At the same time Kahn's troops spotted the other side, Lidun and his men spotted Kahn's group as well.
After a brief standoff, battle was on the verge of erupting.
On the surface, Lidun's force numbered nearly a hundred, while the Royal Guard had only twenty men in total-a vast disparity in numbers.
But Lidun's force of nearly a hundred had fewer than ten Firebenders, and their long flight had left them somewhat exhausted, their strength already diminished by thirty percent.
Every member of the Royal Guard, however, was a Firebender, and an elite one at that. After a day of regrouping, they were brimming with vigor and in peak condition.
The gap between Benders and ordinary people was generally difficult to bridge, much less when Woolf and his men were the elite of the elite. By rights, the battle should have quickly become a one-sided rout.
However, Azula's order to capture them alive prevented the Royal Guard from using their full strength, giving Lidun's disadvantaged troops room to maneuver.
By working together, the ordinary soldiers with extensive combat experience and the handful of Firebenders actually managed to barely hold off the Royal Guard's offensive, but that was all. They could achieve nothing further.
And so the battle settled into a delicate, fragile balance.
Just then, Kahn and Azula entered the fray.
From the plan discussed the night before, they understood that to carry out this perilous scheme, Kahn and Azula first had to complete Ozai's assignment-and do so splendidly.
For that reason, they had to capture Lidun's troops.
Thus, when they saw Kahn and Azula enter the fray, they knew it was time to lose and began preparing to hold back.
But they soon realized that this seemed unnecessary.
The balance of the battle was already delicate and fragile;