They capture Gollum, who is temporarily tamed by a promise to the One Ring, which he covets. Frodo and Sam, trailed by Gollum, wander through the Emyn Muil, a barren range of hills that demonstrates the harsh terrain of the Dark Lord’s lands. The allies now plan to march to Gondor’s assistance by way of Edoras, but Gandalf counsels Theoden to muster his troops in Dunharrow, a hidden fastness in the hills, while he and Pippin ride ahead to Minas Tirith. Merry and Pippin, perched on a pile of debris, greet their friends and offer them bacon, beer, and pipe tobacco. The company proceeds to Isengard, where Saruman’s tower is now surrounded by flood and rubble. Gandalf departs to seek other help, and after a night of graphic battle, he brings aid to the outnumbered Rohirrhim in the form of Huorns. Roused to action, Theoden, his Riders, Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas gallop from the Golden Hall to Helm’s Deep, a fortress from which the horselords are mounting a defense against Saruman’s troops. Gandalf, who is not dead, finds Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas, and they ride across the plains of Rohan to Edoras, where Theoden reigns in a primitive yet dignified palace which suggests the world of “Beowulf,” a simpler and younger civilization than that of Gondor. Treebeard agrees to help the Hobbits, gathers other Ents, and, with Merry and Pippin on his shoulders, leads a march upon Isengard followed by furious “huorns,” who may be degenerate Ents or angry animate trees, a green army intent upon payback. The long-lived Ents rarely concern themselves with human power struggles however, Saruman, an evil wizard who occupies a tower near the forest, has allowed his Orc workers to chop down trees, partly to feed the furnaces of his war ambitions and partly out of utter indifference to nature. There, in an ancient, almost stiflingly dense woods, they meet Treebeard the Ent, a giant “shepherd” of the trees. Meanwhile Merry and Pippin escape during a fight between the Orcs and a band of the Riders of Rohan and slip into Fangorn Forest. Their route crosses into empty grasslands, territory given to the Rohirrhim by Gondor. Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas (human, dwarf, and elf) commit Boromir’s body to the river and head southwest, following the Orc trail in the hope of rescuing the young Hobbits. An Orc ambush has captured Merry and Pippin, and a remorseful Boromir has died trying to protect them. Time of work: The Third Age in a remote legendary past Places Discussed East of the riverĮast Two Towers, Theof the river.

Two towers battle