[Nuranar]

The road ran steadily downhill, but their horses were stumbling with weariness. Tarondo and Luinien both rode on Menecar's big horse. Luinien's mare bore Thoronmir, picking her way delicately down the path to spare the wounded Ranger. Silrûth, inscrutable and implacable, brought up the rear.

Tarondo knew that the enemy was not done yet. As they drew nearer to the Ford without seeing hide nor hair of orc or troll, his certainty grew. The blow would fall just before the Ford.

Red rock walls soared up on either side of them. They were in the cutting, scarcely a mile from the river. Tarondo turned his head slightly, caught Luinien's eye. She nodded. They were ready.

When they rode out of the cutting, there was the river. And running down from the north were orcs, trying to cut them off.

"Ride! Ride now!" Tarondo shouted. "Get across the Ford!" Spurring their horses, they managed a wavering canter. The orcs were mobbing right across the way, but more and more were joining them... Tarondo's eyes followed the stream of them to the left, fixed on the one figure not running. "There's the leader! Can you get him?" he called back to his sister. She shouted something, but he couldn't hear, shook his head. They were virtually on top of the orcs now.

Suddenly the pressure of her hands disappeared from his waist. Even as he turned his head he knew what he would see: Luinien was rolling to her feet, drawing back her bow, aiming at the leader, as he had asked. Just that One glance, then his sword was in his hand and he was plunged into the skirmish.

Luinien could shoot from horseback. She had seen the head orc, calculated the shot, and rejected the chances even before Tarondo had finished speaking. The only way to make it would be from the ground. Some movement to her right meant the orcs had spotted her, but Luinien ignored them and took careful aim.

The orc should had frozen, then fallen with the arrow in its throat. Instead, it made two quick movements: One, a half-step of irritation at a fool who couldn't understand directions, and two, a jerky spin as the arrow drove into the muscle of its arm.

Luinien exclaimed sharply in disgust. As she drew her bow again, a blur thundered by in a cloud of dust - Silrûth on Falma! Luinien shifted position, trying to keep the Elf out of her line of sight. A flicker of motion at the corner of her eye - the orcs! She whirled and released.

The ear-splitting bellow that followed belonged to no orc. Luinien stepped back. "Not again!" she moaned. Two trolls - the same two trolls? - were lumbering toward her, one limping with her arrow in its thigh. She fitted another arrow to the string, alternately rejoicing that she had the foresight to count her arrows and deploring that she had so few. It would take more than six arrows to bring down two trolls.

Luinien hit the first one again, in the same place, trying to cripple it. But they still moved fast. It was like a desperate game: the Elf shooting, then scrambling away, having to keep far enough ahead to aim properly. It was hard enough without trying to work back to the Ford, closer to the rest of her companions. After her last arrow, she would have only her dirk. And what if there were no companions left?

It took three precious arrows to bring the first to the ground. Even then the brute was up again, dragging its leg, falling, but always coming on. She tried for the throat on the second, but twice her shots only pierced shoulder and back muscle. Bow drawn, last arrow, she waited. It charged down on her, raised its club, and she shot. Nearly straight up, into the hollow between the collarbone.

The troll's body stiffened in the midst of its charge. Momentum carried the huge bulk over, and one of the legs sent Luinien sprawling as she tried to get out of the way. Gasping, she looked up into the vicious beady eyes of the second troll, reaching for her. Rolling away, she drew her dirk and slashed at its grasping, rock-hard fist. The troll roared and jerked back, then swiped at her, claws extended.

The huge fingers caught her around the back, flung her aside. Luinien slammed into the uneven end of a flood-deposited boulder, heard - or felt - a snap. The shock of the impact blurred all sensations together...

Menecar's horse had gone down fighting. Tarondo's bad leg had collapsed when he first tried to stand on it, but Osric had covered him. Then the two fought together, back to back. Tarondo had no idea where anyone else was, and he had no chance to look. He did not think anyone had made it over the Ford.

For some reason Luinien's cry, barely audible above the din, penetrated to his consciousness. He shot a sudden agonized glance back up the road; no Luinien, but the looming bulk of the troll was enough.

With a sudden attack he drove through the ring of orcs, hewing down those who did not clear. Tarondo saw the troll sweep his sister onto the rocks. He covered the last few yards at a dead run.

The troll did not want to be any nearer the biting little blade. It found a nice rock and raised it over its head.

Tarondo's sword sliced straight through the tough muscles on the back of its leg. As it fell the troll roared, dropping the stone. It tried to lunge for its new opponent but toppled on its face, hamstrung. As it struggled to raise itself, Tarondo leaped up on its back and stabbed it in the base of the skull.