Then she is uncomplicatedly the most important one here to keep alive.  He's glad – it's easier when the tactically correct priorities are what he would naturally do in any case.

"Then it's very important that Samora knows how to reach Rivendell even if the rest of us are dead."  It might not be an easy route to find, but he can hope Strider can explain enough of it to be of some use.  

"And..."  He pulls a pendant from under his tunic – a little gold lute with a spray of mixed gemstones going up from it.  "I don't know the weights of diamonds; would any of these do?"

Samora matches her steps with Marc's and examines it. "I don't think so, but it's good to know you have it so I can try it if there's an emergency. I agree I should learn as much of the terrain as possible between here and Rivendell; my priorities in a fight unless advised otherwise are Strider, myself, Frodo, Marc, and then everyone else, with maintaining control of any corpses roughly equal to keeping myself alive."

Pippin grumbles about this, loudly enough for Aragorn and Samora and probably also Marc to hear but not loudly enough for anyone to think he actually wants a response.

Sam would be inclined to complain about how far down that list Frodo is but doesn't actually want to contradict anyone, so he doesn't say anything.

"Once you have any hope of getting to Rivendell on your own, Frodo should be your highest priority."

Ah, so they are outright having this conversation.  He is glad of that too – many of his friends didn't want to think this way, didn't want to think about who might die at all or couldn't agree on who it should be, but here they probably can agree, and it will feel so much better to know that they do.

"I still don't know what exactly we aim to accomplish, but-- you before Strider, surely, given that you can bring people back if you're alive and manage to find anyone else who can point you to Rivendell?  ... No, that's true if everyone else is dead but it might not be true if they aren't...  But I'm not sure that Strider and Frodo have better chances than you and Frodo, either."  He might be underestimating Strider, but it seems really difficult to overestimate all the incredible reach of Samora's magic.  "And..." he will actually look at Frodo rather than asking Strider about him, given that he is apparently the center of all this: "do you have a chance of getting to Rivendell on your own? Or is that not an outcome that would gain us anything?"  If Strider means truly the highest priority, then what Samora has a hope of doing afterward doesn't matter.

(He is deliberately not thinking about what about Frodo might be important enough to spend all their lives on, because they don't want him to know.  Though it takes some effort not to think about it, because detail would help.)

He spares Pippin a sympathetic look, and the rest of the hobbits along with him.  It can be hard to get used to thinking about who should die and why it might need to be you first, and the lack of real complaint means doing well enough at it.

"I can--keep riding East. But I don't know the way, and we just saw last night I'm no match for the black riders." 

"I have some knowledge of the art of not dying. But should the worst happen--" Aragorn launches into a detailed explanation of the geography of the area between their current location and Rivendell, including such facts as that the Hoarwell can only be crossed by the bridge on the main road and where best to ford the Bruinen.

Samora listens intently, and wishes she could take notes but not badly enough to stop walking about it. 

"The bridge over the Hoarwell is going to be a choke point, isn't it."

"Yes. My hope is that we will not see the Riders between now and then, but the root of that hope is that they will seek to hold the Last Bridge against us."

"That seems likely. Do you have a plan for what to do then?"

"I had planned to draw them off, send the hobbits over the bridge, then circle around and run for it myself, but with more allies I expect we can make a safer plan than that. Though the fundamental approach of some of us acting as a distraction for the others is still wiser than a frontal assault."

"I nominate myself for the distraction: I can strike at range, over fifty yards, and I'm terrible at stealth." The latter is obvious. She clanks. "And if we know we'll reach the bridge by dawn on the day we do, I can prepare mobility spells for--wait. I have a better idea. What if we go off the road and I prepare a Communal Air Walk the day we expect to reach the river? It will let us all walk on the air as though on the ground for ten minutes--oh, but horses can't Air Walk without a lot of practice. We'd need to spend hours between here and there training the horse and even then it might be too afraid to make the crossing. So perhaps I should be the distraction after all."

He nods agreement at Strider's plan, but his face lights up at Samora's.  "No, Air Walk sounds perfect.  I doubt we care that much about the horse, especially with Ant Haul for carrying."  You really cannot pass over a plan where the enemy is waiting for you in an unavoidable place and you simply aren't there.

"We might still want some of us to draw them off once they realize we crossed elsewhere. Unless between Air Walk and Marching Chant we can have them still waiting for us at the bridge for days after we're gone..."  Oh, he knows he's probably being too optimistic, but it would be such a great escape if it worked.

Hm. Do they want to leave the horse? What are the operative considerations? Would being able to cross the Hoarwell off the road let them avoid that encounter permanently, or just have it on different and perhaps better ground? Is their current mission important enough to totally ignore the fact that those black riders are clearly a hazard to the populace that needs to be dealt with? The horse has option value, both for a burst of speed to get Frodo out of combat, and if his condition worsens or someone else gets injured the horse can carry someone without tying up a combatant.

Aragorn speaks before Samora has decided which side to argue for. "What circle of spell is Air Walk? I've taught horses not to fear the clash of swords or the dark things that walk in the north, and this pony has a steadfast heart."

"Fourth circle. I can spare the spells for practice, and I or Marc can carry Frodo over the water while you lead the horse. It would be a tricky place to be ambushed, but the whole point is to avoid a fight. Just to check explicitly: getting Frodo to Rivendell is important enough to outweigh the threat the black riders pose to other innocents if we leave them be?"

"While Frodo is free they will pursue no other quarry save as a means of reaching him."

"Then I hope we can lead them on a long chase.  Will they assault Rivendell, if they know he's there?  ...Will they know he's there?  It sounds as if they know something about where we're going, but I don't know how much." 

Likely they are getting ahead of themselves and do not need to settle the entire fortnight's strategy this morning, but asking the questions is still yielding information that will give him a better idea of what is happening, and he would dearly like to feel like he knows.

"They must know we're making for Rivendell. It's the only place in this part of the world that can stand against them for a time. As for what to do after, wiser heads than my own will advise us, for there lives Elrond the elven-lord, and there I hope to meet Gandalf the Grey, wisest of the Wizards of Middle-Earth."

Ah, yes, "go where the allied archmage is" is such a good strategy it's still the right strategy even when it's obvious to the enemy. "If we make good use of Marching Chant we may be able to get over the river before they realize we won't be coming to the bridge, but it depends on how much we're slowed down by the terrain relative to the speed we'd make on the road. Teaching the horse to Air Walk may do double duty there, if it lets us take any path that can be taken on two legs."

"Let us try it and see how far we can get."

The tactics talk carries on for a bit and winds down with only minor revisions to the plan from there.

Samora does a Sending to Marshall, "Alive on other planet, probably divine intervention, return likely impossible, important quest here. Sorry to miss fighting Belcorra. Good luck, and the Inheritor watch over you." 

When it gets to be time to stop for lunch, Samora casts Create Food and Water and passes out waterskins, bread, butter, cheese, fruit both fresh and dried, cold meats, jerky, and oats and a bucket of water for Bill the pony. It's enough to feed twenty-four adult humans through a day of physical exertion.

"Why, there's enough here to eat a decent lunch and have the rest for supper!"

This does a lot to restore Samora's reputation after the "whose death is the smallest problem" conversation.