Ralph and the Pixie

True, their numbers were augmented by almost eighty archers; women and older children who had been instructed to keep their distance from the ranks, whose purpose it was to pick off any of the enemy that chanced to break through the lines. But if the rest of the soldiers were reassured by their presence, Ralph was not. He didn’t cherish the thought of a stray arrow striking him or anyone else in the back, and like many of the soldiers, he was very much against the presence of women and children in the arena of war.

All morning, Birin had been riding from one end of their thinly stretched lines of soldiers to the other, as though through a act of sheer will or expenditure of his own energies he could somehow increase their strength and numbers. His demeanor, Ralph noted, had changed considerably as he had fully assumed his position of command. All present had assumed what Ralph thought of as their “professional face.” The camaraderie was thankfully still there, but it had also taken on a formalized character which Ralph found it difficult to share in. Strange, he mused, that such things he had once dismissed as unnecessary pretence, or outdated formality. For the first time in his life, he was able to see the necessity from which such behaviour arose, and in the same breath, gained a startling new perspective on what he suddenly became aware of as being his old life.