by Dajala
“Again, we are in your debt, Firesword,” said Garzhvog. He and the other Urgals pressed their fists against their jutting brows.
Eragon could tell that Nasuada wanted to know the details of what had just transpired but that she restrained herself. “Good. Now that this is settled, I must be off. Eragon, you’ll receive my signal from Trianna when the time has arrived.” With that she strode away into the darkness.
As Eragon settled against Saphira, Orik sidled up to him. “It’s lucky we dwarves are going to be here, eh? We’ll watch the Kull like hawks, we will. We won’t let them catch you while your back is turned. The moment they attack, we’ll cut their legs out from under them.”
“I thought you agreed with Nasuada’s accepting the Urgals’ offer.”
“That doesn’t mean I trust them or want to be right alongside them, now does it?” Eragon smiled and did not bother to argue; it would be impossible to convince Orik that the Urgals were not rapacious killers when he himself had refused to consider the possibility until sharing an Urgal’s memories.
The night lay heavy around them as they waited for dawn. Orik removed a whetstone from his pocket and proceeded to hone the edge of his curved ax. Once they arrived, the six other dwarves did the same, and the rasp of metal on stone filled the air with a grating chorus. The Kull sat back to back, chanting death songs under their breaths. Eragon spent the time casting wards about himself, Saphira, Nasuada, Orik, and even Arya. He knew that it was dangerous to protect so many, but he could not bear it if they were harmed. When he finished, he transferred what power he dared into the diamonds embedded within the belt of Beloth the Wise.
Eragon watched with interest as Angela clad herself in green and black armor and then, taking out a carved-wood case, assembled her staff-sword from two separate handles that attached in the middle and two blades of watered steel that threaded into the ends of the resulting pole. She twirled the completed weapon around her head a few times before seeming satisfied that it would hold up to the shock of battle.
The dwarves eyed her with disapproval, and Eragon heard one grumble, “… blasphemy that any but Dûrgrimst Quan should wield the hûthvír.”
After that the only sound was the discordant music of the dwarves honing their blades.
It was near dawn when the cries began. Eragon and Saphira noticed them first because of their heightened senses, but the agonized screams were soon loud enough for the others to hear. Rising to his feet, Orik looked out toward the Empire, where the cacophony originated. “What manner of creatures are they torturing to extract such fearsome howls? The sound chills the marrow in my bones, it does.”
“I told you that you wouldn’t have to wait very long,” said Angela. Her former cheer had deserted her; she looked pale, drawn, and gray in the face, as if she were ill.
From his post by Saphira, Eragon asked, “Youdid this?”
“Aye. I poisoned their stew, their bread, their drink—anything I could get my hands on. Some will die now, others will die later as the various toxins take their toll. I slipped the officers nightshade and other such poisons so they will hallucinate in battle.” She tried to smile, but without much success. “Not a very honorable way to fight, I suppose, but I’d rather do this than be killed. Confusion to our enemies and all that.”
“Only a coward or a thief uses poison!” exclaimed Orik. “What glory is there in defeating a sick opponent?” The screams intensified even as he spoke.
Angela gave an unpleasant laugh. “Glory? If you want glory, there are thousands more troops I didn’t poison. I’m sure you will have your fill ofglory by the end of today.”
“Is this why you needed the equipment in Orrin’s tent?” asked Eragon. He found her deed repugnant but did not pretend to know whether it was good or evil. It was necessary. Angela had poisoned the soldiers for the same reason Nasuada had accepted the Urgals’ offer of friendship—because it might be their only hope of survival.
“That’s right.”
The soldiers’ wails increased in number until Eragon longed to plug his ears and block out the sound. It made him wince and fidget, and it put his teeth on edge. He forced himself to listen, though. This was the cost of resisting the Empire. It would be wrong to ignore it. So he sat with his hands clenched into fists and his jaw forming painful knots while the Burning Plains echoed with the disembodied voices of dying men.
THE STORM BREAKS
The first horizontal rays of dawn already streaked across the land when Trianna said to Eragon, It is time. A surge of energy erased Eragon’s sleepiness. Jumping to his feet, he shouted the word to everyone around him, even as he clambered into Saphira’s saddle, pulling his new bow from its quiver. The Kull and dwarves surrounded Saphira, and together they hurried down the breastwork until they reached the opening that had been cleared during the night.
The Varden poured through the gap, quiet as they could be. Rank upon rank of warriors marched past, their armor and weapons padded with rags so no sound would alert the Empire of their approach. Saphira joined the procession when Nasuada appeared on a roan charger in the midst of the men, Arya and Trianna by her side. The five of them acknowledged each other with quick glances, nothing more.
During the night, the mephitic vapors had accumulated low to the ground, and now the dim morning light gilded the turgid clouds, turning them opaque. Thus, the Varden managed to cross three-quarters of the no-man’s-land before they were seen by the Empire’s sentries. As the alarm horns rang out before them, Nasuada shouted, “Now, Eragon! Tell Orrin to strike. To me, men of the Varden! Fight to win back your homes. Fight to guard your wives and children! Fight to overthrow Galbatorix! Attack and bathe your blades in the blood of our enemies! Charge!” She spurred her horse forward, and with a great bellow, the men followed, shaking their weapons above their heads.
Eragon conveyed Nasuada’s order to Barden, the spellcaster who rode with King Orrin. A moment later, he heard the drumming of hooves as Orrin and his cavalry—accompanied by the rest of the Kull, who could run as fast as horses—galloped out of the east. They charged into the Empire’s flank, pinning the soldiers against the Jiet River and distracting them long enough for the Varden to cross the remainder of the distance between them without opposition.
The two armies collided with a deafening roar. Pikes clashed against spears, hammers against shields, swords against helms, and above it all whirled the hungry gore-crows uttering their harsh croaks, driven into a frenzy by the smell of fresh meat below.
Eragon’s heart leaped within his chest. I must now kill or be killed. Almost immediately he felt his wards drawing upon his strength as they deflected attacks from Arya, Orik, Nasuada, and Saphira.
Saphira held back from the leading edge of the battle, for they would be too exposed to Galbatorix’s magicians at the front. Taking a deep breath, Eragon began to search for those magicians with his mind, firing arrows all the while.
Du Vrangr Gata found the first enemy spellcaster. The instant he was alerted, Eragon reached out to the woman who made the discovery, and from there to the foe she grappled with. Bringing the full power of his will to bear, Eragon demolished the magician’s resistance, took control of his consciousness—doing his best to ignore the man’s terror—determined which troops the man was guarding, and slew the man with one of the twelve words of death. Without pause, Eragon located the minds of each of the now-unprotected soldiers and killed them as well. The Varden cheered as the knot of men went limp.
The ease with which he slew them amazed Eragon. The soldiers had had no chance to escape or fight back. How different from Farthen Dûr, he thought. Though he marveled at the perfection of his skills, the deaths sickened him. But there was no time to dwell on it.
Recovering from the Varden’s initial assault, the Empire began to man their engines of war: catapults that cast round missiles of hard-baked ceramic, trebuchets armed with barrels of liquid fire, and ballistae that bombarded the attackers with a hail of arrows six feet long. Th
e ceramic balls and the liquid fire caused terrific damage when they landed. One ball exploded against the ground not ten yards from Saphira. As Eragon ducked behind his shield, a jagged fragment spun toward his head, only to be stopped dead in the air by one of his wards. He blinked at the sudden loss of energy.
The engines soon stalled the Varden’s advance, sowing mayhem wherever they aimed. They have to be destroyed if we’re going to last long enough to wear down the Empire, realized Eragon. It would be easy for Saphira to dismantle the machines, but she dared not fly among the soldiers for fear of an attack by magic.
Breaking through the Varden lines, eight soldiers stormed toward Saphira, jabbing at her with pikes. Before Eragon could draw Zar’roc, the dwarves and Kull eliminated the entire group.
“A good fight!” roared Garzhvog.
“A good fight!” agreed Orik with a bloody grin.
Eragon did not use spells against the engines; they would be protected against any conceivable enchantment. Unless… Extending himself, he found the mind of a soldier who tended one of the catapults. Though he was sure the soldier was defended by some magician, Eragon was able to gain dominance over him and direct his actions from afar. He guided the man up to the weapon, which was being loaded, then had him use his sword to hack at the skein of twisted rope that powered the machine. The rope was too thick to sever before the soldier was dragged away by his comrades, but the damage was already done. With a mightycrack, the partially wound skein broke, sending the arm of the catapult flying backward and injuring several men. His lips curled in a grim smile, Eragon proceeded to the next catapult and, in short order, disabled the remainder of the engines.
Returning to himself, Eragon became aware of dozens of the Varden collapsing around Saphira; one of Du Vrangr Gata had been overwhelmed. He uttered a dreadful curse and flung himself back along the trail of magic as he searched for the man who cast the fatal spell, entrusting the welfare of his body to Saphira and his guards.
For over an hour, Eragon hunted Galbatorix’s magicians, but to little avail, for they were wily and cunning and did not directly attack him. Their reticence puzzled Eragon until he tore from the mind of one spellcaster—moments before he committed suicide—the thought, … ordered not to kill you or the dragon… not to kill you or the dragon.
That answers my question,he said to Saphira, but whydoes Galbatorix still want us alive? We’ve made it clear we support the Varden.
Before she could respond, Nasuada appeared before them, her face streaked with filth and gore, her shield covered with dents, blood sheeting down her left leg from a wound on her thigh. “Eragon,” she gasped. “I need you, both of you, to fight, to show yourselves and embolden the men… to frighten the soldiers.”
Her condition shocked Eragon. “Let me heal you first,” he cried, afraid she might faint. I should have put more wards around her.
“No! I can wait, but we are lost unless you stem the tide of soldiers.” Her eyes were glazed and empty, blank holes in her face. “We need… a Rider.” She swayed in her saddle.
Eragon saluted her with Zar’roc. “You have one, my Lady.”
“Go,” she said, “and may what gods there are watch over you.”
Eragon was too high on Saphira’s back to strike his enemies below, so he dismounted and positioned himself by her right paw. To Orik and Garzhvog, he said, “Protect Saphira’s left side. And whatever you do, don’t get in our way.”
“You will be overrun, Firesword.”
“No,” said Eragon, “I won’t. Now take your places!” As they did, he put his hand on Saphira’s leg and looked her in one clear-cut sapphire eye. Shall we dance, friend of my heart?
We shall, little one.
Then he and she merged their identities to a greater degree than ever before, vanquishing all differences between them to become a single entity. They bellowed, leaped forward, and forged a path to the front line. Once there, Eragon could not tell from whose mouth emanated the ravenous jet of flame that consumed a dozen soldiers, cooking them in their mail, nor whose arm it was that brought Zar’roc down in an arc, cleaving a soldier’s helm in half.
The metallic scent of blood clogged the air, and curtains of smoke wafted over the Burning Plains, alternately concealing and revealing the knots, clumps, ranks, and battalions of thrashing bodies. Overhead, the carrion birds waited for their meal and the sun climbed in the firmament toward noon.
From the minds of those around them, Eragon and Saphira caught glimpses of how they appeared. Saphira was always noticed first: a great ravening creature with claws and fangs dyed red, who slew all in her path with swipes of her paws and lashes of her tail and with billowing waves of flame that engulfed entire platoons of soldiers. Her brilliant scales glittered like stars and nearly blinded her foes with their reflected light. Next they saw Eragon running alongside Saphira. He moved faster than the soldiers could react and, with strength beyond men, splintered shields with a single blow, rent armor, and clove the swords of those who opposed him. Shot and dart cast at him fell to the pestilent ground ten feet away, stopped by his wards.
It was harder for Eragon—and, by extension, Saphira—to fight his own race than it had been to fight the Urgals in Farthen Dûr. Every time he saw a frightened face or looked into a soldier’s mind, he thought, This could be me. But he and Saphira could afford no mercy; if a soldier stood before them, he died.
Three times they sallied forth and three times Eragon and Saphira slew every man in the Empire’s first few ranks before retreating to the main body of the Varden to avoid being surrounded. By the end of their last attack, Eragon had to reduce or eliminate certain wards around Arya, Orik, Nasuada, Saphira, and himself in order to keep the spells from exhausting him too quickly. For though his strength was great, so too were the demands of battle.
Ready? he asked Saphira after a brief respite. She growled an affirmative.
A cloud of arrows whistled toward Eragon the instant he dove back into combat. Fast as an elf, he dodged the bulk of them—since his magic no longer protected him from such missiles—caught twelve on his shield, and stumbled as one struck his belly and one his side. Neither shaft pierced his armor, but they knocked the wind out of him and left bruises the size of apples. Don’t stop! You’ve dealt with worse pain than this before, he told himself.
Rushing a cluster of eight soldiers, Eragon darted from one to the next, knocking aside their pikes and jabbing Zar’roc like a deadly bolt of lightning. The fighting had dulled his reflexes, though, and one soldier managed to drive his pike through Eragon’s hauberk, slicing his left triceps.
The soldiers cringed as Saphira roared.
Eragon took advantage of the distraction to fortify himself with energy stored within the ruby in Zar’roc’s pommel and then to kill the three remaining soldiers.
Sweeping her tail over him, Saphira knocked a score of men out of his way. In the lull that followed, Eragon looked over at his throbbing arm and said, “Waíse heill.” He also healed his bruises, relying upon Zar’roc’s ruby, as well as the diamonds in the belt of Beloth the Wise.
Then the two of them pressed onward.
Eragon and Saphira choked the Burning Plains with mountains of their enemies, and yet the Empire never faltered or fell back. For every man they killed, another stepped forth to take his place. A sense of hopelessness engulfed Eragon as the mass of soldiers gradually forced the Varden to retreat toward their own camp. He saw his despair mirrored in the faces of Nasuada, Arya, King Orrin, and even Angela when he passed them in battle.
All our training and we still can’t stop the Empire,raged Eragon. There are just too many soldiers! We can’t keep this up forever. And Zar’roc and the belt are almost depleted.
You can draw energy from your surroundings if you have to.
I won’t, not unless I kill another of Galbatorix’s magicians and can take it from the soldiers. Otherwise, I’ll just be hurting the rest of the Varden, since there are no plants or animals here I can use
to support us.
As the long hours dragged by, Eragon grew sore and weary and—stripped of many of his arcane defenses—accumulated dozens of minor injuries. His left arm went numb from the countless blows that hammered his mangled shield. A scratch on his forehead kept blinding him with rivulets of hot, sweat-mixed blood. He thought one of his fingers might be broken.
Saphira fared no better. The soldiers’ armor tore the inside of her mouth, dozens of swords and arrows cut her unprotected wings, and a javelin punctured one of her own plates of armor, wounding her in the shoulder. Eragon saw the spear coming and tried to deflect it with a spell but was too slow. Whenever Saphira moved, she splattered the ground with hundreds of drops of blood.
Beside them, three of Orik’s warriors fell, and two of the Kull.
And the sun began its descent toward evening.
As Eragon and Saphira prepared for their seventh and final assault, a trumpet sounded in the east, loud and clear, and King Orrin shouted, “The dwarves are here! The dwarves are here!”
Dwarves? Eragon blinked and glanced around, confused. He saw nothing but soldiers. Then a jolt of excitement raced through him as he understood. The dwarves! He climbed onto Saphira and she jumped into the air, hanging for a moment on her tattered wings as they surveyed the battlefield.
It was true—a great host marched out of the east toward the Burning Plains. At its head strode King Hrothgar, clad in gold mail, his jeweled helm upon his brow, and Volund, his ancient war hammer, gripped in his iron fist. The dwarf king raised Volund in greeting when he saw Eragon and Saphira.
Eragon howled at the top of his lungs and returned the gesture, brandishing Zar’roc in the air. A surge of renewed vigor made him forget his wounds and feel fierce and determined again. Saphira added her voice to his, and the Varden looked to her with hope, while the Empire’s soldiers hesitated with fear.
“What did you see?” cried Orik as Saphira dropped back to earth. “Is it Hrothgar? How many warriors did he bring?”