The first shots cracked out near the old textile yards off Carrer de Pau Claris. By dusk, they had spread like wildfire through the veins of the city.
Young men in loose linen shirts, red and black kerchiefs knotted at their throats, sprinted across the wide boulevards.
In their hands were French rifles; chassepots and Lebels smuggled down from Perpignan with the help of de Gaulle’s new Republican militias.
They chanted in Catalan, rough words that mixed local pride with anarchist fury.
Banners daubed with snarling suns and clenched fists fluttered from balconies. Already, shopkeepers were hammering boards over their windows.
And above it all, painted hastily on the plaster walls of a closed café:
“Visca Catalunya lliure!” — Long live free Catalonia!
Near the Passeig de Gràcia, a trio of gunmen hunkered behind an overturned tram car. One of them a boy who could not have been more than seventeen.
He laughed breathlessly as he fired a shot down the street, his recoil-drunk shoulder nearly betraying his aim.
Another leaned out just long enough to hurl a bottle of petrol that shattered against the iron gate of the Banco Hispano Colonial.
Flames snaked up the facade, oily black smoke curling into the evening sky.
Across the plaza, local Guardia Civil in dark green tunics tried to form a cordon.
But the jeering crowd outnumbered them five to one, and every minute more laborers and discontented students surged from side streets.
A captain pulled at his thick mustache, barked something to his sergeant. The line faltered. Then broke.
Helmets clattered to the cobbles. A few men ripped off their insignia, flinging them aside before vanishing into alleys. The rest simply ran, rifles bouncing on leather slings.
The crowd roared. Within moments, the old police station’s windows were smashed, papers and shattered furniture thrown out in great belches of chaos.
—
The next morning
A telegraph key chattered inside the royal palace in Madrid. A clerk dashed breathlessly into the war council chamber, eyes wide.
“Your Majesty,” he panted, “Barcelona is lost. The local garrison refused to deploy without direct orders. The police have melted into the crowd. The anarchists have seized the municipal armory. They’re flying Catalan flags side by side with red syndicalist banners over the plaza.”
King Alfonso XIII’s jaw tightened. He looked down at a map of Spain spread beneath his gloved hands, then at his generals gathered around him.
“Send the 4th Mechanized from Zaragoza. Tanks, cavalry, infantry, everything. Tell General Barrera I expect the city under control within forty-eight hours.”
He paused. His eyes were bloodshot from sleepless nights.
“And have the heralds draft a proclamation. Make it clear: Barcelona remains under the crown. This is not merely a question of Madrid’s pride; it is Spain’s very survival.”
—
Two days later in the out outskirts of Barcelona.
Steel snouts pushed down the tree-lined highway. Old tanks from the Great War, refurbished with heavier machine guns and cannons, rumbled forward on clattering treads.
Troopers in tan field tunics marched alongside them, sweat streaking their necks despite the crisp air.
They were led by cavalry scouts on short Andalusian horses, lances tucked high. From behind their lines, the slow toll of cathedral bells echoed like a funeral song.
A captain rode up to the lead tank, shouted an order. The convoy began to fan out, infantry moving house to house, rifles tight to shoulders.
In the city’s outskirts, shots snapped from shuttered windows. A tank turned its stubby gun, fired once.
The shell punched through a stone wall, sending a plume of dust and masonry into the street. Screams followed.
Barricades rose by the hundreds. Makeshift ramparts of furniture, paving stones, even old iron bedframes.
Behind them, men and women crouched with pistols and knives, their faces set in a defiant rictus.
At one such barricade on Carrer de Mallorca, an old anarchist with a black sash tied around his brow stood atop a heap of crates.
He waved a battered Mauser in the air, voice ragged as he shouted to the crowd.
“They send tanks against the people! The king fears us so much he cloaks his terror in steel! Will you bow? Will you let Madrid chain us again?”
A ragged chorus of “No!” rolled back at him.
The old man fired a single round toward the oncoming soldiers. Then another. Then a third. The last cracked wide, harmless against stone; but it was enough.
The line of Spanish infantry surged. Rifle bolts slammed home. A machine gun crew dropped prone, barrel stitching flame. The old man toppled backward in silence.
By nightfall, the tanks had pushed into the Eixample, their caterpillar tracks grinding across Catalan slogans painted on the streets.
The flames of sacked buildings reflected in their riveted hulls.
From high balconies, families wept or hurled pots and bricks. In darkened alleys, more serious men readied grenades bought with French coins.
A captain of the royal army, mud splattered up to his thighs, paused at a street corner. He looked back toward the long, churning column of troops that stretched for blocks.
“They’ll hate us for this,” he muttered to his adjutant. “Even if we win. Especially if we win.”
His adjutant only stared ahead, lips moving over a silent prayer.
Far away in Paris, the evening papers ran headlines in thick block letters:
“BLOOD IN BARCELONA! ALFONSO CRUSHES UPRISING WITH TANKS””DE GAULLE: ‘FRENCHMEN MUST DEFEND LIBERTY EVERYWHERE'”
And in Madrid, under the opulent chandeliers of his private office, Alfonso XIII poured himself a measure of dark brandy. The glass shook just slightly in his grasp.
Outside, the lamps of the capital burned on, casting long shadows; each one hinting at future reckonings yet to come.
—
Bruno read the Madrid papers in silence, seated at King Manuel’s ornate breakfast table.What had been a lively morning among two royal households now hung thick with unease.
Those who knew Bruno understood all too well: if he was quiet in the face of such headlines, it meant something was already turning; vast and unseen.
And it would unfold, as always, in the most subtle and unfathomable of ways.
At last, he laid the paper aside, seeming almost bored by its grim columns. He picked up his silver fork and calmly resumed his meal.
Manuel could bear it no longer. His own pulse thundered in his throat. He exhaled, forcing a brittle calm.
“Well?”
Bruno’s pale eyes slid lazily toward him, one brow arching in faint amusement.
“Well what? Be precise, Manuel. How could I possibly guess what weighs on your mind with so vague a question?”
His smile was playful; but only on the surface. Hedwig’s hands tightened on the tablecloth, knuckles paling. She had seen that expression before. It heralded grim tides.
Manuel drew a long, sharp breath. He set his cutlery down with theatrical care, trying to gather dignity before it fled him entirely.
“Spain is my neighbor. If they descend into civil war, my own throne stands in the path of ruin. So, Bruno; what is your plan? What shadow will you cast over Iberia this time?”
Bruno paused, knife and fork hovering, then set them down with deliberate, chilling precision.
He straightened slightly, posture shifting into something regal, immense; as if the entire weight of the Alps had suddenly settled behind his shoulders.
“I plan to do nothing,” he said softly. Then his voice lowered, an edge of iron sliding beneath the velvet.
“But de Gaulle should be wary. Instigating violence in the Pyrenees invites the wolves currently nesting in the Carpathians; who by now have grown hungry, and restless.”
A hush dropped over the table. Even the servants at the walls seemed to still. Manuel exhaled slowly, dread flickering behind his eyes.
Bruno picked up his utensils again, carving delicately into his breakfast as though the conversation had never occurred.
There was no need to speak it aloud. The Werwolf Group would be unleashed; and that single truth carried its own fearsome miasma through the palace dining hall.
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