From the Introduction:
Terrible battles have ravaged these plains and there remnants can still be found everywhere. None of the sides involved emerged as a true victor on this field. As a matter of fact the survivors fled, not even bothering to bury their dead, leaving them behind to fill the bellies of scavengers and worse. Although some few brave or desperate looters have stripped the dead of any valuables and dirt and leaves have started to cover up the evidence of the fields violent past half buried skeletons and the remnants of field fortifications can still be found everywhere.
Worse, not all looters returned from the battlefield with their ill gained loot, and those which did indeed returned brought tales of ghostly horrors and unquiet dead haunting the fields. Some youths entering the field on a foolish dare on a moonless night even told grand stories of entire spectral army camps with soldiers preparing to fight their fruitless battle time and again. Although these stories might just be tall tales and nothing else even the most rational fellows must admit that the apple trees, a kind known to bloom bright white, blooming red in spring greatly disturbs them.