While Henrik is fighting with the soldier, someone who is hiding among the body look toward the fight
"Henrik!" he thought to himself.
He is a young man. Miklos. Miklos is a son of a miner. He knows Henrik. Know is a strong word. It is more like he had seen him in the village and know of him
Young people make trouble and they have their own clique. And Henrik lives near the castle. A settlement just outside of the castle
Henrik and Miklos come from the village of Matra. Around Matra there is a small mining village called Feketehegy (will now be called Black Hill)
That is where he and his father lived.
Near the Black Hill, just behind those hills and mines.
It's not marked on royal maps and under the supervision of the lords and ladies of the court that rules this land.
This is common.
Maps change a lot and it depends on the nobles that lives in those lands. And nobles itself changes.
When a more powerful nobles come, it is not like the other nobles before him would help them get to know the land if they are not related.
And even if they are related, these nobles are not exactly a generous bunch
Of course, at that time, Miklos did not understand all of this, nor does he understand the intrigues of high court
All he knew was that small little world he called home. He knows the smell of the soot, ash and the ground
He knew the sound of hammering and smashing.
This is his little world.
The people in his world carved silver and copper, mine all of this for those great nobles and lords and ladies of the realm.
The land around the Black Hill is thin and rocky.
And farming alone could not sustain the people, so most men there worked in the mines cut into the hillsides.
Among them was his father, Istvan
Miklos lived a harsh life.
His mother died of the cold when he was six.
And his younger brother die of the same cold.
And since then, he has been helping his father.
By the age of twelve, he was descending into the shaft with his father.
He was useful.
He could crawl where other men could not.
And he learned to swing a hammer, how to use a pickaxe, how to learn the sound of the earth that other does not know how to differentiate.
Miklos position in the rebel army is a tracker and a spotter.
He could track horses and enemy scouts, and he could hear the sound of the rushing of the horses before the horses could even come.
All of this had to do with his own innate talent when he was a child. People like them, they also hunt. The mines are close to forest and there is elks, and deer and boars and those who are brave could get their fill during the few times the nobles allowed them to hunt.
Of course, there is also illegal poaching which Miklos had once participated in during those few winters where there is no food.
As for his childhood, while the world itself is harsh towards him, he is lucky that his family, his one and only family does care about him
His father is a good man. He scolds and he hits, but Miklos knows he cares about him and there is nothing that he would not do for his son.
The only reason Miklos found out about illegal poaching job is because his father did it a few times to put food on the table.
After mining he even had the energy to hunt. And he never complained about that to him. Miklos knew how lucky he was because he saw fathers who treat their son like cattle onn the farm and some even abuse their sons
Of course, in this world, things have its balance. Those who abused their sons, would one day get abused back by their sons
He had seen it
As for his father endured many things that others could not.
He remembers his father always said the Earth feed them if they bleed for it.
And while life was tough, it was not impossible. Those years passes quickly and then things changed
the taxes grew heavier by the year. It all began when the local lord Baron Lazlo Varkonyi demanded more coin.
Though Miklos did not know whether it is now the same lord that governs Matra or it is a different lord.
Miklos himself did not understand the division and hierarchy of nobility.
What he does know however, that the taxes grew heavier, the life grows harder and the world does not seem to let up.
And then the Church of the Great Savior tithe also did not lessen. The rich eat meat and sleep under warmth, while the poor hungers and dies on the side of the road
Yields are poor, and the peasant had to pay anyway, sacrificing livestock and tools.
This could not go on
Something must give in
and in one spring, a collapse in the mine killed around ten men. Ten adults and still the one in the high, still demanded full output and more.
These ten people, Miklos knew them all. He knew their names, their families, their homes, their laughter and cries.
These…are people he knows.
But the demands did not stop
The death of a commoner is nothing in the eyes of those noblemen.
At that time, Miklos think this is normal. Now, he thinks it is abhorrent
But during that time, Miklos only felt pity. He felt it was unfair, he felt it is cruel. But to him, this is still the normal thing.
Because life has always been unfair and life has always been gruelling for peasants.
He never thought of rebelling. Because he only knows fear.
Fear is more than his anger. It did not yet reach a point where the anger exceeds the fear
But then, day after day, there is more and more demand, more and more taxes, until nobody could survive and his father could not take it anymore
His father day after that, anger simmered like a slowly simmering heat that is about to explode. In the beginning, his father express dissatisfaction alone but slowly he is more vocal.
He met some people and at nights he would go out even though there is a curfew and met with people.
They spoke of things Miklos did not understand at that time.
At that time Miklos thought it would be just like that.
There is anger in his father heart, there is dissatisfaction, but that would be it. He probably never thought that his father would have the desire to rebel.
Until their leader George Dozsa, a veteran soldier had been appointed to lead a war against the barbarians that had been attacking appear in Matra
Papal banners were raised under the insistence of the Lords at least that is what Miklos had heard.
That war ended in defeat for the kingdom of Aldwyne.
The barbarian banners fly high, and their men ravaged the north and eastern region of Aldwyne, with some even reportedly raiding into the central plains of Aldwyne.
This all added to the burden on the people. The churches, the nobles, the powerful and the rich, all of them sat on the back of the people and whip them from above.
Are kings and nobles destined to their high status by birth?
Miklos did not know much about what happened in the war, all he knew that their leader rebel against the kingdom after some disagreement
And Matra was one of the villages that he had come to recruit.
When he came here, he was recruiting people and he also goes to the mines.
He also recruited people who is running from the laws, winning the support of some bandits in the caves and forest nearby and any forces who is disgruntled with the kingdom.
His father had joined.
Why?
Because the lords did not give them a way to live.
All of this has a reason.
Baron Varkonyi refused to reduce the mining quota even after the collapse and death of the miners
These miners, these people, are all people Miklos called uncle, people who his father treated like friends and family
To him, and his father, those people are not just miners, they were family.
And even after their death, there is no hope for life anywhere
Some of the people of Matra joined the rebel army before and at that time, his father did not join.
However, it changes when the baron punished families whose men left to join the rebel. Because that was not the first time that Lord George called upon the people
Before that, he had sent his men to infiltrate Matra and gathers like minded people to join him
But at that time, even though his father knew, his father did not join. Things changed afterwards that made his father rethinks his position.
The biggest reason is none other than that Baron mindless punishment.
Most of them are people his father knows.
Pushing and shoving, oppressing and beating, and anger festered.
All it needed was a spark
And that spark came in a beating
..