December 21, 1895
Al-Arroun, Arari Kingdom
Day of Prayers, least that’s what it is back home today. Thinking about my family quite a lot, especially my younger brother Alastaire, he turns seventeen tomorrow and that’s the army’s entrance age. I hope he doesn’t volunteer and I know we aren’t drafting yet. By the gods I hope he doesn’t join up. I’ll be praying for that and if he does that he joins my unit here. I’d rather be able to watch out for him myself than know some stranger is. Family matters.
The briefing a few days ago was grim. We’ve got an army group here, nearly three-hundred thousand men under General Marrai. He’s a man of maybe sixty and has the whitest hair I think i’ve seen on anyone but grandfather. White like snow, so we’ve taken to calling him General Snow. He’s here in Al-Arroun supposedly because he prefers to and I quote “Be where the action is.” Respect for that man I have. We’ve got a lot of guys here but the enemy is said to have at least twice our number, some rumors say three times. That would be a million man army against us. Not sure I want to believe such a thing, I would reckon though that it would be all the men those demons have here in the Kingdom. If we best them maybe this war could end early.
Made a friend here, names Olivier. He’s from a small town not far from mine back home. Knows the same mountains and the same lakes. Pretty nice to have someone else to reminisce with. Dark news came through, Alistaire got it in his thick head to join up. Grandfather is trying to pull some strings and get him into my unit, I hope it works. Brothers need to be together in times like this. I’m glad Charles isn’t here though, he should stay back home at the factory and help out there. Gods knows we’ll need the bullets.
Saw more men falling back from the front, more artillery being fired by the hour. Enemy can’t be more than twenty miles away now though. Shouldn’t be long before battle is joined. Such a beautiful city, likely won’t be much here when it’s over.