Doc’s anxiety turned to icy dread in the pit of his stomach as he considered the implications of the old Merchant’s words. Ralph, he knew, would be in the ranks of Birin’s small force, and he found himself unable to imagine, or even to consider the young man’s plight. Ralph was too kind, too gentle, and if the truth be known, too sheltered to survive such an experience unscathed.
But memories of his own two years of service when he’d served in the military rose to the surface and tempered this observation somewhat. You just never knew about people.
Belatedly, something of the Merchant’s words caught his attention.
‘You said we.’
‘I did indeed,’ replied Finli. ‘I am going to gird myself for battle, my friend; something that hasn’t occurred for a very long time. You will come with the medical wagons, to succour the wounded as they are taken from the field of battle. I hope that you are prepared to deal once again with what will undoubtedly be a bloody arena.’
‘Why do you think that I have experienced war before?’ Doc asked him.
‘It is written in your methodology,’ replied the Merchant as they arrived at the Communications tent. ‘That is, unless a fact of your world is a never-ending chain of natural disasters, from which you’ve somehow derived skills in mending bodies with injuries not in keeping with every-day-misadventure.’