Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
It was now past midnight. The sky was utterly dark, and the stillness of the
heavy air foreboded storm. Suddenly the clouds were
seared by a blinding flash. Branched lightning smote down upon the eastward
hills. For a staring moment the watchers on the walls saw all the space
between them and the *** lit with white light: it was boiling and crawling with black shapes,
some squat and broad, some tall and grim, with high helms and sable
Hundreds and hundreds more were pouring over the *** and through
the breach. The dark tide flowed up to the walls from cliff to cliff.
Thunder rolled in the valley. Rain came lashing down. Arrows thick as the rain came
whistling over the battlements, and fell clinking and glancing on the stones. Some
found a mark. The assault on Helm's Deep had begun, but no sound or challenge
was heard within; no answering arrows came. The assailing hosts halted,
foiled by the silent menace of rock and wall. Ever and again the lightning tore aside the darkness.
Then the Orcs screamed, waving spear and sword, and shooting a cloud of arrows at any that stood
revealed upon the battlements; and the men of the Mark amazed looked out,
as it seemed to them, upon a great field of dark corn, tossed by a tempest
of war, and every ear glinted with barbed light.
Brazen trumpets sounded. The enemy surged forward, some against
the Deeping Wall, other towards the causeway and the ramp that led up to the Hornburg-gates.
There the hugest Orcs were mustered, and the wild men of the Dunland
fells. A moment they hesitated and then on they came. The lightning flashed,
and blazoned upon every helm and shield the ghastly hand of Isengard was seen. They reached
the summit of the rock; they drove towards the gates. Then at last an answer came:
a storm of arrows met them, and a hail of stones. They wavered, broke,
and fled back; and then charged again, broke and charged again; and each time,
like the incoming sea, they halted at a higher point. Again trumpets rang, and a
press of roaring men leaped forth. They held their great shields above them
like a roof, while in their midst they bore two trunks of mighty trees. Behind them
orc-archers crowded, sending a hail of darts against the bowmen on the walls. They gained
the gates. The trees, swung by strong arms, smote the timbers with a rending
boom. If any man fell, crushed by a stone hurtling from above,
two others sprang to take his place. Again and again the great rams
swung and crashed. Éomer and Aragorn stood together on the Deeping
Wall. They heard the roar of voices and the thudding of the rams;
and then in a sudden flash of light they beheld the peril of the gates.
'Come!' said Aragorn. 'This is the hour when we draw swords together!'
Running like fire, they sped along the wall, and up the steps, and passed into the outer
court upon the Rock. As they ran they gathered a handful of stout
swordsmen. There was a small postern-door that opened in an angle
of the burg-wall on the west, where the cliff stretched out to meet it. On that side
a narrow path ran round towards the great gate,
between the wall and the sheer
brink of the Rock. Together Eomer and Aragorn sprang through the door,
their men close behind. The swords flashed from the sheath as one.
'Gùthwinë!' cried Eomer. 'Gùthwinë for the Mark!'
'Andùril!' cried Aragorn. 'Andùril for the Dùnedain!'
Charging from the side, they hurled themselves upon the wild men. Anduril rose and fell,
gleaming with white fire. A shout went up from wall and
tower: 'Anduril! Anduril goes to war. The Blade that was Broken shines
again!' Dismayed the rammers let fall the trees
and turned to fight; but the wall of their shields was
broken as by a lightning-stroke, and they were swept away, hewn down, or cast over
the Rock into the stony stream below. The orc-archers shot
wildly and then fled. For a moment Éomer and Aragorn halted
before the gates. The thunder was rumbling in the distance now. The lightning
flickered still, far off among the mountains in the South. A keen wind was blowing
from the North again. The clouds were torn and drifting, and stars
peeped out; and above the hills of the Coomb-side the westering moon rode,
glimmering yellow in the storm-wrack.
'We did not come too soon,' said Aragorn, looking at the gates. Their great hinges
and iron bars were wrenched and bent; many of their timbers were
cracked. 'Yet we cannot stay here beyond
the walls to defend them,' said Éomer. 'Look!' He pointed to the causeway. Already
a great press of Orcs and Men were gathering again beyond the stream.
Arrows whined, and skipped on the stones about them.
'Come! We must get back and see what we can do to pile
stone and beam across the gates within. Come now!'
They turned and ran. At that moment some dozen Orcs that had lain motionless
among the slain leaped to their feet, and came silently and
swiftly behind. Two flung themselves to the ground at Éomer's heels,
tripped him, and in a moment they were on top of him. But a small dark figure that none
had observed sprang out of the shadows and gave a hoarse shout: Baruk Khazâd!
Khazâd ai-menu! An axe swung and swept back. Two Orcs fell
headless. The rest fled. Éomer struggled to his feet, even as Aragorn
Aragorn ran back to his aid. The postern was closed again, the iron
door was barred and piled inside with stones. When all
were safe within, Éomer turned: 'I thank you, Gimli
son of Gloin!' he said. 'I did not know that you were with us in the sortie. But oft
the unbidden guest proves the best company. How came you
there?' 'I followed you to shake off
sleep,' said Gimli, 'but I looked on the hillmen and they
seemed overlarge for me, so I sat beside a stone to see
your sword-play.' 'I shall not find it easy to repay
you,' said Éomer. 'There may be many a chance ere the
night is over,' laughed the Dwarf. 'But I am content. Till now
I have hewn naught but wood since I left Moria.'
'Two!' said Gimli, patting his axe. He had returned to his place on the
wall. 'Two?' said Legolas. 'I have done better,
though now I must grope for spent arrows; all mine are
gone. Yet I make my tale twenty at the least. But that is only a few leaves
in a forest.' The sky now was quickly clearing and the sinking
moon was shining brightly. But the light brought little
hope to the Riders of the Mark. The enemy before them seemed to have grown
rather than diminished, still more were pressing up from the valley through
the breach. The sortie upon the Rock gained only a brief
a brief respite. The assault on the gates was redoubled. Against the Deeping Wall
the hosts of Isengard roared like a sea. Orcs and hillmen
swarmed about its feet from end to end. Ropes with grappling
hooks were hurled over the parapet faster than
men could cut them or fling them back. Hundreds of
long ladders were lifted up. Many were cast down
in ruin, but many more replaced them, and Orcs sprang up them like apes
in the dark forests of the South. Before the wall's foot the dead and broken were
piled like shingle in a storm; ever higher rose
the hideous mounds, and still the enemy came on.
The men of Rohan grew weary. All their arrows were spent, and every shaft
was shot; their swords were notched, and their shields were riven. Three times
Aragorn and Éomer rallied them, and three times Anduril flamed in a desperate
charge that drove the enemy from the wall. Then a clamour arose
in the Deep behind. Orcs had crept like rats
through the culvert through which the stream flowed out. There they had gathered in the shadow
of the cliffs, until the assault above was hottest and nearly
all the men of the defence had rushed to the wall's top. Then they sprang
out. Already some had passed into the jaws of the Deep and were among the horses,
fighting with the guards. Down from the wall leapt Gimli with a fierce
cry that echoed in the cliffs. 'Khazâd! Khazâd!' He soon had
work enough. 'Ai-oi!' he shouted. 'The Orcs are behind
the wall. Ai-oi! Come, Legolas! There are enough for
us both. Khazâd ai-menu!». Gamling the Old looked down from the Hornburg,
hearing the great voice of the dwarf above all the tumult. 'The
Orcs are in the Deep!' he cried. 'Helm! Helm! Forth Helmingas!' he shouted as he leaped
down the stair from the Rock with many men of Westfold at his back.
Their onset was fierce and sudden, and the Orcs gave way before them.
Ere long they were hemmed in in the narrows of the gorge, and all
were slain or driven shrieking into the chasm of the Deep to fall before the guardians
of the hidden caves. 'Twenty-one!' cried Gimli. He hewed a
two-handed stroke and laid the last Orc before his feet. 'Now my count passes
passes Master Legolas again.' 'We must stop this rat-hole,'
said Gamling. 'Dwarves are said to be cunning folk with
with stone. Lend us your aid, master!' 'We do not shape stone with battle-axes,
nor with our finger-nails,' said Gimli. 'But I will help as I may.'
They gathered such small boulders and broken stones as they could find to hand, and under
Gimli's direction the Westfold-men blocked up the inner
end of the culvert, until only a narrow outlet remained. Then
the Deeping-stream, swollen by the rain, churned and fretted in its choked path, and spread
slowly in cold pools from cliff to cliff.
'It will be drier above,' said Gimli. 'Come, Gamling, let us see how things go
go on the wall!' He climbed up and found Legolas beside Aragorn
and Éomer. The elf was whetting his long
knife. There was for a while a lull in the assault, since the attempt to break in through the culvert
had been foiled. 'Twenty-one!' said Gimli.
'Good!' said Legolas. 'But my count is now two dozen. It has been knife-work
up here.' Éomer and Aragorn leant wearily
on their swords. Away on the left the crash and clamour of the battle on the Rock
rose loud again. But the Hornburg still held fast, like an island in the sea.
Its gates lay in ruin; but over the barricade of beams
and stones within no enemy as yet had passed. Aragorn looked at the pale stars, and at the moon,
now sloping behind the western hills that enclosed the valley.
'This is a night as long as years,' he said. 'How long will the day tarry?'.
'Dawn is not far off,' said Gamling, who had now climbed up beside him. 'But
dawn will not help us, I fear.'
'Yet dawn is ever the hope of men,' said Aragorn.
'But these creatures of Isengard, these half-orcs and goblin-men that the foul craft of Saruman
has bred, they will not quail at the sun,' said
Gamling. 'And neither will the wild men of the hills. Do you not hear their voices?'
'I hear them,' said Éomer; 'but they are only
the scream of birds and the bellowing of beasts to my ears.'
'Yet there are many that cry in the Dunland tongue,' said Gamling. 'I know
that tongue. It is an ancient speech of men, and once was spoken in many
western valleys of the Mark. Hark! They hate us, and they are glad; for our
doom seems certain to them. 'The king, the king!' they cry. 'We will take
their king. Death to the Forgoil! Death to the Strawheads! Death to the robbers of the North!'
Such names they have for us. Not in half a thousand years have they
forgotten their grievance that the lords of Gondor gave the Mark to Eorl the Young
and made alliance with him. That old hatred Saruman has
inflamed. They are fierce folk when roused. They will not give way now
for dusk or dawn, until Theoden is taken, or they themselves
are slain.' 'Nonetheless day will bring hope to me,'
said Aragorn. 'Is it not said that no foe has ever taken the Hornburg,
if men defended it?' 'So the minstrels say,' said Éomer.
'Then let us defend it, and hope!' said Aragorn.
Even as they spoke there came a blare of trumpets. Then there was a crash and a flash of flame and smoke.
The waters of the Deeping-stream poured out
hissing and foaming: they were choked no longer, a gaping hole
was blasted in the wall. A host of dark shapes poured in.
'Devilry of Saruman!' cried Aragorn. 'They have crept in the culvert
again, while we talked, and they have lit the fire of Orthanc beneath our
feet. 'Elendil, Elendil!' he shouted, as he leaped down into the breach; but even
as he did so a hundred ladders were raised against the battlements. Over the wall and
under the wall the last assault came sweeping like a dark wave
upon a hill of sand. The defence was swept away. Some of the Riders were driven back,
further and further into the Deep, falling and fighting as they gave way,
step by step, towards the caves. Others cut their way back towards the citadel.
A broad stairway, climbed from the Deep up to the Rock and the rear-gate of the Hornburg.
Near the bottom stood Aragorn. In his hand
still Andùril gleamed, and the terror of the sword for a while
held back the enemy, as one by one all who could gain
the stair passed up towards the gate. Behind on the upper steps
knelt Legolas. His bow was bent, but one gleaned arrow was
all that he had left, and he peered out now, ready to shoot the first Orc that should dare
to approach the stair. 'All who can have now
got safe within, Aragorn,' he called. 'Come back!'
Aragorn turned and sped up the stair; but as he ran he stumbled
in his weariness. At once his enemies leapt forward. Up came
the Orcs, yelling, with their long arms stretched out to
seize him. The foremost fell with Legolas' last arrow in his throat,
but the rest sprang over him. Then a great boulder, cast
from the outer wall above, crashed down upon
the stair, and hurled them back into the Deep. Aragorn gained the door,
and swiftly it clanged to behind him.
'Things go ill, my friends,' he said, wiping the sweat from his brow with
his arm. 'Ill enough,' said Legolas, 'but not yet
hopeless, while we have you with us. Where is Gimli?'
'I do not know.' said Aragorn. 'I last saw him fighting on the ground behind the wall,
but the enemy swept us apart.'
'Alas! That is evil news,' said Legolas.
'He is stout and strong,' said Aragorn. 'Let us hope that he will escape back to the caves. There
he would be safe for a while. Safer than we. Such a
refuge would be to the liking of a dwarf.'
'That must be my hope,' said Legolas. 'But I wish that he had come this way.
I desired to tell Master Gimli that my tale
is now thirty-nine.' 'If he wins back to the caves, he will pass your count
again,' laughed Aragorn.. 'Never did I see
an axe so wielded.' 'I must go and seek some arrows,' said
Legolas. 'Would that this night would end, and I could have
better light for shooting.' Aragorn now passed into the citadel. There to his dismay
he learned that Éomer had not reached the Hornburg.
'Nay, he did not come to the Rock,' said one of the Westfold-men, 'I last
saw him gathering men about him and fighting
in the mouth of the Deep. Gamling was with him, and the dwarf; but I could not
come to them.' Aragorn strode on through the inner court, and mounted
ito a high chamber in the tower. There stood the king, dark against a narrow
window, looking out upon the vale.
'What is the news, Aragorn?' he said. 'The Deeping Wall is taken, lord,
and all the defence swept away; but many have escaped
hither to the Rock.' 'Is Éomer here?' 'No, lord. But many of your men retreated
into the Deep; and some say that Eomer was amongst them. In the narrows
they may hold back the enemy and come within the caves. What hope
they may have then I do not know.'
'More than we. Good provision, it is said. And the air is wholesome there because of the outlets
through fissures in the rock far above. None can force an entrance against determined men.
They may hold out long.' 'But the Orcs have brought a devilry
from Orthanc,' said Aragorn. 'They have a blasting
fire, and with it they took the Wall. If they cannot come in the
caves, they may seal up those that are inside.
But now we must turn all our thoughts to our own defence.'
'I fret in this prison,' said Theoden. 'If I could have set a spear
in rest, riding before my men upon the field, maybe I could have felt again
the joy of battle, and so ended. But I serve little
purpose here.' 'Here at least you are guarded in the strongest
ffastness of the Mark,' said Aragorn. 'More hope we have
to defend you in the Hornburg than in Edoras, or even at Dunharrow
in the mountains.' 'It is said that the Hornburg has never fallen
to assault,' said Theoden; 'but now my heart is doubtful.
The world changes, and all that once was strong now proves unsure.
How shall any tower withstand such numbers and such reckless hate?
Had I known that the strength of Isengard was grown so great, maybe l should not
so rashly have ridden forth to meet it, for all the arts
of Gandalf. His counsel seems not now so good as it did
under the morning sun.' 'Do not judge the counsel of Gandalf, until
all is over, lord,' said Aragorn. 'The end will not be long,' said the king.
'But I will not end here, taken like an old badger in a trap. Snowmane
and Hasufel and the horses of my guard are in the inner court. When dawn
comes, I will bid men sound Helm's horn, and I will ride
forth. Will you ride with me then, son of Arathorn? Maybe
we shall cleave a road, or make such an end as will be worth a song -- if any
be left to sing of us hereafter.'
'I will ride with you,' said Aragorn. Taking his leave, he returned to
the walls, and passed round all their circuit, enheartening the
men, and lending aid wherever the assault was hot. Legolas went with him. Blasts
of fire leaped up from below shaking the stones.
Grappling-hooks were hurled, and ladders raised.
Again and again the Orcs gained the summit of the outer wall, and again the defenders
cast them down. At last Aragorn stood above the great
gates, heedless of the darts of the enemy. As he looked forth he saw the
eastern sky grow pale, Then he raised his empty hand, palm outward
in token of parley.
The Orcs yelled and jeered. 'Come down! Come down!' they cried. 'If you wish to speak to us,
come down! Bring out your king! We are the fighting Uruk-hai. We will fetch him
from his hole, if he does not come. Bring out your skulking
king!' 'The king stays or comes at his
own will,' said Aragorn. 'Then what are you doing here?' they
answered. 'Why do you look out? Do you wish to see the greatness of our army?
We are the fighting Uruk-hai.' 'I looked out to see the dawn,' said
Aragorn. 'What of the dawn?' they jeered
'We are the Uruk-hai: we do not stop the fight for night
or day, for fair weather or for storm. We come to kill, by sun or moon. What
of the dawn?' 'None knows what the new day shall
bring him,' said Aragorn. 'Get you gone, ere it turn to
your evil.' 'Get down or we will shoot you from the wall,'
they cried. 'This is no parley. You have nothing to say.'
'I have still this to say,' answered Aragorn. 'No enemy has yet taken
the Hornburg. Depart, or not one of you will be spared. Not one will be
left alive to take back tidings to the North. You do not know
your peril.' So great a power and royalty
was revealed in Aragorn, as he stood there alone above ruined gates before
the host of his enemies, that many of the wild men paused, and looked back over their shoulders
to the valley, and some looked up doubtfully at the sky. But the Orcs laughed with loud voices;
and a hail of darts and arrows whistled over the wall, as Aragorn leaped down.
There was a roar and a blast of fire. The archway of the gate above which he had stood a
moment before crumbled and crashed in smoke and dust. The barricade
was scattered as if by a thunderbolt. Aragorn ran to the king's tower.
But even as the gate fell, and the Orcs about it yelled, preparing to charge,
a murmur arose behind them, like a wind in the distance, and it grew
to a clamour of many voices crying strange news in the dawn. The
Orcs upon the Rock, hearing the rumour of dismay, wavered and looked back. And then,
sudden and terrible, from the tower above, the sound of the great horn of Helm
rang out. All that heard that sound trembled. Many
of the Orcs cast themselves on their faces and covered their ears with their
claws. Back from the Deep the echoes came, blast upon blast, as if on every cliff and hill
a mighty herald stood. But on the walls men
looked up, listening with wonder; for the echoes did not die.
Ever the horn-blasts wound on among the hills; nearer now and louder they answered one to another,
blowing fierce and free. 'Helm! Helm!' the Riders shouted. 'Helm
is arisen and comes back to war. Helm for Theoden King!'
And with that shout the king came. His horse was white as snow, golden was his
shield, and his spear was long. At his right hand was Aragorn, Elendil's heir,
behind him rode the lords of the House of Eorl the Young. Light sprang
in the sky. Night departed. 'Forth Eorlingas!' With a cry and a great
noise they charged. Down from the gates they roared, over the
causeway they swept, and they drove through the hosts of Isengard as a wind among
grass. Behind them from the Deep came the stern cries of men
issuing from the caves, driving forth the enemy. Out poured all the
men that were left upon the Rock. And ever the sound
of blowing horns echoed in the hills.
On they rode, the king and his companions. Captains and champions fell or fled before
them. Neither orc nor man withstood them. Their
backs were to the swords and spears of the Riders and their
faces to the valley. They cried and wailed, for fear and great wonder had come upon them
with the rising of the day. So King Theoden rode from
Helm's Gate and clove his path to the great
***. There the company halted. Light grew bright about them. Shafts of the sun
flared above the eastern hills and glimmered on their spears. But they sat
silent on their horses, and they gazed down upon the Deeping-coomb.
The land had changed. Where before the green dale had lain, its grassy
slopes lapping the ever-mounting hills, there now a forest loomed. Great
trees, bare and silent, stood, rank on rank, with tangled
bough and hoary head; their twisted roots were buried in the long green
grass. Darkness was under them. Between the *** and the eaves
of that nameless wood only two open furlongs lay. There now cowered
the proud hosts of Saruman, in terror of the king and in terror
of the trees. They streamed down from Helm's Gate until all above the ***
was empty of them, but below it they were packed like swarming flies. Vainly
they crawled and clambered about the walls of the coomb, seeking to escape. Upon
the east too sheer and stony was the valley's side; upon the left, from the west, their final doom
approached. There suddenly upon a ridge appeared
a rider, clad in white, shining in the rising sun. Over the
low hills the horns were sounding. Behind him, hastening down the long slopes, were a
thousand men on foot; their swords were in their hands. Amid them strode a man tall and strong.
His shield was red. As he came to the valley's brink, he set to his
lips a great black horn and blew a ringing blast. 'Erkenbrand!' the Riders
shouted. 'Erkenbrand!' 'Behold the White Rider!' cried Aragorn.
'Gandalf is come again!' 'Mithrandir, Mithrandir!' said Legolas.
'This is wizardry indeed! Come! I would look on this forest,
ere the spell changes.' The hosts of Isengard roared, swaying this way
and that, turning from fear to fear.
Again the horn sounded from the tower. Down through the breach of the *** charged
the king's company. Down from the hills leaped Erkenbrand, lord of Westfold.
Down leaped Shadowfax, like a deer that runs surefooted in the
mountains. The White Rider was upon them, and the terror of his coming filled the enemy
with madness. The wild men fell on their faces before him. The
Orcs reeled and screamed and cast aside both sword and spear. Like a black
smoke driven by a mounting wind they fled. Wailing they passed under the waiting shadow
of the trees; and from that shadow none ever came again.