THE RETURN OF THE KING 1

Power of good? Indeed, was there none left in all Middle-Earth with strength to aid our dying cause? For at that moment, the forces of darkness made ready to break the main gate with a mighty battering ram which they had named Kron, and on it spells a ruin. Never stand up to that thing. Like the arm of the devil himself. When the gates break, I shall be there to greet it. Have my steed Shadowfax made ready. Farewell, Pippin. I go with you, sir. Then we leave this life together. Come, little one. Shadowfax! To the Nazgûl. Sauron, second in command. A creature of the supernatural. And so no living man could hinder him or bring him harm in any way. He was invulnerable. You cannot enter here. Go back to the abyss prepared for you. Go back. Fall to the nothingness that awaits you and your master. Go! Oh, this is my hour. Do you not know death when you see it? Die now and cast in vain. And from some courtyard of the city, a cockerel, wrecking nothing of wizardry or war, welcoming only the mourning that in the sky far as of death was coming of the dawn. For as if an answer there came from far away another's horns o'er the fields of Pallanor, they echoed great horns on the north, wildly blowing. Theoden and the rescuing armies of Rowan had come at last. Victory was slipping from the grasp of evil, even as he stretched out his hand to seize it. And the strength of goodness began to be felt once more throughout the lands. Had a prayer been answered?