towers

598 the two towers
We have been warned against Fangorn. But one so knowing
will not have forgotten that.’
‘I have not,’ answered Merry; ‘but the forest seems better
to me, all the same, than turning back into the middle of a
battle.’
He led the way in under the huge branches of the trees.
Old beyond guessing, they seemed. Great trailing beards of
lichen hung from them, blowing and swaying in the breeze.
Out of the shadows the hobbits peeped, gazing back down
the slope: little furtive figures that in the dim light looked like
elf-children in the deeps of time peering out of the Wild
Wood in wonder at their first Dawn.
Far over the Great River, and the Brown Lands, leagues
upon grey leagues away, the Dawn came, red as flame. Loud
rang the hunting-horns to greet it. The Riders of Rohan
sprang suddenly to life. Horn answered horn again.
Merry and Pippin heard, clear in the cold air, the neighing
of war-horses, and the sudden singing of many men. The
Sun’s limb was lifted, an arc of fire, above the margin of
the world. Then with a great cry the Riders charged from the
East; the red light gleamed on mail and spear. The Orcs
yelled and shot all the arrows that remained to them. The
hobbits saw several horsemen fall; but their line held on up
the hill and over it, and wheeled round and charged again.
Most of the raiders that were left alive then broke and fled,
this way and that, pursued one by one to the death. But
one band, holding together in a black wedge, drove forward
resolutely in the direction of the forest. Straight up the slope
they charged towards the watchers. Now they were drawing
near, and it seemed certain that they would escape: they had
already hewn down three Riders that barred their way.
‘We have watched too long,’ said Merry. ‘There’s Uglúk!
I don’t want to meet him again.’ The hobbits turned and fled
deep into the shadows of the wood.
So it was that they did not see the last stand, when Uglúk
was overtaken and brought to bay at the very edge of