair sticking up out of the vegetables, followed by shoulders wearing the orange garb of an air nomad, “And I’m Sabita,” she said, the eleven-year-old munching on a cabbage as if she hadn’t just popped up from nowhere.

  Turning to face the direction they were headed, Houshima identified what would probably be considered a problem, succinctly described by Massak, “Guys, I think we might need to slow this cart down a bit.”

  Elements of a solution were forming in Houshima’s mind, gears turning as fast as the wagon was rolling, just barely avoiding a dive off the road’s edge, “Sabita, are you a good bender?”

  “Better than most,” she answered alongside a shrug.

  “Alright, send blasts of wind forwards to slow us down. And Massak, can you pile up snow in front of the cart?”

  “Sure.”

  Houshima sighed with relief, glad that the people he had suddenly found himself surrounded by were actually competent, “You two, defend against aerial attacks,” he addressed Liên and Xīn Yí (who were already prepared to do so, Liên with her bow and her guard with earthbent pebbles), removing the disc-like helmet and throwing it horizontally, the final piece of the stolen uniform sailing through the air to intercept a ball of fire sent at them by foes running after the cart. Massak and Sabita were managing to decelerate their out of control transport, though not quick enough to prevent it from making the last of the descent a vertical drop of about twenty feet, forcing the waterbender to start building anew. At this point there was little for Houshima to do but let his heart race, fully aware that he’d be done for if the plan failed…and that the boulder launching towards them had no reasonable countermeasure other than to hope it missed.

  When the snow was eventually piled high enough that the cart was barely moving faster than a person could run, Liên jumped out of the cart, landing in a strong, yet wide, grounded stance; Houshima instantly understood what she was about to try, and given that the massive flaming chunk of rock was nearly upon them—the distant artillerymen clearly far more accurate than he’d hoped—Houshima had to simply believe she could pull it off. After a moment of preparation Liên stomped, drawing a great chasm in the snow-laden ground ahead of her before reaching down, heaving up a ten-feet thick wall of bedrock as she rose; back in the cave, Houshima had been able to tell she was a powerful bender…but that was on a whole ‘nother level, especially considering she could do it without breaking a sweat. A resounding thud struck his ears as the projectile embedded itself in the barrier, failing to penetrate (or even crack) the sturdy stone.

  Houshima and Sabita were in sync, gathering up as many cabbages as they could prior to leaping out of the cart after the others, the small troupe racing away as fast as they could to get the greatest lead on the opposition who would surely start chasing them soon. Houshima took one last look back at Omashu, his home for the past two-and-a-half years, a broken city with a plume of smoke rising from its carcass, and for the third time in his thirteen years of life, Houshima had lost everything he held dear.