"No."
"They come." His hearing, far keener than Balin's, picked up the little
sounds, the vast inchoate rustling of an army on the move in stealth and
darkness. Light-armed men, hunters, used to stalking wild beasts in the
show. They could move softly, very softly.
"I hear nothing," Balin said, and again they waited.
The westering stars moved toward the horizon, and at length in the east
a dim pallor crept across the sky.
The plain was still shrouded in night, but now Stark could make out the
high towers of the King City of Kushat, ghostly and indistinct--the
ancient, proud high towers of the rulers and their nobles, set above the
crowded Quarters of merchants and artisans and thieves. He wondered who
would be king in Kushat by the time this unrisen sun had set.
"You were wrong," said Balin, peering. "There is nothing on the plain."