“Maybe,” said Nasuada. “Maybe not.”
Gnawing on the words, Garzhvog added, “The Dragon King is a false-tongued traitor, a rogue ram, but his mind is not feeble. He is cunning like a blood-hungry weasel.”
The soldiers assembled themselves in orderly ranks and then began marching toward the Varden.
A messenger boy ran up to Nasuada. She bent in her saddle to listen, then dismissed him. “Nar Garzhvog, your people are safe within our camp. They are gathered near the east gate, ready for you to lead them.”
Garzhvog grunted but remained where he was.
Looking back at the approaching soldiers, Nasuada said, “I can think of no reason to engage them in the open. We can pick them off with archers once they are within range. And when they reach our breastwork, they will break themselves against the trenches and the staves. Not a single one will escape alive,” she concluded with evident satisfaction.
“When they have committed themselves,” said Orrin, “my horsemen and I could ride out and attack them from the rear. They will be so surprised, they will not even have a chance to defend themselves.”
“The tide of battle may—” Nasuada was replying when the brazen horn that had announced the arrival of the soldiers sounded once more, so loudly that Eragon, Arya, and the rest of the elves covered their ears. Eragon winced with pain from the blast.
Where is that coming from? he asked Saphira.
A more important question, I think, is why the soldiers would want to warn us of their attack, if they are indeed responsible for this baying.
Maybe it’s a diversion or—
Eragon forgot what he was going to say as he saw a stir of motion on the far side of the Jiet River, behind a veil of sorrowful willow trees. Red as a ruby dipped in blood, red as iron hot to forge, red as a burning ember of hate and anger, Thorn appeared above the languishing trees. And upon the back of the glittering dragon, there sat Murtagh in his bright steel armor, thrusting Zar’roc high over his head.
They have come for us, said Saphira. Eragon’s gut twisted, and he felt Saphira’s own dread like a current of bilious water running through his mind.
FIRE IN THE SKY
As Eragon watched Thorn and Murtagh rise high in the northern sky, he heard Narheim whisper, “Barzûl,” and then curse Murtagh for killing Hrothgar, the king of the dwarves. Arya spun away from the sight. “Nasuada, Your Majesty,” she said, her eyes flicking toward Orrin, “you have to stop the soldiers before they reach the camp. You cannot allow them to attack our defenses. If they do, they will sweep over these ramparts like a storm-driven wave and wreak untold havoc in our midst, among the tents, where we cannot maneuver effectively.”
“Untold havoc?” Orrin scoffed. “Have you so little confidence in our prowess, Ambassador? Humans and dwarves may not be as gifted as elves, but we shall have no difficulty in disposing of these miserable wretches, I can assure you.”
The lines of Arya’s face tightened. “Your prowess is without compare, Your Majesty. I do not doubt it. But listen: this is a trap set for Eragon and Saphira. They”—she flung an arm toward the rising figures of Thorn and Murtagh—“have come to capture Eragon and Saphira and spirit them away to Urû’baen. Galbatorix would not have sent so few men unless he was confident they could keep the Varden occupied long enough for Murtagh to overwhelm Eragon. Galbatorix must have placed spells on those men, spells to aid them in their mission. What those enchantments might be, I do not know, but of this I am certain: the soldiers are more than they appear, and we must prevent them from entering this camp.”
Emerging from his initial shock, Eragon said, “You don’t want to let Thorn fly over the camp; he could set fire to half of it with a single pass.”
Nasuada clasped her hands over the pommel of her saddle, seemingly oblivious to Murtagh and Thorn and to the soldiers, who were now less than a mile away. “But why not attack us while we were unawares?” she asked. “Why alert us to their presence?”
It was Narheim who answered. “Because they would not want Eragon and Saphira to get caught up in the fighting on the ground. No, unless I am mistaken, their plan is for Eragon and Saphira to meet Thorn and Murtagh in the air while the soldiers assail our position here.”
“Is it wise, then, to accommodate their wishes, to willingly send Eragon and Saphira into this trap?” Nasuada raised an eyebrow.
“Yes,” insisted Arya, “for we have an advantage they could not suspect.” She pointed at Blödhgarm. “This time Eragon shall not face Murtagh alone. He will have the combined strength of thirteen elves supporting him. Murtagh will not be expecting that. Stop the soldiers before they reach us, and you will have frustrated part of Galbatorix’s design. Send Saphira and Eragon up with the mightiest spellcasters of my race bolstering their efforts, and you will disrupt the remainder of Galbatorix’s scheme.”
“You have convinced me,” said Nasuada. “However, the soldiers are too close for us to intercept them any distance from the camp with men on foot. Orrin—”
Before she finished, the king had turned his horse around and was racing toward the north gate of the camp. One of his retinue winded a trumpet, a signal for the rest of Orrin’s cavalry to assemble for a charge.
To Garzhvog, Nasuada said, “King Orrin will require assistance. Send your rams to join him.”
“Lady Nightstalker.” Throwing back his massive horned head, Garzhvog loosed a wild wailing bellow. The skin on the back of Eragon’s arms and neck prickled as he listened to the Urgal’s savage howl. With a snap of his jaws, Garzhvog ceased his belling and then grunted, “They will come.” The Kull broke into an earth-shattering trot and ran toward the gate where King Orrin and his horsemen were gathered.
Four of the Varden dragged open the gate. King Orrin raised his sword, shouted, and galloped out of the camp, leading his men toward the soldiers in their gold-stitched tunics. A plume of cream-colored dust billowed out from underneath the hooves of the horses, obscuring the arrowhead-shaped formation from view.
“Jörmundur,” said Nasuada.
“Yes, my Lady?”
“Order two hundred swordsmen and a hundred spearmen after them. And have fifty archers station themselves seventy to eighty yards away from the fighting. I want these soldiers crushed, Jörmundur, obliterated, ground out of existence. The men are to understand that no quarter is to be given or accepted.”
Jörmundur bowed.
“And tell them that although I cannot join them in this battle, on account of my arms, my spirit marches with them.”
“My Lady.”
As Jörmundur hurried off, Narheim urged his pony closer to Nasuada. “What of mine own people, Nasuada? What role shall we play?”
Nasuada frowned at the thick, choking dust that drifted across the rolling expanse of grass. “You can help guard our perimeter. If the soldiers should somehow win free of—” She was forced to pause as four hundred Urgals—more had arrived since the Battle of the Burning Plains—pounded out of the center of the camp, through the gate, and onto the field beyond, roaring incomprehensible war-cries the whole while. As they vanished into the dust, Nasuada resumed speaking: “If the soldiers should win free, your axes will be most welcome in the lines.”
The wind gusted toward them, carrying with it the screams of dying men and horses, the shivery sound of metal sliding over metal, the clink of swords glancing off helmets, the dull impact of spears on shields, and, underlying it all, a horrible humorless laughter that issued from a multitude of throats and continued without pause throughout the mayhem. It was, Eragon thought, the laughter of the insane.
Narheim pounded his fist against his hip. “By Morgothal, we are not ones to stand by idly when there is a fight to be had! Release us, Nasuada, and let us hew a few necks for you!”
“No!” exclaimed Nasuada. “No, no, and no! I have given you my orders, and I expect you to abide by them. This is a battle of horses and men and Urgals and perhaps even dragons. It is not a fit place for dwarves. You woul
d be trampled like children.” At Narheim’s outraged oath, she raised a hand. “I am well aware you are fearsome warriors. No one knows that better than I, who fought beside you in Farthen Dûr. However, not to put too fine a point on it, you are short by our standards, and I would rather not risk your warriors in a fray such as this, where your stature might be your undoing. Better to wait here, on the high ground, where you stand taller than anyone who tries to climb this berm, and let the soldiers come to you. If any soldiers do reach us, they shall be warriors of such tremendous skill, I want you and your people there to repel them, for one might as well try to uproot a mountain as defeat a dwarf.”
Still displeased, Narheim grumbled some response, but whatever he said was lost as the Varden Nasuada had deployed filed through the cleft in the embankment where the gate had been. The noise of tramping feet and clattering equipment faded as the men drew away from the camp. Then the wind stiffened into a steady breeze, and from the direction of the fighting, the grim giggle again wafted toward them.
A moment later, a mental shout of incredible strength overwhelmed Eragon’s defenses and tore through his consciousness, filling him with agony as he heard a man say, Ah, no, help me! They won’t die! Angvard take them, they won’t die! The link between their minds vanished then, and Eragon swallowed hard as he realized that the man had been killed.
Nasuada shifted in her saddle, her expression strained. “Who was that?”
“You heard him too?”
“It seems we all did,” said Arya.
“I think it was Barden, one of the spellcasters who rides with King Orrin, but—”
“Eragon!”
Thorn had been circling higher and higher while King Orrin and his men engaged the soldiers, but now the dragon hung motionless in the sky, halfway between the soldiers and the camp, and Murtagh’s voice, augmented with magic, echoed forth across the land: “Eragon! I see you there, hiding behind Nasuada’s skirts. Come fight me, Eragon! It is your destiny. Or are you a coward, Shadeslayer?”
Saphira answered for Eragon by lifting her head and roaring even louder than Murtagh’s thunderous speech, then discharging a twenty-foot-long jet of crackling blue fire. The horses close to Saphira, including Nasuada’s, bolted away, leaving Saphira and Eragon alone on the embankment with the elves.
Walking over to Saphira, Arya placed a hand on Eragon’s left leg and looked up at him with her slanted green eyes. “Accept this from me, Shur’tugal,” she said. And he felt a surge of energy flow into him.
“Eka elrun ono,” he murmured to her.
Also in the ancient language, she said, “Be careful, Eragon. I would not want to see you broken by Murtagh. I …” It seemed as if she were going to say more, but she hesitated, then removed her hand from his leg and retreated to stand by Blödhgarm.
“Fly well, Bjartskular!” the elves sang out as Saphira launched herself off the embankment.
As Saphira winged her way toward Thorn, Eragon joined his mind first with her and then with Arya and, through Arya, with Blödhgarm and the eleven other elves. By having Arya serve as the focal point for the elves, Eragon was able to concentrate on the thoughts of Arya and Saphira; he knew them so well that their reactions would not distract him in the middle of a fight.
Eragon grasped the shield with his left hand and unsheathed his falchion, holding it upraised so he would not accidentally stab Saphira’s wings as she flapped, nor slash her shoulders nor her neck, which were in constant motion. I’m glad I took the time last night to reinforce the falchion with magic, he said to Saphira and Arya.
Let us hope your spells hold, Saphira answered.
Remember, said Arya, remain as close to us as you can. The more distance you place between us, the harder it is for us to maintain this bond with you.
Thorn did not dive at Saphira or otherwise attack her as she neared him, but rather slid away on rigid wings, allowing her to rise to his level unmolested. The two dragons balanced upon the thermals, facing each other across a gap of fifty yards, the tips of their barbed tails twitching, both of their muzzles wrinkled with ferocious snarls.
He’s bigger, observed Saphira. It’s not been two weeks since we last fought and he has grown another four feet, if not more.
She was right. Thorn was longer from head to tail, and deeper in the chest, than he had been when they first clashed over the Burning Plains. He was barely older than a hatchling, but he was already nearly as large as Saphira.
Eragon reluctantly shifted his gaze from the dragon to the Rider.
Murtagh was bareheaded, and his long black hair billowed behind him like a sleek mane. His face was hard, harder than Eragon had ever seen before, and Eragon knew that this time Murtagh would not, could not, show him mercy. The volume of his voice substantially reduced, but still louder than normal, Murtagh said, “You and Saphira have caused us a great deal of pain, Eragon. Galbatorix was furious with us for letting you go. And after the two of you killed the Ra’zac, he was so angry, he slew five of his servants and then turned his wrath upon Thorn and me. We have both suffered horribly on account of you. We shall not do so again.” He drew back his arm, as if Thorn were about to lunge forward and Murtagh were preparing to slash at Eragon and Saphira.
“Wait!” cried Eragon. “I know of a way you can both free yourselves of your oaths to Galbatorix.”
An expression of desperate longing transformed Murtagh’s features, and he lowered Zar’roc a few inches. Then he scowled and spat toward the ground and shouted, “I don’t believe you! It’s not possible!”
“It is! Just let me explain.”
Murtagh seemed to be struggling with himself, and for a while Eragon thought he might refuse. Swinging his head around, Thorn looked back at Murtagh, and something passed between them. “Blast you, Eragon,” said Murtagh, and lay Zar’roc across the front of his saddle. “Blast you for baiting us with this. We had already made peace with our lot, and you have to tantalize us with the specter of a hope we had abandoned. If this proves to be a false hope, brother, I swear I’ll cut off your right hand before we present you to Galbatorix.… You won’t need it for what you will be doing in Urû’baen.”
A threat of his own occurred to Eragon, but he suppressed it. Lowering the falchion, he said, “Galbatorix would not have told you, but when I was among the elves—”
Eragon, do not reveal anything more about us! exclaimed Arya.
“—I learned that if your personality changes, so does your true name in the ancient language. Who you are isn’t cast in iron, Murtagh! If you and Thorn can change something about yourselves, your oaths will no longer bind you, and Galbatorix will lose his hold on you.”
Thorn drifted several yards closer to Saphira. “Why didn’t you mention this before?” Murtagh demanded.
“I was too confused at the time.”
A scant fifty feet separated Thorn and Saphira by then. The red dragon’s snarl had subsided to a faint warning curl of his upper lip, and in his sparkling crimson eyes appeared a vast, puzzled sadness, as if he hoped Saphira or Eragon might know why he had been brought into the world merely so Galbatorix could enslave him, abuse him, and force him to destroy other beings’ lives. The tip of Thorn’s nose twitched as he sniffed at Saphira. She sniffed him in return, and her tongue darted out of her mouth as she tasted his scent. Pity for Thorn welled up inside Eragon and Saphira together, and they wished they could speak with him directly, but they dared not open their minds to him.
With so little distance between them, Eragon noticed the bundles of cords that ridged Murtagh’s neck and the forked vein that pulsed in the middle of his forehead.
“I am not evil!” said Murtagh. “I’ve done the best I could under the circumstances. I doubt you would have survived as well as I did if our mother had seen fit to leave you in Urû’baen and hide me in Carvahall.”
“Perhaps not.”
Murtagh banged his breastplate with his fist. “Aha! Then how am I supposed to follow your advice? If I am already a
good man, if I have already done as well as could be expected, how can I change? Must I become worse than I am? Must I embrace Galbatorix’s darkness in order to free myself of it? That hardly seems like a reasonable solution. If I succeeded in so altering my identity, you would not like who I had become, and you would curse me as strongly as you curse Galbatorix now.”
Frustrated, Eragon said, “Yes, but you do not have to become better or worse than you are now, only different. There are many kinds of people in the world and many ways to behave honorably. Look at someone whom you admire but who has chosen paths other than your own through life and model your actions upon his. It may take a while, but if you can shift your personality enough, you can leave Galbatorix, and you can leave the Empire, and you and Thorn could join us in the Varden, where you would be free to do as you wish.”
What of your own oaths to avenge Hrothgar’s death? Saphira asked. Eragon ignored her.
Murtagh sneered at him. “So you are asking me to be that which I am not. If Thorn and I are to save ourselves, we must destroy our current identities. Your cure is worse than our affliction.”
“I’m asking you to allow yourself to grow into something other than you are now. It’s a difficult thing to do, I know, but people remake themselves all the time. Let go of your anger, for one, and you can turn your back on Galbatorix once and for all.”
“Let go of my anger?” Murtagh laughed. “I’ll let go of my anger when you forget yours over the Empire’s role in the death of your uncle and the razing of your farm. Anger defines us, Eragon, and without it, you and I would be a feast for maggots. Still …” His eyes half lidded, Murtagh tapped Zar’roc’s crossguard, the cords in his neck softening, although the vein that split his forehead remained swollen as ever. “The concept is intriguing, I admit. Perhaps we can work on it together when we are in Urû’baen. That is, if the king permits us to be alone with each other. Of course, he may decide to keep us permanently separated. I would if I were in his position.”
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