Night had long since fallen: stars glowed overhead, blanketing the misty, far-flung village in an almost eerie glow as the group tended to their own after a full day of fighting. Alliance soldiers led by Greymane had taken the capitol by force and storm in glorious and storied battle, while a much smaller-scale war of inches was fought on the fringes of Gilneas by civilian groups and paramilitary forces alike. By the time they’d gained ground and settled in for the night, there was little left to many of the sea-sprayed coastal hamlets.
As they tended the wounded and mourned the dead, a grim silence had fallen over the hundreds who were encamped in the nameless town’s square; a silence much needed after the day’s struggle and strife. The only sounds came from the medical tents, where the last of the wounded were being brought in from the surrounding countryside.
Gwen stood in a tent next to a cot, her hands stained reddish-brown as she peeled back layers of bloody clothing covering a young man’s chest. He can’t even be twenty, she thought as her fingers picked at charred and bloody cloth. Her look darkened almost imperceptibly in the lantern light as she pulled the last bit of cloth back to reveal a gaping chest wound, blackened around the edges. The sharp smell of copper and burnt flesh met her nostrils as she shifted her gaze to the lad’s face.
“Yer gonna be fine, love,” she said gently, even as the light began to dim in the boy’s eyes. His charred hand grasped at her skirt, blackened fingertips clawing desperately at cloth as he reached out to touch someone else one last time. Gwen scooped up his hand in one of hers as the other rummaged in her pocket.
“Yeh s-sure?” he rasped as he struggled for breath. She nodded as her fingers closed around what she’d been looking for: a tiny syrette— one of dozens she’d used that day alone.
“Sure as the day’s long— what’s yer name?” Gwen asked as she slid the needle smoothly into his upper arm.
“H— Henry, m-ma’am…” He struggled to focus on her as the drugs took quick effect. “...feels… feels like’m gonna… be fine…” he mumbled as his eyelids fluttered shut. Gwen dropped the syrette to the floor and placed a palm on the side of his face.
“Yer gonna be fine, love,” she repeated as she leaned in and touched her dirt-smeared forehead to his. Her eyes closed as his last, shuddering breath left his body. “Ancestors guide him,” she intoned, barely above a whisper, “an’ bring him peace in his next life.” As Henry’s grip slackened in hers, Gwen straightened herself up and made a moment of placing his hands crossed over his chest, just above the fatal wound that had taken his life— the one she’d been too late to treat. Movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention: she turned to see a woman approaching with a ragged blanket.
“S’all I got, but he shouldn’t have t’ lie around uncovered,” she said to Gwen as she went about draping the blanket over Henry’s body. Gwen gave her a single, stiff nod.
“Yeh know ‘im?” she asked quietly.
“I know boys like ‘im,” the woman replied grimly. “Lost as much as we gained today, eh?”
Gwen hummed her agreement. “Aye, we did,” she replied as she turned away. Her eyes— bright with unspilled tears— scanned the tent for the next person, the next victim, as her fingers pulled desperately at the hem of her shirt. She flinched and turned around as she felt a hand on her shoulder.
“He were the last one brought in,” the woman said gently as Gwen fruitlessly attempted to blink away the tears.
“There ain’t— there ain’t no more?” she asked; the woman shook her head. Gwen let out a breath she didn’t realise she’d been holding and fairly collapsed into the woman’s arms as the dam burst and the tears fell thick and fast. “Thank the gods,” she mumbled as the woman guided her to a chair. The woman removed her shawl and placed it across Gwen’s shaking shoulders, and stood in silent vigil next to her as the rest of the scant few medics in their group finished tending to the last of the wounded.
In the distance, the hulking shadow of Gilneas city loomed, its slate rooftops silhouetted by flames from the battle undoubtedly still raging in the city proper. It would be morning— grey and drizzling rain— by the time the Gilnean flag was raised once more in the cathedral square; by then a dozen more fighters would be gone from Gwen’s cadre in the smouldering, windswept remnants of the forgotten seaside town.
In the upcoming days, some would wonder aloud— and in the throes of grief— if what they were fighting for was worth it; others would insist that retaking their homeland was a necessity for the pride and glory of Gilneas. As Gwen sat in the chair with her face buried in her hands, something her father had said to her on the eve of the family’s last fated trip to Duskhaven struck her memory: This is just a place, my love. Gilneas is not this land— Gilneas is and has always been its people.
Scant comfort were the words in the wake of the intervening years, but she would have been lying if she’d said she hadn’t wondered if Gilneans couldn’t have both; not just their people, but also the reclamation of their ancestral homeland. Part of her mind was certain that she would finally be at peace with the magnitude of her own personal loss if there could be meaning behind it; certain she would at least truly begin to heal. Her own desperate hope for any semblance of a life after grief was so all-consuming that she had leapt before she’d stopped to look: she’d vanished in the night— again— fairly aching to find purpose in her misery.
