A porter sat in a little house beside the way, and with fear in his eyes he came forth bearing a lantern in his hand. At the Lord’s command he unlocked the door, and silently it swung back; and they passed through, taking the lantern from his hand. It was dark on the climbing road between ancient walls and many-pillared balusters looming in the swaying lantern833
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beam. Their slow feet echoed as they walked down, down, until at last they came to the Silent Street, Rath Dínen, between pale domes and empty halls and images of men long dead; and they entered into the House of the Stewards and set down their burden.
There Pippin, staring uneasily about him, saw that he was in a wide vaulted chamber, draped as it were with the great shadows that the little lantern threw upon its shrouded walls. And dimly to be seen were many rows of tables, carved of marble; and upon each table lay a sleeping form, hands folded, head pillowed upon stone. But one table near at hand stood broad and bare. Upon it at a sign from Denethor they laid Faramir and his father side by side, and covered them with one covering, and stood then with bowed heads as mourners beside a bed of death. Then Denethor spoke in a low voice.
‘Here we will wait’, he said. ‘But send not for the embalmers. Bring us wood quick to burn, and lay it all about us, and beneath; and pour oil upon it. And when I bid you thrust in a torch. Do this and speak no more to me. Farewell!’
‘By your leave, lord!’ said Pippin and turned and fled in terror from the deathly house. ‘Poor Faramir!’ he thought. ‘I must find Gandalf. Poor Faramir! Quite likely he needs medicine more than tears. Oh, where can I find Gandalf? In the thick of things, I suppose; and he will have no time to spare for dying men or madmen.’
At the door he turned to one of the servants who had remained on guard there. ‘Your master is not himself ’, he said. ‘Go slow! Bring no fire to this place while Faramir lives! Do nothing until Gandalf comes!’
‘Who is the master of Minas Tirith?’ the man answered. ‘The Lord Denethor or the Grey Wanderer?’
‘The Grey Wanderer or no one, it would seem’, said Pippin, and he sped back and up the winding way as swiftly as his feet would carry him, past the astonished porter, out through the door, and on, till he came near the gate of the Citadel. The sentinel hailed him as he went by, and he recognized the voice of Beregond.
‘Whither do you run, Master Peregrin?’ he cried.
‘To find Mithrandir’, Pippin answered.
‘The Lord’s errands are urgent and should not be hindered by me’, said Beregond; ‘but tell me quickly, if you may: what goes forward? Whither has my Lord gone? I have just come on duty, but I heard that he passed towards the Closed Door, and men were bearing Faramir before him.’
‘Yes’, said Pippin, ‘to the Silent Street.’
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Beregond bowed his head to hide his tears. ‘They said that he was dying’, he sighed, ‘and now he is dead.’
‘No’, said Pippin, ‘not yet. And even now his death might be prevented, I think. But the Lord of the City, Beregond, has fallen before his city is taken. He is fey and dangerous.’ Quickly he told of Denethor’s strange words and deeds. ‘I must find Gandalf at once.’
‘Then you must go down to the battle.’
‘I know. The Lord has given me leave. But, Beregond, if you can, do something to stop any dreadful thing happening.’
‘The Lord does not permit those who wear the black and silver to leave their post for any cause, save at his own command.’
‘Well, you must choose between orders and the life of Faramir’, said Pippin. ‘And as for orders, I think you have a madman to deal with, not a lord. I must run. I will return if I can.’
He ran on, down, down towards the outer city. Men flying back from the burning passed him, and some seeing his livery turned and shouted, but he paid no heed. At last he was through the Second Gate, beyond which great fires leaped up between the walls. Yet it seemed strangely silent. No noise or shouts of battle or din of arms could be heard. Then suddenly there was a dreadful cry and a great shock, and a deep echoing boom. Forcing himself on against a gust of fear and horror that shook him almost to his knees. Pippin turned a corner opening on the wide place behind the City Gate. He stopped dead. He had found Gandalf; but he shrank back, cowering into a shadow. Ever since the middle night the great assault had gone on. The drums rolled. To the north and to the south company upon company of the enemy pressed to the walls. There came great beasts, like moving houses in the red and fitful light, the mûmakil of the Harad dragging through the lanes amid the fires huge towers and engines. Yet their Captain cared not greatly what they did or how many might be slain: their purpose was only to test the strength of the defence and to keep the men of Gondor busy in many places. It was against the Gate that he would throw his heaviest weight. Very strong it might be, wrought of steel and iron, and guarded with towers and bastions of indomitable stone, yet it was the key, the weakest point in all that high and impenetrable wall. The drums rolled louder. Fires leaped up. Great engines crawled across the field; and in the midst was a huge ram, great as a forest-tree a hundred feet in length, swinging on mighty chains. Long had it been forging in the dark smithies of Mordor, and its hideous head, founded of black steel, was shaped in the likeness of a ravening wolf; on it spells of ruin lay. Grond they named it, in memory of the Hammer of the Underworld of 835
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old. Great beasts drew it, Orcs surrounded it, and behind walked mountain-trolls to wield it. But about the Gate resistance still was stout, and there the knights of Dol Amroth and the hardiest of the garrison stood at bay. Shot and dart fell thick; siege-towers crashed or blazed suddenly like torches. All before the walls on either side of the Gate the ground was choked with wreck and with bodies of the slain; yet still driven as by a madness more and more came up. Grond crawled on. Upon its housing no fire would catch; and though now and again some great beast that hauled it would go mad and spread stamping ruin among the orcs innumerable that guarded it, their bodies were cast aside from its path and others took their place. Grond crawled on. The drums rolled wildly. Over the hills of slain a hideous shape appeared: a horseman, tall, hooded, cloaked in black. Slowly, trampling the fallen, he rode forth, heeding no longer any dart. He halted and held up a long pale sword. And as he did so a great fear fell on all, defender and foe alike; and the hands of men drooped to their sides, and no bow sang. For a moment all was still.
The drums rolled and rattled. With a vast rush Grond was hurled forward by huge hands. It reached the Gate. It swung. A deep boom rumbled through the City like thunder running in the clouds. But the doors of iron and posts of steel withstood the stroke.
Then the Black Captain rose in his stirrups and cried aloud in a dreadful voice, speaking in some forgotten tongue words of power and terror to rend both heart and stone.
Thrice he cried. Thrice the great ram boomed. And suddenly upon the last stroke the Gate of Gondor broke. As if stricken by some blasting spell it burst asunder: there was a flash of searing lightning, and the doors tumbled in riven fragments to the ground. In rode the Lord of the Nazgûl. A great black shape against the fires beyond he loomed up, grown to a vast menace of despair. In rode the Lord of the Nazgûl, under the archway that no enemy ever yet had passed, and all fled before his face.
All save one. There waiting, silent and still in the space before the Gate, sat Gandalf upon Shadowfax: Shadowfax who alone among the free horses of the earth endured the terror, unmoving, steadfast as a graven image in Rath Dínen.
‘You cannot enter here’, said Gandalf, and the huge shadow halted.
‘Go back to the abyss prepared for you! Go back! Fall into the nothingness that awaits you and your Master. Go!’
The Black Rider flung back his hoo
d, and behold! he had a kingly crown; and yet upon no head visible was it set. The red fires shone between 836
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it and the mantled shoulders vast and dark. From a mouth unseen there came a deadly laughter.
‘Old fool!’ he said. ‘Old fool! This is my hour. Do you not know Death when you see it? Die now and curse in vain!’ And with that he lifted high his sword and flames ran down the blade.
Gandalf did not move. And in that very moment, away behind in some courtyard of the City, a cock crowed. Shrill and clear he crowed, recking nothing of wizardry or war, welcoming only the morning that in the sky far above the shadows of death was coming with the dawn. And as if in answer there came from far away another note. Horns, horns, horns. In dark Mindolluin’s sides they dimly echoed. Great horns of the North wildly blowing. Rohan had come at last.
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5
T he Ride of the Rohir rim
It was dark and Merry could see nothing as he lay on the ground rolled in a blanket; yet though the night was airless and windless, all about him hidden trees were sighing softly. He lifted his head. Then he heard it again: a sound like faint drums in the wooded hills and mountain-steps. The throb would cease suddenly and then be taken up again at some other point, now nearer, now further off. He wondered if the watchmen had heard it. He could not see them, but he knew that all round him were the companies of the Rohirrim. He could smell the horses in the dark, and could hear their shiftings and their soft stamping on the needle-covered ground. The host was bivouacked in the pinewoods that clustered about Eilenach Beacon, a tall hill standing up from the long ridges of the Drúadan Forest that lay beside the great road in East Anórien.
Tired as he was Merry could not sleep. He had ridden now for four days on end, and the ever-deepening gloom had slowly weighed down his heart. He began to wonder why he had been so eager to come, when he had been given every excuse, even his lord’s command, to stay behind. He wondered, too, if the old King knew that he had been disobeyed and was angry. Perhaps not. There seemed to be some understanding between Dernhelm and Elfhelm, the Marshal who commanded the éored in which they were riding. He and all his men ignored Merry and pretended not to hear if he spoke. He might have been just another bag that Dernhelm was carrying. Dernhelm was no comfort: he never spoke to anyone. Merry felt small, unwanted, and lonely. Now the time was anxious, and the host was in peril. They were less than a day’s ride from the outwalls of Minas Tirith 838
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that encircled the townlands. Scouts had been sent ahead. Some had not returned. Others hastening back had reported that the road was held in force against them. A host of the enemy was encamped upon it, three miles west of Amon Dîn, and some strength of men was already thrusting along the road and was no more than three leagues away. Orcs were roving in the hills and woods along the roadside. The king and Éomer held council in the watches of the night.
Merry wanted somebody to talk to, and he thought of Pippin. But that only increased his restlessness. Poor Pippin, shut up in the great city of stone, lonely and afraid. Merry wished he was a tall Rider like Éomer and could blow a horn or something and go galloping to his rescue. He sat up, listening to the drums that were beating again, now nearer at hand. Presently he heard voices speaking low, and he saw dim half-shrouded lanterns passing through the trees. Men nearby began to move uncertainly in the dark.
A tall figure loomed up and stumbled over him, cursing the tree-roots. He recognized the voice of the Marshal, Elfhelm.
‘I am not a tree-root, Sir’, he said, ‘nor a bag, but a bruised hobbit. The least you can do in amends is to tell me what is afoot.’
‘Anything that can keep so in this devil’s mirk’, answered Elfhelm. ‘But my lord sends word that we must set ourselves in readiness: orders may come for a sudden move.’
‘Is the enemy coming then?’ asked Merry anxiously. ‘Are those their drums? I began to think I was imagining them, as no one else seemed to take any notice of them.’
‘Nay, nay’, said Elfhelm, ‘the enemy is on the road not in the hills. You hear the Woses, the Wild Men of the Woods: thus they talk together from afar. They still haunt Drúadan Forest, it is said. Remnants of an older time they be, living few and secretly, wild and wary as the beasts. They go not to war with Gondor or the Mark; but now they are troubled by the darkness and the coming of the orcs: they fear lest the Dark Years be returning, as seems likely enough. Let us be thankful that they are not hunting us: for they use poisoned arrows, it is said, and they are woodcrafty beyond compare. But they have offered their services to Théoden. Even now one of their headmen is being taken to the king. Yonder go the lights. So much I have heard but no more. And now I must busy myself with my lord’s commands. Pack yourself up, Master Bag!’ He vanished into the shadows. Merry did not like this talk of wild men and poisoned darts, but quite apart from that a great weight of dread was on him. Waiting was unbearable. He longed to know what was going to happen. He got up and soon 839
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was walking warily in pursuit of the last lantern before it disappeared among the trees.
Presently he came to an open space where a small tent had been set up for the king under a great tree. A large lantern, covered above, was hanging from a bough and cast a pale circle of light below. There sat Théoden and Éomer, and before them on the ground sat a strange squat shape of a man, gnarled as an old stone, and the hairs of his scanty beard straggled on his lumpy chin like dry moss. He was short-legged and fat-armed, thick and stumpy, and clad only with grass about his waist. Merry felt that he had seen him before somewhere, and suddenly he remembered the Púkel-men of Dunharrow. Here was one of those old images brought to life, or maybe a creature descended in true line through endless years from the models used by the forgotten craftsmen long ago.
There was a silence as Merry crept nearer, and then the Wild Man began to speak, in answer to some question, it seemed. His voice was deep and guttural, yet to Merry’s surprise he spoke the Common Speech, though in a halting fashion, and uncouth words were mingled with it.
‘No, father of Horsemen’, he said, ‘we fight not. Hunt only. Kill gorgûn in woods, hate orc-folk. You hate gorgûn too. We help as we can. Wild Men have long ears and long eyes; know all paths. Wild Men live here before Stonehouses; before Tall Men come up out of Water.’
‘But our need is for aid in battle’, said Éomer. ‘How will you and your folk help us?’
‘Bring news’, said the Wild Man. ‘We look out from hills. We climb big mountain and look down. Stonecity is shut. Fire burns there outside; now inside too. You wish to come there? Then you must be quick. But gorgûn and men out of far-away’, he waved a short gnarled arm eastward, ‘sit on horse-road. Very many, more than Horsemen.’
‘How do you know that?’ said Éomer.
The old man’s flat face and dark eyes showed nothing, but his voice was sullen with displeasure. ‘Wild men are wild, free, but not children’, he answered. ‘I am great headman, Ghân-buri-Ghân. I count many things: stars in sky, leaves on trees, men in the dark. You have a score of scores counted ten times and five. They have more. Big fight, and who will win?
And many more walk round walls of Stonehouses.’
‘Alas! he speaks all too shrewdly’, said Théoden. ‘And our scouts say that they have cast trenches and stakes across the road. We cannot sweep them away in sudden onset.’
‘And yet we need great haste’, said Éomer. ‘Mundburg is on fire!’
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‘Let Ghân-buri-Ghân finish!’ said the Wild Man. ‘More than one road he knows. He will lead you by road where no pits are, no gor
gûn walk, only Wild Men and beasts. Many paths were made when Stonehouse-folk were stronger. They carved hills as hunters carve beast-flesh. Wild Men think they ate stone for food. They went through Drúadan to Rimmon with great wains. They go no longer. Road is forgotten, but not by Wild Men. Over hill and behind hill it lies still under grass and tree, there behind Rimmon and down to Dîn, and back at the end to Horsemen’s road. Wild Men will show you that road. Then you will kill gorgûn and drive away bad dark with bright iron, and Wild Men can go back to sleep in the wild woods.’
Éomer and the king spoke together in their own tongue. At length Théoden turned to the Wild Man. ‘We will receive your offer’, he said. ‘For though we leave a host of foes behind, what matter? If the Stonecity falls, then we shall have no returning. If it is saved, then the orchost itself will be cut off. If you are faithful, Ghân-buri-Ghân, then we will give you rich reward, and you shall have the friendship of the Mark for ever.’
‘Dead men are not friends to living men, and give them no gifts’, said the Wild Man. ‘But if you live after the Darkness, then leave Wild Men alone in the woods and do not hunt them like beasts any more. Ghân-buriGhân will not lead you into trap. He will go himself with father of Horsemen, and if he leads you wrong, you will kill him.’
‘So be it!’ said Théoden.
‘How long will it take to pass by the enemy and come back to the road?’ asked Éomer. ‘We must go at foot-pace, if you guide us; and I doubt not the way is narrow.’
‘Wild Men go quick on feet’, said Ghân. ‘Way is wide for four horses in Stonewain Valley yonder’, he waved his hand southwards; ‘but narrow at beginning and at end. Wild Man could walk from here to Dîn between sunrise and noon.’
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