***Author's Note: This short story takes place approximately 32 years before Trials of the Core. ***
Gar’s Revolt
Year:718 AGW (After Great War)
Cearul Briggs was not alone in this vast expanse of land called the Fields of Hal. It sunk ever slightly into the middle like a bowl, and Cearul and at least 500 others were the porridge. At the cusp were their leaders Visis and Autumn Aprah and behind loomed cliffs, a perfect vantage for an archer like Visis. They stood as husband and wife. More importantly they stood as the bond which linked all of them; they were the utensils that would dig them and Gar itself out of the depression and rule of Sereya, the country of ice to the North.
Visis raised his bow and rebels hushed. “Men and women alike, tonight and many nights and months ahead we quest to the lands of the north, to Sereya in hopes of overthrowing the frozen impression forced upon us by self proclaimed lord, Astor Grime. For twenty years since Lady Tundra Iycel left to pledge fealty to Guardian of the Core, Edward Eska, he has ruled as cold as his lands.”
Cearul knew why men looked to Visis as a leader. It wasn’t the lean jaw, or the hair as dirt colored as the mountains they slaved in. It wasn’t his tall figure, or the way he used his bow or sword. It wasn’t his eyes, which upon a glance pierced even the thickest armor. It was his stark voice, as sharp as traitor’s steel, and as cold as the blue blood that flowed through Sereyans.
“We have been forced to mine the minerals that have forged their weapons. We have been forced to live off the mountains we mine, receiving the very bare of minimums. We have been forced to live off bare minimums for too long.” He raised his bow again and fists followed. “It is now, while the gaze of the great sun Freyr is above us, that we force them to let us have sovereignty.”
Cearul roared with the rest of them. He pounded his chest three times with a right fist as solid as rock. He had seen too many deaths in the mines, his oldest son of twenty and three perished to a collapse leaving him with his youngest, Corrigan. He may never see his son again, but he followed his leaders. If they could leave a daughter of four in the care of elders too old to mine, he could leave his.
“How many deaths have we seen in just these few years since Lady Iycel left us?”
It was Autumn’s voice that carried now as bold as change. Her features weren’t as sharp or polished as her bladed tanfas; she didn’t try and cover up her blemishes. She was a mark of rugged beauty, and a symbol of the dishevelment they hoped to escape. Hair longer on the left then the right showed Sereyan punishments, as well as tattered clothes and forced duties. Visis covered the whippings on his back well. Frost burns on his face and half a left ear added to the punishment he received it after killing the guards who raped his Autumn. That was the spark, now the 500 of them listening were the brush ignited in their injustice.
“How many of your sons have died?”
Cearul roared with at least a hundred others.
“How many of your daughters or wives raped?” She screamed passion.
He didn’t move. Thank the goddesses Crestal and Pearl that Siobhan never has had to pick in the mines. His wife was always allowed to keep care with their son of twelve, Corrigan; a boy who Caerul hoped would grow as fierce and elite as he. The smile she gave him the days he returned home in the filth and grime of the mines, was as curved as the axe he wielded. She was his shield, and now he hoped to be her’s, and all of Gar’s.
“How many of you are ready to let the frostbitten northerners taste the cold bite of our steal?” Swords, axes, lances, bows, that had been secretly crafted with the minerals they mined sought out her voice. “How many of you stand before my husband and I as individuals who have suffered the same?” Yells followed. “How many of you are afraid?”
