"Get Balin." Suddenly it seemed that the room stifled him. He caught up
his cloak and Camar's belt and flung open the door, standing on the
narrow steps outside. The moonlight caught in his eyes, pale as
frost-fire.
Thanis shivered. Balin joined her without being called. He, too, had
slept but lightly. Together they followed Stark up the rough-cut stair
that led to the top of the Wall.
He looked southward, where the plain ran down from the mountains and
spread away below Kushat. Nothing moved out there. Nothing marred the
empty whiteness. But Stark said,
"They will attack at dawn."
V
They waited. Some distance away a guard leaned against the parapet,
huddled in his cloak. He glanced at them incuriously. It was bitterly
cold. The wind came whistling down through the Gates of Death, and below
in the streets the watchfires shuddered and flared.
They waited, and still there was nothing.