Hour after hour, eyes fixed on the dim flicker of Aragorn's torchlight ahead; steady clopping of hooves, horses' unnerved snorts, and at their backs an endless rustling whisper…

I have seen my death.

He had known it, in sudden cold shock, as he stood before that threshold; inescapable. Why then flee?  For I do not, truly, fear to die; only that he may fail…

Thinking of Ithilwen's grief, the children's faces, wrings his heart. But he grasps the thick dark cloth of his burden, strapped in its bindings below his saddle; I will keep faith. With him… and with her.