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I’m glad someone is willing to hear my account. I have seen much of the war, more than SkekVar perhaps, and certainly more than any living Gelfling or Gruenak.
I could tell you anything, where should I start? What should I speak of? Should I tell of the battles themselves? Or the aftermath? Or how it began? Should I tell of my enemies? Should I tell of my fellow soldiers? Should I tell of my own wonders? Should I tell of the glories of Gelflings? Should I tell of the tragedies? Or the victories? Or of them all?
I have time, and I am bored. I will tell you all I can, and perhaps I will write again one day.
Let me tell you first and foremost what war is. War is cruel, cold, damp, and it smells of sick and deathly air. When I think of war, I think of bloody mud and fire, I think of funeral pyres and village ruins. I think not of gory glory that SkekVar may tell you of, nor numbers and dates and casualties on paper SkekOk may speak of, I think of haunted faces and dead eyes. When I think of war, I think of begging, pleading prisoners and shivering childlings standing bound in the rain. I think of dented armor and blood-rust on blades, and I think of cold in my bones and pain and ache. When I think of war, I hear the ringing of cannons and the weeping of widows. Yet, still, I think of it, and I tell of it now. Horrid things I have seen and done, and of them I will speak.
I will begin not when the war began, I will begin where my war began. I had seen battle beforehand, many duels I had seen, and I’d chased wild beasts too— but nothing compares to the roar of war. I had arrived in the heat of the battle, in a Vapran village at the foot of the mountains, homes burned and Gruenak machines rolled down the narrow roads. The white snow ran red and rose, Gruenaks turned from fleeing Gelfling to face me instead.
They wield arrows and ropes, they know well enough how to bring a beast down, and that same logic carries over to fighting a lord of the crystal. Soon I was tangled in ropes, stuck full of arrows, roaring with pain. One brave gelfling came in wielding a sword, and slashed the ropes, and freed me of my bonds. The Gelfling fell, but so did the Gruenaks, and it was that night I learned to clean blood from my blade so that the next morning it would not bleed.
I slew many foes, I breathed in much smoke, I learned Gruenak blood was a deep, deep red like my own, and I learned I could grow dizzy from the exhaust of the machines. There were often Gruenak inside the machines, it took several of them to man just one, but it was a horrid metal beast that would not burn nor fall by sword or arrow. Much how they tried to bring me down, we brought down the machines, and we spared no pilot just as we spared no footsoldier.
The next morning I was tasked with digging graves, turns out I could dig much faster than any gelfling could, and I spent an eternity carving out cold earth to bury enemies and citizens alike. I did not count how many graves, I know that is the sort of thing you archivists would want to know, but I could not tell you— what I could tell you, is that my claws were cold and blistered when the work was done, and my eyes were heavy and haunted when I finally was allowed to rest them.
SkekVar was proud of our victory, but I did not see any more meaning in the word that day. There was no victory, not yet, the war raged on. There was another attack awhile after, we had not finished clearing debris when it came. I lost the medic I had grown fond of, she and I had grown close in my undertaking, she taught me how to tell when a body was truly dead or just cold and stunned, and I’m sorry to say I did not need to apply that wisdom to her, it was clear to any of us with eyes still in their proper places.
I do not like being the undertaker. I do not like that I still am the undertaker, even now. As I write this to you, I still have the dirt on my claws and on the bottoms of my boots.
But it’s an important job, not just ceremonial, it is vital to our survival. I have spent days in camps drenched in blood, I have slept in a tent full of flies, and I have lain in medic tents alongside the dead— the longer the dead lie, the more dead you will have.
It is better to burn the dead than to let the living grow ill— but I try my best to avoid it, even if it means I spend my nights tireless and digging holes.
But war is not just digging holes, and it is not just sharpening blades and polishing armor. War is gunshots, and stampeding landstriders, and screaming orders, and waves of bodies crashing against one another. War is the little childlings dying in my arms, war is the desperate Gruenaks hoping to be heroes and fell a monster, war is the cannonballs that slam against my chest and knock the air right out of my lungs, war is the frightened cries of dying mounders, war is the moment skin meets blade and gives way to a flood of rose and sunset shades, war is all of this and more.
I hope this answers your questions, I hope this is the firsthand account you hoped for, when you asked I and not SkekVar of war.
If you wish for more, send me paper and ink, this is the last of mine.