THE LOST CITY

6) The Resurrection

ONE MONTH AGO
It was the day when Bearsk was brought to their knees. The day they saw something unexpected. The day which made them realise the taste of defeat.
It was that night. A cold breeze flowing was through the dead soldier's barren body at the battlefield. Tyler's body was lying still in the ground. The soldier had lost his life due to the foolishness of his General, but was he dead? Was oxygen still flowing through his body? Were his arteries still carrying oxygenated blood? Was his heart still pumping? All of this was answered when his fingers moved, his lips fluttered and then suddenly his eyes opened.

PRESENT DAY
The defeated General of Bearsk Erwin was ready to surrender himself to Malta. He was guilt ridden and had lost all his hope to live. Before going, he addressed the people of Bearsk one last time as their General.
"My dear people of Bearsk. I know you all have hatred towards me and I don't blame you, I'm the only reason that we lost―you lost―your family and why Bearsk lost it's brave soldiers. To show contrition to my sins, I am ceding Bearsk to Malta and giving up my life to the General of Malta. These are the tears of self-reproach which you are seeing, not the tears of feeling scared of death. I just want to say that I am truly repentant for my incredible naïvety and stupidity. I am not asking you all to forgive me―that's your choice―but I want to die knowing that I have apologised to my people."
After addressing the people he went to his base and for the last time wished his soldiers luck for the future. Outside the gate of the province, a carriage arrived from Malta to pick Erwin. It was time for him to depart. He bade a final farewell to his comrades and got inside the carriage. The only other person inside the carriage was a soldier of Malta who was given the responsibility to bring him back to Malta securely. The soldier laughed at Erwin and said, "Soon you will be killed and your chopped head will be hanged at the central market." Erwin ignored him and kept looking outside.
Soon they reached Malta. Erwin was nearing his end when suddenly the tire of carriage deflated. The soldier from Malta yelled at the driver to check on it. When the driver checked, it was not deflated due to a stone but a bullet. When the driver realised it and got up to inform the soldier he was instantly shot down. When that soldier saw that, he sprang outside and saw a figure running towards him. As he prepared himself to shoot at him, the soldier's face was chopped off. Erwin came out of the carriage and was shocked to see Tyler standing in front of him.
"Tyler, is that you? Didn't you die in the battle? How come you are alive?"
Tyler said, "This isn't a time to tell you stories. We need to quickly get away from here. Malta's soldiers will be here soon."
Tyler saw five armed guards approaching them. He handed Erwin a shotgun axe and pulled up his one and they both started shooting at them. Once the five guards were killed, Tyler told Erwin to follow him, and then Tyler began to run South. Erwin inquired about the location he was heading to, but Tyler didn't answer him. Upon reaching the desired destination, he told Erwin to wait there. Erwin then asked, "What's going on here? Can you spill out the beans?"
"You ask a lot of questions, General. If we get out of here safely I will fill you in," replied Tyler.
"But how are we gonna escape from here by standing here?" asked Erwin.
"There comes our ride," Tyler said suddenly. There could be seen one of Matla's fighter planes in the distance. Once the plane landed and Erwin got closer, he was even more shocked to see John and Stuart inside it.
"Didn't you also both die?" asked Erwin, his voice laced with curiosity. John and Stuart didn't answer and instead told Tyler and Erwin to get inside. Tyler and Erwin quickly climbed onto the plane and then John took off, successfully rescuing the General.
When they reached Bearsk, the soldiers took their guard in case that the fighter plane was sent by Malta, but when the plane approached near to them, they were nonplussed to see the three soldiers and General in it. They couldn't believe their eyes when they saw them. Cheers erupted among the whole unit. Everyone, including Erwin, had the same question: "How the hell are Tyler and both his friends alive, and how did they rescue Erwin from Malta with a plane?"
After they landed, they greeted everyone. Erwin proudly said to the soldiers, "Today you all are seeing me alive because of these three soldiers standing with me. I am grateful to them. How this happened, however, can only be answered by them. Tyler, please explain."
Tyler stepped forward and spoke. "A day before the attack, I told John about the plan that we have to invade Malta and how mysterious they were. I also told him that we had no backup plan for it. John was the one who suggested that we should make a backup plan and include Stuart too and operate in sub rosa. We three decided to meet at night in my house," Tyler explained.
"Why didn't you tell me? I could have helped you," Erwin told him.
"When I first mentioned having a backup plan, you simply denied. You were feeling smug after our win in the previous battles. We feared that you would not approve of it," Tyler replied.
Erwin replied with a contrite tone, "Yeah, I know I should have listened to you."
"Now we had some big decisions to make, because we knew nothing about Malta. We made several plans and none of them seemed helpful. After too much contemplating, we came up with a plan. It was our only plan in a do or die situation. The idea was that if we were to lose this time, John and Stuart will stay in Malta and will spy while our other soldiers will retaliate. I would pretend that I am dead so that General Erwin would most certainly retaliate while John and Stuart take the advantage of the bedlam and will head towards Malta. During the war, it was inevitable that we would be defeated, so I took the advantage of that second wave of missile attack and I intentionally came in the close range where I would get injured but not die. After our soldiers retaliated and John and Stuart were inside the province, at that night I also made my move and successfully infiltrated inside."
A soldier stopped Tyler in between and asked him, "Then why didn't you inform us from there only that you were alive and inside so we could come to your rescue?"
"We didn't want to take any risks from which our cover would be blown," said Stuart.
"It was very important that we remain there for as long as we can so that we could learn more about them," added John. Tyler continued.
"We joined their army without anyone knowing we were from Bearsk. No one ever doubted us. We stayed inside and learned about their secret weapons and how they were manufacturing it. We also learnt how to use them. There we found out that they were getting some information from the outside in a form of letter and they were getting these once every two days. I managed to steal one of the letters." He showed the letter to everyone. It stated about the list of items to be delivered and their prices. "John learned how to fly the planes and Stuart built a secret way to enter the province. Meanwhile, I spied on the officials of the army. But I couldn't see the General of Malta as he visits his army very rarely.
"Then after a month I got to know that they were planning to bring General Erwin to their province and then kill him and take over Bearsk. Now we had to pace ourselves. We knew that he would be brought inside a carriage, so we decided to rescue him and with the help of a plane, escape from there with Erwin. Our plan went smoothly and here we are standing all safe and sound with our General in front of you all."
Everyone in the province praised the three friends and their rescue plan was published in the 'Daily Bearsk Newspaper'. This was the talk of the town now. Everyone eulogised the three friends' bravery. They were given the name 'The Brutal Three'.
The next day, Erwin approached Tyler and demanded him to take the General position from him as he himself isn't worthy of it. Tyler denied it and said, "If you feel that you are being defeated then it's good enough, because if you have learnt from the defeat then you haven't lost. In the past you only encouraged me to join the army, you brought me into this cruel world once again and now I am not letting you to leave this. Everyone makes mistakes, but letting those mistakes feed on you is stupidity. Think about all the soldiers who sacrificed themselves so that our plan could work. Will there be justice for them? You were their leader so it's your responsibility to avenge them. If you want to discontinue then do it, but if you do then I am following you."
General Erwin asked, "After this much happening, do you still believe in me? Are you sure that I would not repeat this in future?"
Tyler replied, "No, I don't believe in you, but always there is always room for improvement. You remain in this position and win my belief. Now stop being sentimental and decide what we are gonna do now. We don't have enough time left. We now know their secret and they could attack us at any time."
At the province of Malta when their General came to know that Erwin escaped, he was furious. He yelled, "How can some people infiltrate inside your province and take away Erwin? You soldiers are not that dumb! What were the guards doing at that moment?"
"They went there to stop them but they were killed," replied a soldier. This made the General more furious and he cried, "Prepare our troops! We will invade Bearsk. I want Bearsk to be demolished down to its last atom, and I want that Erwin's head."

It seemed that both sides were ready for a gruesome battle. They had nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.