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‘You can have my cloak, Mr. Frodo,’ said Sam. He unslung his pack and took out the elven-cloak. ‘How’s this, Mr. Frodo?’ he said. ‘You wrap that orc-rag close round you, and put the belt outside it. Then this can go over all. It don’t look quite orc-fashion, but it’ll keep you warmer; and I daresay it’ll keep you from harm better than any other gear. It was made by the Lady.’

Frodo took the cloak and fastened the brooch. ‘That’s better!’ he said. ‘I feel much lighter. I can go on now. But this blind dark seems to be getting into my heart. As I lay in prison, Sam, I tried to remember the Brandywine, and Woody End, and The Water running through the mill at Hobbiton. But I can’t see them now.’

‘There now, Mr. Frodo, it’s you that’s talking of water this time!’ said Sam. ‘If only the Lady could see us or hear us, I’d say to her: ‘’Your Ladyship, all we want is light and water: just clean water and plain daylight, better than any jewels, begging your pardon.’’ But it’s a long way to Lórien.’ Sam sighed and waved his hand towards the heights of the Ephel Dúath, now only to be guessed as a deeper blackness against the black sky.


They started off again. They had not gone far when Frodo paused. ‘There’s a Black Rider over us,’ he said. ‘I can feel it. We had better keep still for a while.’

Crouched under a great boulder they sat facing back westward and did not speak for some time. Then Frodo breathed a sigh of relief. ‘It’s passed,’ he said. They stood up, and then they both stared in wonder. Away to their left, southward, against a sky that was turning grey, the peaks and high ridges of the great range began to appear dark and black, visible shapes. Light was growing behind them. Slowly it crept towards the North. There was battle far above in the high spaces of the air. The billowing clouds of Mordor were being driven back, their edges tattering as a wind out of the living world came up and swept the fumes and smokes towards the dark land of their home. Under the lifting skirts of the dreary canopy dim light leaked into Mordor like pale morning through the grimed window of a prison.

‘Look at it, Mr. Frodo!’ said Sam. ‘Look at it! The wind’s changed. Something’s happening. He’s not having it all his own way. His darkness is breaking up out in the world there. I wish I could see what is going on!’

It was the morning of the fifteenth of March, and over the Vale of Anduin the Sun was rising above the eastern shadow, and the south-west wind was blowing. Théoden lay dying on the Pelennor Fields.

As Frodo and Sam stood and gazed, the rim of light spread all along the line of the Ephel Dúath, and then they saw a shape, moving at a great speed out of the West, at first only a black speck against the glimmering strip above the mountain-tops, but growing, until it plunged like a bolt into the dark canopy and passed high above them. As it went it sent out a long shrill cry, the voice of a Nazgûl; but this cry no longer held any terror for them: it was a cry of woe and dismay, ill tidings for the Dark Tower. The Lord of the Ringwraiths had met his doom.

‘What did I tell you? Something’s happening!’ cried Sam. ‘’’The war’s going well,’’ said Shagrat; but Gorbag he wasn’t so sure. And he was right there too. Things are looking up, Mr. Frodo. Haven’t you got some hope now?’

‘Well no, not much, Sam,’ Frodo sighed. ‘That’s away beyond the mountains. We’re going east not west. And I’m so tired. And the Ring is so heavy, Sam. And I begin to see it in my mind all the time, like a great wheel of fire.’

Sam’s quick spirits sank again at once. He looked at his master anxiously, and he took his hand. ‘Come, Mr. Frodo!’ he said. ‘I’ve got one thing I wanted: a bit of light. Enough to help us, and yet I guess it’s dangerous too. Try a bit further, and then we’ll lie close and have a rest. But take a morsel to eat now, a bit of the Elves’ food; it may hearten you.’


Sharing a wafer of lembas, and munching it as best they could with their parched mouths, Frodo and Sam plodded on. The light, though no more than a grey dusk, was now enough for them to see that they were deep in the valley between the mountains. It sloped up gently northward, and at its bottom went the bed of a now dry and withered stream. Beyond its stony course they saw a beaten path that wound its way under the feet of the westward cliffs. Had they known, they could have reached it quicker, for it was a track that left the main Morgul-road at the western bridge-end and went down by a long stair cut in the rock to the valley’s bottom. It was used by patrols or by messengers going swiftly to lesser posts and strongholds north-away, between Cirith Ungol and the narrows of Isenmouthe, the iron jaws of Carach Angren.

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Сердце дракона. Том 10
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Он пережил войну за трон родного государства. Он сражался с монстрами и врагами, от одного имени которых дрожали души целых поколений. Он прошел сквозь Море Песка, отыскал мифический город и стал свидетелем разрушения осколков древней цивилизации. Теперь же путь привел его в Даанатан, столицу Империи, в обитель сильнейших воинов. Здесь он ищет знания. Он ищет силу. Он ищет Страну Бессмертных.Ведь все это ради цели. Цели, достойной того, чтобы тысячи лет о ней пели барды, и веками слагали истории за вечерним костром. И чтобы достигнуть этой цели, он пойдет хоть против целого мира.Даже если против него выступит армия – его меч не дрогнет. Даже если император отправит легионы – его шаг не замедлится. Даже если демоны и боги, герои и враги, объединятся против него, то не согнут его железной воли.Его зовут Хаджар и он идет следом за зовом его драконьего сердца.

Кирилл Сергеевич Клеванский

Фантастика / Самиздат, сетевая литература / Боевая фантастика / Героическая фантастика / Фэнтези