Extinction, Christopher Gallacher [i am reading a book txt] 📗

It is a cold, foggy morning as King Mithrilein surveys the crowd of peasants. The peasants’ muscles ache from working the King’s land; they are chilly as their rags provide little warmth and all their brows are creased with anxiety of why they were brought to the King’s Meadow for; but some have an idea. A bony child amongst the crowd wails for feeding whilst his frantic mother tries to shush him. A jet-black crow watches the crowd with a sinister gleam, almost identical to the King’s.
Those who know why they are held in the King’s Meadow bow their heads in case they are identified. Alexis Field is amongst those. He, along with the other dozen, had imported some of the finest gunpowder in the world.

The imports manager had reported the import of some ‘two-hundred barrels of premium Dwarven gunpowder’, paid for by a certain ‘A. Field’, costing ‘two-hundred gold coins’. He had reported it to the King’s Intelligence Master, who intern told the King. It was considered odd indeed that a peasant, who would usually receive no more than one silver coin a week, of which you would need a hundred to match a gold coin. Odd, until the Treasury records were checked; and, yes, exactly a week before the date of the imports, two-hundred gold coins were stolen.
Alexis Field had told the village, Axton, of his plans to ‘overthrow the King and claim their right stature of life’, of which the council agreed to, but Field had not said how, or with what.

Thus, on the day of the Winter Veil, the 18th of December, 79, it was only the thirteen men involved, led by Alexis Field that knew why they were there.
The King reads aloud from a vellum scroll the names of the plotters to step forward. Still, there is no movement. The King raises his brow, turning to his Chief Advisor on his left, and General Ironshaft on his right. He calls again for the thirteen accused to step forwards. Again, nothing happens. He laughs; an ice-cold, sinister, deathly laugh; and his booming voice pronounces that there can only be one thing left for the villagers of Axton...
Extinction.

Publication Date: 12-19-2011

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