A Winter's War

I ask myself again for the thousandth time that day, was it worth it?

Lying on my back in the snow and an arrow protruding from the right side of my chest, I felt my blood seeping through my gray, worn jacket and wetting the snow. I can’t believe now that I had ever thought it would be an honor to wear the King’s colors and march out in tyranny of other countries, to gain dominion, they said, for power and glory, they said.

Lying like that in the snow I couldn’t believe I was awake. Or I was for now. Now that I think about it I was completely oblivious to my fellow soldiers falling around me by arrows from the castle tiers above. Conquer the castle and we conquer the country, they said. Conquer that, and we can finally go home. That’s what I had thought too.

The pain in my chest had ebbed to a dull ache and I knew I wasn’t going to make it. Then I remembered my brother, Darien, and wondered how he was fairing. He had entered the castle with the first charge at mornings light and I had not seen him since. My battalion followed but we were attacked by archers in the five shadow gray rock of the castle. That was it, the last time he would ever hear me say to him was out of jest, “Don’t trip over yourself on the way in.”

My vision grew bleary and I struggled to think straight. I can’t even remember if he had laughed or not. The war was all but won and I would not be around to experience it. Better me than him, he had a wife and a blonde, chubby, bright eyed, baby year old son. They’d named him after me, Matthias, they simply called him Matty. He brought a lot of joy to his parents, I just wish I could be there to see him grow up, my little nephew.

The next I knew I was shaken awake by what I thought was a nurse or someone surveying the dead of the battle grounds. Hardly, I didn’t have the strength to stop him as the group of 12 nearby village boys robbed every one of us of our hats, coats, and boots, and whatever else they could find. I think I cursed at them but I was out again.

When I came to I was lying on a cot in a tent hospital surrounded by the other wounded. Skipping over the part where I nearly killed myself trying to sit up, I asked the nurse about my brother. She had a blonde hair, (common in our country) it was a mess and her white apron was not as new as it had been before the carnage. She bit her lip looking down, and I knew. That’s all I needed to understand. I was brotherless, my sister-in-law was a widow, and my nephew was fatherless.

The water surrounding camp was polluted so we conserved water and boiled snow when we had time. I hadn’t had any to do since yesterday, yet somehow, I still found tears to cry.