Eragon eyed the inhuman swordsmanship of the other elves with trepidation. Why do I have to do this? he asked. I’ll just be humiliated.
You’ll be fine, said Saphira, yet he could sense her concern for him.
Right.
As he prepared Zar’roc, Eragon’s hands trembled with dread. Instead of throwing himself into the fray, he fought Vanir from a distance, dodging, sidestepping, and doing everything possible to avoid triggering another fit. Despite Eragon’s evasions, Vanir touched him four times in rapid succession — once each on his ribs, shin, and both shoulders.
Vanir’s initial expression of stoic impassivity soon devolved into open contempt. Dancing forward, he slid his blade up Zar’roc’s length while at the same time twirling Zar’roc in a circle, wrenching Eragon’s wrist. Eragon allowed Zar’roc to fly out of his hand rather than resist the elf’s superior strength.
Vanir dropped his sword onto Eragon’s neck and said, “Dead.” Shrugging off the sword, Eragon trudged over to retrieve Zar’roc. “Dead,” said Vanir. “How do you expect to defeat Galbatorix like this? I expected better, even from a weakling human.”
“Then why don’t you fight Galbatorix yourself instead of hiding in Du Weldenvarden?”
Vanir stiffened with outrage. “Because,” he said, cool and haughty, “I’m not a Rider. And if I were, I would not be such a coward as you.”
No one moved or spoke on the field.
His back to Vanir, Eragon leaned on Zar’roc and craned his neck toward the sky, snarling to himself. He knows nothing. This is just one more test to overcome.
“Coward, I say. Your blood is as thin as the rest of your race’s. I think that Saphira was confused by Galbatorix’s wiles and made the wrong choice of Rider.” The spectating elves gasped at Vanir’s words and muttered among themselves with open disapproval for his atrocious breach of etiquette.
Eragon ground his teeth. He could stand insults to himself, but not to Saphira. She was already moving when his pent-up frustration, fear, and pain burst within him and he whirled around, the tip of Zar’roc whistling through the air.
The blow would have killed Vanir had he not blocked it at the last second. He looked surprised by the ferocity of the attack. Holding nothing in reserve, Eragon drove Vanir to the center of the field, jabbing and slashing like a madman — determined to hurt the elf however he could. He nicked Vanir on the hip with enough force to draw blood, even with Zar’roc’s blunted edge.
At that instant, Eragon’s back ruptured in an explosion of agony so intense, he experienced it with all five senses: as a deafening, crashing waterfall of sound; a metallic taste that coated his tongue; an acrid, eye-watering stench in his nostrils, redolent of vinegar; pulsing colors; and, above all, the feeling that Durza had just laid open his back.
He could see Vanir standing over him with a derisive sneer. It occurred to Eragon that Vanir was very young.
After the seizure, Eragon wiped the blood from his mouth with his hand and showed it to Vanir, asking, “Thin enough?” Vanir did not deign to respond, but rather sheathed his sword and walked away.
“Where are you going?” demanded Eragon. “We have unfinished business, you and I.”
“You are in no fit condition to spar,” scoffed the elf.
“Try me.” Eragon might be inferior to the elves, but he refused to give them the satisfaction of fulfilling their low expectations of him. He would earn their respect through sheer persistence, if nothing else.
He insisted on completing Oromis’s assigned hour, after which Saphira marched up to Vanir and touched him on the chest with the point of one of her ivory talons. Dead, she said. Vanir paled. The other elves edged away from him.
Once they were in the air, Saphira said, Oromis was right.
About what?
You give more of yourself when you have an opponent.
At Oromis’s hut, the day resumed its usual pattern: Saphira accompanied Glaedr for her instruction while Eragon remained with Oromis.
Eragon was horrified when he discovered that Oromis expected him to do the Rimgar in addition to his earlier exercises. It took all of his courage to obey. His apprehension proved groundless, though, for the Dance of Snake and Crane was too gentle to injure him.
That, coupled with his meditation in the secluded glade, provided Eragon with his first opportunity since the previous day to order his thoughts and consider the question that Oromis had posed him.
While he did, he observed his red ants invade a smaller, rival anthill, overrunning the inhabitants and stealing their resources. By the end of the massacre, only a handful of the rival ants were left alive, alone and purposeless in the vast and hostile pine-needle barrens.
Like the dragons in Alagaësia, thought Eragon. His connection to the ants vanished as he considered the dragons’ unhappy fate. Bit by bit, an answer to his problem revealed itself to him, an answer that he could live with and believe in.
He finished his meditations and returned to the hut. This time Oromis seemed reasonably satisfied with what Eragon had accomplished.
As Oromis served the midday meal, Eragon said, “I know why fighting Galbatorix is worth it, though thousands of people may die.”
“Oh?” Oromis seated himself. “Do tell me.”
“Because Galbatorix has already caused more suffering over the past hundred years than we ever could in a single generation. And unlike a normal tyrant, we cannot wait for him to die. He could rule for centuries or millennia — persecuting and tormenting people the entire time — unless we stop him. If he became strong enough, he would march on the dwarves and you here in Du Weldenvarden and kill or enslave both races. And...,” Eragon rubbed the heel of his palm against the edge of the table, “... because rescuing the two eggs from Galbatorix is the only way to save the dragons.”
The strident warble of Oromis’s teakettle intruded, escalating in volume until Eragon’s ears rang. Standing, Oromis hooked the kettle off the cookfire and poured the water for blueberry tea. The creases around his eyes softened. “Now,” he said, “you understand.”
“I understand, but I take no pleasure in it.”
“Nor should you. But now we can be confident that you won’t shrink from the path when you are confronted by the injustices and atrocities that the Varden will inevitably commit. We cannot afford to have you consumed by doubts when your strength and focus are most needed.” Oromis steepled his fingers and gazed into the dark mirror of his tea, contemplating whatever he saw in its tenebrous reflection. “Do you believe that Galbatorix is evil?”
“Of course!”
“Do you believe that he considers himself evil?”
“No, I doubt it.”
Oromis tapped his forefingers against each other. “Then you must also believe that Durza was evil?”
The fragmented memories Eragon had gleaned from Durza when they fought in Tronjheim returned to him now, reminding him how the young Shade — Carsaib, then — had been enslaved by the wraiths he had summoned to avenge the death of his mentor, Haeg. “He wasn’t evil himself, but the spirits that controlled him were.”
“And what of the Urgals?” asked Oromis, sipping his tea. “Are they evil?”
Eragon’s knuckles whitened as he gripped his spoon. “When I think of death, I see an Urgal’s face. They’re worse than beasts. The things they have done...” He shook his head, unable to continue.
“Eragon, what kind of opinion would you form of humans if all you knew of them were the actions of your warriors on the field of battle?”
“That’s not...” He took a deep breath. “It’s different. Urgals deserve to be wiped out, every last one of them.”
“Even their females and children? The ones who haven’t harmed you and likely never will? The innocents? Would you kill them and condemn an entire race to the void?”
“They wouldn’t spare us, given the chance.”
“Eragon!” exclaimed Oromis in biting tones. “I never want to hear you use that excuse agai
n, that because someone else has done — or would do — something means that you should too. It’s lazy, repugnant, and indicative of an inferior mind. Am I clear?”
“Yes, Master.”
The elf raised his mug to his lips and drank, his bright eyes fixed on Eragon the entire time. “What do you actually know of Urgals?”
“I know their strengths, weaknesses, and how to kill them. It’s all I need to know.”
“Why do they hate and fight humans, though? What about their history and legends, or the way in which they live?”
“Does it matter?”
Oromis sighed. “Just remember,” he said gently, “that at a certain point, your enemies may have to become your allies. Such is the nature of life.”
Eragon resisted the urge to argue. He swirled his own tea in its mug, accelerating the liquid into a black whirlpool with a white lens of foam at the bottom of the vortex. “Is that why Galbatorix enlisted the Urgals?”
“That is not an example I would have chosen, but yes.”
“It seems strange that he befriended them. After all, they were the ones who killed his dragon. Look what he did to us, the Riders, and we weren’t even responsible for his loss.”
“Ah,” said Oromis, “mad Galbatorix may be, but he’s still as cunning as a fox. I guess that he intended to use the Urgals to destroy the Varden and the dwarves — and others, if he had triumphed in Farthen Dûr — thereby removing two of his enemies while simultaneously weakening the Urgals so that he could dispose of them at his leisure.”
Study of the ancient language devoured the afternoon, whereupon they took up the practice of magic. Much of Oromis’s lectures concerned the proper way in which to control various forms of energy, such as light, heat, electricity, and even gravity. He explained that since these forces consumed strength faster than any other type of spell, it was safer to find them already in existence in nature and then shape them with gramarye, instead of trying to create them from nothing.
Abandoning the subject, Oromis asked, “How would you kill with magic?”
“I’ve done it many ways,” said Eragon. “I’ve hunted with a pebble — moving and aiming it with magic — as well as using the word jierda to break Urgals’ legs and necks. Once, with thrysta, I stopped a man’s heart.”
“There are more efficient methods,” revealed Oromis. “What does it take to kill a man, Eragon? A sword through the chest? A broken neck? The loss of blood? All it takes is for a single artery in the brain to be pinched off, or for certain nerves to be severed. With the right spell, you could obliterate an army.”
“I should have thought of that in Farthen Dûr,” said Eragon, disgusted with himself. Not just Farthen Dûr either, but also when the Kull chased us from the Hadarac Desert. “Again, why didn’t Brom teach me this?”
“Because he did not expect you to face an army for months or years to come; it is not a tool given to untested Riders.”
“If it’s so easy to kill people, though, what’s the point of us or Galbatorix raising an army?”
“To be succinct, tactics. Magicians are vulnerable to physical attack when they are embroiled in their mental struggles. Therefore, they need warriors to protect them. And the warriors must be shielded, at least in part, from magical attacks, else they would be slain within minutes. These limitations mean that when armies confront one another, their magicians are scattered throughout the bulk of their forces, close to the edge but not so close as to be in danger. The magicians on both sides open their minds and attempt to sense if anyone is using or is about to use magic. Since their enemies might be beyond their mental reach, magicians also erect wards around themselves and their warriors to stop or lessen long-range attacks, such as a pebble sent flying toward their head from a mile away.”
“Surely one man can’t defend an entire army,” said Eragon.
“Not alone, but with enough magicians, you can provide a reasonable amount of protection. The greatest danger in this sort of conflict is that a clever magician may think of a unique attack that can bypass your wards without tripping them. That itself could be enough to decide a battle.
“Also,” said Oromis, “you must keep in mind that the ability to use magic is exceedingly rare among the races. We elves are no exception, although we have a greater allotment of spellweavers than most, as a result of oaths we bound ourselves with centuries ago. The majority of those blessed with magic have little or no appreciable talent; they struggle to heal even so much as a bruise.”
Eragon nodded. He had encountered magicians like that in the Varden. “But it still takes the same amount of energy to accomplish a task.”
“Energy, yes, but lesser magicians find it harder than you or I do to feel the flow of magic and immerse themselves in it. Few magicians are strong enough to pose a threat to an entire army. And those who are usually spend the bulk of their time during battles evading, tracking, or fighting their opposites, which is fortunate from the standpoint of ordinary warriors, else they would all soon be killed.”
Troubled, Eragon said, “The Varden don’t have many magicians.”
“That is one reason why you are so important.”
A moment passed as Eragon reflected on what Oromis had told him. “These wards, do they only drain energy from you when they are activated?”
“Aye.”
“Then, given enough time, you could acquire countless layers of wards. You could make yourself...” He struggled with the ancient language as he attempted to express himself. “... untouchable?... impregnable?... impregnable to any assault, magical or physical.”
“Wards,” said Oromis, “rely upon the strength of your body. If that strength is exceeded, you die. No matter how many wards you have, you will only be able to block attacks so long as your body can sustain the output of energy.”
“And Galbatorix’s strength has been increasing each year... How is that possible?”
It was a rhetorical question, yet when Oromis remained silent, his almond eyes fixed on a trio of swallows pirouetting overhead, Eragon realized that the elf was considering how best to answer him. The birds chased each other for several minutes. When they flitted from view, Oromis said, “It is not appropriate to have this discussion at the present.”
“Then you know?” exclaimed Eragon, astonished.
“I do. But that information must wait until later in your training. You are not ready for it.” Oromis looked at Eragon, as if expecting him to object.
Eragon bowed. “As you wish, Master.” He could never prize the information out of Oromis until the elf was willing to share it, so why try? Still, he wondered what could be so dangerous that Oromis dared not tell him, and why the elves had kept it secret from the Varden. Another thought presented itself to him, and he said, “If battles with magicians are conducted like you said, then why did Ajihad let me fight without wards in Farthen Dûr? I didn’t even know that I needed to keep my mind open for enemies. And why didn’t Arya kill most or all of the Urgals? No magicians were there to oppose her except for Durza, and he couldn’t have defended his troops when he was underground.”
“Did not Ajihad have Arya or one of Du Vrangr Gata set defenses around you?” demanded Oromis.
“No, Master.”
“And you fought thus?”
“Yes, Master.”
Oromis’s eyes unfocused, withdrawing into himself as he stood motionless on the greensward. He spoke without warning: “I have consulted Arya, and she says that the Twins of the Varden were ordered to assess your abilities. They told Ajihad you were competent in all magic, including wards. Neither Ajihad nor Arya doubted their judgment on that matter.”
“Those smooth-tongued, bald-pated, tick-infested, treacherous dogs,” swore Eragon. “They tried to get me killed!” Reverting to his own language, he indulged in several more pungent oaths.
“Do not befoul the air,” said Oromis mildly. “It ill becomes you... In any case, I suspect the Twins allowed you into battle unprotected not so you woul
d be killed, but so that Durza could capture you.”
“What?”
“By your own account, Ajihad suspected that the Varden had been betrayed when Galbatorix began persecuting their allies in the Empire with near-perfect accuracy. The Twins were privy to the identities of the Varden’s collaborators. Also, the Twins lured you to the heart of Tronjheim, thereby separating you from Saphira and placing you within Durza’s reach. That they were traitors is the logical explanation.”
“If they were traitors,” said Eragon, “it doesn’t matter now; they’re long dead.”
Oromis inclined his head. “Even so. Arya said that the Urgals did have magicians in Farthen Dûr and that she fought many of them. None of them attacked you?”
“No, Master.”
“More evidence that you and Saphira were left for Durza to capture and take to Galbatorix. The trap was well laid.”
Over the next hour, Oromis taught Eragon twelve methods to kill, none of which took more energy than lifting an ink-laden pen. As he finished memorizing the last one, a thought struck Eragon that caused him to grin. “The Ra’zac won’t stand a chance the next time they cross my path.”
“You must still be wary of them,” cautioned Oromis.
“Why? Three words and they’ll be dead.”
“What do ospreys eat?”
Eragon blinked. “Fish, of course.”
“And if a fish were slightly faster and more intelligent than its brethren, would it be able to escape a hunting osprey?”
“I doubt it,” said Eragon. “At least not for very long.”
“Just as ospreys are designed to be the best possible hunters of fish, wolves are designed to be the best hunters of deer and other large game, and every animal is gifted to best suit its purpose. So too are the Ra’zac designed to prey upon humans. They are the monsters in the dark, the dripping nightmares that haunt your race.”
The back of Eragon’s neck prickled with horror. “What manner of creatures are they?”
“Neither elf; man; dwarf; dragon; furred, finned, or feathered beast; reptile; insect; nor any other category of animal.”
Eragon forced a laugh. “Are they plants, then?”
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