Читать книгу The Lays of Beleriand онлайн | страница 29

To an army of war was the Orc-band waxenthat Blodrin Bor’s son to his bane guided990to the wood-marches, by the welded hostshomeward hurrying to the halls of mourningswiftly swollen to a sweeping plague.Like a throbbing thunder in the threatening deepsof cavernous clouds o’ercast with gloom995now swelled on a sudden a song most dire,and their hellward hymn their home greeted;flung from the foremost of the fierce spearmen,who viewed mid vapours vast and sablethe threefold peaks of Thangorodrim,1000it rolled rearward, rumbling darkly,like drums in distant dungeons empty.Then a werewolf howled; a word was shoutedlike steel on stone; and stiffly raisedtheir spears and swords sprang up thickly1005as the wild wheatfields of the wargod’s realmwith points that palely pricked the twilight.As by wind wafted then waved they all,and bowed, as the bands with beating measuredmoved on mirthless from the mirky woods,1010from the topless trunks of Taur-na-Fuin,neath the leprous limbs of the leaning gate.

Then Beleg the bowman in bracken cowering,on the loathly legions through the leaves peering,saw Túrin the tall as he tottered forward1015neath the whips of the Orcs as they whistled o’er him;and rage arose in his wrathful heart,and piercing pity outpoured his tears.The hymn was hushed; the host vanisheddown the hellward slopes of the hill beyond;1020and silence sank slow and gloomyround the trunks of the trees of Taur-na-Fuin,and nethermost night drew near outside.

‘Follow me, Flinding, from the forest curséd!Let us haste to his help, to Hell if need be1025or to death by the darts of the dread Glamhoth!’:and Beleg bounded from the bracken madly,like a deer driven by dogs bayingfrom his hiding in the hills and hollow places;and Flinding followed fearful after him1030neath the yawning gate, through yew-thickets,through bogs and bents and bushes shrunken,till they reached the rocks and the riven moorlandsand friendless fells falling darklyto the dusty dunes of Dor-na-Fauglith.1035In a cup outcarven on the cold hillside,whose broken brink was bleakly fringedwith bended bushes bowed in anguishfrom the North-wind’s knife, beneath them farthe feasting camp of their foes was laid;1040the fiery flare of fuming torches,and black bodies in the blaze they sawcrossing countlessly, and cries they heardand the hollow howling of hungry wolves.