High into the trees went the chains
above their heads where they sat their horses, and a chain ran
every six inches down to the very ground: the road was well
blocked.
Rodriguez and Alderon hastily consulted; then, leaving the horses
with Morano, they followed the chains through dense forest to find
a place where they could get the horses through. Finding the
chains go on and on and on, and as evening was drawing in, the two
friends divided, Alderon going back and Rodriguez on, agreeing to
meet again on the path where Morano was.
It was darkening when they met there, Rodriguez having found
nothing but that iron barrier going on from trunk to trunk, and
Alderon having found a great gateway of iron; but it was shut.
Through the silent shadows stealing abroad at evening the three
men crashed their way on foot, leading their horses, towards this
gate; but their way was slow and difficult for no path at all led
up to it. It was dark when they reached it and they saw the high
gate in the night, a black barrier among the trees where no one
would wish to come, and in forest that seemed to these three to be
nearly impenetrable. And what astonished Rodriguez most of all was
that the chains had not been across the path when he had feasted
with the green bowmen.
They stood there gazing, all three, at the dark locked gate, and
then they saw two shields that met in the midst of it, and
Rodriguez mounted his horse and stretched up to feel what device
there was on the beaten iron; and both the shields were blank.
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