Tale of The Broken Sword

Chapter Forty Nine : A Revolt For a Lost Cause

14th March, AD 1657

Eastern City Square, Veillrichtstadt

Everent leaned closer to the wall of the building ravaged by fires and pierced by dozens of bullets moments ago. With his feet trembling and his body shudder in fear, Everent could only hope that it will be all over soon. The loud roar of an engine resonates along the avenue of the block, continuously casting waves of vigorous vibration onto the fragile and crumbling walls and ceilings of every building around it.

“Keep quiet,” A fighter, with his name Frederick beside Everent whispered. “Any more noise and they’ll see us. Then, we’ll be dead by a minute or so after that.”

Everent nodded and started to feel his jangling nerves were about to burst out, and the engines made a blood-curdling sound of whirring gears and a loud creak from it. Everent slowly craned his neck outwards from the edge of the wall, and what he saw was very different from what he’d heard coming, in fact it was bigger!

A fairly large tank roared slowly past them, and Frederick was preparing some sort of clever device taped onto an explosive charge. He taped the top end of the device, wrapped it in some plastic sheet before placing it onto the table, seemingly waiting for the tank to be at the right position. Almost every building in the district had either been evacuated or its occupants fled away from it, shortly after the revolt had begun in the eastern district of the city.

It was a small battle anyway, with pockets of standout between the resistance groups and the Empire’s soldiers only occurred around the central district, whilst as far as Everent knew, the bulk of the resistance forces were slowly navigating through the complex maze of underground catacombs and they would attack from below, catching the Empire’s soldiers off guard. At least, that is the plan, for now.

Everent was itching to get out of the city, but moving out now would trigger any suspicion among his fellow fighters, making them to think that he had finally starting to turn his back on them, and some, or most quarters do not seem to trust Everent at all. He would have to find a way out, or risk being sucked into a losing fight that might soon cost him his life.

“Come on,” Frederick said to him. “We’ve got to get ahead of the tank.”

And without hesitating, Frederick climbed onto a section of the building which was destroyed an hour ago and the Empire’s soldier sweep through this area. Everent followed from behind, and cautiously planning his steps all the way to avoid any weak areas that might give way. Apart from a hole on the wall made possibly by a tank, the interiors of the building seemed to be untouched entirely.

Making their way down, Everent was only stopped the moment Frederick lifted his hand and swung his rifle upward towards an opposite building at the intersection. Taking a flashlight out of his pocket, he turned his flashlight on and off several times in a precise sequence, giving the fighter at the other side of the street a signal.

“Okay, they had known we’re coming. Let’s go, the tank is coming closer.” Frederick placed the flashlight back into his pocket and waved for Everent to move along.

They dashed into the back alley and quickly took cover behind a brick wall facing the streets ahead. Knowing that this would be a good place to plant the device, Frederick swiftly raced out onto the street and threw the device directly in the middle of the asphalt road. With the tank quickly approaching, Frederick struggled to arm the device but after countless times of trying to arm the makeshift device, Frederick raced back into the back alley and hunkered beside Everent.

The device was connected by a long thin rope tied to the pin in which Frederick held on to it which Everent nearly thought it was without any particular reason. As far as Everent knew, there was no such technique to quickly ‘kill’ off a tank to be exactly similar to this. Besides, using this technique would obviously cost the life of its handler, should he be found out before the bomb was put in place.