That night they wound their way through the woods up to the ridge by a woodcutter’s track. And when they came out of the woods at the top they could see thousands of lights in the valley below them. Shasta had had no notion of what a great city would be like and it frightened him. They had their supper and the children got some sleep. But the horses woke them very early in the morning.
The stars were still out and the grass was terribly cold and wet, but daybreak was just beginning, far to their rightacross the sea. Aravis went a few steps away into the wood and came back looking odd in her new, ragged clothes and carrying her real ones in a bundle. These, and her armour and shield and scimitar and the two saddles and the rest of the horses‘ fine furnishings were put into the sacks. Bree and Hwin had already got themselves as dirty and bedraggled as they could and it remained to shorten their tails. As the only tool for doing this was Aravis’s scimitar, one of the packs had to be undone again in order to get it out. It was a longish job and rather hurt the Horses.