The Two Towers Read Online Free PDF

unknown. Rede oft is found at the rising of the Sun.’
    ‘Three suns already have risen on our chase and brought no counsel,’ said Gimli.
    The night grew ever colder. Aragorn and Gimli slept fitfully, and whenever they awoke they saw Legolas standing beside them,
     or walking to and fro, singing softly to himself in his own tongue, and as he sang the white stars opened in the hard black
     vault above. So the night passed. Together they watched the dawn grow slowly in the sky, now bare and cloudless, until at
     last the sunrise came. It was pale and clear. The wind was in the East and all the mists had rolled away; wide lands lay bleak
     about them in the bitter light.
    Ahead and eastward they saw the windy uplands of the Wold of Rohan that they had already glimpsed many days ago from the Great
     River. North-westward stalked the dark forest of Fangorn; still ten leagues away stood its shadowy eaves, and its further
     slopes faded into the distant blue. Beyond there glimmered far away, as if floating on a grey cloud, the white head of tall
     Methedras, the last peak of the Misty Mountains. Out of the forest the Entwash flowed to meet them, its stream now swift and
     narrow, and its banks deep-cloven. The orc-trail turned from the downs towards it.
    Following with his keen eyes the trail to the river, and then the river back towards the forest, Aragorn saw a shadow on the
     distant green, a dark swift-moving blur. He cast himself upon the ground and listened again intently. But Legolas stood beside
     him, shading his bright elven-eyes with his long slender hand, and he saw not a shadow, nor a blur, but the small figures
     of horsemen, many horsemen, and the glint of morning on the tips of their spears was like the twinkle of minute stars beyond
     the edge of mortal sight. Far behind them a dark smoke rose in thin curling threads.
    There was a silence in the empty fields, and Gimli could hear the air moving in the grass.
    ‘Riders!’ cried Aragorn, springing to his feet. ‘Many riders on swift steeds are coming towards us!’
    ‘Yes,’ said Legolas, ‘there are one hundred and five. Yellow is their hair, and bright are their spears. Their leader is very
     tall.’
    Aragorn smiled. ‘Keen are the eyes of the Elves,’ he said.
    ‘Nay! The riders are little more than five leagues distant,’ said Legolas.
    ‘Five leagues or one,’ said Gimli, ‘we cannot escape them in this bare land. Shall we wait for them here or go on our way?’
    ‘We will wait,’ said Aragorn. ‘I am weary, and our hunt has failed. Or at least others were before us; for these horse-men
     are riding back down the orc-trail. We may get news from them.’
    ‘Or spears,’ said Gimli.
    ‘There are three empty saddles, but I see no hobbits,’ said Legolas.
    ‘I did not say that we should hear good news,’ said Aragorn. ‘But evil or good we will await it here.’
    The three companions now left the hill-top, where they might be an easy mark against the pale sky, and they walked slowly
     down the northward slope. A little above the hill’s foot they halted, and wrapping their cloaks about them, they sat huddled together upon the faded grass. The time passed slowly
     and heavily. The wind was thin and searching. Gimli was uneasy.
    ‘What do you know of these horsemen, Aragorn?’ he said. ‘Do we sit here waiting for sudden death?’
    ‘I have been among them,’ answered Aragorn. ‘They are proud and wilful, but they are true-hearted, generous in thought and
     deed; bold but not cruel; wise but unlearned, writing no books but singing many songs, after the manner of the children of
     Men before the Dark Years. But I do not know what has happened here of late, nor in what mind the Rohirrim may now be between
     the traitor Saruman and the threat of Sauron. They have long been the friends of the people of Gondor, though they are not
     akin to them. It was in forgotten years long ago that Eorl the Young brought them out of the North, and their