[piosenniel]

After a while, Mithadan excused himself from further blade practice, saying that he had some matters which now drew his attention.

She watched him walk down the stairs, rubbing his shoulder, and shook her head, smiling. Her own back ached where the flat of his blade had met it. She rubbed it for a moment, and stretched to ease the pain. Her right hand fingered the knives in her belt, and she commented to no one in particular, 'That wouldn't have happened had I used my knives.'

She heard a small gasp behind her. Daisy was looking at her in a strange way, as was Rose. 'You don't mean you should have thrown them at Mithadan, do you?'

Pio laughed and rubbed her back. 'No! you silly hobbits!' Then her face grew more serious. 'But when it comes to Númenor and you are faced with a foeman - take him any way you can. And if you cannot, then run hard back to the ships, or to me.' She looked at both girls, their eyes now grown large, their faces serious. 'Do you understand? Will you promise me that?''

They both nodded 'yes'. She laughed then and gathered them in for a hug.

'Let's stop for now!' she said. We can practice again another day. She sheathed her sword and motioned for them to follow up to the helmdeck.

They each took a cool drink from the barrel there, passing the cup from one to another. She bade them sit at the table there and spread out a large diagram she had made of the River Siril, with twenty ships noted on it.

'I'm noting here which ships will carry the crew of the Star.' she said, indicating the spaces near each drawn ship where she would write in names. Her name and Mithadan's were in the first ship, all the rest were blank at present. 'Where do you think I should put you two?' she asked them. 'Where do you think you would be most effective?'

[ September 19, 2002: Message edited by: piosenniel ]