The Lord of the Rings: The Road to Isengard (Part Three)

 

The Tale

The company grows melancholy as they draw near the Fords of Isen, the recent scene of another battle. Carrion birds are flocking and there is the howling of wolves. Their hearts grow heavy at the thought of the men who fell there and how they have probably been fed on. But when they reach the actual Fords, they are greatly surprised. The river Isen has been reduced to a mere trickle. And on a small island in the middle of where its waters used to flow, a burial mound has been raised, ringed with spears.

Gandalf explains that not as many men fell at the Fords as they thought. He gathered their scattered numbers and set some to burying the fallen, some with Erkenbrand to Helm’s Deep, and some back to Edoras to guard the Meduseld against any stray raid. It is with the slain Orcs that the Wolves and carrion birds are holding their feast. The men are safely buried.

‘Here let them rest!’ said Eomer. ‘And when their spears have rotted and rusted, long still may their mound stand and guard the Fords of Isen!’

They ride on until midnight, then stop to camp. They are at the feet of the Misty Mountains, and Nan Curunir, the Wizard’s Vale, lies below them. It is dark, but they can see ‘a vast spire of smoke and vapor’ rising out of the valley and into the starry sky. Aragorn says it looks like the whole land is burning; Eomer wonders if Saruman is brewing up some wizardry to meet them, using the vanished waters of the Isen. Whatever it is, says Gandalf, they shall find out the next day.

They settle down to sleep, but they are awakened by the cries of the sentries late in the night. A darkness blacker than the night is creeping past them on either side of the empty riverbed, heading north. Gandalf warns the company to draw no weapon, and to wait. It – whatever it is – will pass them by. But it seems a long and anxious time, but at last the strange shadow goes by, vanishing between the mountain’s arms.

Away south on the Hornburg a great sound is heard and the ground trembles. None dare look out, but in the morning they find the forest of strange trees gone, and the bodies of the slain Orcs vanished. But a mile below the Dike there is a newly dug pit heaped with stones. Whether it contains only the Orcs the men have killed or also those that vanished under the trees, none can tell. In after days it is called the Death Down; no grass grows on it and no human sets foot there. ‘But the strange trees were never seen in Deeping Coomb again; they had returned at night, and had gone far away to the dark dales of Fangorn. Thus they were revenged upon the Orcs.’

Back at the camp, Theoden and the company sleep no more that night. A strange thing happens, though. The water suddenly comes rushing back down the riverbed until the Isen flows along as it ever did.

At dawn they get ready to go. The light is grey and pale, the sun hidden by a fog and reek laying upon the land around them. But they ride now along the highway, which is broad and well-tended. They pass into Nan Curunir, the Wizard’s Vale, which was once a green and pleasant land. It is so no more. Although beneath the walls of Isengard there are still acres tilled by the slaves of Saruman, most of the valley has become a wilderness of weeds and thorns, filled with burned and axe-hewn stumps. Smokes and steams lurk and drift through hollows.

After some miles the highway turns into a wide street, closely paved with flat stones, with trickling gutters on either side. ‘Suddenly a tall pillar loomed up before them. It was black; and set upon it was a great stone, carved and painted in the likeness of a long White Hand. Its finger pointed north.’ Isengard must not be far ahead, but they can see nothing through the mist.

Bits and Bobs

Not a whole lot to say here, except that Saruman seems to be a big fan of branding as an indicator of his dominance. I remember another Dark Power who had several White Hands scattered around her fortress as well.