return

1100 the return of the king
it to his servant to be his steed. Down, down it came, and
then, folding its fingered webs, it gave a croaking cry, and
settled upon the body of Snowmane, digging in its claws,
stooping its long naked neck.
Upon it sat a shape, black-mantled, huge and threatening.
A crown of steel he bore, but between rim and robe naught
was there to see, save only a deadly gleam of eyes: the Lord
of the Nazgûl. To the air he had returned, summoning his
steed ere the darkness failed, and now he was come again,
bringing ruin, turning hope to despair, and victory to death.
A great black mace he wielded.
But Théoden was not utterly forsaken. The knights of his
house lay slain about him, or else mastered by the madness
of their steeds were borne far away. Yet one stood there still:
Dernhelm the young, faithful beyond fear; and he wept, for
he had loved his lord as a father. Right through the charge
Merry had been borne unharmed behind him, until the
Shadow came; and then Windfola had thrown them in his
terror, and now ran wild upon the plain. Merry crawled on
all fours like a dazed beast, and such a horror was on him
that he was blind and sick.
‘King’s man! King’s man!’ his heart cried within him. ‘You
must stay by him. As a father you shall be to me, you said.’
But his will made no answer, and his body shook. He dared
not open his eyes or look up.
Then out of the blackness in his mind he thought that he
heard Dernhelm speaking; yet now the voice seemed strange,
recalling some other voice that he had known.
‘Begone, foul dwimmerlaik, lord of carrion! Leave the dead
in peace!’
A cold voice answered: ‘Come not between the Nazgûl
and his prey! Or he will not slay thee in thy turn. He will bear
thee away to the houses of lamentation, beyond all darkness,
where thy flesh shall be devoured, and thy shrivelled mind
be left naked to the Lidless Eye.’
A sword rang as it was drawn. ‘Do what you will; but I will
hinder it, if I may.’