World Building Challenge - Day 14 - Monument

This is part of Faranesque's World Building Challenge from r/WorldBuilding. Check out my hub post for details.  

Preface: Most of my posts from this point on will likely focus on the crew of the Rōnni and the refugees with them, now I've done some of the cosmic establishment from Day 1.

In today's installment, witness the fall of Lord Balvene's statue after his defeat.

XIV MONUMENT

The statue stood tall over the central square in Balvale, as it had for nearly a generation. Oded Balvene had ordered one constructed in every township in his holdings, but the one here in Balvale was the grandest. Twice as tall as a man, it was raised some additional fifteen feet on a spire of stone mined from the same quarry where Izzur worked, albeit decades before. He ignored the plaque on the front of the spire, looking up instead at the hewn-quartz statue.

Oded Balvene himself had not been nearly as fit as the sculptors had depicted him. He'd been paunchy, his frame heavy and rounded with extra weight, even if this had belied the genuine strength he had, but they'd carved him like a hero from the tales, trim and fit and muscular. The unkempt tangle of hair had instead been rendered a coifed mane, echoed in the neatly trimmed beard. His statue stood with one foot planted on the skull of a hexapuma, one hand resting on his knee, while the other gripped the pommel of a longsword planted beside him.

As Izzur approached the crowd around the spire, he saw the grapnels being thrown up to latch onto the statue. Nearby, the offworlders were merely watching as the serfs, Izzur included, grabbed hold of the ropes and began pulling. Someone in the mob began a chant of "Heave, heave," to rally them into working in unison.

A cheer went up as they heard the crack of the crystal snapping, and the noise grew louder as the statue toppled to the ground, landing with a ringing clatter on the cobbles. The mob began singing the anthem "May the Skies Roar" in jubilation, while someone clambered up the spire to plant the banner of the old princedom.

Izzur and the other miners walked up to the statue, clutching their picks and their hammers. Circling it, they raised their tools high, waiting for the pause in the song, then brought them down as one. The quartz head of Oded Balvene's likeness shattered with a boom, and the mob sang out, "And so the skies roar!"