towers

946 the two towers
His head whirled as with a draught of potent wine. He sprang
out, shouting as he came.
It seemed light in that dark land to his eyes that had passed
through the den of night. The great smokes had risen and
grown thinner, and the last hours of a sombre day were
passing; the red glare of Mordor had died away in sullen
gloom. Yet it seemed to Frodo that he looked upon a morning
of sudden hope. Almost he had reached the summit of the
wall. Only a little higher now. The Cleft, Cirith Ungol, was
before him, a dim notch in the black ridge, and the horns
of rock darkling in the sky on either side. A short race, a
sprinter’s course, and he would be through!
‘The pass, Sam!’ he cried, not heeding the shrillness of his
voice, that released from the choking airs of the tunnel rang
out now high and wild. ‘The pass! Run, run, and we’ll be
through – through before anyone can stop us!’
Sam came up behind as fast as he could urge his legs; but
glad as he was to be free, he was uneasy, and as he ran, he
kept on glancing back at the dark arch of the tunnel, fearing
to see eyes, or some shape beyond his imagining, spring out
in pursuit. Too little did he or his master know of the craft
of Shelob. She had many exits from her lair.
There agelong she had dwelt, an evil thing in spider-form,
even such as once of old had lived in the Land of the Elves
in the West that is now under the Sea, such as Beren fought
in the Mountains of Terror in Doriath, and so came to
Lúthien upon the green sward amid the hemlocks in the
moonlight long ago. How Shelob came there, flying from
ruin, no tale tells, for out of the Dark Years few tales have
come. But still she was there, who was there before Sauron,
and before the first stone of Barad-dûr; and she served none
but herself, drinking the blood of Elves and Men, bloated
and grown fat with endless brooding on her feasts, weaving
webs of shadow; for all living things were her food, and her
vomit darkness. Far and wide her lesser broods, bastards of
the miserable mates, her own offspring, that she slew, spread