return

1202 the return of the king
They started off again. They had not gone far when Frodo
paused. ‘There’s a Black Rider over us,’ he said. ‘I can feel
it. We had better keep still for a while.’
Crouched under a great boulder they sat facing back westward
and did not speak for some time. Then Frodo breathed
a sigh of relief. ‘It’s passed,’ he said. They stood up, and then
they both stared in wonder. Away to their left, southward,
against a sky that was turning grey, the peaks and high ridges
of the great range began to appear dark and black, visible
shapes. Light was growing behind them. Slowly it crept
towards the North. There was battle far above in the high
spaces of the air. The billowing clouds of Mordor were being
driven back, their edges tattering as a wind out of the living
world came up and swept the fumes and smokes towards the
dark land of their home. Under the lifting skirts of the dreary
canopy dim light leaked into Mordor like pale morning
through the grimed window of a prison.
‘Look at it, Mr. Frodo!’ said Sam. ‘Look at it! The wind’s
changed. Something’s happening. He’s not having it all his
own way. His darkness is breaking up out in the world there.
I wish I could see what is going on!’
It was the morning of the fifteenth of March, and over the
Vale of Anduin the Sun was rising above the eastern shadow,
and the south-west wind was blowing. Théoden lay dying on
the Pelennor Fields.
As Frodo and Sam stood and gazed, the rim of light spread
all along the line of the Ephel Dúath, and then they saw a
shape, moving at a great speed out of the West, at first only
a black speck against the glimmering strip above the mountain-tops,
but growing, until it plunged like a bolt into the
dark canopy and passed high above them. As it went it sent
out a long shrill cry, the voice of a Nazgûl; but this cry no
longer held any terror for them: it was a cry of woe and
dismay, ill tidings for the Dark Tower. The Lord of the
Ringwraiths had met his doom.
‘What did I tell you? Something’s happening!’ cried Sam.
‘ ‘‘The war’s going well,’’ said Shagrat; but Gorbag he wasn’t