The Two Towers (The Lord of the Rings #2)(51)

Night closed about them. At last they halted to make their camp. They had ridden for some five hours and were far out upon the western plain, yet more than half their journey lay still before them. In a great circle, under the starry sky and the waxing moon, they now made their bivouac. They lit no fires, for they were uncertain of events; but they set a ring of mounted guards about them, and scouts rode out far ahead, passing like shadows in the folds of the land. The slow night passed without tidings or alarm. At dawn the horns sounded, and within an hour they took the road again.

There were no clouds overhead yet, but a heaviness was in the air; it was hot for the season of the year. The rising sun was hazy, and behind it, following it slowly up the sky, there was a growing darkness, as of a great storm moving out of the East. And away in the North-west there seemed to be another darkness brooding about the feet of the Misty Mountains, a shadow that crept down slowly from the Wizard’s Vale.

Gandalf dropped back to where Legolas rode beside éomer. ‘You have the keen eyes of your fair kindred, Legolas,’ he said; ‘and they can tell a sparrow from a finch a league off. Tell me, can you see anything away yonder towards Isengard?’

‘Many miles lie between,’ said Legolas, gazing thither and shading his eyes with his long hand. ‘I can see a darkness. There are shapes moving in it, great shapes far away upon the bank of the river; but what they are I cannot tell. It is not mist or cloud that defeats my eyes: there is a veiling shadow that some power lays upon the land, and it marches slowly down stream. It is as if the twilight under endless trees were flowing downwards from the hills.’

‘And behind us comes a very storm of Mordor,’ said Gandalf. ‘It will be a black night.’

As the second day of their riding drew on, the heaviness in the air increased. In the afternoon the dark clouds began to overtake them: a sombre canopy with great billowing edges flecked with dazzling light. The sun went down, blood-red in a smoking haze. The spears of the Riders were tipped with fire as the last shafts of light kindled the steep faces of the peaks of Thrihyrne: now very near they stood on the northernmost arm of the White Mountains, three jagged horns staring at the sunset. In the last red glow men in the vanguard saw a black speck, a horseman riding back towards them. They halted awaiting him.

He came, a weary man with dinted helm and cloven shield. Slowly he climbed from his horse and stood there a while gasping. At length he spoke. ‘Is éomer here?’ he asked. ‘You come at last, but too late, and with too little strength. Things have gone evilly since Théodred fell. We were driven back yesterday over the Isen with great loss; many perished at the crossing. Then at night fresh forces came over the river against our camp. All Isengard must be emptied; and Saruman has armed the wild hillmen and herd-folk of Dunland beyond the rivers, and these also he loosed upon us. We were overmastered. The shield-wall was broken. Erkenbrand of Westfold has drawn off those men he could gather towards his fastness in Helm’s Deep. The rest are scattered.

‘Where is éomer? Tell him there is no hope ahead. He should return to Edoras before the wolves of Isengard come there.’

Théoden had sat silent, hidden from the man’s sight behind his guards; now he urged his horse forward. ‘Come, stand before me, Ceorl!’ he said. ‘I am here. The last host of the Eorlingas has ridden forth. It will not return without battle.’

The man’s face lightened with joy and wonder. He drew himself up. Then he knelt, offering his notched sword to the king. ‘Command me, lord!’ he cried. ‘And pardon me! I thought—’

‘You thought I remained in Meduseld bent like an old tree under winter snow. So it was when you rode to war. But a west wind has shaken the boughs,’ said Théoden. ‘Give this man a fresh horse! Let us ride to the help of Erkenbrand!’

While Théoden was speaking, Gandalf rode a short way ahead, and he sat there alone, gazing north to Isengard and west to the setting sun. Now he came back.

‘Ride, Théoden!’ he said. ‘Ride to Helm’s Deep! Go not to the Fords of Isen, and do not tarry in the plain! I must leave you for a while. Shadowfax must bear me now on a swift errand.’ Turning to Aragorn and éomer and the men of the king’s household, he cried: ‘Keep well the Lord of the Mark, till I return. Await me at Helm’s Gate! Farewell!’

He spoke a word to Shadowfax, and like an arrow from the bow the great horse sprang away. Even as they looked he was gone: a flash of silver in the sunset, a wind over the grass, a shadow that fled and passed from sight. Snowmane snorted and reared, eager to follow; but only a swift bird on the wing could have overtaken him.

‘What does that mean?’ said one of the guard to Háma.

‘That Gandalf Greyhame has need of haste,’ answered Háma. ‘Ever he goes and comes unlooked-for.’

‘Wormtongue, were he here, would not find it hard to explain,’ said the other.

‘True enough,’ said Háma; ‘but for myself, I will wait until I see Gandalf again.’

‘Maybe you will wait long,’ said the other.

The host turned away now from the road to the Fords of Isen and bent their course southward. Night fell, and still they rode on. The hills drew near, but the tall peaks of Thrihyrne were already dim against the darkening sky. Still some miles away, on the far side of the Westfold Vale, a great bay in the mountains, lay a green coomb, out of which a gorge opened in the hills. Men of that land called it Helm’s Deep, after a hero of old wars who had made his refuge there. Ever steeper and narrower it wound inward from the north under the shadow of the Thrihyrne, till the crowhaunted cliffs rose like mighty towers on either side, shutting out the light.