return

1208 the return of the king
One of the largest of these was right below them. Barely a
mile out into the plain it clustered like some huge nest of
insects, with straight dreary streets of huts and long low drab
buildings. About it the ground was busy with folk going
to and fro; a wide road ran from it south-east to join the
Morgul-way, and along it many lines of small black shapes
were hurrying.
‘I don’t like the look of things at all,’ said Sam. ‘Pretty
hopeless, I call it – saving that where there’s such a lot of folk
there must be wells or water, not to mention food. And these
are Men not Orcs, or my eyes are all wrong.’
Neither he nor Frodo knew anything of the great slaveworked
fields away south in this wide realm, beyond the
fumes of the Mountain by the dark sad waters of Lake
Núrnen; nor of the great roads that ran away east and south
to tributary lands, from which the soldiers of the Tower
brought long waggon-trains of goods and booty and fresh
slaves. Here in the northward regions were the mines and
forges, and the musterings of long-planned war; and here the
Dark Power, moving its armies like pieces on the board, was
gathering them together. Its first moves, the first feelers of its
strength, had been checked upon its western line, southward
and northward. For the moment it withdrew them, and
brought up new forces, massing them about Cirith Gorgor
for an avenging stroke. And if it had also been its purpose to
defend the Mountain against all approach, it could scarcely
have done more.
‘Well!’ Sam went on. ‘Whatever they have to eat and drink,
we can’t get it. There’s no way down that I can see. And we
couldn’t cross all that open country crawling with enemies,
even if we did get down.’
‘Still we shall have to try,’ said Frodo. ‘It’s no worse than
I expected. I never hoped to get across. I can’t see any hope
of it now. But I’ve still got to do the best I can. At present
that is to avoid being captured as long as possible. So we
must still go northwards, I think, and see what it is like where
the open plain is narrower.’