Hey guys, here's the first chapter of my upcoming young adult fantasy book "The Black Banner".
Please share this with your friends and visit my website www.evanmeekins.com for more info!
The paperback releases March 1st, with the eBook copy preceeding it by a few weeks.

As always, thanks for the support!


~Evan Meekins


"The Black Banner"  Chapter 1Nearly seventeen years laterIt was another day in the mines of Fargranther City, where thesound of pickaxes chipping away at hard rock never stoppedechoing throughout the cave in which it was seated. The constantclatter was not what caused Milcas to awaken, though. The boyhad grown used to the noise, to the smell, to everything. Butno Roegan could sleep through the savage barking of the guarddogs on morning patrol much less survive the consequencesthat followed sleeping in.So, Milcas rose from his bed of dirt and straw at the soundof the hounds. Just another day in Fargranther.Milcas was twelve Roegan years old and lived with his motherand four siblings in a plain red clay hut in the heart of where theRoegans were forced to reside. The air reeked of rats, sweat, androt. Being a major Dwarven city, Fargranther was underneaththe surface of a mountain, and being so close to precious metals,their main source of income was through mining.The inside of the cavern was almost entirely illuminatedby thousands of torches that burned throughout the day andeven into the cold night, save for the dark corridors where the***Roegans lived. The inner walls of the mountain were the sameorange-red material that made up Milcas’s house, and in places,the cavern ceiling could be as high as a castle. Milcas wouldnot know that, though, because he had worked and lived in themines for as long as he could remember. Every Roegan did.It’s said that the Roegans were once a free race, but eventuallythey were cast down from society and labeled as lesser beingsand slaves. The legend of how this occurred varies, but it isgenerally accepted that the Humans, Dwarves, and Elves unitedto overpower the Roegan people and claim them as property.Whether this act was out of fear, hatred, or greed dependedsolely on whom you ask. It occurred about five hundred yearsago, so firsthand accounts were all too often distorted intonothing more than fairytales. Such is history, and none of theRoegans in Frothgarr had the education, funds, resources, orthe time to find out the truth. The Dwarves made sure of that.The history of his people interested Milcas, but it was oftenconsidered a rebellious act in the Dwarven kingdom of Frothgarrto speak of the times before the war or the enslavement of theRoegan people. Thus, many of the Roegans in Frothgarr simplyfocused on the now instead of the past. Their only concernswere that they were able to earn enough rations to feed theirfamily, to stay alive in the treacherous mines and to avoid beingblacklisted or beaten by their Dwarven overlords.Milcas once knew a man who had been blacklisted. He wastwice the age of Milcas, in his mid-twenties, and had broadshoulders and enough strength to move earth like no otherRoegan. He worked harder than any other Roegan and alwaysseemed to give others a sort of hope. A hope for what, though,Milcas did not know.That man was unusual in one way, though, in that heprayed. Any Roegan is allowed to pray, but none were terriblyconcerned with any of the gods, for they all thought that theirpredicaments were inescapable and that nobody, neither mannor a god, would be able to alleviate their seemingly eternalburden. Well, at least none of the sanctioned gods. This man,obedient and non-rebellious, prayed to the only god that theDwarves had not recognized and therefore banned. He prayedto Grothak, the god of dissent.***The Dwarves, even though they despised Grothak, allowedthe man to pray to him, for they did not want to risk losing theirmost profitable laborer who, by himself, would rake in hundredsof pounds of precious metals day after day. He could have takencredit for much more, too, because he often gave out pounds ofmetals that he had mined to his fellow Roegans so as to earnthem a few more rations.One day, though, armed Dwarven guards, stumpy yetmuscular in stature with overgrown beards knotted in variousstyles and braids, seized him and questioned him. “Why doyou worship Grothak? Don’t you know that it is forbidden toworship a god that does not exist?”“My God does exist,” replied the man calmly, “and it wouldbe a great sin if I stopped worshipping him.”“How dare you!” the Dwarf barked at the man. “Do you haveany idea what we can do to you? How easy it is for us to breakyou for not cooperating with our laws?”“Do what you will, but no matter what you do to me, I willnever stop preaching the name of Grothak.”The Dwarven guard grew furious at the man’s resistance,and he swung his hammer against the man’s knee, shatteringit and sending blood spurting down his leg. The man stumbled,but he did not scream. Instead, he stared at the Dwarf, as if tofurther portray his defiance.He made a statement before everyone that day in themines—that he was a free man, and that the Dwarves could dono real harm to him. This gave a glimmer of hope to the otherRoegans in the mines, but the Dwarves were quick to extinguishit. He was dragged into the Underkeep, where it is rumored thatno matter what tortures they inflicted upon him, he only praisedthe name Grothak, never giving them satisfaction.After the man was taken away, the miners broke into a maddash to seize any of the rocks in his stockpile and claim themas their own. Milcas took part in the rush, and although hewas unable to grab one of the bigger stones in the pile, he didobtain one—a small, black, perfectly round rock that was leftat the bottom of the pile. Instead of giving it to the guards toearn rations, though, Milcas stored the rock in his pocket andplaced it beside his bed, to remember always the man that did***not break.This day, on the other hand, was fairly orthodox forMilcas. After preparing to work in the mines, he set out alongwith the rest of the Roegans, a hair under 400,000 in all, andmade his way through the five-mile long passage into the raw,underdeveloped areas of the mine. Milcas worked in the minesas well, but unlike the rest of the Roegans his age, he worked asa Fetcher, and always had. Usually small children were assignedto be Fetchers and tasked to retrieve any precious metals foundwithin tunnels and crevices too small or narrow for the grownminers to fit into.Milcas utterly dreaded his assigned occupation. Even thoughhe was smaller than everybody else his age, Milcas had becomemuch too large to traverse through the pitch-black caverns. Hisexposed flesh often scratched against the jagged rocks, his shortblack hair always brushed against the rock ceiling, and sometunnels were so low that he needed to crouch or even kneel sohe could move through them. Milcas wanted to talk with theDwarven labor-master about his problem, but he knew it was nouse. They didn’t care about him. They didn’t care about any ofthe Roegans. All the Dwarves cared about was their metal, andthey didn’t mind at all if there was any Roegan blood, sweat, ortears on it; those could easily be wiped off.Milcas hated being a Fetcher and dreamed of being a Sender.The Senders were an elite group of Roegan intellectuals whocollaboratively planned on which mining route to take throughthe mountains across Frothgarr. Senders were highly reveredamong the Roegans, so much so that they were called not bysolely their birth name, but with Sender in front of it. It was thetitle of nobility amongst slaves.Each mining complex had its own individual body of Senders,but they often collaborated on particularly delicate or complexroutes. Assigned to each group was a Dwarven engineer, incharge of managing the Senders and approving any plans theydraw up. They almost always just let the Senders do as they bestsaw fit, taking credit if they succeeded, and blacklisting themin the event of any accidents or unforeseen problems withinthe mines. Even though the risks were high and there was nosubstantial difference in the rations given, Milcas yearned to***be in that sort of position of importance and responsibility,especially if it helped the Roegans.The Roegans too large to be Fetcher and not intellectualenough to be Sender were put to work as Breakers. Encompassingjust about every single man, woman, and teenager, the Breakersformed the bulk of the Roegan workforce in Frothgarr. Thosewere the workers who would spend every hour of every daystriking and collecting rocks, using nothing but hammers andpickaxes along the path the Senders had designated for them.Milcas’s mother was a Breaker, and so he always had to cookdinner for his family after they returned from the mines,because his mother’s arms would be so sore and her hands soinflexible that she could barely even pick up her wooden forkto eat dinner, much less cook it. Some Breakers did not have asbad a problem after a day of mining, though; they either grewused to the toil and pain, or stopped feeling it altogether.After a full day in the mines, the Roegans were coated in adense layer of grime and coal dust, painting their once tan skinsa strong shade of black. They would return home, spend at mosthalf an hour with their family, and then prepare for another dayof demanding work in the mines. Milcas used to always ask hismother when things in Fargranther would change. Usually, shewould either deflect the topic with some fairytale or wordlesslystare out the ruined window of their home. Eventually, Milcasstopped asking, knowing that he would never receive the answerhe wanted to hear.Milcas was not the only Roegan who held disdain towardthe Dwarves, though. In fact, every single Roegan despised theDwarves and abhorred their enslavement. If it weren’t for thetight restrictions and the grim consequences for free speech,the gilded streets of upper Fargranther would be filled, not withpompous Dwarven nobles but with enraged mobs of Roegansdemanding a better future. But in a demented way, that woulddefy a sort of sacred tradition for the Roegan people. Thislifestyle, this inescapable situation, had been repeated as longas any Roegan in Frothgarr could remember, and although theydespised it with every fiber of their being, it was a ritual thatevery Roegan had to adhere to without hesitation or complaint.There were those who went against the system, though.***In the parade of the downtrodden, Milcas spotted Falkreith,a midsized, muscular, and very lean Roegan who was only fiveRoegan years older than Milcas. He was the younger brother ofthe blacklisted man. As Milcas studied Falkreith’s stoic features,parted black bangs, almost equally as black eyes, and narrowface, he wondered if Falkreith was influenced by his brother,then remembered the answer, feeling foolish that he could everstart to forget what happened.About a week after his brother’s death, Falkreith stooddefiantly in front of the giant iron and brick mason gate thatdivided the Roegan slums from the rest of Fargranther.“You think you’re big, huh Dwarves? You think that you ownme like some hunk of meat? You think that you can do whateveryou want with me? Kill me? Torture me like my brother? WellI’ve got news for you, you sadistic little boar-faced, gluttonoushogs! You have never owned me, my brother, or any of theRoegans!”Falkreith continued to rage for a whole hour, yellingobscenities and rebellious remarks at the gate. No Dwarvesappeared to give him an audience until a squad of four guardsapproached him.“What are you going to do now?” Falkreith growled. “Kill melike you killed my brother?”“Oh no, we won’t kill you,” replied the guard captain. “We’llsimply make an example out of you.”Two guards flanked Falkreith; restraining each arm as theguard captain punched him in the stomach, causing him tokeel over in pain. A third guard bashed him on the back of hishead with a small club, sending blood trickling down his back.Falkreith did not give in, though, and even on the brink ofunconsciousness he struggled to break free.“Oh, a bit of a fighter, aren’t ya?” mused the Dwarf as heopened Falkreith’s slack jaw and grabbed his tongue. “This’ll getya to shut up.”The guard captain pulled his serrated knife from its sheath,raised it to Falkreith’s face, and in one simple, horrendousmotion, severed the young man’s tongue, leaving only a bloodystump inside of his mouth. Warm crimson poured fromFalkreith’s mouth as he kneeled down in front of the iron gate,***hunched over to keep himself from drowning in his own blood.“Let’s go boys,” commanded the guard captain. “We’veshown these brutes what happens when a mongrel barks tooloud in Fargranther.”There he laid for the rest of the night, dark bangs coveringhis hate-filled eyes, motionless, broken, and defeated.The next day, he joined the rest of the miners as if nothing hadever happened; outwardly conforming his life to the submissiveimage the Dwarves wanted to see in him and in every Roegan,though from time to time he would simply stare at the gate to theDwarven District. Dark, brutal, hateful imagination glimmeredin his eyes whenever he stared at the wall, and images of theslaughter that he would unleash if given the chance reflected offthem all too clearly. Milcas shuddered every time he saw thatlook in Falkreith’s face, that dark, hate-drenched look.Falkreith did not scare Milcas, though, for the boy held nosympathy for the Dwarves, nor was he the target of Falkreith’saggression. He simply dropped his gaze from the silencedRoegan and pointed his eyes toward home.Throughout a large dinner of a handful of moldy bread anda small chunk of burnt fat, Milcas could not stop thinking aboutFalkreith’s brother. Why had the guards decided to arrest himthen instead of earlier? What was the source of his inspirationto pray? What hope, if any, did he attempt to spread to the otherRoegans? After dinner, and while still contemplating thesequestions, Milcas entered the room he shared with his siblingsto study the black rock that he had retrieved from the man’spile.It was the first time Milcas had intently studied it, and, as heassumed before, it was black, dull, and had nothing of substanceto it. It had no meaning, no hidden message carved on thebottom, no secret button revealing a hidden compartment.Nothing.Outside in the streets, a large hound barked at the top of itsthick, snappy voice, breaking the silence, and Milcas fumbledthe rock and let it slip from his grasp. The rock fell, breakinginto countless pieces across the barren floor. A Dwarven voicecursed the dog, followed by repeated thumps and high-pitchedyelps, but Milcas did not peer outside to see. No, to Milcas, what***was happening outside had no importance in contrast to whathe discovered inside his own room.At the center of the rock’s black remnants on the floor was asmall object that was unlike the other pieces of shattered rock.Milcas knelt down, picked up the object, and held it close, as ifhe were examining an insect. He gently blew the black dust andsediment off the object, and nearly fainted at what he held in histiny little black fingers.It was a key.A key to what?Milcas thought as his imagination explodedwith possibilities. He continued pondering the meaning ofthe key, what it might unlock, what could be inside the chest,door, case or whatever it was meant for. His questions wereunnecessary, though, for Milcas already knew the answer.Whatever this key is for,thought Milcas, it will show me thehope behind the man in the mines… I must find Falkreith!Milcas raced out his door, anxious to find the answerto this riddle and discover the source of hope for a Roeganin Fargranther; the propellant of an unheard of, forgotten,impossible, and by all accounts, damned idea.“The Black Banner”-Evan Meekins
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