Timeline Event
Hosts of Isengard assault the gates in the Battle of the Hornburg
Event Type: Military/Strategic
Age: 3rd Age - Ring War
Date: March 4, 3019
Description:
An event in the Battle of the Hornburg; see that entry for an overview:
It was now past midnight. The sky was utterly dark, and the stillness of the heavy air foreboded storm. Suddenly the clouds were seared by a blinding flash. ... [The] watchers on the walls saw all the space between them and the Dike lit with white light: it was boiling and crawling with black shapes.... Hundreds and hundreds more were pouring over the Dike and through the breach. The dark tide flowed up to the walls from cliff to cliff. ...
Arrows thick as the rain came whistling over the battlements ... The assault on Helm's Deep had begun ...
The enemy surged forward, some against the Deeping Wall, other towards the causeway and the ramp that led up to the Hornburg-gates. There the hugest Orcs were mustered, and the wild men of the Dunland fells. ... They ... drove towards the gates. ...
They held their great shields above them like a roof, while in their midst they bore two trunks of mighty trees. ... They gained the gates. The trees, swung by strong arms, smote the timbers with a rending boom. If any man fell, crushed by a stone hurtling from above, two others sprang to take his place. Again and again the great rams swung and crashed.
Éomer and Aragorn ... heard ... the thudding of the rams; and then in a sudden flash of light they beheld the peril of the gates.
The Two Towers, LoTR Book 3, Ch 7, Helm's Deep
Contributors:
Elena Tiriel 11Jan05, 31Jan05
