return

1074 the return of the king
were troubled in heart. For the companies were grievously
reduced. Faramir had lost a third of his men. And where
was he?
Last of all he came. His men passed in. The mounted
knights returned, and at their rear the banner of Dol Amroth,
and the Prince. And in his arms before him on his horse he
bore the body of his kinsman, Faramir son of Denethor,
found upon the stricken field.
‘Faramir! Faramir!’ men cried, weeping in the streets. But
he did not answer, and they bore him away up the winding
road to the Citadel and his father. Even as the Nazgûl had
swerved aside from the onset of the White Rider, there came
flying a deadly dart, and Faramir, as he held at bay a mounted
champion of Harad, had fallen to the earth. Only the charge
of Dol Amroth had saved him from the red southland swords
that would have hewed him as he lay.
The Prince Imrahil brought Faramir to the White Tower,
and he said: ‘Your son has returned, lord, after great deeds,’
and he told all that he had seen. But Denethor rose and
looked on the face of his son and was silent. Then he bade
them make a bed in the chamber and lay Faramir upon it
and depart. But he himself went up alone into the secret
room under the summit of the Tower; and many who looked
up thither at that time saw a pale light that gleamed and
flickered from the narrow windows for a while, and then
flashed and went out. And when Denethor descended again
he went to Faramir and sat beside him without speaking,
but the face of the Lord was grey, more deathlike than his
son’s.
So now at last the City was besieged, enclosed in a ring of
foes. The Rammas was broken, and all the Pelennor abandoned
to the Enemy. The last word to come from outside
the walls was brought by men flying down the northward
road ere the Gate was shut. They were the remnant of the
guard that was kept at that point where the way from Anórien
and Rohan ran into the townlands. Ingold led them, the same