towers

the white rider 657
ing. Lockbearer, wherever thou goest my thought goes with
thee. But have a care to lay thine axe to the right tree!’’ ’
‘In happy hour you have returned to us, Gandalf,’ cried
the Dwarf, capering as he sang loudly in the strange dwarftongue.
‘Come, come!’ he shouted, swinging his axe. ‘Since
Gandalf ’s head is now sacred, let us find one that it is right
to cleave!’
‘That will not be far to seek,’ said Gandalf, rising from his
seat. ‘Come! We have spent all the time that is allowed to a
meeting of parted friends. Now there is need of haste.’
He wrapped himself again in his old tattered cloak, and led
the way. Following him they descended quickly from the high
shelf and made their way back through the forest, down the
bank of the Entwash. They spoke no more words, until they
stood again upon the grass beyond the eaves of Fangorn.
There was no sign of their horses to be seen.
‘They have not returned,’ said Legolas. ‘It will be a weary
walk!’
‘I shall not walk. Time presses,’ said Gandalf. Then lifting
up his head he gave a long whistle. So clear and piercing was
the note that the others stood amazed to hear such a sound
come from those old bearded lips. Three times he whistled;
and then faint and far off it seemed to them that they heard
the whinny of a horse borne up from the plains upon the
eastern wind. They waited wondering. Before long there
came the sound of hoofs, at first hardly more than a tremor
of the ground perceptible only to Aragorn as he lay upon the
grass, then growing steadily louder and clearer to a quick
beat.
‘There is more than one horse coming,’ said Aragorn.
‘Certainly,’ said Gandalf. ‘We are too great a burden for
one.’
‘There are three,’ said Legolas, gazing out over the plain.
‘See how they run! There is Hasufel, and there is my friend
Arod beside him! But there is another that strides ahead: a
very great horse. I have not seen his like before.’