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It was raining hard. The six splashing mearas hurtled forward. Mabalar was glad of Inzi's arms around him, her supple hands clasped at his breast bone. He feared for their daughter. She had seemed so pale from loss of blood. They had to get to Rómenna as quickly as they could. Hope was beginning to leave him and his heart felt as heavy as the weighing green clouds above.
There was something, a burden Inzi must be bearing under her clothes, that drove into his spine at the small of his back.
"What is that you have, poking me in the spine?" he called over his shoulder amid the din of thundering hooves.
"'Tis a gift from Tar Míriel, she meant to give to you, but you slept!"
"Valar be praised!" he replied, and smiled back to her.
Looking ahead again, Mabalar saw a line of horses stretching across the road and into the fields on either side. Yet another obstacle! Who this time? He cried for a halt. The line closed in on either side even as the clouds came lower, darkening. Now Mabalar could hear the pursuing horses that they had outrun, closing in from behind.
"Who hinders our passage?" he yelled in barely controlled fury.
One rider moved his horse ahead of the rest. "I, Herugor, on orders of Lord Sauron, hinder your passage, for you are a traitor and fugitive from the King's Law."
How had Herugor gotten ahead of them again? It had to be sorcery he had learned from his heinous master.
They were surrounded. Lightening rent the sky, followed by a deafening roar of thunder. Rain fell harder. The last vestiges of daylight slipped away as the hidden sun fell into the Sea in the West. Hail mixed with the rain. The ground shook beneath them.
"Surrender, miscreant!" Herugor cried.
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