The Black Morass

by Gerald Lambert

  In spite of the fact that Brin killed twelve of the magicians rushing toward her in less than ten seconds, she immediately realized that this would be the hardest fight of her life. She

  was instantly grateful for the steelsilk armor, which protected her body—particularly her abdomen and the baby developing inside—from the numerous blows and jabs of the

  enemies who managed to reach her.

  I'll protect you, baby, she vowed. And you will meet your father. No way I'm letting anyone get by me.

  To keep them from pulling her down to the ground and reaching Brom, she instantly began involving every part of her body while also never slowing the twirling of her staff. The

  razor sharp blades on either end allowed Brin to truncate or skewer the opponents surrounding her with far greater dexterity than her sword would have. Brom always joked that

  she was really good at fighting with her whole body and he was right, especially when Brin utilized her staff.

  Rhunön had fashioned this unique weapon for her after learning of Brin's assignment to master all forms of fighting. Ever fascinated with methods and modes of combat, Rhunön

  had drilled Brin during each of her visits to Ellesméra. On one such occasion, Brin had related a story she heard from her Uncle Eragon—Brin realized with a jolt that he was now

  her fatherinlaw—of his exploits during the war against Galbatorix. Uncle Murtagh had taken Eragon's sword, leaving him with only a staff as a weapon. Though less than ideal, the

  staff had proved advantageous for a number of reasons during his fight with the Ra'zac at Helgrind. Eragon fully utilized these advantages in that contest, and he had shared the

  experience with Brin during one of their fighting lessons—Brin had privately trained with each of the senior Dragon Riders as she attempted to master their specialties.

  Brin's mind flashed back to the present as she bashed the nearest attacker with her forehead. Elbow to the throat. Swipe with her staff. Another head off. Knee to the groin. Another

  head rolling. She smashed the central handle of her staff into another woman's face, then slashed it sharply forward to decapitate the man pressing in from just behind the woman.

  Horn in this one's eye. Take out that one's feet. Head off. Kick in his knees.

  But the problem was, none of these magicians could feel pain! Usually kneeing a man in the groin as hard as Brin was nearly crippled him, at least temporarily, but these men only

  laughed and kept right on coming!

  That laughing! Could it really be called laughing? Brin remembered other stories from the war against Galbatorix—these told by her Uncle Yarbog or Grandpa Garzhvog. Galbatorix's magically immune soldiers developed the reputation of being the Varden's most feared opponents. Their ghoulish, deranged cackling was enough to set any warrior on edge,

  especially when blows that usually resulted in death merely resulted in amusement. The injured men would rise up again and keep fighting until the Varden's men were completely

  exhausted and demoralized.

  Soon Brin couldn't even think to keep track of the movements of her hands, arms, elbows, feet, knees, and horns. Too much focus. She was a windmill of reflexes, strictly reacting

  to the nearest threat and beheading everything in between.

  Too much thinking! Stab. Behead. Kick. Behead.

  Brin couldn't hear anything over the demented chortling and her own screams. Screams of horror at what she was doing. How many lives she was ending. She was glad Brom had

  plugged his ears. She doubted even he would be able to ignore the hellish sounds surrounding him, especially those coming from her.

  Too much thinking. Slash. Behead. Elbow. Head off. Shove.

  She could barely see around the insane flurry of activity around her.

  Too much thinking. Trust your instincts. Just keep them away from Brom. If he fails, Tenga wins. And then we all die.

  After Hanna darted into the fray, hastily informing them that Nefin had somehow been poisoned, Zadí, Lena, and Swiftpaw alone remained out in the hallway. But they were by no means ignorant of what was going on inside, for their ears picked up on the many horrifying sounds echoing within the vaulted chamber just opposite the door they huddled beside.

  Thunderous booms and a rush of heat accompanied what must have been enormous flames of some sort. Deafening shrieking indicated huge gusts of wind, which the girls could

  hear and feel whistling under the door. The stone corridor buckled and debris from a splintering ceiling rained down around the three occupants of the hallway, who crouched

  together with their arms overhead to protect themselves from the light shower. Zadí hoped the edifice would remain standing. She figured if it hadn't fallen during the battle

  between Galbatorix and the other Riders, it was unlikely right now.

  Then an awful stench coming from heavens knew where concluded the outward evidence of what Zadí guessed was Brom's magical duel with Tenga.

  On top of all that, maniacal laughter clashed with gurgling death screams as countless magicians met their end. But the two girls shared the same concern as they identified the

  nearly identical shouting coming from their respective husbands. Neither one could avoid peeking through the door, which stood slightly ajar after the tremors from the earth finally

  stopped.

  Will and Var fought back to back with Ajh, forming a rough triangle as they faced the relentless onslaught of magicians teeming around the hall. They must have known not to leave

  their backs unprotected, but it was also clear that the men were beginning to feel overwhelmed.

  A trail of carnage led away from the mass near the center of the spacious room toward where Keeta now fought in front of a far wall, encircled by the dead bodies of enemies who

  had rushed toward Nefin and Hanna on Tenga's command. Zadí could see an arrow lodged in one eyeball of every fallen magician comprising this path and knew they had died at

  Nefin's hand—before he had been poisoned and Hanna had gone in.

  Another line of skewered or headless corpses trailed toward Brin, who was guarding Brom in front of the adjacent wall. As the entrance to the hall was positioned off to one side,

  Zadí saw Brin when looking straight in from the door, whereas she had to glance over her left shoulder to observe Keeta. But she tried hard not to examine either of her friends or

  their actions too closely. The scene of bloodshed and death was more disturbing than Zadí could have ever imagined.

  Zadí's eyes snapped to Var as she recognized a familiar roar of anger. But it wasn't Var. Will's face twisted into a snarl of pain as an attacking magician lodged its—his? her?—

  weapon in his hamstring. Will rudely separated the offender's sore infested head from its body in a spray of blood, and Zadí cringed, turning her head away and clamping her lips

  together as her gorge rose.

  "I'm going in," Lena muttered, rising to her feet. "I won't lose my husband this way. Swiftpaw and I can do something."

  "But" Zadí tried to object, reaching toward Lena. It was no use. Lena and Swiftpaw joined the battle, running between the enemies fighting Brin and those attacking Keeta to reach

  the group still in the middle. Zadí anxiously watched as Lena snatched up a weapon from a fallen magician and started slashing at deformed spellcasters near the outskirts of the

  cluster surrounding her brother, husband, and Var. The werecat pounced on the next nearest person and scratched out his eyes, spitting furiously with her hackles raised.

  Despite the horrors of the fighting, Zadí couldn't keep her eyes off Var. He and Will stood head and shoulders taller than anyone else in the room. Their height had prevented them

  from receiving the same type of injuries as Ajh, though Will's lower half had just sustained a crippling wound. Keeta's helmet seemed to be protecting her head and neck, but Ajh

  had a serious gash on his temple. The twins' armor and
strength made them most equal to the task of mowing down their opponents, especially since they knew two friends

  watched their backs, which luxury Keeta and Brin did not enjoy.

  All three men yelled wildly—partly due to the thrill of battle, Zadí guessed, and partly because they were appalled by the brutality of their actions—as they chopped off head after

  head, which seemed the main way the former young Dragon Riders were disposing of their enemies. The fighting was happening in such close quarters that they didn't have many

  alternatives. With the exception of Brin, who used her deadly staff to its fullest, the others were less able to use their blades to pierce eyes or stab through hearts.

  Zadí was shocked by the appearance of the disfigured magicians fighting her friends. Fireblackened flesh stretched over malformed faces, torsos, arms, and legs. Many of the

  opposing force were now missing limbs, and blood spewed from horrendous wounds that would have led to shock and death in victims not immune to pain. But the protection

  seemed a cruelty, for the mutants were able to fight on and on as ghastly living corpses, apparently unable to keep themselves from laughing at the terrible mutilation of their

  bodies. They must have known their deaths were inevitable.

  Zadí swallowed hard to keep the bile down, squeezing her eyes shut. But the images of dead magicians in puddles of blood and of her husband fighting haunted her behind her

  eyelids. And the sounds still grated on her ears.

  A shrill cry from Brin forced Zadí's eyes open again. She focused on her sisterinlaw, her mouth opening in dismay as she saw blood gushing from a grievous cut in Brin's thigh.

  The steelsilk armor shielded Brin's torso, but one of the magicians had bypassed the furious swirling of her staff to land the blow. That magician was already dead, but Brin

  appeared increasingly desperate to hold off the remaining foes, half of whom had thronged her when Tenga screamed, "Kill the boy!"

  Right at that moment, a flicker behind Brin demanded Zadí's attention. Brom was suddenly visible again, and several of the spellcasters screeched triumphantly as they finally

  identified their true target.

  Brin redoubled her efforts, though she was clearly exhausted. Zadí could see her determination to keep them away from Brom, but he must have been weakening if his hold on his

  invisibility spell had failed.

  Zadí knew from Brom's many practice sessions with Blödhgarm that his duel with Tenga, though outwardly unimpressive, must have been intensely exacting mentally for him to

  lose control of his invisibility spell. She imagined that Tenga had performed most of the showy magic, while Brom only worked to counter such enchantments enough to guard his

  friends while doing the real work of removing Tenga's wards.

  As if to confirm her surmise, a rainbow of glittering glass shards abruptly exploded into the air as someone—most likely Tenga—magically scattered the heaps from their locations

  under the former windows. The spell, though intended to harm her friends and husband, was the only pretty thing Zadí had witnessed since first peering into the hall.

  When the broken glass innocuously settled back to the ground, Zadí knew Brom had once again thwarted Tenga's attempt to hurt their friends, but she worried that the old man was

  forcing her brother to divide his focus. One of the most critical aspects of Brom's success was his ability to concentrate on his task with undivided attention. But Zadí knew Brom

  would do all he could to assist Hanna, who was unprepared to protect all of the fighters against Tenga and his followers. Doing so was his only way of also ensuring Brin's safety

  from magical threats.

  Zadí's heart turned to ice as she looked away from Brom and noticed a magician crawling toward him from behind. The man had skirted Brin and the others in a wide arc so she

  wouldn't notice his approach, and he was now headed toward Brom with a knife clenched between his teeth. He slowly advanced, frequently pausing to glance at Brin and make sure

  she was still unaware of his presence.

  The furtive magician reached up and grasped the long knife in one fist, holding it at an upward angle as he continued his cautious crawl toward Brom, who was hunched over on the

  ground facing toward Zadí, his knees hugged to his chest and his head down in concentration.

  Zadí had a chilling premonition of the man driving the knife upward through Brom's brain. Her brother had cast no wards against physical injury, and even the wards against magical attack might be weakening if his invisibility spell had slipped.

  Brom's words rang through Zadí's mind: If I fail, Tenga wins. And then his revenge will be deadly.

  Brom couldn't die! Because then everyone else would! Var. All of their friends. Eventually her father and mother and siblings. Zadí couldn't lose her whole family, everyone she

  loved!

  "Brin!" she frantically screamed. "Brin, behind you!"

  But Brin didn't hear. She couldn't take her eyes off her attackers for even half a second, otherwise she and Brom would be immediately overwhelmed. And the sounds of shrieking,

  laughing, spells flying, and weapons clashing effectively drowned out Zadí's warning.

  "Brom!" Zadí then tried, slipping through the doors so she could move into the room. But his ears were plugged! What could she do? Var might hear. He had heard her voice in

  Ilirea amidst the insane din filling the mausoleum where they fought the Shade and her macabre army.

  "Var!" Zadí urgently cried. "Var, Brom's in trouble!" Then she tried a mental communication, knowing Var's intent focus on the fighting might block it.

  No response. Her husband didn't hear. And he wouldn't have been able to help in time anyway. He was fighting far from Brom on purpose, and he, Will, and Ajh were surrounded by

  two dozen howling, cackling magicians. Abandoning them now would mean leaving Will and Ajh to die, which Zadí knew he would do in a heartbeat to protect her. But Var had no

  reason to believe that Zadí had entered the hall.

  Then Zadí remembered. Another voice filled her mind, these words echoing across the years. Your greatest gift will be love, Islanzadí. And since you have no magical or fighting

  abilities to distract you, you will be aware of the time to offer your gift when it arrives. If you have the courage to accept your role, you will save all whom you hold most dear.

  Nefin's dragon Arget had spoken those words to Zadí right before he hatched. At that moment, Zadí had felt the acute frustration of not having any seemingly noteworthy or

  impressive talents, but now she understood why. All of her other friends were completely distracted by their magical or fighting abilities right now. Nefin was either unconscious or

  dead. Hanna was probably close to the same with the huge demands of her responsibility. And Brom's life hung by a thread. Only Zadí had noticed because she wasn't distracted by

  any other expectations. And what greater demonstration of love was there than to lay down one's life for another?

  But Zadí didn't want to die! Her baby! She so dearly wanted to be a mother, to meet this precious life she was carrying. All of her and Var's dreams!

  Var! How could she do this to him? But if Brom died, Zadí would still die, along with Var and their baby; her mother, father, and siblings; and everyone else she loved.

  Arget had prepared her when she was only thirteen. If she could be brave now, Zadí would save everyone she loved the very most. Just two people would die instead of dozens, if

  not hundreds. She would finally be able to prove her worth and show her love for all of her friends in a sacrifice only she could make because only she was aware of the threat.

  Zadí began to run as quickly as she could, feeling a sense of panic as she realized how close the sneaky magician was to Brom and how awkward it was to run at nearly six months

  pregnant. She w
ould just try to knock the blade away, keep it from piercing Brom's neck.

  But as she got closer, Zadí knew that wouldn't work. The blade was too low, right by the ground. And the magician was already raising it!

  "No!" Zadí defiantly shrieked. "You won't kill my brother!" The man wielding the knife almost dropped it in surprise. Then he sneered when he saw Zadí—an unarmed, pregnant

  young woman apparently helpless to stop him. He tightened his grip on the hilt of his weapon and continued the upward movement of his hand.

  I'm so sorry, baby, Zadí mentally sobbed, her eyes filling with tears as she searched for Var's mind. Praying that Var would hear this time—or at least that he would notice what

  had happened before it was too late to say goodbye—she cried, I love you, Var!

  As the man drew back the blade to plunge it into Brom's neck at the base of his skull, Zadí made it around her brother and threw herself between him and the knife, hands

  protectively raised to guard her womb.

  Var whirled in the direction of Zadí's mental voice. That was what had buzzed in his consciousness a few moments earlier! He heard her message the second time.

  But turning toward her was the last fast movement Var was aware of for what seemed like endless hours. He watched in horror through the small gap between Will and Ajh's

  shoulders and past the churning movement of bodies in front of Brin as the blade moving in slow motion toward the base of Brom's skull—destined to slash straight into his brain—

  instead pierced his sweet young wife as she threw herself between the knife and Brom's body.

  The blade entered Zadí through the swelling mound where their child was growing and continued at an upward angle, fixing one of her upraised hands to her womb and ending

  between her ribs as she fell to her knees.

  A strangled cry tore from Var's throat and joined Zadí's agonized scream, which seemed like the only sound in the room to Var, though the din of the battle continued. Brin didn't

  even turn, as absorbed as she was by the handful of enemies still swirling around her, hysterically trying to reach Brom.