Idril was at the old Telemmirioni townhouse on the unfashionable south side of the sixth circle when she heard the horns and ran up the stairs to the top of the tower to see what was happening.

The stone bastion that bisected the City blocked her view of the initial Rohirrim charge but a spear point of green cloaked riders soon came into sight piercing the black mass of the enemy.

"They are too few," said Luinil, who had followed her mistress. She clutched at the stone sill. "They cannot win."

Idril laughed. "What does that matter?" At last she was seeing what she had longed all this endless night to see; Men fighting back against the Shadow unfettered by either hope or fear and her spirit rose fierce and fey in response. She laughed again and chanted:

"Out of doubt, out of dark to the day's rising
I came singing in the sun, sword unsheathing.
To hope's end I rode and to heart's breaking:
Now for wrath, now for ruin and a red nightfall!"

Poor Luinil stared at her seemingly mad mistress in horror. Idril made an effort to calm herself and explained: "That is a stave from one of the warsongs of the Rohirrim. I have that blood in me you know and it tells me it is better to
fall fighting than to submit to the Dark."

Luinil seemed to straighten a little, her soft young face falling into sterner lines. "It is not only the Rohirrim who feel so!"

"No." Idril agreed, well pleased. "It is not." It was she who had the Rohirric blood, from her father's grandmother who had been daughter to King Folcwine, but it was Boromir who had taught her the poetry and all else she knew of that heritage. The Riders' stern, warlike spirit had spoken to him pure Dunedain though he was. Perhaps it would inspire the rest of their people as well to make an end worthy of the heirs of the Fathers of Men.

"Oh no," said Luinil, eyes again on the field. "Mumakil!"

"They come late," Idril observed with an oddly detached curiosity. "I wonder what delayed them?"

The Riders formed a line and charged the great beasts only to be crushed under their feet or swept aside by long swinging trunks armed with spikes. And yet, unbelievably, the Mumakil too began to go down - but not enough, not nearly enough. They came raging up to the very wall of the City, bludgeoning it with their massive bodies. Looking down the Women could see the avenue up to the third circle was solid black with Orcs and the buildings that lined it were aflame.

Luinil looked at her mistress and asked steadily: "Is it time, my Lady?"

Idril drew her dagger and the morning light glittered white on the blade. Luinil was right, if they waited until the enemy was at the fifth gate there might not be enough time for all to escape. Yet something held back the words. 'Coward! You are afraid!' but even as her inner voice jeered Idril knew it lied. It was not fear that held her hand but hope, a mad, unreasoning hope born of the new sun and the valor of Rohan - and of another voice whispering in her heart that all was not yet lost. For a long moment she stood torn between hope and despair, faith and fear, Denethor's rearing pitted against Elendil's blood.

Luinil's voice seemed to come to her from a great distance: "My Lady?"

Idril dropped the blade, it rang on the stone. Hope and faith had won. She would trust in her heart. "No. No, we do not die today," She answered and turned to look at the river. "Help is coming. Hope is coming. He is almost here."

"Who?" her maid asked in bewilderment.

Idril could only shake her head, knowing but not knowing what she knew. "I cannot say. But he comes." And then she saw the black sails. "He is here!"

Luinil saw them too and her eyes widened with horror. "My Lady, it is the Corsairs!"

But Idril shook her head in dazed and wondering certainty. "No it isn't."

…..

Pippin crouched with Gandalf on a sort of porch overlooking the fourth gate. Several ranks of battered, grim looking guardsmen faced it with their spears and swords at the ready. The heavy wood doors shuddered under the blows of the great Troll on the other side.

Pippin shuddered too. "I didn't think it would end this way." he said, and hated the forlorn note in his voice. 'Fine soldier of Gondor you are!'

Gandalf gave him a sharp surprised look which softened into kindliness. "End? no, the journey doesn't end here," he said gently. "Death is just another path, one that we all must take." One he had already taken Pippin suddenly remembered. The wizard's eyes gazed over the Hobbit's head at something only he could see. "The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it."

He stopped. "What? Gandalf?" Pippin prompted. "See what?"

The wizard looked down at him and smiled. "White shores, and beyond, a fair green country under a swift sunrise."

Pippin's insides unclenched. "Well...that isn't so bad." he said slowly.

"No. No, it isn't." Gandalf agreed, still smiling at his memories and at Pippin.

The gate shuddered again bringing them back to this world. The enemy would be through in another moment. Gandalf gave Pippin a 'get ready' nod. He nodded back adjusting his grip on his sword and closed his eyes. 'Mum, Dad, I'm sorry, I really meant to come back. Forgive me.'

…

Luinil was now quite certain her mistress had gone completely mad. "It is the pirates of Umbar -" she began only to break off with a gasp as an eerie, greenly glowing cloud in which she could faintly descry the forms of Men and horses poured from the ships onto the shattered docks of Harlond sweeping the Orcs before them. "What is that?"

Idril laughed. It was a youthful, joyous sound and quite unlike the mistress Luinil was familiar with. "I do not know. But whatever it is, it is on our side."

The cloud lanced through the ranks of the foe and came into the City, flowing up the levels like unloosed floodwaters. Luinil and Idril saw greenly luminous, cadaverous forms smother flames and enemy host alike and then withdraw like a turning tide, flowing back out of the City to the battle still being fought on the Pelennor, leaving behind dead Orcs, Trolls and Wargs tidied into heaps.

…

The final blow, the one that would shatter the gate and let the enemy through, never came. Pippin opened his eyes to look blankly at Gandalf who looked back just as baffled. Then his eyes went unfocused again as he looked beyond. Suddenly Gandalf smiled. Standing he vaulted the railing and headed for the gate. Pippin quickly followed, using the steps.

The wizard pushed his way through bewildered, still wary soldiers to where Lord Hurin stood with Prince Imrahil and old Forlong. "Open the gates." he ordered breathlessly. They stared at him. "Do as I say!"

Hurin turned to the Men still holding the great doors shut. "You heard the Lord Mithrandir. Open the gate, let's see what's happened.

Reluctantly they obeyed. Pippin braced himself for a rush of enemies and felt the Men around him doing the same. But when the open gates revealed naught but dead Orcs and Trolls and Wargs, all neatly piled.

Gandalf's smile became a broad grin, "Aragorn!"

Hurin turned to him, face kindling with joy at the name. "He is here?"

"The pretender is come?" Imrahil asked with a frown and many of the Men around them shifted uncertainly.

Gandalf shook his head. "The King is come. And heis no stranger but a Man you knew well once, my Lord Prince, as Thorongil."

"Thorongil?" Imrahil whispered. Then his face lit up as Hurin's had. "Heis Isildur's Heir? Why do we stand here, Mithrandir? Our King and our allies of Rohan fight before the walls, we must gather all the strength we can find and join them!"

…

Idril felt the change in her people's mood long before she knew its cause. It went deeper than simple relief at their reprieve. The air of dread and despair that had brooded for so long over Minas Tirith had dissipated along with Sauron's Shadow. Everywhere Men were eagerly seizing weapons and hurrying to join the force preparing to sortie while Women and children, the elderly and the wounded lined the avenues of the upper circles to cheer them on and the White City shone in the morning sun.

Idril herself felt lighthearted almost to the point of giddiness, as if a great weight of some kind had been rolled from her spirit, but she didn't learn why until she had led her nurses and healers back down to the great square to re-establish their field hospital. Only then did she hear the rumor being whispered among the people: The King had returned.

So that was who was on the Black Ships. Though she still did not know his name or his lineage Idril had no doubt that he, whoever he was, was the true King. No lesser Man could have brought light and hope back to Minas Tirith when all seemed lost.

She remembered the other half of Telemmaite's prophecy; he had predicted the Stewards would fail - as they had - but also that the King would return to Minas Tirith in the hour of her greatest need and restore Gondor's glory.