The Two Towers by J. R. R. Tolkien

Dawn came, red as flame. Loud rang the
     hunting-horns to greet it. The Riders of Rohan sprang suddenly to life. Horn answered horn again.
    Merry and Pippin heard, clear in the cold air, the neighing of war-horses, and the sudden singing of many men. The Sun’s limb
     was lifted, an arc of fire, above the margin of the world. Then with a great cry the Riders charged from the East; the red
     light gleamed on mail and spear. The Orcs yelled and shot all the arrows that remained to them. The hobbits saw several horsemen
     fall; but their line held on up the hill and over it, and wheeled round and charged again. Most of the raiders that were left
     alive then broke and fled, this way and that, pursued one by one to the death. But one band, holding together in a black wedge,
     drove forward resolutely in the direction of the forest. Straight up the slope they charged towards the watchers. Now they
     were drawing near, and it seemed certain that they would escape: they had already hewn down three Riders that barred their
     way.
    ‘We have watched too long,’ said Merry. ‘There’s Uglúk! I don’t want to meet him again.’ The hobbits turned and fled deep
     into the shadows of the wood.
    So it was that they did not see the last stand, when Uglúk was overtaken and brought to bay at the very edge of
    Fangorn. There he was slain at last by Éomer, the Third Marshal of the Mark, who dismounted and fought him sword to sword.
     And over the wide fields the keen-eyed Riders hunted down the few Orcs that had escaped and still had strength to fly.
    Then when they had laid their fallen comrades in a mound and had sung their praises, the Riders made a great fire and scattered
     the ashes of their enemies. So ended the raid, and no news of it came ever back either to Mordor or to Isengard; but the smoke
     of the burning rose high to heaven and was seen by many watchful eyes.

Chapter
4
TREEBEARD
    Meanwhile the hobbits went with as much speed as the dark and tangled forest allowed, following the line of the running stream,
westward and up towards the slopes of the mountains, deeper and deeper into Fangorn. Slowly their fear of the Orcs died away,
and their pace slackened. A queer stifling feeling came over them, as if the air were too thin or too scanty for breathing.
    At last Merry halted. ‘We can’t go on like this,’ he panted. ‘I want some air.’
    ‘Let’s have a drink at any rate,’ said Pippin. ‘I’m parched.’ He clambered on to a great tree-root that wound down into the
stream, and stooping drew up some water in his cupped hands. It was clear and cold, and he took many draughts. Merry followed
him. The water refreshed them and seemed to cheer their hearts; for a while they sat together on the brink of the stream,
dabbling their sore feet and legs, and peering round at the trees that stood silently about them, rank upon rank, until they
faded away into grey twilight in every direction.
    ‘I suppose you haven’t lost us already?’ said Pippin, leaning back against a great tree-trunk. ‘We can at least follow the
course of this stream, the Entwash or whatever you call it, and get out again the way we came.’
    ‘We could, if our legs would do it,’ said Merry; ‘and if we could breathe properly.’
    ‘Yes, it is all very dim, and stuffy, in here,’ said Pippin. ‘It reminds me, somehow, of the old room in the Great Place of
the Tooks away back in the Smials at Tuckborough: a huge place, where the furniture has never been moved or changed for generations.
They say the Old Took lived in it year after year, while he and the room got older and shabbier together – and it has never been changed since he died, a century ago.
And Old Gerontius was my great-great-grandfather: that puts it back a bit. But that is nothing to the old feeling of this
wood. Look at all those weeping, trailing, beards and whiskers of lichen! And most of the trees seem to be half covered with
ragged dry leaves that have never fallen.