Timeline Event
Frodo, Sam, and Gollum leave the Black Gate at dusk
Event Type: General
Age: 3rd Age - Ring War
Date: March 5, 3019
Description:
'Good master, wise master, nice master!' cried Gollum in delight, patting Frodo's knees.... '[Rest] now, nice hobbits, under the shadow of the stones...! Rest and lie quiet, till the Yellow Face goes away. Then we can go quickly. Soft and quick as shadows we must be!'
The Two Towers, LoTR Book 4, Ch 3, The Black Gate is Closed
For the few hours of daylight that were left they rested.... Then they ate a little, and drank sparingly. Gollum ate nothing, but he accepted water gladly.
'Soon get more now,' he said, licking his lips. 'Good water runs down in streams to the Great River, nice water in the lands we are going to....
The dusk was deep when at length they set out, creeping over the westward rim of the dell...: The moon was now three nights from the full, but it did not climb over the mountains until nearly midnight, and the early night was very dark. A single red light burned high up in the Towers of the Teeth, but otherwise no sign could be seen or heard of the sleepless watch on the Morannon.
For many miles the red eye seemed to stare at them as they fled, stumbling through a barren stony country. They did not dare to take the road, but they kept it on their left, following its line as well as they could at a little distance. At last, when night was growing old and they were already weary, for they had taken only one short rest, the eye dwindled... and then vanished: they had turned the dark northern shoulder of the lower mountains and were heading southwards....
[They] now rested again, but not for long. They were not going quick enough for Gollum. By his reckoning it was nearly thirty leagues1 from the Morannon to the cross-roads above Osgiliath, and he hoped to cover that distance in four journeys. So soon they struggled on once more, until the dawn began to spread slowly.... They had then walked almost eight leagues; and the hobbits could not have gone any further....
The Two Towers, LoTR Book 4, Ch 4, Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit
Notes
1 A "league" is approximately three of our miles.
Unfinished Tales, Part 3, Ch 1, The Disaster of the Gladden Fields: Appendix, Númenórean Linear Measures
Contributors:
Elena Tiriel 5Mar08
