towers

556 the two towers
was glimmering in a misty sky, but it gave small light, and
the stars were veiled.
‘Now do I most grudge a time of rest or any halt in our
chase,’ said Legolas. ‘The Orcs have run before us, as if the
very whips of Sauron were behind them. I fear they have
already reached the forest and the dark hills, and even now
are passing into the shadows of the trees.’
Gimli ground his teeth. ‘This is a bitter end to our hope
and to all our toil!’ he said.
‘To hope, maybe, but not to toil,’ said Aragorn. ‘We shall
not turn back here. Yet I am weary.’ He gazed back along
the way that they had come towards the night gathering in
the East. ‘There is something strange at work in this land. I
distrust the silence. I distrust even the pale Moon. The stars
are faint; and I am weary as I have seldom been before, weary
as no Ranger should be with a clear trail to follow. There is
some will that lends speed to our foes and sets an unseen
barrier before us: a weariness that is in the heart more than
in the limb.’
‘Truly!’ said Legolas. ‘That I have known since first we
came down from the Emyn Muil. For the will is not behind
us but before us.’ He pointed away over the land of Rohan
into the darkling West under the sickle moon.
‘Saruman!’ muttered Aragorn. ‘But he shall not turn us
back! Halt we must once more; for, see! even the Moon is
falling into gathering cloud. But north lies our road between
down and fen when day returns.’
As before Legolas was first afoot, if indeed he had ever
slept. ‘Awake! Awake!’ he cried. ‘It is a red dawn. Strange
things await us by the eaves of the forest. Good or evil, I do
not know; but we are called. Awake!’
The others sprang up, and almost at once they set off
again. Slowly the downs drew near. It was still an hour before
noon when they reached them: green slopes rising to bare
ridges that ran in a line straight towards the North. At their
feet the ground was dry and the turf short, but a long strip