Brisingr

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Britannia all at Sea Neels Betty Year: 2011 Language: english File: EPUB, 194 KB

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Bring on the Night Smith-Ready Jeri Year: 2010 Language: english File: EPUB, 354 KB

 

 
Brisingr

Christopher Paolini


 
 
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  BRISINGR

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  CONTENTS


  
   Title Page
  

  
   Dedication
  

  
   Maps
  

  

   Synopsis of Eragon and Eldest
  

  
   The Gates of Death
  

  
   Around the Campfire
  

  
   Assault on Helgrind
  

  
   Divergence
  

  
   Rider and Ra’zac
  

  
   To Walk the Land Alone
  

  
   The Trial of the Long Knives
  

  
   Winged Tidings
  

  
   Escape and Evasion
  

  
   A Delicate Matter
  

  
   Bloodwolf
  

  
   Mercy, Dragon Rider
  

  
   Shadows of the Past
  

  
   Amid the Restless Crowd
  

  
   To Answer a King
  

  
   A Feast with Friends
  

  
   Intersecting Sagas
  

  
   Making Amends
  

  
   Gifts of Gold
  

  
   I Need a Sword!
  

  
   Unexpected Guests
  

  
   Fire in the Sky
  

  
   Man and Wife
  

  
   Whispers in the Night
  

  
   Orders
  

  
   Footprints of Shadow
  

  
   Over Hill and Mountain
  

  
   For My Love
  

  
   A Forest of Stone
  

  
   The Laughing Dead
  

  
   Blood on the Rocks
  

  
   A Matter of Perspective
  

  
   Kiss Me Sweet
  

  
   Glûmra
  

  
   Clanmeet
  

  
   Insubordination
  

  
   Message in a Mirror
  

  
   Four Strokes upon the Drum
  

  
   Reunion
  

  
   Ascension
  

  
   Words of Wisdom
  

  
   The Whipping Post
  

  
   Among the Clouds
  

  
   Butting Heads
  

  
   Genealogy
  

  
   Two Lovers Doomed
  

  
   Inheritance
  

  
   Souls of Stone
  

  
   Hands of a Warrior
  

  
   The Tree of Life
  

  
   Mind over Metal
  

  
   A Rider in Full
  

  
   Greaves and Bracers
  

  
   Leave-taking
  

  
   Flight
  

  
   Brisingr!
  

  
   Shadow of Doom
  

  
   Sunrise
  

  
   Pronunciation Guide and Glossary
  

  
   Acknowledgments
  

  

   Copyright
  



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   As always, this book is for my family.
And also for Jordan, Nina, and Sylvie,
the bright lights of a new generation.
Atra esterní ono thelduin.
  

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  Synopsis of Eragon and Eldest

  Eragon—a fifteen-year-old farm boy—is shocked when a polished blue stone appears before him in the range of mountains known as the Spine. Eragon takes the stone to the farm where he lives with his uncle, Garrow, and his cousin, Roran, outside the small village of Carvahall. Garrow and his late wife, Marian, have raised Eragon. Nothing is known of Eragon’s father; his mother, Selena, was Garrow’s sister and has not been seen since Eragon’s birth.

  Later, the stone cracks open and a baby dragon emerges. When Eragon touches her, a silvery mark appears on his palm, and an irrevocable bond is forged between their minds, making Eragon one of the legendary Dragon Riders. He names the dragon Saphira, after a dragon mentioned by the village storyteller, Brom.

  The Dragon Riders were created thousands of years earlier in the aftermath of the devastating war between the elves and the dragons, in order to prevent their two races from ever again fighting each other. The Riders became peacekeepers, educators, healers, natural philosophers, and the greatest of all magicians—since being joined with a dragon makes one a spellcaster. Under their guidance and protection, the land enjoyed a golden age.

  When humans arrived in Alagaësia, they too were added to this elite order. After many years of peace, the warlike Urgals killed the dragon of a young human Rider named Galbatorix. The loss drove him mad, and when his elders refused to provide him with another dragon, Galbatorix set out to topple the Riders.

  He stole another dragon—whom he named Shruikan and forced to serve him through certain black spells—and gathered around himself a group of thirteen traitors: the Forsworn. With the help of those cruel disciples, Galbatorix threw down the Riders; killed their leader, Vrael; and declared himself king over Alagaësia. His actions forced the elves to retreat deep within their pinewood forest and the dwarves to hide in their tunnels and caves, and neither race now ventures forth from its secret places. The stalemate between Galbatorix and the other races has endured for over a hundred years, during which all of the Forsworn have died from various causes. It is into this tense political situation that Eragon finds himself thrust.

  Several months after Saphira hatches, two menacing, beetle-like strangers called the Ra’zac arrive in Carvahall, searching for the stone that was Saphira’s egg. Eragon and Saphira manage to evade them, but they destroy Eragon’s home and murder Garrow.

  Eragon vows to track down and kill the Ra’zac. As he leaves Carvahall, the storyteller Brom, who knows of Saphira’s existence, accosts Eragon and asks to accompany him. Brom gives Eragon a red Dragon Rider’s sword, Zar’roc, though he refuses to say how he acquired it.

  Eragon learns much from Brom during their travels, including how to fight with swords and use magic. When they lose the Ra’zac’s trail, they go to the port town of Teirm and visit Brom’s old friend Jeod, who Brom thinks may be able to help them locate the Ra’zac’s lair. In Teirm, they learn that the Ra’zac live somewhere close to the city of Dras-Leona. Eragon also has his fortune told by the herbalist Angela and receives two strange pieces of advice from her companion, the werecat Solembum.

  On the way to Dras-Leona, Brom reveals that he is an agent of the Varden—a rebel group dedicated to overthrowing Galbatorix—and that he had been hiding in Carvahall, waiting for a new Dragon Rider to appear. Twenty years ago, Brom was involved in stealing Saphira’s egg from Galbatorix and, in the process, killed Morzan, first and last of the Forsworn. Only two other dragon eggs still exist, both of which remain in Galbatorix’s possession.

  In and near Dras-Leona, they encounter the Ra’zac, who mortally wound Brom while he is protecting Eragon. A mysterious young man named Murtagh drives the Ra’zac away. With his dying breath, Brom confesses that he too was once a Rider and that his slain dragon was also named Saphira.

  Eragon and Saphira then decide to join the Varden, but Eragon is captured at the city of Gil’ead and brought before Durza, an evil and powerful Shade who serves Galbatorix. With Murtagh’s help, Eragon escapes from prison, bringing along with him the elf Arya, another captive of Durza’s and an ambassador to the Varden. Arya has been poisoned and requires the Varden’s medical help.

  Pursued by a contingent of Urgals, the four of them flee across the land to the Varden’s headquarters in the giant Beor Mountains, which stand over ten miles high. Circumstances force Murtagh—who does not want to go to the Varden—to reveal that he is the son of Morzan. Murtagh, however, has denounced his dead father’s villainy and fled Galbatorix’s court to seek his own destiny. And he tells Eragon that the sword Zar’roc once belonged to Murtagh’s father.

  Just before they are overwhelmed by the Urgals, Eragon and his friends are rescued by the Varden, who live in Farthen Dûr, a hollow mountain that is also home to the dwarves’ capital, Tronjheim. Once inside, Eragon is taken to Ajihad, leader of the Varden, while Murtagh is imprisoned because of his relation to Morzan.

  Eragon meets with the dwarf king, Hrothgar, and Ajihad’s daughter, Nasuada, and is tested by the Twins, two rather nasty magicians who serve Ajihad. Eragon and Saphira also bless one of the Varden’s orphan babies while the Varden heal Arya of her poisoning.

  Eragon’s stay is disrupted by news of an Urgal army approaching underground, through the dwarves’ tunnels. In the battle that follows, Eragon is separated from Saphira and forced to fight Durza alone. Far stronger than any human, Durza easily defeats Eragon, slashing open his back from shoulder to hip. At that moment, Saphira and Arya break the roof of a chamber—a sixty-foot-wide star sapphire—distracting Durza long enough for Eragon to stab him through the heart. Freed from Durza’s spells, which were controlling them, the Urgals are driven back.

  While Eragon lies unconscious after the battle, he is telepathically contacted by a being who identifies himself as Togira Ikonoka—the Cripple Who Is Whole. He urges Eragon to seek him for instruction in Ellesméra, the elves’ capital.

  When Eragon wakes, he has a huge scar across his back. Dismayed, he also realizes he only slew Durza through sheer luck and that he desperately needs more training. And at the end of Book One, he decides that, yes, he will find this Togira Ikonoka and learn from him.

  

   Eldest begins three days after Eragon slays Durza. The Varden are recovering from the Battle of Farthen Dûr, and Ajihad, Murtagh, and the Twins have been hunting down the Urgals who escaped into the tunnels underneath Farthen Dûr after the battle. When a group of Urgals takes them by surprise, Ajihad is killed and Murtagh and the Twins disappear in the fray. The Varden’s Council of Elders appoints Nasuada to succeed her father as new leader of the Varden, and Eragon swears fealty to her as her vassal.

  Eragon and Saphira decide they must leave for Ellesméra to begin their training with the Cripple Who Is Whole. Before they go, the dwarf king, Hrothgar, offers to adopt Eragon into his clan, the Dûrgrimst Ingeitum, and Eragon accepts, which gives him full legal rights as a dwarf and entitles him to participate in dwarvish councils.

  Both Arya and Orik, Hrothgar’s foster son, accompany Eragon and Saphira on their journey to the land of the elves. En route, they stop in Tarnag, a dwarf city. Some of the dwarves are friendly, but Eragon learns that one clan in particular does not welcome him and Saphira—the Az Sweldn rak Anhûin, who hate Riders and dragons because the Forsworn slaughtered so many of their clan.

  The party finally arrives in Du Weldenvarden, the forest of the elves. At Ellesméra, Eragon and Saphira meet Islanzadí, queen of the elves, who, they learn, is Arya’s mother. They also meet with the Cripple Who Is Whole: an ancient elf named Oromis. He too is a Rider. Oromis and his dragon, Glaedr, have kept their existence hidden from Galbatorix for the past hundred years while they searched for a way to overthrow the king.

  Both Oromis and Glaedr are afflicted with old wounds that prevent them from fighting—Glaedr is missing a leg and Oromis, who was captured and broken by the Forsworn, is unable to control large amounts of magic and is prone to debilitating seizures.

  Eragon and Saphira begin their training, both together and separately. Eragon learns more about the history of Alagaësia’s races, swordsmanship, and the ancient language, which all magicians use. In his studies of the ancient language, he discovers he made a terrible mistake when he and Saphira blessed the orphaned baby in Farthen Dûr: he intended to say “May you be shielded from misfortune,” but what he actually said was “May you be a shield from misfortune.” He has cursed the baby to shield others from any and all pain and misfortune.

  Saphira makes quick progress learning from Glaedr, but the scar Eragon bears as a result of his battle with Durza slows his training. Not only is the mark on his back disfiguring, but at unexpected times it incapacitates him with painful spasms. He does not know how he will improve as a magician and swordsman if his convulsions continue.

  Eragon begins to realize he has feelings for Arya. He confesses them to her, but she rebuffs him and soon leaves to return to the Varden.

  Then the elves hold a ritual known as the Agaetí Blödhren, or the Blood-oath Celebration, during which Eragon goes through a magical transformation: he is turned into an elf-human hybrid—not quite one, not quite the other. As a result, his scar is healed and he now has the same superhuman strength the elves have. His features are also altered, so he appears slightly elvish.

  At this point, Eragon learns that the Varden are on the brink of battle with the Empire and are in dire need of him and Saphira. While Eragon has been away, Nasuada has moved the Varden from Farthen Dûr to Surda, a country south of the Empire that still maintains its independence from Galbatorix.

  Eragon and Saphira leave Ellesméra, along with Orik, after promising Oromis and Glaedr that they will return to complete their training as soon as they can.

  Meanwhile, Eragon’s cousin, Roran, has been having his own adventures. Galbatorix has sent the Ra’zac and a legion of imperial soldiers to Carvahall, looking to capture Roran, so as to use him against Eragon. Roran manages to escape into the nearby mountains. He and the other villagers attempt to drive the soldiers away. Numerous villagers die in the process. When Sloan, the village butcher—who hates Roran and opposes Roran’s engagement to his daughter, Katrina—betrays Roran to the Ra’zac, the beetle-like creatures find and attack Roran in the middle of the night in his bedroom. Roran fights his way free, but the Ra’zac capture Katrina.

  Roran convinces the people of Carvahall to leave their village and seek refuge with the Varden in Surda. They set out westward for the coast, in the hope that they can sail from there to Surda. Roran proves himself as a leader, bringing them safely through the Spine to the coast. In the port town of Teirm, they meet Jeod, who tells Roran that Eragon is a Rider and explains what the Ra’zac were looking for in Carvahall in the first place—Saphira. Jeod offers to help Roran and the villagers reach Surda, pointing out that once Roran and the villagers are safely with the Varden, Roran can enlist Eragon’s help in rescuing Katrina. Jeod and the villagers pirate a ship and sail toward Surda.

  Eragon and Saphira reach the Varden, who are readying for battle. Eragon learns what has become of the baby upon whom he bestowed the ill-phrased blessing: her name is Elva, and though, chronologically, she is still a baby, she has the appearance of a four-year-old child and the voice and demeanor of a world-weary adult. Eragon’s spell forces her to sense the pain of all the people she sees, and compels her to protect them; if she resists this urge, she herself suffers.

  Eragon, Saphira, and the Varden ride out to meet the Empire’s troops on the Burning Plains, a large swath of land that smokes and smolders from underground peat fires. They are astonished when another Rider appears astride a red dragon. The new Rider slays Hrothgar, the dwarf king, and then begins to fight with Eragon and Saphira. When Eragon manages to wrench the Rider’s helm off, he is shocked to see Murtagh.

  Murtagh did not die in the Urgal ambush under Farthen Dûr. The Twins arranged it all; they are traitors who planned the ambush so Ajihad would be killed and they could capture Murtagh and take him to Galbatorix. The king forced Murtagh to swear loyalty to him in the ancient language. Now Murtagh and his newly hatched dragon, Thorn, are Galbatorix’s slaves, and Murtagh asserts that his oaths will never allow him to disobey the king, though Eragon pleads with him to abandon Galbatorix and join the Varden.

  Murtagh is able to overwhelm Eragon and Saphira with an inexplicable display of strength. However, he decides to free them because of their previous friendship. Before Murtagh leaves, he takes Zar’roc from Eragon, claiming it is his inheritance as Morzan’s elder son. Then he reveals that he is not Morzan’s only son—Eragon and Murtagh are brothers, both sons of Selena, Morzan’s consort. The Twins discovered the truth when they examined Eragon’s memories the day he arrived at Farthen Dûr.

  Still reeling from Murtagh’s revelation about their parentage, Eragon retreats with Saphira, and he is finally reunited with Roran and the villagers of Carvahall, who have arrived at the Burning Plains just in time to aid the Varden in the battle. Roran fought heroically and succeeded in killing the Twins.

  Eragon and Roran make peace over Eragon’s role in Garrow’s death, and Eragon vows to help Roran rescue Katrina from the Ra’zac.

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  THE GATES OF DEATH

  
   Eragon stared at the dark tower of stone wherein hid the monsters who had murdered his uncle, Garrow.

  He was lying on his belly behind the edge of a sandy hill dotted with sparse blades of grass, thornbushes, and small, rosebudlike cactuses. The brittle stems of last year’s foliage pricked his palms as he inched forward to gain a better view of Helgrind, which loomed over the surrounding land like a black dagger thrust out from the bowels of the earth.

  The evening sun streaked the low hills with shadows long and narrow and—far in the west—illuminated the surface of Leona Lake so that the horizon became a rippling bar of gold.

  To his left, Eragon heard the steady breathing of his cousin, Roran, who was stretched out beside him. The normally inaudible flow of air seemed preternaturally loud to Eragon with his heightened sense of hearing, one of many such changes wrought by his experience during the Agaetí Blödhren, the elves’ Blood-oath Celebration.

  He paid little attention to that now as he watched a column of people inch toward the base of Helgrind, apparently having walked from the city of Dras-Leona, some miles away. A contingent of twenty-four men and women, garbed in thick leather robes, occupied the head of the column. This group moved with many strange and varied gaits—they limped and shuffled and humped and wriggled; they swung on crutches or used arms to propel themselves forward on curiously short legs—contortions that were necessary because, as Eragon realized, every one of the twenty-four lacked an arm or a leg or some combination thereof. Their leader sat upright upon a litter borne by six oiled slaves, a pose Eragon regarded as a rather amazing accomplishment, considering that the man or woman—he could not tell which—consisted of nothing more than a torso and head, upon whose brow balanced an ornate leather crest three feet high.

  “The priests of Helgrind,” he murmured to Roran.

  “Can they use magic?”

  “Possibly. I dare not explore Helgrind with my mind until they leave, for if any are magicians, they will sense my touch, however light, and our presence will be revealed.”

  Behind the priests trudged a double line of young men swathed in gold cloth. Each carried a rectangular metal frame subdivided by twelve horizontal crossbars from which hung iron bells the size of winter rutabagas. Half of the young men gave their frames a vigorous shake when they stepped forward with their right foot, producing a dolorous cacophony of notes, while the other half shook their frames when they advanced upon the left foot, causing iron tongues to crash against iron throats and emit a mournful clamor that echoed over the hills. The acolytes accompanied the throbbing of the bells with their own cries, groaning and shouting in an ecstasy of passion.

  At the rear of the grotesque procession trudged a comet’s tail of inhabitants from Dras-Leona: nobles, merchants, tradesmen, several high-ranking military commanders, and a motley collection of those less fortunate, such as laborers, beggars, and common foot soldiers.

  Eragon wondered if Dras-Leona’s governor, Marcus Tábor, was somewhere in their midst.

  Drawing to a stop at the edge of the precipitous mound of scree that ringed Helgrind, the priests gathered on either side of a rustcolored boulder with a polished top. When the entire column stood motionless before the crude altar, the creature upon the litter stirred and began to chant in a voice as discordant as the moaning of the bells. The shaman’s declamations were repeatedly truncated by gusts of wind, but Eragon caught snatches of the ancient language—strangely twisted and mispronounced—interspersed with dwarf and Urgal words, all of which were united by an archaic dialect of Eragon’s own tongue. What he understood caused him to shudder, for the sermon spoke of things best left unknown, of a malevolent hate that had festered for centuries in the dark caverns of people’s hearts before being allowed to flourish in the Riders’ absence, of blood and madness, and of foul rituals performed underneath a black moon.

  At the end of that depraved oration, two of the lesser priests rushed forward and lifted their master—or mistress, as the case might be—off the litter and onto the face of the altar. Then the High Priest issued a brief order. Twin blades of steel winked like stars as they rose and fell. A rivulet of blood sprang from each of the High Priest’s shoulders, flowed down the leather-encased torso, and then pooled across the boulder until it overflowed onto the gravel below.

  Two more priests jumped forward to catch the crimson flow in goblets that, when filled to the rim, were distributed among the members of the congregation, who eagerly drank.

  “Gar!” said Roran in an undertone. “You failed to mention that those errant flesh-mongers, those gore-bellied, boggle-minded idiotworshipers were cannibals.”

  “Not quite. They do not partake of the meat.”

  When all the attendees had wet their throats, the servile novitiates returned the High Priest to the litter and bound the creature’s shoulders with strips of white linen. Wet blotches quickly sullied the virgin cloth.

  The wounds seemed to have no effect upon the High Priest, for the limbless figure rotated back toward the devotees with their lips of cranberry red and pronounced, “Now are you truly my Brothers and Sisters, having tasted the sap of my veins here in the shadow of almighty Helgrind. Blood calls to blood, and if ever your Family should need help, do then what you can for the Church and for others who acknowledge the power of our Dread Lord. . . . To affirm and reaffirm our fealty to the Triumvirate, recite with me the Nine Oaths. . . . By Gorm, Ilda, and Fell Angvara, we vow to perform homage at least thrice a month, in the hour before dusk, and then to make an offering of ourselves to appease the eternal hunger of our Great and Terrible Lord. . . . We vow to observe the strictures as they are presented in the book of Tosk. . . . We vow to always carry our Bregnir on our bodies and to forever abstain from the twelve of twelves and the touch of a many-knotted rope, lest it corrupt . . .”

  A sudden rise in the wind obscured the rest of the High Priest’s list. Then Eragon saw those who listened take out a small, curved knife and, one by one, cut themselves in the crook of their elbows and anoint the altar with a stream of their blood.

  Some minutes later, the angry breeze subsided and Eragon again heard the priest: “. . . and such things as you long and lust for will be granted to you as a reward for your obedience. . . . Our worship is complete. However, if any now stand among you who are brave enough to demonstrate the true depth of their faith, let them show themselves!”

  The audience stiffened and leaned forward, their faces rapt; this, apparently, was what they had been waiting for.

  For a long, silent pause, it seemed as if they would be disappointed, but then one of the acolytes broke ranks and shouted, “I will!” With a roar of delight, his brethren began to brandish their bells in a quick and savage beat, whipping the congregation into such a frenzy, they jumped and yelled as if they had taken leave of their senses. The rough music kindled a spark of excitement in Eragon’s heart—despite his revulsion at the proceedings—waking some primal and brutish part of him.

  Shedding his gold robes so that he wore nothing but a leather breechcloth, the dark-haired youth sprang on top of the altar. Gouts of ruby spray erupted on either side of his feet. He faced Helgrind and began to shiver and quake as if stricken with palsy, keeping time with the tolling of the cruel iron bells. His head rolled loosely upon his neck, foam gathered at the corners of his mouth, his arms thrashed like snakes. Sweat oiled his muscles until he gleamed like a bronze statue in the dying light.

  The bells soon reached a manic tempo where one note clashed against another, at which point the young man thrust a hand out behind himself. Into it, a priest deposited the hilt of a bizarre implement: a single-edged weapon, two and a half feet long, with a full tang, scale grips, a vestigial crossguard, and a broad, flat blade that widened and was scalloped near the end, a shape reminiscent of a dragon wing. It was a tool designed for but one purpose: to hack through armor and bones and sinew as easily as through a bulging waterskin.

  The young man lifted the weapon so that it slanted toward the highest peak of Helgrind. Then he dropped to one knee and, with an incoherent cry, brought the blade down across his right wrist.

  Blood sprayed the rocks behind the altar.

  Eragon winced and averted his eyes, although he could not escape the youth’s piercing screams. It was nothing Eragon had not seen in battle, but it seemed wrong to deliberately mutilate yourself when it was so easy to become disfigured in everyday life.

  Blades of grass rasped against one another as Roran shifted his weight. He muttered some curse, which was lost in his beard, and then fell silent again.

  While a priest tended to the young man’s wound—stanching the bleeding with a spell—an acolyte let loose two slaves from the High Priest’s litter, only to chain them by the ankles to an iron loop embedded in the altar. Then the acolytes divested themselves of numerous packages from underneath their robes and piled them on the ground, out of reach of the slaves.

  Their ceremonies at an end, the priests and their retinue departed Helgrind for Dras-Leona, wailing and ringing the entire way. The now one-handed zealot stumbled along just behind the High Priest.

  A beatific smile graced his face.

  
“Well,” said Eragon, and released his pent-up breath as the column vanished behind a distant hill.

  “Well what?”

  “I’ve traveled among both dwarves and elves, and nothing they did was ever as strange as what those people, those humans, do.”

  “They’re as monstrous as the Ra’zac.” Roran jerked his chin toward Helgrind. “Can you find out now if Katrina is in there?”

  “I’ll try. But be ready to run.”

  Closing his eyes, Eragon slowly extended his consciousness outward, moving from the mind of one living thing to another, like tendrils of water seeping through sand. He touched teeming cities of insects frantically scurrying about their business, lizards and snakes hidden among warm rocks, diverse species of songbirds, and numerous small mammals. Insects and animals alike bustled with activity as they prepared for the fast-approaching night, whether by retreating to their various dens or, in the case of those of a nocturnal bent, by yawning, stretching, and otherwise readying themselves to hunt and forage.

  Just as with his other senses, Eragon’s ability to touch another being’s thoughts diminished with distance. By the time his psychic probe arrived at the base of Helgrind, he could perceive only the largest of animals, and even those but faintly.

  He proceeded with caution, ready to withdraw at a second’s notice if he happened to brush against the minds of their prey: the Ra’zac and the Ra’zac’s parents and steeds, the gigantic Lethrblaka. Eragon was willing to expose himself in this manner only because none of the Ra’zac’s breed could use magic, and he did not believe that they were mindbreakers—nonmagicians trained to fight with telepathy. The Ra’zac and Lethrblaka had no need for such tricks when their breath alone could induce a stupor in the largest of men.

  And though Eragon risked discovery by his ghostly investigation, he, Roran, and Saphira had to know if the Ra’zac had imprisoned Katrina—Roran’s betrothed—in Helgrind, for the answer would determine whether their mission was one of rescue or one of capture and interrogation.

  Eragon searched long and hard. When he returned to himself, Roran was watching him with the expression of a starving wolf. His gray eyes burned with a mixture of anger, hope, and despair that was so great, it seemed as if his emotions might burst forth and incinerate everything in sight in a blaze of unimaginable intensity, melting the very rocks themselves.

  This Eragon understood.

  Katrina’s father, the butcher Sloan, had betrayed Roran to the Ra’zac. When they failed to capture him, the Ra’zac had instead seized Katrina from Roran’s bedroom and spirited her away from Palancar Valley, leaving the inhabitants of Carvahall to be killed and enslaved by King Galbatorix’s soldiers. Unable to pursue Katrina, Roran had—just in time—convinced the villagers to abandon their homes and to follow him across the Spine and then south along the coast of Alagaësia, where they joined forces with the rebel Varden. The hardships they endured as a result had been many and terrible. But circuitous as it was, that course had reunited Roran with Eragon, who knew the location of the Ra’zac’s den and had promised to help save Katrina.

  Roran had only succeeded, as he later explained, because the strength of his passion drove him to extremes that others feared and avoided, and thus allowed him to confound his enemies.

  A similar fervor now gripped Eragon.

  He would leap into harm’s way without the slightest regard for his own safety if someone he cared for was in danger. He loved Roran as a brother, and since Roran was to marry Katrina, Eragon had extended his definition of family to include her as well. This concept seemed even more important because Eragon and Roran were the last heirs of their line. Eragon had renounced all affiliation with his birth brother, Murtagh, and the only relatives he and Roran had left were each other, and now Katrina.

  Noble sentiments of kinship were not the only force that drove the pair. Another goal obsessed them as well: revenge! Even as they plotted to snatch Katrina from the grasp of the Ra’zac, so the two warriors—mortal man and Dragon Rider alike—sought to slay King Galbatorix’s unnatural servants for torturing and murdering Garrow, who was Roran’s father and had been as a father to Eragon.

  The intelligence, then, that Eragon had gleaned was as important to him as to Roran.

  “I think I felt her,” he said. “It’s hard to be certain, because we’re so far from Helgrind and I’ve never touched her mind before, but I think she’s in that forsaken peak, concealed somewhere near the very top.”

  “Is she sick? Is she injured? Blast it, Eragon, don’t hide it from me: have they hurt her?”

  “She’s in no pain at the moment. More than that, I cannot say, for it required all my strength just to make out the glow of her consciousness; I could not communicate with her.” Eragon refrained from mentioning, however, that he had detected a second person as well, one whose identity he suspected and the presence of whom, if confirmed, troubled him greatly. “What I didn’t find were the Ra’zac or the Lethrblaka. Even if I somehow overlooked the Ra’zac, their parents are so large, their life force should blaze like a thousand lanterns, even as Saphira’s does. Aside from Katrina and a few other dim specks of light, Helgrind is black, black, black.”

  Roran scowled, clenched his left fist, and glared at the mountain of rock, which was fading into the dusk as purple shadows enveloped it. In a low, flat voice, as if talking with himself, he said, “It doesn’t matter whether you are right or wrong.”

  “How so?”

  “We dare not attack tonight; night is when the Ra’zac are strongest, and if they are nearby, it would be stupid to fight them when we’re at a disadvantage. Agreed?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, we wait for the dawn.” Roran gestured toward the slaves chained to the gory altar. “If those poor wretches are gone by then, we know the Ra’zac are here, and we proceed as planned. If not, we curse our bad luck that they escaped us, free the slaves, rescue Katrina, and fly back to the Varden with her before Murtagh hunts us down. Either way, I doubt the Ra’zac will leave Katrina unattended for long, not if Galbatorix wants her to survive so he can use her as a tool against me.”

  Eragon nodded. He wanted to release the slaves now, but doing so could warn their foes that something was amiss. Nor, if the Ra’zac came to collect their dinner, could he and Saphira intercede before the slaves were ferried away. A battle in the open between a dragon and creatures such as the Lethrblaka would attract the attention of every man, woman, and child for leagues around. And Eragon did not think he, Saphira, or Roran could survive if Galbatorix learned they were alone in his empire.

  He looked away from the shackled men. For their sake, I hope the Ra’zac are on the other side of Alagaësia or, at least, that the Ra’zac aren’t hungry tonight.

  By unspoken consent, Eragon and Roran crawled backward down from the crest of the low hill they were hiding behind. At the bottom, they rose into a half crouch, then turned and, still doubled over, ran between two rows of hills. The shallow depression gradually deepened into a narrow, flood-carved gully lined with crumbling slabs of shale.

  Dodging the gnarled juniper trees that dotted the gully, Eragon glanced up and, through clumps of needles, saw the first constellations to adorn the velvet sky. They seemed cold and sharp, like bright shards of ice. Then he concentrated on maintaining his footing as he and Roran trotted south toward their camp.

[bookmark: c02]
  
 

  AROUND THE CAMPFIRE

  
   The low mound of coals throbbed like the heart of some giant beast. Occasionally, a patch of gold sparks flared into existence and raced across the surface of the wood before vanishing into a white-hot crevice.

  The dying remnants of the fire Eragon and Roran had built cast a dim red light over the surrounding area, revealing a patch of rocky soil, a few pewter-gray bushes, the indistinct mass of a juniper tree farther off, then nothing.

  Eragon sat with his bare feet extended toward the nest of ruby embers—enjoying the warmth—and with his back propped against the knobby scales of Saphira’s thick right foreleg. Opposite him, Roran was perched on the iron-hard, sun-bleached, wind-worn shell of an ancient tree trunk. Every time he moved, the trunk produced a bitter shriek that made Eragon want to claw at his ears.

  For the moment, quiet reigned within the hollow. Even the coals smoldered in silence; Roran had collected only long-dead branches devoid of moisture to eliminate any smoke that unfriendly eyes might spot.

  Eragon had just finished recounting the day’s activities to Saphira. Normally, he never had to tell her what he had been doing, as thoughts, feelings, and other sensations flowed between them as easily as water from one side of a lake to another. But in this instance it was necessary because Eragon had kept his mind carefully shielded during the scouting expedition, aside from his disembodied foray into the Ra’zac’s lair.

  After a considerable gap in the conversation, Saphira yawned, exposing her rows of many fearsome teeth. Cruel and evil they may be, but I am impressed that the Ra’zac can bewitch their prey into wanting to be eaten. They are great hunters to do that. . . . Perhaps I shall attempt it someday.

  
   But not, Eragon felt compelled to add, with people. Try it with sheep instead.

  
   People, sheep: what difference is there to a dragon? Then she laughed deep in her long throat—a rolling rumble that reminded him of thunder.

  Leaning forward to take his weight off Saphira’s sharp-edged scales, Eragon picked up the hawthorn staff that lay by his side. He rolled it between his palms, admiring the play of light over the polished tangle of roots at the top and the much-scratched metal ferrule and spike at the base.

  Roran had thrust the staff into his arms before they left the Varden on the Burning Plains, saying, “Here. Fisk made this for me after the Ra’zac bit my shoulder. I know you lost your sword, and I thought you might have need of it. . . . If you want to get another blade, that’s fine too, but I’ve found there are very few fights you can’t win with a few whacks from a good, strong stick.” Remembering the staff Brom had always carried, Eragon had decided to forgo a new sword in favor of the length of knotted hawthorn. After losing Zar’roc, he felt no desire to take up another, lesser sword. That night, he had fortified both the knotted hawthorn and the handle to Roran’s hammer with several spells that would prevent either piece from breaking, except under the most extreme stress.

  Unbidden, a series of memories overwhelmed Eragon: A sullen orange and crimson sky swirled around him as Saphira dove in pursuit of the red dragon and his Rider. Wind howled past his ears. . . . His fingers went numb from the jolt of sword striking sword as he dueled that same Rider on the ground. . . . Tearing off his foe’s helm in the midst of combat to reveal his once friend and traveling companion, Murtagh, whom he had thought dead. . . . The sneer upon Murtagh’s face as he took Zar’roc from Eragon, claiming the red sword by right of inheritance as Eragon’s elder brother. . . .

  Eragon blinked, disoriented as the noise and fury of battle faded and the pleasant aroma of juniper wood replaced the stench of blood. He ran his tongue over his upper teeth, trying to eradicate the taste of bile that filled his mouth.

  
   Murtagh.
  

  The name alone generated a welter of confused emotions in Eragon. On one hand, he liked Murtagh. Murtagh had saved Eragon and Saphira from the Ra’zac after their first, ill-fated visit to Dras-Leona; risked his life to help extricate Eragon from Gil’ead; acquitted himself honorably in the Battle of Farthen Dûr; and, despite the torments he no doubt endured as a result, had chosen to interpret his orders from Galbatorix in a way that allowed him to release Eragon and Saphira after the Battle of the Burning Plains instead of taking them captive. It was not Murtagh’s fault that the Twins had abducted him; that the red dragon, Thorn, had hatched for him; or that Galbatorix had discovered their true names, with which he extracted oaths of fealty in the ancient language from both Murtagh and Thorn.

  None of that could be blamed on Murtagh. He was a victim of fate, and had been since the day he was born.

  And yet . . . Murtagh might serve Galbatorix against his will, and he might abhor the atrocities the king forced him to commit, but some part of him seemed to revel in wielding his newfound power. During the recent engagement between the Varden and the Empire on the Burning Plains, Murtagh had singled out the dwarf king, Hrothgar, and slain him, although Galbatorix had not ordered Murtagh to do so. He had let Eragon and Saphira go, yes, but only after defeating them in a brutal contest of strength and then listening to Eragon plead for their freedom.

  And Murtagh had derived entirely too much pleasure from the anguish he inflicted upon Eragon by revealing they were both sons of Morzan—first and last of the thirteen Dragon Riders, the Forsworn, who had betrayed their compatriots to Galbatorix.

  Now, four days after the battle, another explanation presented itself to Eragon: Perhaps what Murtagh enjoyed was watching another person shoulder the same terrible burden he had carried his whole life.

  Whether or not that was true, Eragon suspected Murtagh had embraced his new role for the same reason that a dog who has been whipped without cause will someday turn and attack his master. Murtagh had been whipped and whipped, and now he had his chance to strike back at a world that had shown him little enough kindness.

  Yet no matter what good might still flicker in Murtagh’s breast, he and Eragon were doomed to be mortal enemies, for Murtagh’s promises in the ancient language bound him to Galbatorix with unbreakable fetters and would forevermore.

  
   If only he hadn’t gone with Ajihad to hunt Urgals underneath Farthen Dûr. Or if I had just been a little faster, the Twins—Eragon, said Saphira.

  He caught himself and nodded, grateful for her intervention. Eragon did his best to avoid brooding upon Murtagh or their shared parents, but such thoughts often waylaid him when he least expected it.

  Drawing and releasing a slow breath to clear his head, Eragon tried to force his mind back to the present but could not.

  The morning after the massive battle on the Burning Plains—when the Varden were busy regrouping and preparing to march after the Empire’s army, which had retreated several leagues up the Jiet River—Eragon had gone to Nasuada and Arya, explained Roran’s predicament, and sought their permission to help his cousin. He did not succeed. Both women vehemently opposed what Nasuada described as “a harebrained scheme that will have catastrophic consequences for everyone in Alagaësia if it goes awry!”

  The debate raged on for so long, at last Saphira had interrupted with a roar that shook the walls of the command tent. Then she said, I am sore and tired, and Eragon is doing a poor job of explaining himself. We have better things to do than stand around yammering like jackdaws, no? . . . Good, now listen to me.

  It was, reflected Eragon, difficult to argue with a dragon.

  The details of Saphira’s remarks were complex, but the underlying structure of her presentation was straightforward. Saphira supported Eragon because she understood how much the proposed mission meant to him, while Eragon supported Roran because of love and family, and because he knew Roran would pursue Katrina with or without him, and his cousin would never be able to defeat the Ra’zac by himself. Also, so long as the Empire held Katrina captive, Roran—and through him, Eragon—was vulnerable to manipulation by Galbatorix. If the usurper threatened to kill Katrina, Roran would have no choice but to submit to his demands.

  It would be best, then, to patch this breach in their defenses before their enemies took advantage of it.

  As for the timing, it was perfect. Neither Galbatorix nor the Ra’zac would expect a raid in the center of the Empire when the Varden were busy fighting Galbatorix’s troops near the border of Surda. Murtagh and Thorn had been seen flying toward Urû’baen—no doubt to be chastised in person—and Nasuada and Arya agreed with Eragon that those two would probably then continue northward to confront Queen Islanzadí and the army under her command once the elves made their first strike and revealed their presence. And if possible, it would be good to eliminate the Ra’zac before they started to terrorize and demoralize the Varden’s warriors.

  Saphira had then pointed out, in the most diplomatic of terms, that if Nasuada asserted her authority as Eragon’s liegelord and forbade him from participating in the sortie, it would poison their relationship with the sort of rancor and dissent that could undermine the Varden’s cause. But, said Saphira, the choice is yours. Keep Eragon here if you want. However, his commitments are not mine, and I, for one, have decided to accompany Roran. It seems like a fine adventure.

  A faint smile touched Eragon’s lips as he recalled the scene.

  The combined weight of Saphira’s declaration and her impregnable logic had convinced Nasuada and Arya to grant their approval, albeit grudgingly.

  Afterward, Nasuada had said, “We are trusting your judgment in this, Eragon, Saphira. For your sake and ours, I hope this expedition goes well.” Her tone left Eragon uncertain whether her words represented a heartfelt wish or a subtle threat.

  Eragon had spent the rest of that day gathering supplies, studying maps of the Empire with Saphira, and casting what spells he felt were necessary, such as one to thwart attempts by Galbatorix or his minions to scry Roran.

  The following morning, Eragon and Roran had climbed onto Saphira’s back, and she had taken flight, rising above the orange clouds that stifled the Burning Plains and angling northeast. She flew nonstop until the sun had traversed the dome of the sky and extinguished itself behind the horizon and then burst forth again with a glorious conflagration of reds and yellows.

  The first leg of their journey carried them toward the edge of the Empire, which few people inhabited. There they turned west toward Dras-Leona and Helgrind. From then on, they traveled at night to avoid notice by anyone in the many small villages scattered across the grasslands that lay between them and their destination.

  Eragon and Roran had to swathe themselves in cloaks and furs and wool mittens and felted hats, for Saphira chose to fly higher than the icebound peaks of most mountains—where the air was thin and dry and stabbed at their lungs—so that if a farmer tending a sick calf in the field or a sharp-eyed watchman making his rounds should happen to look up as she passed overhead, Saphira would appear no larger than an eagle.

  Everywhere they went, Eragon saw evidence of the war that was now afoot: camps of soldiers, wagons full of supplies gathered into a bunch for the night, and lines of men with iron collars being led from their homes to fight on Galbatorix’s behalf. The amount of resources deployed against them was daunting indeed.

  Near the end of the second night, Helgrind had appeared in the distance: a mass of splintered columns, vague and ominous in the ashen light that precedes dawn. Saphira had landed in the hollow where they were now, and they had slept through most of the past day before beginning their reconnaissance.

  A fountain of amber motes billowed and swirled as Roran tossed a branch onto the disintegrating coals. He caught Eragon’s look and shrugged. “Cold,” he said.

  Before Eragon could respond, he heard a slithering scraping sound akin to someone drawing a sword.

  He did not think; he flung himself in the opposite direction, rolled once, and came up into a crouch, lifting the hawthorn staff to deflect an oncoming blow. Roran was nearly as fast. He grabbed his shield from the ground, scrambled back from the log he had been sitting on, and drew his hammer from his belt, all in the span of a few seconds.

  They froze, waiting for the attack.

  Eragon’s heart pounded and his muscles trembled as he searched the darkness for the slightest hint of motion.

  
   I smell nothing, said Saphira.

  When several minutes elapsed without incident, Eragon pushed his mind out over the surrounding landscape. “No one,” he said. Reaching deep within himself to the place where he could touch the flow of magic, he uttered the words “Brisingr raudhr!” A pale red werelight popped into existence several feet in front of him and remained there, floating at eye level and painting the hollow with a watery radiance. He moved slightly, and the werelight mimicked his motion, as if connected to him by an invisible pole.

  Together, he and Roran advanced toward where they’d heard the sound, down the gulch that wound eastward. They held their weapons high and paused between each step, ready to defend themselves at any moment. About ten yards from their camp, Roran held up a hand, stopping Eragon, then pointed at a plate of shale that lay on top of the grass. It appeared conspicuously out of place. Kneeling, Roran rubbed a smaller fragment of shale across the plate and created the same steely scrape they had heard before.

  “It must have fallen,” said Eragon, examining the sides of the gulch. He allowed the werelight to fade into oblivion.

  Roran nodded and stood, brushing dirt from his pants.

  As he walked back to Saphira, Eragon considered the speed with which they had reacted. His heart still contracted into a hard, painful knot with each beat, his hands shook, and he felt like dashing into the wilderness and running several miles without stopping. We wouldn’t have jumped like that before, he thought. The reason for their vigilance was no mystery: every one of their fights had chipped away at their complacency, leaving behind nothing but raw nerves that twitched at the slightest touch.

  Roran must have been entertaining similar thoughts, for he said, “Do you see them?”

  “Who?”

  “The men you’ve killed. Do you see them in your dreams?”

  “Sometimes.”

  The pulsing glow from the coals lit Roran’s face from below, forming thick shadows above his mouth and across his forehead and giving his heavy, half-lidded eyes a baleful aspect. He spoke slowly, as if he found the words difficult. “I never wanted to be a warrior. I dreamed of blood and glory when I was younger, as every boy does, but the land was what was important to me. That and our family. . . . And now I have killed. . . . I have killed and killed, and you have killed even more.” His gaze focused on some distant place only he could see. “There were these two men in Narda. . . . Did I tell you this before?”

  He had, but Eragon shook his head and remained silent.

  “They were guards at the main gate. . . . Two of them, you know, and the man on the right, he had pure white hair. I remember because he couldn’t have been more than twenty-four, twenty-five. They wore Galbatorix’s sigil but spoke as if they were from Narda. They weren’t professional soldiers. They were probably just men who had decided to help protect their homes from Urgals, pirates, brigands. . . . We weren’t going to lift a finger against them. I swear to you, Eragon, that was never part of our plan. I had no choice, though. They recognized me. I stabbed the white-haired man underneath his chin. . . . It was like when Father cut the throat of a pig. And then the other, I smashed open his skull. I can still feel his bones giving way. . . . I remember every blow I’ve landed, from the soldiers in Carvahall to the ones on the Burning Plains. . . . You know, when I close my eyes, sometimes I can’t sleep because the light from the fire we set in the docks of Teirm is so bright in my mind. I think I’m going mad then.”

  Eragon found his hands gripping the staff with such force, his knuckles were white and tendons ridged the insides of his wrists. “Aye,” he said. “At first it was just Urgals, then it was men and Urgals, and now this last battle. . . . I know what we do is right, but right doesn’t mean easy. Because of who we are, the Varden expect Saphira and me to stand at the front of their army and to slaughter entire battalions of soldiers. We do. We have.” His voice caught, and he fell silent.

  
   Turmoil accompanies every great change, said Saphira to both of them. And we have experienced more than our share, for we are agents of that very change. I am a dragon, and I do not regret the deaths of those who endanger us. Killing the guards in Narda may not be a deed worthy of celebration, but neither is it one to feel guilty about. You had to do it. When you must fight, Roran, does not the fierce joy of combat lend wings to your feet? Do you not know the pleasure of pitting yourself against a worthy opponent and the satisfaction of seeing the bodies of your enemies piled before you? Eragon, you have experienced this. Help me explain it to your cousin.

  Eragon stared at the coals. She had stated a truth that he was reluctant to acknowledge, lest by agreeing that one could enjoy violence, he would become a man he would despise. So he was mute. Across from him, Roran appeared similarly affected.

  In a softer voice, Saphira said, Do not be angry. I did not intend to upset you. . . . I forget sometimes that you are still unaccustomed to these emotions, while I have fought tooth and nail for survival since the day I hatched.

  Rising to his feet, Eragon walked to their saddlebags and retrieved the small earthenware jar Orik had given him before they parted, then poured two large mouthfuls of raspberry mead down his gullet. Warmth bloomed in his stomach. Grimacing, Eragon passed the jar to Roran, who also partook of the concoction.

  Several drinks later, when the mead had succeeded in tempering his black mood, Eragon said, “We may have a problem tomorrow.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Eragon directed his words toward Saphira as well. “Remember how I said that we—Saphira and I—could easily handle the Ra’zac?”

  “Aye.”

  
   And so we can, said Saphira.

  “Well, I was thinking about it while we spied on Helgrind, and I’m not so sure anymore. There are almost an infinite number of ways to do something with magic. For example, if I want to light a fire, I could light it with heat gathered from the air or the ground; I could create a flame out of pure energy; I could summon a bolt of lightning; I could concentrate a raft of sunbeams into a single point; I could use friction; and so forth.”

  “So?”

  “The problem is, even though I can devise numerous spells to perform this one action, blocking those spells might require but a single counterspell. If you prevent the action itself from taking place, then you don’t have to tailor your counterspell to address the unique properties of each individual spell.”

  “I still don’t understand what this has to do with tomorrow.”

  
   I do, said Saphira to both of them. She had immediately grasped the implications. It means that, over the past century, Galbatorix—

  “—may have placed wards around the Ra’zac—”

  —that will protect them against—

  “—a whole range of spells. I probably won’t—”

  
   —be able to kill them with any—
  

  
   “—of the words of death I was taught, nor any—”
  

  
   —attacks that we can invent now or then. We may—
  

  “—have to rely—”

  “Stop!” exclaimed Roran. He gave a pained smile. “Stop, please. My head hurts when you do that.”

  Eragon paused with his mouth open; until that moment, he had been unaware that he and Saphira were speaking in turn. The knowledge pleased him: it signified that they had achieved new heights of cooperation and were acting together as a single entity—which made them far more powerful than either would be on their own. It also troubled him when he contemplated how such a partnership must, by its very nature, reduce the individuality of those involved.

  He closed his mouth and chuckled. “Sorry. What I’m worried about is this: if Galbatorix has had the foresight to take certain precautions, then force of arms may be the only means by which we can slay the Ra’zac. If that’s true—”

  “I’ll just be in your way tomorrow.”

  “Nonsense. You may be slower than the Ra’zac, but I have no doubt you’ll give them cause to fear your weapon, Roran Stronghammer.” The compliment seemed to please Roran. “The greatest danger for you is that the Ra’zac or the Lethrblaka will manage to separate you from Saphira and me. The closer we stay together, the safer we’ll all be. Saphira and I will try to keep the Ra’zac and Lethrblaka occupied, but some of them may slip past us. Four against two are only good odds if you’re among the four.”

  To Saphira, Eragon said, If I had a sword, I’m sure I could slay the Ra’zac by myself, but I don’t know if I can beat two creatures who are quick as elves, using nothing but this staff.

  
   You were the one who insisted on carrying that dry twig instead of a proper weapon, she said. Remember, I told you it might not suffice against enemies as dangerous as the Ra’zac.

  Eragon reluctantly conceded the point. If my spells fail us, we will be far more vulnerable than I expected. . . . Tomorrow could end very badly indeed.

  Continuing the strand of conversation he had been privy to, Roran said, “This magic is a tricky business.” The log he sat on gave a drawn-out groan as he rested his elbows on his knees.

  “It is,” Eragon agreed. “The hardest part is trying to anticipate every possible spell; I spend most of my time asking how can I protect myself if I’m attacked like this and would another magician expect me to do that.”

  “Could you make me as strong and fast as you are?”

  Eragon considered the suggestion for several minutes before saying, “I don’t see how. The energy needed to do that would have to come from somewhere. Saphira and I could give it to you, but then we would lose as much speed or strength as you gained.” What he did not mention was that one could also extract energy from nearby plants and animals, albeit at a terrible price: namely, the deaths of the smaller beings whose life force you drew upon. The technique was a great secret, and Eragon felt that he should not reveal it lightly, if at all. Moreover, it would be of no use to Roran, as too little grew or lived on Helgrind to fuel a man’s body.

  “Then can you teach me to use magic?” When Eragon hesitated, Roran added, “Not now, of course. We don’t have the time, and I don’t expect one can become a magician overnight anyway. But in general, why not? You and I are cousins. We share much the same blood. And it would be a valuable skill to have.”

  “I don’t know how someone who’s not a Rider learns to use magic,” confessed Eragon. “It’s not something I studied.” Glancing around, he plucked a flat, round stone from the ground and tossed it to Roran, who caught it backhand. “Here, try this: concentrate on lifting the rock a foot or so into the air and say, ‘Stenr rïsa.’ ”

  “Stenr rïsa?”

  “Exactly.”

  Roran frowned at the stone resting on his palm in a pose so reminiscent of Eragon’s own training that Eragon could not help feeling a flash of nostalgia for the days he spent being drilled by Brom.

  Roran’s eyebrows met, his lips tightened into a snarl, and he growled, “Stenr rïsa!” with enough intensity, Eragon half expected the stone to fly out of sight.

  Nothing happened.

  Scowling even harder, Roran repeated his command: “Stenr rïsa!”

  The stone exhibited a profound lack of movement.

  “Well,” said Eragon, “keep trying. That’s the only advice I can give you. But”—and here he raised a finger—“if you should happen to succeed, make sure you immediately come to me or, if I’m not around, another magician. You could kill yourself and others if you start experimenting with magic without understanding the rules. If nothing else, remember this: if you cast a spell that requires too much energy, you will die. Don’t take on projects that are beyond your abilities, don’t try to bring back the dead, and don’t try to unmake anything.”

  Roran nodded, still looking at the stone.

  “Magic aside, I just realized there’s something far more important that you need to learn.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, you need to be able to hide your thoughts from the Black Hand, Du Vrangr Gata, and others like them. You know a lot of things now that could harm the Varden. It’s crucial, then, that you master this skill as soon as we return. Until you can defend yourself from spies, neither Nasuada nor I nor anyone else can trust you with information that might help our enemies.”

  “I understand. But why did you include Du Vrangr Gata in that list? They serve you and Nasuada.”

  “They do, but even among our allies there are more than a few people who would give their right arm”—he grimaced at the appropriateness of the phrase—“to ferret out our plans and secrets. And yours too, no less. You have become a somebody, Roran. Partly because of your deeds, and partly because we are related.”

  “I know. It is strange to be recognized by those you have not met.”

  “That it is.” Several other, related observations leaped to the tip of Eragon’s tongue, but he resisted the urge to pursue the topic; it was a subject to explore another time. “Now that you know what it feels like when one mind touches another, you might be able to learn to reach out and touch other minds in turn.”

  “I’m not sure that is an ability I want to have.”

  “No matter; you also might not be able to do it. Either way, before you spend time finding out, you should first devote yourself to the art of defense.”

  His cousin cocked an eyebrow. “How?”

  “Choose something—a sound, an image, an emotion, anything—and let it swell within your mind until it blots out any other thoughts.”

  “That’s all?”

  “It’s not as easy as you think. Go on; take a stab at it. When you’re ready, let me know, and I’ll see how well you’ve done.”

  Several moments passed. Then, at a flick of Roran’s fingers, Eragon launched his consciousness toward his cousin, eager to discover what he had accomplished.

  The full strength of Eragon’s mental ray rammed into a wall composed of Roran’s memories of Katrina and was stopped. He could take no ground, find no entrance or purchase, nor undermine the impenetrable barrier that stood before him. At that instant, Roran’s entire identity was based upon his feelings for Katrina; his defenses exceeded any Eragon had previously encountered, for Roran’s mind was devoid of anything else Eragon could grasp hold of and use to gain control over his cousin.

  Then Roran shifted his left leg and the wood underneath released a harsh squeal.

  With that, the wall Eragon had hurled himself against fractured into dozens of pieces as a host of competing thoughts distracted Roran: What was . . . Blast! Don’t pay attention to it; he’ll break through. Katrina, remember Katrina. Ignore Eragon. The night she agreed to marry me, the smell of the grass and her hair . . . Is that him? No! Focus! Don’t—

  Taking advantage of Roran’s confusion, Eragon rushed forward and, by the force of his will, immobilized Roran before he could shield himself again.

  
   You understand the basic concept, said Eragon, then withdrew from Roran’s mind and said out loud, “but you have to learn to maintain your concentration even when you’re in the middle of a battle. You must learn to think without thinking . . . to empty yourself of all hopes and worries, save that one idea that is your armor. Something the elves taught me, which I have found helpful, is to recite a riddle or a piece of a poem or song. Having an action that you can repeat over and over again makes it much easier to keep your mind from straying.”

  “I’ll work on it,” promised Roran.

  In a quiet voice, Eragon said, “You really love her, don’t you?” It was more a statement of truth and wonder than a question—the answer being self-evident—and one he felt uncertain making. Romance was not a topic Eragon had broached with his cousin before, notwithstanding the many hours they had devoted in years past to debating the relative merits of the young women in and around Carvahall. “How did it happen?”

  “I liked her. She liked me. What importance are the details?”

  “Come now,” said Eragon. “I was too angry to ask before you left for Therinsford, and we have not seen each other again until just four days ago. I’m curious.”

  The skin around Roran’s eyes pulled and wrinkled as he rubbed his temples. “There’s not much to tell. I’ve always been partial to her. It meant little before I was a man, but after my rites of passage, I began to wonder whom I would marry and whom I wanted to become the mother of my children. During one of our visits to Carvahall, I saw Katrina stop by the side of Loring’s house to pick a moss rose growing in the shade of the eaves. She smiled as she looked at the flower. . . . It was such a tender smile, and so happy, I decided right then that I wanted to make her smile like that again and again and that I wanted to look at that smile until the day I died.” Tears gleamed in Roran’s eyes, but they did not fall, and a second later, he blinked and they vanished. “I fear I have failed in that regard.”

  After a respectful pause, Eragon said, “You courted her, then?

  Aside from using me to ferry compliments to Katrina, how else did you proceed?”

  “You ask like one who seeks instruction.”

  “I did not. You’re imagining—”

  “Come now, yourself,” said Roran. “I know when you’re lying. You get that big foolish grin, and your ears turn red. The elves may have given you a new face, but that part of you hasn’t changed. What is it that exists between you and Arya?”

  The strength of Roran’s perception disturbed Eragon. “Nothing! The moon has addled your brain.”

  “Be honest. You dote upon her words as if each one were a diamond, and your gaze lingers upon her as if you were starving and she a grand feast arrayed an inch beyond your reach.”

  A plume of dark gray smoke erupted from Saphira’s nostrils as she made a choking-like noise.

  Eragon ignored her suppressed merriment and said, “Arya is an elf.”

  “And very beautiful. Pointed ears and slanted eyes are small flaws when compared with her charms. You look like a cat yourself now.”

  “Arya is over a hundred years old.”

  That particular piece of information caught Roran by surprise; his eyebrows went up, and he said, “I find that hard to believe! She’s in the prime of her youth.”

  “It’s true.”

  “Well, be that as it may, these are reasons you give me, Eragon, and the heart rarely listens to reason. Do you fancy her or not?”

  
   If he fancied her any more, Saphira said to both Eragon and Roran, I’d be trying to kiss Arya myself.

  
   Saphira! Mortified, Eragon swatted her on the leg.

  Roran was prudent enough not to rib Eragon further. “Then answer my original question and tell me how things stand between you and Arya. Have you spoken to her or her family about this? I have found it’s unwise to let such matters fester.”

  “Aye,” said Eragon, and stared at the length of polished hawthorn. “I spoke with her.”

  “To what end?” When Eragon did not immediately reply, Roran uttered a frustrated exclamation. “Getting answers out of you is harder than dragging Birka through the mud.” Eragon chuckled at the mention of Birka, one of their draft horses. “Saphira, will you solve this puzzle for me? Otherwise, I fear I’ll never get a full explanation.”

  “To no end. No end at all. She’ll not have me.” Eragon spoke dispassionately, as if commenting on a stranger’s misfortune, but within him raged a torrent of hurt so deep and wild, he felt Saphira withdraw somewhat from him.

  “I’m sorry,” said Roran.

  Eragon forced a swallow past the lump in his throat, past the bruise that was his heart, and down to the knotted skein of his stomach. “It happens.”

  “I know it may seem unlikely at the moment,” said Roran, “but I’m sure you will meet another woman who will make you forget this Arya. There are countless maids—and more than a few married women, I’d wager—who would be delighted to catch the eye of a Rider. You’ll have no trouble finding a wife among all the lovelies in Alagaësia.”

  “And what would you have done if Katrina rejected your suit?”

  The question struck Roran dumb; it was obvious he could not imagine how he might have reacted.

  Eragon continued. “Contrary to what you, Arya, and everyone else seem to believe, I am aware that other eligible women exist in Alagaësia and that people have been known to fall in love more than once. No doubt, if I spent my days in the company of ladies from King Orrin’s court, I might indeed decide that I fancy one. However, my path is not so easy as that. Regardless of whether I can shift my affections to another—and the heart, as you observed, is a notoriously fickle beast—the question remains: should I?”

  “Your tongue has grown as twisted as the roots of a fir tree,” said Roran. “Speak not in riddles.”

  “Very well: what human woman can begin to understand who and what I am, or the extent of my powers? Who could share in my life? Few enough, and all of them magicians. And of that select group, or even of women in general, how many are immortal?”

  Roran laughed, a rough, hearty bellow that rang loud in the gulch. “You might as well ask for the sun in your pocket or—” He stopped and tensed as if he were about to spring forward and then became unnaturally still. “You cannot be.”

  “I am.”

  Roran struggled to find words. “Is it a result of your change in Ellesméra, or is it part of being a Rider?”

  “Part of being a Rider.”

  “That explains why Galbatorix hasn’t died.”

  “Aye.”

  The branch Roran had added to the fire burst asunder with a muted pop as the coals underneath heated the gnarled length of wood to the point where a small cache of water or sap that had somehow evaded the rays of the sun for untold decades exploded into steam.

  “The idea is so . . . vast, it’s almost inconceivable,” said Roran. “Death is part of who we are. It guides us. It shapes us. It drives us to madness. Can you still be human if you have no mortal end?”

  “I’m not invincible,” Eragon pointed out. “I can still be killed with a sword or an arrow. And I can still catch some incurable disease.”

  “But if you avoid those dangers, you will live forever.”

  “If I do, then yes. Saphira and I will endure.”

  “It seems both a blessing and a curse.”

  “Aye. I cannot in good conscience marry a woman who will age and die while I remain untouched by time; such an experience would be equally cruel for both of us. On top of that, I find the thought of taking one wife after another throughout the long centuries rather depressing.”

  “Can you make someone immortal with magic?” asked Roran.

  “You can darken white hair, you can smooth wrinkles and remove cataracts, and if you are willing to go to extraordinary lengths, you can give a sixty-year-old man the body he had at nineteen. However, the elves have never discovered a way to restore a person’s mind without destroying his or her memories. And who wants to erase their identity every so many decades in exchange for immortality? It would be a stranger, then, who lived on. An old brain in a young body isn’t the answer either, for even with the best of health, that which we humans are made of can only last for a century, perhaps a bit more. Nor can you just stop someone from aging. That causes a whole host of other problems. . . . Oh, elves and men have tried a thousand and one different ways to foil death, but none have proved successful.”

  “In other words,” said Roran, “it’s safer for you to love Arya than to leave your heart free for the taking by a human woman.”

  “Who else can I marry but an elf? Especially considering how I look now.” Eragon quelled the desire to reach up and finger the curved tips of his ears, a habit he had fallen into. “When I lived in Ellesméra, it was easy for me to accept how the dragons had changed my appearance. After all, they gave me many gifts besides. Also, the elves were friendlier toward me after the Agaetí Blödhren. It was only when I rejoined the Varden that I realized how different I’ve become. . . . It bothers me too. I’m no longer just human, and I’m not quite an elf. I’m something else in between: a mix, a halfbreed.”

  “Cheer up!” said Roran. “You may not have to worry about living forever. Galbatorix, Murtagh, the Ra’zac, or even one of the Empire’s soldiers could put steel through us at any moment. A wise man would ignore the future and drink and carouse while he still has an opportunity to enjoy this world.”

  “I know what Father would say to that.”

  “And he’d give us a good hiding to boot.”

  They shared a laugh, and then the silence that so often intruded on their discussion asserted itself once again, a gap born of equal parts weariness, familiarity, and—conversely—the many differences that fate had created between those who had once gone about lives that were but variations on a single melody.

  
   You should sleep, said Saphira to Eragon and Roran. It’s late, and we must rise early tomorrow.

  Eragon looked at the black vault of the sky, judging the hour by how far the stars had rotated. The night was older than he expected. “Sound advice,” he said. “I just wish we had a few more days to rest before we storm Helgrind. The battle on the Burning Plains drained all of Saphira’s strength and my own, and we have not fully recovered, what with flying here and the energy I transferred into the belt of Beloth the Wise these past two evenings. My limbs still ache, and I have more bruises than I can count. Look. . . .” Loosening the ties on the cuff of his left shirtsleeve, he pushed back the soft lámarae—a fabric the elves made by cross-weaving wool and nettle threads—revealing a rancid yellow streak where his shield had mashed against his forearm.

  “Ha!” said Roran. “You call that tiny little mark a bruise? I hurt myself worse when I bumped my toe this morning. Here, I’ll show you a bruise a man can be proud of.” He unlaced his left boot, pulled it off, and rolled up the leg of his trousers to expose a black stripe as wide as Eragon’s thumb that slanted across his quadriceps. “I caught the haft of a spear as a soldier was turning about.”

  “Impressive, but I have even better.” Ducking out of his tunic, Eragon yanked his shirt free of his trousers and twisted to the side so that Roran could see the large blotch on his ribs and the similar discoloration on his belly. “Arrows,” he explained. Then he uncovered his right forearm, revealing a bruise that matched the one on his other arm, given when he had deflected a sword with his bracer.

  Now Roran bared a collection of irregular blue-green spots, each the size of a gold coin, that marched from his left armpit down to the base of his spine, the result of having fallen upon a jumble of rocks and embossed armor.

  Eragon inspected the lesions, then chuckled and said, “Pshaw, those are pinpricks! Did you get lost and run into a rosebush? I have one that puts those to shame.” He removed both his boots, then stood and dropped his trousers, so that his only garb was his shirt and woolen underpants. “Top that if you can,” he said, and pointed to the inside of his thighs. A riotous combination of colors mottled his skin, as if Eragon were an exotic fruit that was ripening in uneven patches from crabapple green to putrefied purple.

  “Ouch,” said Roran. “What happened?”

  “I jumped off Saphira when we were fighting Murtagh and Thorn in the air. That’s how I wounded Thorn. Saphira managed to dive under me and catch me before I hit the ground, but I landed on her back a bit harder than I wanted to.”

  Roran winced and shivered at the same time. “Does it go all the way . . .” He trailed off, and made a vague gesture upward.

  “Unfortunately.”

  “I have to admit, that’s a remarkable bruise. You should be proud; it’s quite a feat to get injured in the manner you did and in that . . . particular . . . place.”

  “I’m glad you appreciate it.”

  “Well,” said Roran, “you may have the biggest bruise, but the Ra’zac dealt me a wound the likes of which you cannot match, since the dragons, as I understand, removed the scar from your back.” While he spoke, he divested himself of his shirt and moved farther into the pulsing light of the coals.

  Eragon’s eyes widened before he caught himself and concealed his shock behind a more neutral expression. He berated himself for overreacting, thinking, It can’t be that bad, but the longer he studied Roran, the more dismayed he became.

  A long, puckered scar, red and glossy, wrapped around Roran’s right shoulder, starting at his collarbone and ending just past the middle of his arm. It was obvious that the Ra’zac had severed part of the muscle and that the two ends had failed to heal back together, for an unsightly bulge deformed the skin below the scar, where the underlying fibers had recoiled upon themselves. Farther up, the skin had sunk inward, forming a depression half an inch deep.

  “Roran! You should have shown this to me days ago. I had no idea the Ra’zac hurt you so badly. . . . Do you have any difficulty moving your arm?”

  “Not to the side or back,” said Roran. He demonstrated. “But in the front, I can only lift my hand about as high as . . . midchest.” Grimacing, he lowered his arm. “Even that’s a struggle; I have to keep my thumb level, or else my arm goes dead. The best way I’ve found is to swing my arm around from behind and let it land on whatever I’m trying to grasp. I skinned my knuckles a few times before I mastered the trick.”

  Eragon twisted the staff between his hands. Should I? he asked Saphira.

  
   I think you must.
  

  
   We may regret it tomorrow.
  

  
   You will have more cause for regret if Roran dies because he could not wield his hammer when the occasion demanded. If you draw upon the resources around us, you can avoid tiring yourself further.
  

  
   You know I hate doing that. Even talking about it sickens me.
  

  
   Our lives are more important than an ant’s, Saphira countered.

  
   Not to an ant.
  

  
   And are you an ant? Don’t be glib, Eragon; it ill becomes you.
  

  With a sigh, Eragon put down the staff and beckoned to Roran.

  “Here, I’ll heal that for you.”

  “You can do that?”

  “Obviously.”

  A momentary surge of excitement brightened Roran’s face, but then he hesitated and looked troubled. “Now? Is that wise?”

  “As Saphira said, better I tend to you while I have the chance, lest your injury cost you your life or endanger the rest of us.” Roran drew near, and Eragon placed his right hand over the red scar while, at the same time, expanding his consciousness to encompass the trees and the plants and the animals that populated the gulch, save those he feared were too weak to survive his spell.

  Then Eragon began to chant in the ancient language. The incantation he recited was long and complex. Repairing such a wound went far beyond growing new skin and was a difficult matter at best. In this, Eragon relied upon the curative formulas that he had studied in Ellesméra and had devoted so many weeks to memorizing.

  The silvery mark on Eragon’s palm, the gedwëy ignasia, glowed white-hot as he released the magic. A second later, he uttered an involuntary groan as he died three times, once each with two small birds roosting in a nearby juniper and also with a snake hidden among the rocks. Across from him, Roran threw back his head and bared his teeth in a soundless howl as his shoulder muscle jumped and writhed beneath the surface of his shifting skin.

  Then it was over.

  Eragon inhaled a shuddering breath and rested his head in his hands, taking advantage of the concealment they provided to wipe away his tears before he examined the results of his labor. He saw Roran shrug several times and then stretch and windmill his arms. Roran’s shoulder was large and round, the result of years spent digging holes for fence posts, hauling rocks, and pitching hay. Despite himself, a needle of envy pricked Eragon. He might be stronger, but he had never been as muscular as his cousin.

  Roran grinned. “It’s as good as ever! Better, maybe. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “It was the strangest thing. I actually felt as if I was going to crawl out of my hide. And it itched something terrible; I could barely keep from ripping—”

  “Get me some bread from your saddlebag, would you? I’m hungry.”

  “We just had dinner.”

  “I need a bite to eat after using magic like that.” Eragon sniffed and then pulled out his kerchief and wiped his nose. He sniffed again. What he had said was not quite true. It was the toll his spell had exacted on the wildlife that disturbed him, not the magic itself, and he feared he might throw up unless he had something to settle his stomach.

  “You’re not ill, are you?” asked Roran.

  “No.” With the memory of the deaths he had caused still heavy in his mind, Eragon reached for the jar of mead by his side, hoping to fend off a tide of morbid thoughts.

  Something very large, heavy, and sharp struck his hand and pinned it against the ground. He winced and looked over to see the tip of one of Saphira’s ivory claws digging into his flesh. Her thick eyelid went snick as it flashed across the great big glittering iris she fixed upon him. After a long moment, she lifted the claw, as a person would a finger, and Eragon withdrew his hand. He gulped and gripped the hawthorn staff once more, striving to ignore the mead and to concentrate upon what was immediate and tangible, instead of wallowing in dismal introspection.

  Roran removed a ragged half of sourdough bread from his bags, then paused and, with a hint of a smile, said, “Wouldn’t you rather have some venison? I didn’t finish all of mine.” He held out the makeshift spit of seared juniper wood, on which were impaled three clumps of golden brown meat. To Eragon’s sensitive nose, the odor that wafted toward him was thick and pungent and reminded him of nights he had spent in the Spine and of long winter dinners where he, Roran, and Garrow had gathered around their stove and enjoyed each other’s company while a blizzard howled outside. His mouth watered. “It’s still warm,” said Roran, and waved the venison in front of Eragon.

  With an effort of will, Eragon shook his head. “Just give me the bread.”

  “Are you sure? It’s perfect: not too tough, not too tender, and cooked with the perfect amount of seasoning. It’s so juicy, when you take a bite, it’s as if you swallowed a mouthful of Elain’s best stew.”

  “No, I can’t.”

  “You know you’ll like it.”

  “Roran, stop teasing me and hand over that bread!”

  “Ah, now see, you look better already. Maybe what you need isn’t bread but someone to get your hackles up, eh?”

  Eragon glowered at him, then, faster than the eye could see, snatched the bread away from Roran.

  That seemed to amuse Roran even more. As Eragon tore at the loaf, he said, “I don’t know how you can survive on nothing but fruit, bread, and vegetables. A man has to eat meat if he wants to keep his strength up. Don’t you miss it?”

  “More than you can imagine.”

  “Then why do you insist on torturing yourself like this? Every creature in this world has to eat other living beings—even if they are only plants—in order to survive. That is how we are made. Why attempt to defy the natural order of things?”

  
   I said much the same in Ellesméra, observed Saphira, but he did not listen to me.

  Eragon shrugged. “We already had this discussion. You do what you want. I won’t tell you or anyone else how to live. However, I cannot in good conscience eat a beast whose thoughts and feelings I’ve shared.”

  The tip of Saphira’s tail twitched, and her scales clinked against a worn dome of rock that protruded from the ground. Oh, he’s hopeless. Lifting and extending her neck, Saphira nipped the venison, spit and all, from Roran’s other hand. The wood cracked between her serrated teeth as she bit down, and then it and the meat vanished into the fiery depths of her belly. Mmm. You did not exaggerate, she said to Roran. What a sweet and succulent morsel: so soft, so salty, so deliciously delectable, it makes me want to wiggle with delight. You should cook for me more often, Roran Stronghammer. Only next time, I think you should prepare several deer at once. Otherwise, I won’t get a proper meal.

  Roran hesitated, as if unable to decide whether her request was serious and, if so, how he could politely extricate himself from such an unlooked-for and rather onerous obligation. He cast a pleading glance at Eragon, who burst out laughing, both at Roran’s expression and at his predicament.

  The rise and fall of Saphira’s sonorous laugh joined with Eragon’s and reverberated throughout the hollow. Her teeth gleamed madder red in the light from the embers.

  
An hour after the three of them had retired, Eragon was lying on his back alongside Saphira, muffled in layers of blankets against the night cold. All was still and quiet. It seemed as if a magician had placed an enchantment upon the earth and that everything in the world was bound in an eternal sleep and would remain frozen and unchanging forevermore underneath the watchful gaze of the twinkling stars.

  Without moving, Eragon whispered in his mind: Saphira?

  
   Yes, little one?
  

  
   What if I’m right and he’s in Helgrind? I don’t know what I should do then. . . . Tell me what I should do.
  

  
   I cannot, little one. This is a decision you have to make by yourself. The ways of men are not the ways of dragons. I would tear off his head and feast on his body, but that would be wrong for you, I think.
  

  
   Will you stand by me, whatever I decide?
  

  
   Always, little one. Now rest. All will be well.
  

  Comforted, Eragon gazed into the void between the stars and slowed his breathing as he drifted into the trance that had replaced sleep for him. He remained conscious of his surroundings, but against the backdrop of the white constellations, the figures of his waking dreams strode forth and performed confused and shadowy plays, as was their wont.

[bookmark: c03]
  
 

  ASSAULT ON HELGRIND

  
   Daybreak was fifteen minutes away when Eragon rolled upright. He snapped his fingers twice to wake Roran and then scooped up his blankets and knotted them into a tight bundle.

  Pushing himself off the ground, Roran did likewise with his own bedding.

  They looked at each other and shivered with excitement.

  “If I die,” said Roran, “you will see to Katrina?”

  “I shall.”

  “Tell her then that I went into battle with joy in my heart and her name upon my lips.”

  “I shall.”

  Eragon muttered a quick line in the ancient language. The drop in his strength that followed was almost imperceptible. “There. That will filter the air in front of us and protect us from the paralyzing effects of the Ra’zac’s breath.”

  From his bags, Eragon removed his shirt of mail and unwrapped the length of sackcloth he had stored it in. Blood from the fight on the Burning Plains still encrusted the once-shining corselet, and the combination of dried gore, sweat, and neglect had allowed blotches of rust to creep across the rings. The mail was, however, free of tears, as Eragon had repaired them before they had departed for the Empire.

  Eragon donned the leather-backed shirt, wrinkling his nose at the stench of death and desperation that clung to it, then attached chased bracers to his forearms and greaves to his shins. Upon his head he placed a padded arming cap, a mail coif, and a plain steel helm. He had lost his own helm—the one he had worn in Farthen Dûr and that the dwarves had engraved with the crest of Dûrgrimst Ingeitum—along with his shield during the aerial duel between Saphira and Thorn. On his hands went mailed gauntlets.

  Roran outfitted himself in a similar manner, although he augmented his armor with a wooden shield. A band of soft iron wrapped around the lip of the shield, the better to catch and hold an enemy’s sword. No shield encumbered Eragon’s left arm; the hawthorn staff required two hands to wield properly.

  Across his back, Eragon slung the quiver given to him by Queen Islanzadí. In addition to twenty heavy oak arrows fletched with gray goose feathers, the quiver contained the bow with silver fittings that the queen had sung out of a yew tree for him. The bow was already strung and ready for use.

  Saphira kneaded the soil beneath her feet. Let us be off!

  Leaving their bags and supplies hanging from the branch of a juniper tree, Eragon and Roran clambered onto Saphira’s back. They wasted no time saddling her; she had worn her tack through the night. The molded leather was warm, almost hot, underneath Eragon. He clutched the neck spike in front of him—to steady himself during sudden changes in direction—while Roran hooked one thick arm around Eragon’s waist and brandished his hammer with the other.

  A piece of shale cracked under Saphira’s weight as she settled into a low crouch and, in a single giddy bound, leaped up to the rim of the gulch, where she balanced for a moment before unfolding her massive wings. The thin membranes thrummed as Saphira raised them toward the sky. Vertical, they looked like two translucent blue sails.

  “Not so tight,” grunted Eragon.

  “Sorry,” said Roran. He loosened his embrace.

  Further speech became impossible as Saphira jumped again.

  When she reached the pinnacle, she brought her wings down with a mighty whoosh, driving the three of them even higher. With each subsequent flap, they climbed closer to the flat, narrow clouds.

  As Saphira angled toward Helgrind, Eragon glanced to his left and discovered that he could see a broad swath of Leona Lake some miles distant. A thick layer of mist, gray and ghostly in the predawn glow, emanated from the water, as if witchfire burned upon the surface of the liquid. Eragon tried, but even with his hawklike vision, he could not make out the far shore, nor the southern reaches of the Spine beyond, which he regretted. It had been too long since he had laid eyes upon the mountain range of his childhood.

  To the north stood Dras-Leona, a huge, rambling mass that appeared as a blocky silhouette against the wall of mist that edged its western flank. The one building Eragon could identify was the cathedral where the Ra’zac had attacked him; its flanged spire loomed above the rest of the city, like a barbed spearhead.

  And somewhere in the landscape that rushed past below, Eragon knew, were the remnants of the campsite where the Ra’zac had mortally wounded Brom. He allowed all of his anger and grief over the events of that day—as well as Garrow’s murder and the destruction of their farm—to surge forth and give him the courage, nay, the desire, to face the Ra’zac in combat.

  
   Eragon, said Saphira. Today we need not guard our minds and keep our thoughts secret from one another, do we?

  
   Not unless another magician should appear.
  

  A fan of golden light flared into existence as the top of the sun crested the horizon. In an instant, the full spectrum of colors enlivened the previously drab world: the mist glowed white, the water became a rich blue, the daubed-mud wall that encircled the center of Dras-Leona revealed its dingy yellow sides, the trees cloaked themselves in every shade of green, and the soil blushed red and orange. Helgrind, however, remained as it always was—black.

  The mountain of stone rapidly grew larger as they approached. Even from the air, it was intimidating.

  Diving toward the base of Helgrind, Saphira tilted so far to her left, Eragon and Roran would have fallen if they had not already strapped their legs to the saddle. Then she whipped around the apron of scree and over the altar where the priests of Helgrind observed their ceremonies. The lip of Eragon’s helm caught the wind from her passage and produced a howl that almost deafened him.

  “Well?” shouted Roran. He could not see in front of them.

  “The slaves are gone!”

  A great weight seemed to press Eragon into his seat as Saphira pulled out of her dive and spiraled up around Helgrind, searching for an entrance to the Ra’zac’s hideout.

  
   Not even a hole big enough for a woodrat, she declared. She slowed and hung in place before a ridge that connected the third lowest of the four peaks to the prominence above. The jagged buttress magnified the boom produced by each stroke of her wings until it was as loud as a thunderclap. Eragon’s eyes watered as the air pulsed against his skin.

  A web of white veins adorned the backside of the crags and pillars, where hoarfrost had collected in the cracks that furrowed the rock. Nothing else disturbed the gloom of Helgrind’s inky, windswept ramparts. No trees grew among the slanting stones, nor shrubs, grass, or lichen, nor did eagles dare nest upon the tower’s broken ledges. True to its name, Helgrind was a place of death, and stood cloaked in the razor-sharp, sawtooth folds of its scarps and clefts like a bony specter risen to haunt the earth.

  Casting his mind outward, Eragon confirmed the presence of the two people whom he had discovered imprisoned within Helgrind the previous day, but he felt nothing of the slaves, and to his concern, he still could not locate the Ra’zac or the Lethrblaka. If they aren’t here, then where? he wondered. Searching again, he noticed something that had eluded him before: a single flower, a gentian, blooming not fifty feet in front of them, where, by all rights, there ought to be solid rock. How does it get enough light to live?

  Saphira answered his question by perching on a crumbling spur several feet to the right. As she did, she lost her balance for a moment and flared her wings to steady herself. Instead of brushing against the bulk of Helgrind, the tip of her right wing dipped into the rock and then back out again.

  
   Saphira, did you see that!
  

  
   I did.
  

  Leaning forward, Saphira pushed the tip of her snout toward the sheer rock, paused an inch or two away—as if waiting for a trap to spring—then continued her advance. Scale by scale, Saphira’s head slid into Helgrind, until all that was visible of her to Eragon was a neck, torso, and wings.

  
   It’s an illusion! exclaimed Saphira.

  With a surge of her mighty thews, she abandoned the spur and flung the rest of her body after her head. It required every bit of Eragon’s self-control not to cover his face in a desperate bid to protect himself as the crag rushed toward him.

  An instant later, he found himself looking at a broad, vaulted cave suffused with the warm glow of morning. Saphira’s scales refracted the light, casting thousands of shifting blue flecks across the rock. Twisting around, Eragon saw no wall behind them, only the mouth of the cave and a sweeping view of the landscape beyond.

  Eragon grimaced. It had never occurred to him that Galbatorix might have hidden the Ra’zac’s lair with magic. Idiot! I have to do better, he thought. Underestimating the king was a sure way to get them all killed.

  Roran swore and said, “Warn me before you do something like that again.”

  Hunching forward, Eragon began to unbuckle his legs from the saddle as he studied their surroundings, alert for danger.

  The opening to the cave was an irregular oval, perhaps fifty feet high and sixty feet wide. From there the chamber expanded to twice that size before ending a good bowshot away in a pile of thick stone slabs that leaned against each other in a confusion of uncertain angles. A mat of scratches defaced the floor, evidence of the many times the Lethrblaka had taken off from, landed on, and walked about its surface. Like mysterious keyholes, five low tunnels pierced the sides of the cave, as did a lancet passageway large enough to accommodate Saphira. Eragon examined the tunnels carefully, but they were pitch-black and appeared vacant, a fact he confirmed with quick thrusts of his mind. Strange, disjointed murmurs echoed from within Helgrind’s innards, suggesting unknown things scurrying about in the dark, and endlessly dripping water. Adding to the chorus of whispers was the steady rise and fall of Saphira’s breathing, which was overloud in the confines of the bare chamber.

  The most distinctive feature of the cavern, however, was the mixture of odors that pervaded it. The smell of cold stone dominated, but underneath Eragon discerned whiffs of damp and mold and something far worse: the sickly sweet fetor of rotting meat.

  Undoing the last few straps, Eragon swung his right leg over Saphira’s spine, so he was sitting sidesaddle, and prepared to jump off her back. Roran did the same on the opposite side.

  Before he released his hold, Eragon heard, amid the many rustlings that teased his ear, a score of simultaneous clicks, as if someone had struck the rock with a collection of hammers. The sound repeated itself a half second later.

  He looked in the direction of the noise, as did Saphira.

  A huge, twisted shape hurtled out of the lancet passageway. Eyes black, bulging, rimless. A beak seven feet long. Batlike wings. The torso naked, hairless, rippling with muscle. Claws like iron spikes.

  Saphira lurched as she tried to evade the Lethrblaka, but to no avail. The creature crashed into her right side with what felt to Eragon like the strength and fury of an avalanche.

  What exactly happened next, he knew not, for the impact sent him tumbling through space without so much as a half-formed thought in his jumbled brain. His blind flight ended as abruptly as it began when something hard and flat rammed against the back of him, and he dropped to the floor, banging his head a second time.

  That last collision drove the remaining air clean out of Eragon’s lungs. Stunned, he lay curled on his side, gasping and struggling to regain a semblance of control over his unresponsive limbs.

  
   Eragon! cried Saphira.

  The concern in her voice fueled Eragon’s efforts as nothing else could. As life returned to his arms and legs, he reached out and grasped his staff from where it had fallen beside him. He planted the spike mounted on the staff’s lower end into a nearby crack and pulled himself up the hawthorn rod and onto his feet. He swayed. A swarm of crimson sparks danced before him.

  The situation was so confusing, he hardly knew where to look first.

  Saphira and the Lethrblaka rolled across the cave, kicking and clawing and snapping at each other with enough force to gouge the rock beneath them. The clamor of their fight must have been unimaginably loud, but to Eragon they grappled in silence; his ears did not work. Still, he felt the vibrations through the soles of his feet as the colossal beasts thrashed from side to side, threatening to crush anyone who came near them.

  A torrent of blue fire erupted from between Saphira’s jaws and bathed the left side of the Lethrblaka’s head in a ravening inferno hot enough to melt steel. The flames curved around the Lethrblaka without harming it. Undeterred, the monster pecked at Saphira’s neck, forcing her to stop and defend herself.

  Fast as an arrow loosed from a bow, the second Lethrblaka darted out of the lancet passageway, pounced upon Saphira’s flank, and, opening its narrow beak, uttered a horrible, withering shriek that made Eragon’s scalp prickle and a cold lump of dread form in his gut. He snarled in discomfort; that he could hear.

  The smell now, with both Lethrblaka present, resembled the sort of overpowering stench one would get from tossing a half-dozen pounds of rancid meat into a barrel of sewage and allowing the mixture to ferment for a week in summer.

  Eragon clamped his mouth shut as his gorge rose and turned his attention elsewhere to keep from retching.

  A few paces away, Roran lay crumpled against the side of the cave, where he too had landed. Even as Eragon watched, his cousin lifted an arm and pushed himself onto all fours and then to his feet. His eyes were glazed, and he tottered as if drunk.

  Behind Roran, the two Ra’zac emerged from a nearby tunnel. They wielded long, pale blades of an ancient design in their malformed hands. Unlike their parents, the Ra’zac were roughly the same size and shape as humans. An ebony exoskeleton encased them from top to bottom, although little of it showed, for even in Helgrind, the Ra’zac wore dark robes and cloaks.

  They advanced with startling swiftness, their movements sharp and jerky like those of an insect.

  And yet, Eragon still could not sense them or the Lethrblaka. Are they an illusion too? he wondered. But no, that was nonsense; the flesh Saphira tore at with her talons was real enough. Another explanation occurred to him: perhaps it was impossible to detect their presence. Perhaps the Ra’zac could conceal themselves from the minds of humans, their prey, just as spiders conceal themselves from flies. If so, then Eragon finally understood why the Ra’zac had been so successful hunting magicians and Riders for Galbatorix when they themselves could not use magic.

  
   Blast! Eragon would have indulged in more colorful oaths, but it was time for action, not cursing their bad luck. Brom had claimed the Ra’zac were no match for him in broad daylight, and while that might have been true—given that Brom had had decades to invent spells to use against the Ra’zac—Eragon knew that, without the advantage of surprise, he, Saphira, and Roran would be hard-pressed to escape with their lives, much less rescue Katrina.

  Raising his right hand above his head, Eragon cried, “Brisingr!” and threw a roaring fireball toward the Ra’zac. They dodged, and the fireball splashed against the rock floor, guttered for a moment, and then winked out of existence. The spell was silly and childish and could cause no conceivable damage if Galbatorix had protected the Ra’zac like the Lethrblaka. Still, Eragon found the attack immensely satisfying. It also distracted the Ra’zac long enough for Eragon to dash over to Roran and press his back against his cousin’s.

  “Hold them off for a minute,” he shouted, hoping Roran would hear. Whether he did or not, Roran grasped Eragon’s meaning, for he covered himself with his shield and lifted his hammer in preparation to fight.

  The amount of force contained within each of the Lethrblaka’s terrible blows had already depleted the wards against physical danger that Eragon had placed around Saphira. Without them, the Lethrblaka had inflicted several rows of scratches—long but shallow—along her thighs and had managed to stab her three times with their beaks; those wounds were short but deep and caused her a great deal of pain.

  In return, Saphira had laid open the ribs of one Lethrblaka and had bitten off the last three feet of the other’s tail. The Lethrblaka’s blood, to Eragon’s astonishment, was a metallic blue-green, not unlike the verdigris that forms on aged copper.

  At the moment, the Lethrblaka had withdrawn from Saphira and were circling her, lunging now and then in order to keep her at bay while they waited for her to tire or until they could kill her with a stab from one of their beaks.

  Saphira was better suited than the Lethrblaka to open combat by virtue of her scales—which were harder and tougher than the Lethrblaka’s gray hide—and her teeth—which were far more lethal in close quarters than the Lethrblaka’s beaks—but despite all that, she had difficulty fending off both creatures at once, especially since the ceiling prevented her from leaping and flying about and otherwise outmaneuvering her foes. Eragon feared that even if she prevailed, the Lethrblaka would maim her before she slew them.

  Taking a quick breath, Eragon cast a single spell that contained every one of the twelve techniques of killing that Oromis had taught him. He was careful to phrase the incantation as a series of processes, so that if Galbatorix’s wards foiled him