ActionsPageDiscussionView sourceHistoryWar Begins in Chanson

Glocke: I still remember the day the war began. It was supposed to be a day of celebration and joy; it ended as a day of destruction and deep sorrow. We didn’t have many men guarding the city—we hadn’t needed any great defense for decades. We were at peace with our neighbors and were celebrating a hard-earned harvest. No one expected the horns to be sounded that night; none had been prepared to discover the large force that moved against us. The shock of the siege, however, was nothing compared to the shock of the besiegers.

  “Retreat!” a man yelled at the top of his lungs. Others took up the call; trumpets joined in, blasting the notes of withdrawal.
  “Charge!” came the answer. I recognized the voice.
  I took a few flagging steps forward, following my father’s command to pursue our attackers, but I soon stopped. I was exhausted. We’d fought all night long to extricate our city of those who knew us best; we’d battled to the death those we'd once called our allies. The men of my city pursued. I stayed behind.
  I wasn’t the only one.
  Resting momentarily, bent over with my hands on my knees, I looked around. Others of my generation had also stopped. Around us was carnage of the like none of us had ever imagined. Sure, several of us older adolescents—myself included, but sixteen years of age at the time—had begun to be trained in the basics of warfare, but none of us had ever expected to actually see battle in our lifetimes. Not all of us were as lucky as my peers and I, however. Boys younger than myself, who had yet to be handed a real weapon, had found themselves armed and sent into battle with no instruction other than “stay alive and protect our people.”
  I stood now to find one such boy—a very particular one. Despite the darkness, I found him without trouble. Dragging my weary body onward, I turned and headed in his direction.
  “Brummen?” I called as I neared my twelve-year-old brother.
  He didn’t answer me. He just stood there. The longsword he’d been given—barely a foot shorter than he at that point, though he hit his growth spurt shortly thereafter—hung loosely in his grip, the tip of its blade resting on the ground. He stared forward, his gaze dazed, his expression numb. How many he’d fought, I didn’t know. With just a cursory glance, I could see he’d taken several minor wounds—his arm bled and his pants were ripped, showcasing a skinned knee. He wasn’t seriously injured, though. His blade was darkened with blood, however: he must have fought at least one—how many beyond that, he never did say.
  “Brummen?” I tried again, reaching out to touch his shoulder.
  He roused himself enough to look uncomprehendingly at me. I still get shivers when I recall his expression. He held my gaze for a few seconds before turning back to the battlefield before us, looking from body to body that lay on the ground. A sound erupted from his throat—I can only describe it as a mixture of recognition and despair. He stumbled several steps away from me and fell to his knees next to one body in particular. Dropping his sword, he reached out to the dead man before him.
  I followed and kneeled next to the two of them. Before us lay Master Firth. My spirits fell before quickly being lit into anger. This man was our tutor. He had been hired several years ago to come from the university to teach us and our peers. He didn’t even belong to our city—our home wasn’t his home. Yet he had fought to defend our people—had fought to defend the future he so wished for his students. Even now, dead on the battlefield, he looked more scholarly than warlike.
  “Why?” Brummen’s strained voice was full of emotion. I looked over to see the tears in his eyes. Suddenly, he didn’t look like my twelve-year-old brother. It was as though this one battle had added a decade to his life. The vision passed when he reached up and brushed the hot tears from his eyes. I put my arm around him, and for once, he laid his head on my shoulder.
  “What did we do wrong?” he continued. “They were our friends. Why did they attack us?”

I still don’t know the answer to that question. This war has raged off and on for the last twelve years without an answer to that question. All I know, all I understand is that those we’d once considered our friends became our enemies.

Many good men died that night. With them, we buried our hopes and dreams for the future, and instead,

We became warriors.