The Two Towers Read Free Page A

Yet we that remain cannot forsake our companions while we have strength left. Come! We will go now. Leave all that can be spared behind! We will
     press on by day and dark!’
    They drew up the last boat and carried it to the trees. They laid beneath it such of their goods as they did not need and
     could not carry away. Then they left Parth Galen. The afternoon was fading as they came back to the glade where Boromir had
     fallen. There they picked up the trail of the Orcs. It needed little skill to find.
    ‘No other folk make such a trampling,’ said Legolas. ‘It seems their delight to slash and beat down growing things that are
     not even in their way.’
    ‘But they go with a great speed for all that,’ said Aragorn, ‘and they do not tire. And later we may have to search for our
     path in hard bare lands.’
    ‘Well, after them!’ said Gimli. ‘Dwarves too can go swiftly, and they do not tire sooner than Orcs. But it will be a long
     chase: they have a long start.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Aragorn, ‘we shall all need the endurance of Dwarves. But come! With hope or without hope we will follow the trail
     of our enemies. And woe to them, if we prove the swifter! We will make such a chase as shall be accounted a marvel among the
     Three Kindreds: Elves, Dwarves, and Men. Forth the Three Hunters!’
    Like a deer he sprang away. Through the trees he sped. On and on he led them, tireless and swift, now that his mind was at
     last made up. The woods about the lake they left behind. Long slopes they climbed, dark, hard-edged against the sky already
     red with sunset. Dusk came. They passed away, grey shadows in a stony land.

Chapter
2
THE RIDERS OF ROHAN
    Dusk deepened. Mist lay behind them among the trees below, and brooded on the pale margins of the Anduin, but the sky was
     clear. Stars came out. The waxing moon was riding in the West, and the shadows of the rocks were black. They had come to the
     feet of stony hills, and their pace was slower, for the trail was no longer easy to follow. Here the highlands of the Emyn
     Muil ran from North to South in two long tumbled ridges. The western side of each ridge was steep and difficult, but the eastward
     slopes were gentler, furrowed with many gullies and narrow ravines. All night the three companions scrambled in this bony
     land, climbing to the crest of the first and tallest ridge, and down again into the darkness of a deep winding valley on the
     other side.
    There in the still cool hour before dawn they rested for a brief space. The moon had long gone down before them, the stars
     glittered above them; the first light of day had not yet come over the dark hills behind. For the moment Aragorn was at a
     loss: the orc-trail had descended into the valley, but there it had vanished.
    ‘Which way would they turn, do you think?’ said Legolas. ‘Northward to take a straighter road to Isengard, or Fangorn, if
     that is their aim as you guess? Or southward to strike the Entwash?’
    ‘They will not make for the river, whatever mark they aim at,’ said Aragorn. ‘And unless there is much amiss in Rohan and
     the power of Saruman is greatly increased, they will take the shortest way that they can find over the fields of the Rohirrim.
     Let us search northwards!’
    The dale ran like a stony trough between the ridged hills, and a trickling stream flowed among the boulders at the bottom.
     A cliff frowned upon their right; to their left rose grey slopes, dim and shadowy in the late night. They went on for a mile
     or more northwards. Aragorn was searching, bent towards the ground, among the folds and gullies leading up into the western
     ridge. Legolas was some way ahead. Suddenly the Elf gave a cry and the others came running towards him.
    ‘We have already overtaken some of those that we are hunting,’ he said. ‘Look!’ He pointed, and they saw that what they had
     at first taken to be boulders lying at the foot of the slope were huddled bodies. Five dead Orcs lay