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Chapter 2
THE LAND OF SHADOW
Sam had just wits enough left to thrust the phial back into
his breast. ‘Run, Mr. Frodo!’ he cried. ‘No, not that way!
There’s a sheer drop over the wall. Follow me!’
Down the road from the gate they fled. In fifty paces, with
a swift bend round a jutting bastion of the cliff, it took them
out of sight from the Tower. They had escaped for the
moment. Cowering back against the rock they drew breath,
and then they clutched at their hearts. Perching now on the
wall beside the ruined gate the Nazgûl sent out its deadly
cries. All the cliffs echoed.
In terror they stumbled on. Soon the road bent sharply
eastward again and exposed them for a dreadful moment to
view from the Tower. As they flitted across they glanced back
and saw the great black shape upon the battlement; then they
plunged down between high rock-walls in a cutting that fell
steeply to join the Morgul-road. They came to the waymeeting.
There was still no sign of orcs, nor of an answer to
the cry of the Nazgûl; but they knew that the silence would
not last long. At any moment now the hunt would begin.
‘This won’t do, Sam,’ said Frodo. ‘If we were real orcs, we
ought to be dashing back to the Tower, not running away.
The first enemy we meet will know us. We must get off this
road somehow.’
‘But we can’t,’ said Sam, ‘not without wings.’
The eastern faces of the Ephel Dúath were sheer, falling
in cliff and precipice to the black trough that lay between
them and the inner ridge. A short way beyond the waymeeting,
after another steep incline, a flying bridge of stone
leapt over the chasm and bore the road across into the