Good, she replies. She pushes her acceleration a little harder. Faster, damn it all, she thinks privately.

He keeps up. This is extremely fun and it would have been a delight to practice it under better conditions.

Well, it hurts pretty badly, but there are so much worse ways to be in this kind of pain.

At these speeds they should be back in mere hours.

And in quite a lot of pain when they arrive, but. Not as bad as the Ice. 

Nothing's visibly happened since, his father says when they arrive. Perhaps he has to wait for the ground to become passable for the orcs to attempt it, but not the Balrogs. I can't see or reach Dorthonion.

Dorthonion?

The highlands there. I don't think the immediate fallout would have instantly killed them, not if they were in their fortresses, but the position is clearly indefensible and they should get out, and we have magical communication devices they should be able to use to warn us if they're trapped. I should...ride out...as soon as I can walk again. Not with you. You should stay here and determine when they come whether you can kill Balrogs.

If I don't have to walk I can heal your legs at least some, it'll do me more harm than it does you good but if I don't have to walk it doesn't matter.

I want to do a bit more scrying before we ride into an unknown situation that has my commanders not contacting us anyway. Don't worry about it.

Okay. Normal things that help aching muscles will do--less good than normal, but not nothing.

I can ask someone to give you a massage again. He's limping off towards one of the towers.

Only if they're not more useful elsewhere, she says, but if they're not I'd be grateful.

No. We don't even have anything to shoot at yet, healers aren't yet needed.

Alright. I'll do some Sympathy-searching, since Odette isn't here to do it, see if there's anything I can find out that wouldn't be visible.

Thank you.

So she closes her eyes and coaxes the world to tell her things about the Enemy's actions, nowhere near as well as Odette would have done it but still with reasonable competence.

It's a good thing they're trying with magic, because all the palantir shows is dust and ash.

I have no idea what that was, that I was sensing, except nasty, she reports after a minute.

All right. I'm riding out. Take care of yourself.

I will do so to the extent that I do not put other peoples' lives at unnecessary risk, she answers.

It's rather the responsibility of the people who've been through four hundred years of war not to obey personal care requests that'd risk lives, not yours to figure out what not to ask for.

Oh, fair enough. I meant more in the way of how much magic I'm doing.

There we'll trust your judgment.

And they ride out.

Illia chooses to be in a room with a window facing whatever's coming. She'd rather not have to rely on her apparently-unhelpful Sympathy senses to react to whatever's coming.

Ash and smoke rain down on the plains. Tense Elven archers are crowding the ramparts of the castle.

Worth trying to clean up? Proooobably not...hm. Do you guys know what happens if you breathe in volcanic ash? she sends to anyone who cares to listen.