r how many might be slain: their purpose was only to test the strength of the defence and to keep the men of gondor busy in many places. it was against the gate that he would throw his heaviest weight. very strong it might be, wrought of steel and iron, and guarded with towers and bastions of indomitable stone, yet it was the key, the weakest point in all that high and impenetrable wall.

the drums rolled louder. fires leaped up. great engines crawled across the field; and in the midst was a huge ram, great as a forest-tree a hundred feet in length, swinging on mighty chains. long had it been forging in the dark smithies of mordor, and its hideous head, founded of black steel, was shaped in the likeness of a ravening wolf; on it spells of ruin lay. grond they named it, in memory of the hammer of the underworld of old. great beasts drew it, orcs surrounded it, and behind walked mountain-trolls to wield it.

but about the gate resistance still was stout, and there the knights of dol amroth and the hardiest of the garrison stood at bay. shot and dart fell thick; siege-towers crashed or blazed suddenly like torches. all before the walls on either side of the gate the ground was choked with wreck and with bodies of the slain; yet still driven as by a madness more and more came up.

grond crawled on. upon its housing no fire would catch; and though now and again some great beast that hauled it would go mad and spread stamping ruin among the orcs innumerable that guarded it, their bodies were cast aside from its path and others took their place.

grond crawled on. the drums rolled wildly. over the hills of slain a hideous shape appeared: a horseman, tall, hooded, cloaked in black. slowly, trampling the fallen, he rode forth, heeding no longer any dart. he halted and held up a long pale sword. and as he did so a great fear fell on all, defender and foe alike; and the hands of men drooped to their sides, and no bow sang. for a moment all was still.

the drums rolled and rattled. with a vast rush grond was hurled forward by huge hands. it reached the gate. it swung. a deep boom rumbled through the city like thunder running in the clouds. but the doors of iron and posts of steel withstood the stroke.

then the black captain rose in his stirrups and cried aloud in a dreadful voice, speaking in some forgotten tongue words of power and terror to rend both heart and stone.

thrice he cried. thrice the great ram boomed. and suddenly upon the last stroke the gate of gondor broke. as if stricken by some blasting spell it burst asunder: there was a flash of searing lightning, and the doors tumbled in riven fragments to the ground.

in rode the lord of the nazgûl. a great black shape against the fires beyond he loomed up, grown to a vast menace of despair. in rode the lord of the nazgûl, under the archway that no enemy ever yet had passed, and all fled before his face.

all save one. there waiting, silent and still in the space before the gate, sat gandalf upon shadowfax: shadowfax who alone among the free horses of the earth endured the terror, unmoving, steadfast as a graven image in rath dinen.

'you cannot enter here,' said gandalf, and the huge shadow halted. 'go back to the abyss prepared for you! go back! fall into the nothingness that awaits you and your master. go!'

the black rider flung back his hood, and behold! he had a kingly crown; and yet upon no head visible was it set. the red fires shone between it and the mantled shoulders vast and dark. from a mouth unseen there came a deadly laughter.

'old fool!' he said. 'old fool! this is my hour. do you not know death when you see it? die now and curse in vain!' and with that he lifted high his sword and flames ran down the blade.

gandalf did not move. and in that very moment, away behind in some courtyard of the city, a cock crowed. shrill and clear he crowed, recking nothing of wizardry or war, welcoming only the morning that in the sky far above the shadows of death was coming with the dawn.

and as if in answer there came from far away another note. horns, horns, horns. in dark mindolluin's sides they dimly echoed. great horns of the north wildly blowing. rohan had come at last.