On the third day since leaving Ellesméra, the wind rose up behind them and wafted Saphira farther than she could have flown on her own, carrying them entirely out of the Hadarac Desert.
Near the edge of the waste, they passed over a number of horse-mounted nomads who were garbed in flowing robes to ward against the heat. The men shouted in their rough tongue and shook their swords and spears at Saphira, though none of them dared loose an arrow at her.
Eragon, Saphira, and Orik bivouacked for the night at the southernmost end of Silverwood Forest, which lay along Lake Tüdosten and was named so because it was composed almost entirely of beeches, willows, and trembling poplars. In contrast to the endless twilight that lay beneath the brooding pines of Du Weldenvarden, Silverwood was filled with bright sunshine, larks, and the gentle rustling of green leaves. The trees seemed young and happy to Eragon, and he was glad to be there. And though all signs of the desert had vanished, the weather remained far warmer than he was accustomed to at that time of year. It felt more like summer than spring.
From there they flew straight to Aberon, the capital of Surda, guided by directions Eragon gleaned from the memories of birds they encountered. Saphira made no attempt to conceal herself along the way, and they often heard cries of amazement and alarm from the villages she swept over.
It was late afternoon when they arrived at Aberon, a low, walled city centered around a bluff in an otherwise flat landscape. Borromeo Castle occupied the top of the bluff. The rambling citadel was protected by three concentric layers of walls, numerous towers, and, Eragon noted, hundreds of ballistae made for shooting down a dragon. The rich amber light from the low sun cast Aberon’s buildings in sharp relief and illuminated a plume of dust rising from the city’s western gate, where a line of soldiers sought entrance.
As Saphira descended toward the inner ward of the castle, she brought Eragon into contact with the combined thoughts of the people in the capital. The noise overwhelmed him at first—how was he supposed to listen for foes and still function at the same time?—until he realized that, as usual, he was concentrating too much on specifics. All he had to do was sense people’s general intentions. He broadened his focus, and the individual voices clamoring for his attention subsided into a continuum of the emotions surrounding him. It was like a sheet of water that lay draped over the nearby landscape, undulating with the rise and fall of people’s feelings and spiking whenever someone was racked by extremes of passion.
Thus, Eragon was aware of the alarm that gripped the people below as word of Saphira spread. Careful, he told her. We don’t want them to attack us.
Dirt billowed into the air with each beat of Saphira’s powerful wings as she settled in the middle of the courtyard, sinking her claws into the bare ground to steady herself. The horses tethered in the yard neighed with fear, creating such an uproar that Eragon finally inserted himself in their minds and calmed them with words from the ancient language.
Eragon dismounted after Orik, eyeing the many soldiers that lined the parapets and the drawn ballistae they manned. He did not fear the weapons, but he had no desire to become engaged in a fight with his allies.
A group of twelve men, some soldiers, hurried out of the keep toward Saphira. They were led by a tall man with the same dark skin as Nasuada, only the third person Eragon had met with such a complexion. Halting ten paces away, the man bowed—as did his followers—then said, “Welcome, Rider. I am Dahwar, son of Kedar. I am King Orrin’s seneschal.”
Eragon inclined his head. “And I, Eragon Shadeslayer, son of none.”
“And I, Orik, Thrifk’s son.”
And I, Saphira, daughter of Vervada, said Saphira, using Eragon as her mouthpiece.
Dahwar bowed again. “I apologize that no one of higher rank than myself is present to greet guests as noble as you, but King Orrin, Lady Nasuada, and all the Varden have long since marched to confront Galbatorix’s army.” Eragon nodded. He had expected as much. “They left orders that if you came here seeking them, you should join them directly, for your prowess is needed if we are to prevail.”
“Can you show us on a map how to find them?” asked Eragon.
“Of course, sir. While I have that fetched, would you care to step out of the heat and partake of some refreshments?”
Eragon shook his head. “We have no time to waste. Besides, it is not I who needs to see the map but Saphira, and I doubt she would fit in your halls.”
That seemed to catch the seneschal off guard. He blinked and ran his eyes over Saphira, then said, “Quite right, sir. In either case, our hospitality is yours. If there is aught you and your companions desire, you have but to ask.”
For the first time, Eragon realized that he could issue commands and expect them to be followed. “We need a week’s worth of provisions. For me, only fruit, vegetables, flour, cheese, bread—things like that. We also need our waterskins refilled.” He was impressed that Dahwar did not question his avoidance of meat. Orik added his requests then for jerky, bacon, and other such products.
Snapping his fingers, Dahwar sent two servants running back into the keep to collect the supplies. While everyone in the ward waited for the men to return, he asked, “May I assume by your presence here, Shadeslayer, that you completed your training with the elves?”
“My training shall never end so long as I’m alive.”
“I see.” Then, after a moment, Dahwar said, “Please excuse my impertinence, sir, for I am ignorant of the ways of the Riders, but are you not human? I was told you were.”
“That he is,” growled Orik. “He was … changed. And you should be glad he was, or our predicament would be far worse than it is.” Dahwar was tactful enough not to pursue the subject, but from his thoughts Eragon concluded that the seneschal would have paid a handsome price for further details—any information about Eragon or Saphira was valuable in Orrin’s government.
The food, water, and map were soon brought by two wide-eyed pages. At Eragon’s word, they deposited the items beside Saphira, looking terribly frightened as they did, then retreated behind Dahwar. Kneeling on the ground, Dahwar unrolled the map—which depicted Surda and the neighboring lands—and drew a line northwest from Aberon to Cithrí. He said, “Last I heard, King Orrin and Lady Nasuada stopped here for provender. They did not intend to stay, however, because the Empire is advancing south along the Jiet River and they wished to be in place to confront Galbatorix’s army when it arrives. The Varden could be anywhere between Cithrí and the Jiet River. This is only my humble opinion, but I would say the best place to look for them would be the Burning Plains.”
“The Burning Plains?”
Dahwar smiled. “You may know them by their old name, then, the name the elves use: Du Völlar Eldrvarya.”
“Ah, yes.” Now Eragon remembered. He had read about them in one of the histories Oromis assigned him. The plains—which contained huge deposits of peat—lay along the eastern side of the Jiet River where Surda’s border crossed it and had been the site of a skirmish between the Riders and the Forsworn. During the fight, the dragons inadvertently lit the peat with the flames from their mouths and the fire had burrowed underground, where it remained smoldering ever since. The land had been rendered uninhabitable by the noxious fumes that poured out of the glowing vents in the charred earth.
A shiver crawled down Eragon’s left side as he recalled his premonition: banks of warriors colliding upon an orange and yellow field, accompanied by the harsh screams of gore-crows and the whistle of black arrows. He shivered again. Fate is converging upon us, he said to Saphira. Then, gesturing at the map: Have you seen enough?
I have.
In short order, he and Orik packed the supplies, remounted Saphira, and from her back thanked Dahwar for his service. As Saphira was about to take off again, Eragon frowned; a note of discord had entered the minds he was monitoring. “Dahwar, two grooms in the stables have gotten into an argument and one of them, Tathal, intends to commit murder. You can stop him, though, if
you send men right away.”
Dahwar widened his eyes in an expression of astonishment, and even Orik twisted round to look at Eragon. The seneschal asked, “How do you know this, Shadeslayer?”
Eragon merely said, “Because I am a Rider.”
Then Saphira unfurled her wings, and everyone on the ground ran back to avoid being battered by the rush of air as she flapped downward and soared into the sky. As Borromeo Castle dwindled behind them, Orik said, “Can you hear my thoughts, Eragon?”
“Do you want me to try? I haven’t, you know.”
“Try.”
Frowning, Eragon concentrated his attention on the dwarf’s consciousness and was surprised to find Orik’s mind well protected behind thick mental barriers. He could sense Orik’s presence, but not his thoughts and feelings. “Nothing.”
Orik grinned. “Good. I wanted to make sure I hadn’t forgotten my old lessons.”
By unspoken consent, they did not stop for the night, but rather forged onward through the blackened sky. Of the moon and stars they saw no sign, no flash or pale gleam to breach the oppressive gloom. The dead hours bloated and sagged and, it seemed to Eragon, clung to each second as if reluctant to surrender to the past.
When the sun finally returned—bringing with it its welcome light—Saphira landed by the edge of a small lake so Eragon and Orik could stretch their legs, relieve themselves, and eat breakfast without the constant movement they experienced on her back.
They had just taken off again when a long, low brown cloud appeared on the edge of the horizon, like a smudge of walnut ink on a sheet of white paper. The cloud grew wider and wider as Saphira approached it, until by late morning it obscured the entire land beneath a pall of foul vapors.
They had reached the Burning Plains of Alagaësia.
THE BURNING PLAINS
ragon coughed as Saphira descended through the layers of smoke, angling toward the Jiet River, which was hidden behind the haze. He blinked and wiped back tears. The fumes made his eyes smart.
Closer to the ground, the air cleared, giving Eragon an unobstructed view of their destination. The rippling veil of black and crimson smoke filtered the sun’s rays in such a way that everything below was bathed in a lurid orange. Occasional rents in the besmirched sky allowed pale bars of light to strike the ground, where they remained, like pillars of translucent glass, until they were truncated by the shifting clouds.
The Jiet River lay before them, as thick and turgid as a gorged snake, its crosshatched surface reflecting the same ghastly hue that pervaded the Burning Plains. Even when a splotch of undiluted light happened to fall upon the river, the water appeared chalky white, opaque and opalescent—almost as if it were the milk of some fearsome beast—and seemed to glow with an eerie luminescence all its own.
Two armies were arrayed along the eastern banks of the oozing waterway. To the south were the Varden and the men of Surda, entrenched behind multiple layers of defense, where they displayed a fine panoply of woven standards, ranks of proud tents, and the picketed horses of King Orrin’s cavalry. Strong as they were, their numbers paled in comparison to the size of the force assembled in the north. Galbatorix’s army was so large, it measured three miles across on its leading edge and how many in length it was impossible to tell, for the individual men melded into a shadowy mass in the distance.
Between the mortal foes was an empty span of perhaps two miles. This land, and the land that the armies camped on, was pocked with countless ragged orifices in which danced green tongues of fire. From those sickly torches billowed plumes of smoke that dimmed the sun. Every scrap of vegetation had been scorched from the parched soil, except for growths of black, orange, and chartreuse lichen that, from the air, gave the earth a scabbed and infected appearance.
It was the most forbidding vista Eragon had clapped eyes upon.
Saphira emerged over the no-man’s-land that separated the grim armies, and now she twisted and dove toward the Varden as fast as she dared, for so long as they remained exposed to the Empire, they were vulnerable to attacks from enemy magicians. Eragon extended his awareness as far as he could in every direction, hunting for hostile minds that could feel his probing touch and would react to it—the minds of magicians and those trained to fend off magicians.
What he felt instead was the sudden panic that overwhelmed the Varden’s sentinels, many of whom, he realized, had never before seen Saphira. Fear made them ignore their common sense, and they released a flock of barbed arrows that arched up to intercept her.
Raising his right hand, Eragon cried, “Letta orya thorna!” The arrows froze in place. With a flick of his wrist and the word “Gánga,” he redirected them, sending the darts boring toward the no-man’s-land, where they could bury themselves in the barren soil without causing harm. He missed one arrow, though, which was fired a few seconds after the first volley.
Eragon leaned as far to his right as he could and, faster than any normal human, plucked the arrow from the air as Saphira flew past it.
Only a hundred feet above the ground, Saphira flared her wings to slow her steep descent before alighting first on her hind legs and then her front legs as she came to a running stop among the Varden’s tents.
“Werg,” growled Orik, loosening the thongs that held his legs in place. “I’d rather fight a dozen Kull than experience such a fall again.” He let himself hang off one side of the saddle, then dropped to Saphira’s foreleg below and, from there, to the ground.
Even as Eragon dismounted, dozens of warriors with awestruck expressions gathered around Saphira. From within their midst strode a big bear of a man whom Eragon recognized: Fredric, the Varden’s weapon master from Farthen Dûr, still garbed in his hairy ox-hide armor. “Come on, you slack-jawed louts!” roared Fredric. “Don’t stand here gawking; get back to your posts or I’ll have the lot of you chalked up for extra watches!” At his command, the men began to disperse with many a grumbled word and backward glance. Then Fredric drew nearer and, Eragon could tell, was startled by the change in Eragon’s countenance. The bearded man did his best to conceal the reaction by touching his brow and saying, “Welcome, Shadeslayer. You’ve arrived just in time.… I can’t tell you how ashamed I am you were attacked. The honor of every man here has been blackened by this mistake. Were the three of you hurt?”
“No.”
Relief spread across Fredric’s face. “Well, there’s that to be grateful for. I’ve had the men responsible pulled from duty. They’ll each be whipped and reduced in rank.… Will that punishment satisfy you, Rider?”
“I want to see them,” said Eragon.
Sudden concern emanated from Fredric; it was obvious he feared that Eragon wanted to enact some terrible and unnatural retribution on the sentinels. Fredric did not voice his concern, however, but said, “If you’d follow me, then, sir.”
He led them through the camp to a striped command tent where twenty or so miserable-looking men were divesting themselves of their arms and armor under the watchful eye of a dozen guards. At the sight of Eragon and Saphira, the prisoners all went down on one knee and remained there, gazing at the ground. “Hail, Shadeslayer!” they cried.
Eragon said nothing, but walked along the line of men while he studied their minds, his boots sinking through the crust of the baked earth with an ominous crunch. At last he said, “You should be proud that you reacted so quickly to our appearance. If Galbatorix attacks, that’s exactly what you should do, though I doubt arrows would prove any more effective against him than they were against Saphira and me.” The sentinels glanced at him with disbelief, their upturned faces tinted the color of tarnished brass by the variegated light. “I only ask that, in the future, you take a moment to identify your target before shooting. Next time I might be too distracted to stop your missiles. Am I understood?”
“Yes, Shadeslayer!” they shouted.
Stopping before the second-to-last man in the line, Eragon held out the arrow he had snared from Saphira’s back. “I believe
this is yours, Harwin.”
With an expression of wonder, Harwin accepted the arrow from Eragon. “So it is! It has the white band I always paint on my shafts so I can find them later. Thank you, Shadeslayer.”
Eragon nodded and then said to Fredric so all could hear, “These are good and true men, and I want no misfortune to befall them because of this event.”
“I will see to it personally,” said Fredric, and smiled.
“Now, can you take us to Lady Nasuada?”
“Yes, sir.”
As he left the sentinels, Eragon knew that his kindness had earned him their undying loyalty, and that tidings of his deed would spread throughout the Varden.
The path Fredric took through the tents brought Eragon into close contact with more minds than he had ever touched before. Hundreds of thoughts, images, and sensations pressed against his consciousness. Despite his effort to keep them at a distance, he could not help absorbing random details of people’s lives. Some revelations he found shocking, some meaningless, others touching or, conversely, disgusting, and many embarrassing. A few people perceived the world so differently, their minds leaped out at him on account of that very difference.
How easy it is to view these men as nothing more than objects that I and a few others can manipulate at will. Yet they each possess hopes and dreams, potential for what they might achieve and memories of what they have already accomplished. And they all feel pain.
A handful of the minds he touched were aware of the contact and recoiled from it, hiding their inner life behind defenses of varying strength. At first Eragon was concerned—imagining that he had discovered a great many enemies who had infiltrated the Varden—but then he realized from his quick glimpse that they were the individual members of Du Vrangr Gata.
Saphira said, They must be scared out of their wits, thinking that they’re about to be assaulted by some strange magician.
I can’t convince them otherwise while they block me like this.
Inheritance Cycle Omnibus Page 107