The Two Towers Read Online Free PDF Page A

with a clear trail to follow. There is some will that lends speed to our foes and sets an unseen barrier before
     us: a weariness that is in the heart more than in the limb.’
    ‘Truly!’ said Legolas. ‘That I have known since first we came down from the Emyn Muil. For the will is not behind us but before
     us.’ He pointed away over the land of Rohan into the darkling West under the sickle moon.
    ‘Saruman!’ muttered Aragorn. ‘But he shall not turn us back! Halt we must once more; for, see! even the Moon is falling into
     gathering cloud. But north lies our road between down and fen when day returns.’
    As before Legolas was first afoot, if indeed he had ever slept. ‘Awake! Awake!’ he cried. ‘It is a red dawn. Strange things
     await us by the eaves of the forest. Good or evil, I do not know; but we are called. Awake!’
    The others sprang up, and almost at once they set off again. Slowly the downs drew near. It was still an hour before noon
     when they reached them: green slopes rising to bare ridges that ran in a line straight towards the North. At their feet the
     ground was dry and the turf short, but a long strip of sunken land, some ten miles wide, lay between them and the river wandering deep in dim thickets of reed and rush. Just
     to the West of the southernmost slope there was a great ring, where the turf had been torn and beaten by many trampling feet.
     From it the orc-trail ran out again, turning north along the dry skirts of the hills. Aragorn halted and examined the tracks
     closely.
    ‘They rested here a while,’ he said, ‘but even the outward trail is already old. I fear that your heart spoke truly, Legolas:
     it is thrice twelve hours, I guess, since the Orcs stood where we now stand. If they held to their pace, then at sundown yesterday
     they would reach the borders of Fangorn.’
    ‘I can see nothing away north or west but grass dwindling into mist,’ said Gimli. ‘Could we see the forest, if we climbed
     the hills?’
    ‘It is still far away,’ said Aragorn. ‘If I remember rightly, these downs run eight leagues or more to the north, and then
     north-west to the issuing of the Entwash there lies still a wide land, another fifteen leagues it may be.’
    ‘Well, let us go on,’ said Gimli. ‘My legs must forget the miles. They would be more willing, if my heart were less heavy.’
    The sun was sinking when at last they drew near to the end of the line of downs. For many hours they had marched without rest.
     They were going slowly now, and Gimli’s back was bent. Stone-hard are the Dwarves in labour or journey, but this endless chase
     began to tell on him, as all hope failed in his heart. Aragorn walked behind him, grim and silent, stooping now and again
     to scan some print or mark upon the ground. Only Legolas still stepped as lightly as ever, his feet hardly seeming to press
     the grass, leaving no footprints as he passed; but in the waybread of the Elves he found all the sustenance that he needed,
     and he could sleep, if sleep it could be called by Men, resting his mind in the strange paths of Elvish dreams, even as he
     walked open-eyed in the light of this world.
    ‘Let us go up on to this green hill!’ he said. Wearily they followed him, climbing the long slope, until they came out upon
     the top. It was a round hill smooth and bare, standing by itself, the most northerly of the downs. The sun sank and the shadows
     of evening fell like a curtain. They were alone in a grey formless world without mark or measure. Only far away north-west
     there was a deeper darkness against the dying light: the Mountains of Mist and the forest at their feet.
    ‘Nothing can we see to guide us here,’ said Gimli. ‘Well, now we must halt again and wear the night away. It is growing cold!’
    ‘The wind is north from the snows,’ said Aragorn.
    ‘And ere morning it will be in the East,’ said Legolas. ‘But rest, if you must. Yet do not cast all hope away. Tomorrow is