[littlemanpoet]

"I have faith, my love... What is more... I have hope."

He smiled. This is why I married you, dearest Inzi. When he wavered she was strong, and when she did, he was strong; together they were truly strong.

Mabalar met Herugor's eyes, not letting go. The sorcerer scowled.

Lightening forked and snaked across the sky, dancing across the heights like a whirling Umbarian. Herugor's men looked at the purpling sky fearfully.

Herugor yelled a command that could not be heard, but Mabalar had read his lips: Take them! The thunder grew louder, lasting far longer than usual for lightening. Then Mabalar realized that it was not coming from the sky, low as the clouds were. An army approached from the east, ten score horsemen riding hard and fast. Herugor's fifty men began to turn to see. Their horses pranced nervously. Finally, Herugor, until now so intent upon Mabalar's group, became aware of the threat from the east. His words were lost in the howling wind and the thunder and the rush of rain and hail, but all knew what he had commanded: Hold fast! But Herugor's men were at a huge disadvantage, and it seemed that they were convinced that if they stayed where they were they would be cut down. It started with one, then another, then a few more, and in the space of a few seconds, fifty horsemen were careering back west towad Armenelos, leaving Herugor sitting astride his horse, at a loss for words amid his fury. He looked at Mabalar once more with a knife's glance, then cast his cloak about him. Before their eyes, he seemed to melt beneath his cloak to nothing in the saddle, and was gone. The horse, left to its own devices, looking to right and to left, trotted nervously up the hill, skirted the burning tree, and fled back westward after its comrades.

The army halted around them, its flanks to right and left washing up like waves on a beach until they were almost surrounded ... by friends. Elendil, Anarion, and Isildur, astride their stallions, came up to Mabalar and the others.

"I greet thee, Mabalar Mellothroch and Lothlómë!" said Elendil.

Mabalar bowed in his saddle. "'Tis an honor to meet you again, lord."

Inzillomì embraced her brother Anarion swiftly before speaking to her father. She straightened behind Mabalar as she talked to him, calling over the elements: "Father, Kâthaanî is injured, perhaps to the death. We mustn't delay lest your grandchild be beyond aid."

Elendil became grave and ordered several guards to take the unconscious Kathâaní to Rómenna with all haste. They placed her on a makeshift hammock between four horses, roofed against the elements, no less, and cantered off.

"We received word through the palantirí," said Elendil, "from Tar Míriel, that you and yours were in danger. We came as soon as we could."

"You have saved our lives, lord. I and mine will do no less should the honor present itself."

Elendil smiled. "You and your house are worth the saving, Mabalar." The raging storm had not calmed as they talked. "Come!" Elendil called. "Let us escape this plague filled island before it sinks beneath our feet!"

They turned and began to canter back toward Rómenna when they heard the hard galloping of a single horse.

"Who could that be, I wonder," Mabalar said, looking back into the murk of rain and hail behind them. "Herugor to try one last time to capture us?"