towers

698 the two towers
‘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, and still more were pressing
up from the valley through the breach. The sortie upon the
Rock gained only 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 Andúril 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.