3-Brisingr-3 (54 page)

Eragon watched the glowing rim of the crescent moon appear above the eastern horizon. “Tell me something about your villages.”

“What?”

“Anything. I experienced hundreds of memories when I was in your mind and in Khagra’s and in Otvek’s, but I can recall only a handful of them, and those imperfectly. I am trying to make sense of what I saw.”

“There is much I could tell you,” rumbled Garzhvog. His heavy eyes pensive, he worked his makeshift toothpick around one of his fangs and then said, “We take logs, and we carve them with faces of the animals of the mountains, and these we bury upright by our houses so they will frighten away the spirits of the wild. Sometimes the poles almost seem to be alive. When you walk into one of our villages, you can feel the eyes of all the carved animals watching you. . . .” The bone paused in the Urgal’s fingers, then resumed its back-and-forth motion. “By the doorway of each hut, we hang the namna. It is a strip of cloth as wide as my outstretched hand. The namna are brightly colored, and the patterns on them depict the history of the family that lives in that hut. Only the oldest and most skilled weavers are allowed to add to a namna or to reweave one if it becomes damaged. . . .” The bone disappeared inside of Garzhvog’s fist. “During the months of winter, those who have mates work with them on their hearth rug. It takes at least five years to finish such a rug, so by the time it is done, you know whether you have made a good choice of mate.”

“I’ve never seen one of your villages,” said Eragon. “They must be very well hidden.”

“Well hidden and well defended. Few who see our homes live to tell of it.”

Focusing on the Kull and allowing an edge to creep into his voice, Eragon said, “How is it you learned this language, Garzhvog?

Was there a human who lived among you? Did you keep any of us as slaves?”

Garzhvog returned Eragon’s gaze without flinching. “We have no slaves, Firesword. I tore the knowledge from the minds of the men I fought, and I shared it with the rest of my tribe.”

“You have killed many humans, haven’t you?”

“You have killed many Urgralgra, Firesword. It is why we must be allies, or my race will not survive.”

Eragon crossed his arms. “When Brom and I were tracking the Ra’zac, we passed through Yazuac, a village by the Ninor River. We found all of the people piled in the center of the village, dead, with a baby stuck on a spear at the top of the pile. It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen. And it was Urgals who killed them.”

“Before I got my horns,” said Garzhvog, “my father took me to visit one of our villages along the western fringes of the Spine. We found our people tortured, burnt, and slaughtered. The men of Narda had learned of our presence, and they had surprised the village with many soldiers. Not one of our tribe escaped. . . . It is true we love war more than other races, Firesword, and that has been our downfall many times before. Our women will not consider a ram for a mate unless he has proven himself in battle and killed at least three foes himself. And there is a joy in battle unlike any other joy. But though we love feats of arms, that does not mean we are not aware of our faults.

If our race cannot change, Galbatorix will kill us all if he defeats the Varden, and you and Nasuada will kill us all if you overthrow that snake-tongued betrayer. Am I not right, Firesword?”

Eragon jerked his chin in a nod. “Aye.”

“It does no good, then, to dwell upon past wrongs. If we cannot overlook what each of our races has done, there will never be peace between humans and the Urgralgra.”

“How should we treat you, though, if we defeat Galbatorix and Nasuada gives your race the land you have asked for and, twenty years from now, your children begin to kill and plunder so they can win mates? If you know your own history, Garzhvog, then you know it has always been so when Urgals sign peace accords.”

With a thick sigh, Garzhvog said, “Then we will hope that there are still Urgralgra across the sea and that they are wiser than us, for we will be no more in this land.”

Neither of them spoke again that night. Garzhvog curled up on his side and slept with his massive head resting on the ground, while Eragon wrapped himself in his cloak and sat against the stump and gazed at the slowly turning stars, drifting in and out of his waking dreams.

By the end of the next day, they had come into sight of the Beor Mountains. At first the mountains were nothing more than ghostly shapes on the horizon, angled panes of white and purple, but as evening drew nigh, the distant range acquired substance, and Eragon was able to make out the dark band of trees along the base and, above that, the even wider band of gleaming snow and ice and, still higher yet, the peaks themselves, which were gray, bare stone, for they were so tall, no plants grew upon them and no snow fell upon them. As when he had first seen them, the sheer size of the Beor Mountains overwhelmed Eragon. His every instinct insisted that nothing that large could exist, and yet he knew his eyes did not deceive him. The mountains averaged ten miles high, and many were even taller.

Eragon and Garzhvog did not stop that night but continued running through the hours of darkness and through the day thereafter. When morning arrived, the sky grew bright, but because of the Beor Mountains, it was almost noon before the sun burst forth between two peaks and rays of light as wide as the mountains themselves streamed out over the land that was still caught in the strange twilight of shadow. Eragon paused then, on the bank of a brook, and contemplated the sight in silent wonderment for several minutes.

As they skirted the vast range of mountains, their journey began to seem to Eragon uncomfortably similar to his flight from Gil’ead to Farthen Dûr with Murtagh, Saphira, and Arya. He even thought he recognized the place where they had camped after crossing the Hadarac Desert.

The long days and longer nights slipped by with both excruciating slowness and surprising speed, for every hour was identical to the last, which made Eragon feel not only as if their ordeal would never end but also as if large portions of it had never taken place.

When he and Garzhvog arrived at the mouth of the great rift that split the range of mountains for many leagues from north to south, they turned to their right and passed between the cold and indifferent peaks.

Arriving at the Beartooth River—which flowed out of the narrow valley that led to Farthen Dûr—they forded the frigid waters and continued southward.

That night, before they ventured east into the mountains proper, they camped by a small pond and rested their limbs. Garzhvog killed another deer with his sling, this time a buck, and they both ate their fill.

His hunger sated, Eragon was hunched over, mending a hole in the side of his boot, when he heard an eerie howl that set his pulse racing. He glanced around the darkened landscape, and to his alarm, he saw the silhouette of a huge beast loping around the pebble-lined shore of the pond.

“Garzhvog,” said Eragon in a low voice, and reached over to his pack and drew his falchion.

Taking a fist-sized rock from the ground, the Kull placed it in the leather pocket of his sling, and then rising to his full height, he opened his maw and bellowed into the night until the land rang with echoes of his defiant challenge.

The beast paused, then proceeded at a slower pace, sniffing at the ground here and there. As it entered the circle of firelight, Eragon’s breath caught in his throat. Standing before them was a graybacked wolf as big as a horse, with fangs like sabers and burning yellow eyes that followed their every movement. The wolf’s feet were the size of bucklers.

A Shrrg!
thought Eragon.

As the giant wolf circled their camp, moving almost silently despite his great bulk, Eragon thought of the elves and how they would deal with a wild animal, and in the ancient language, he said, “Brother Wolf, we mean you no harm. Tonight our pack rests and does not hunt. You are welcome to share our food and the warmth of our den until morning.” The Shrrg paused, and his ears swiveled forward while Eragon spoke in the ancient language.

“Firesword, what are you doing?” growled Garzhvog.

“Don’t attack unless he does.”

The heavy-shouldered beast slowly entered their camp, the tip of his huge wet nose twitching the whole while. The wolf poked his shaggy head toward the fire, seemingly curious about the writhing flames, then moved over to the scraps of meat and viscera scattered over the ground where Garzhvog had butchered the buck. Crouching, the wolf snapped up the gobbets of flesh, then rose and, without a backward glance, padded off into the depths of the night.

Eragon relaxed and sheathed the falchion. Garzhvog, however, remained standing where he was, his lips pulled back in a snarl, looking and listening for anything out of the ordinary in the surrounding darkness.

At dawn’s first light, Eragon and Garzhvog left their camp, and running eastward, entered the valley that would lead them to Mount Thardûr.

As they passed underneath the boughs of the dense forest that guarded the interior of the mountain range, the air became noticeably cooler and the soft bed of needles on the ground muffled their footsteps.

The tall, dark, grim trees that loomed over them seemed to be watching as they made their way between the thick trunks and around the twisted roots that knuckled up out of the moist earth, standing two, three, and often four feet high. Large black squirrels scampered among the branches, chattering loudly. A thick layer of moss blanketed the corpses of trees that had fallen. Ferns and thimbleberries and other green leafy plants flourished alongside mushrooms of every shape, size, and color.

The world narrowed once Eragon and Garzhvog were fully inside the long valley. The gigantic mountains pressed close on either side, oppressive with their bulk, and the sky was a distant, unreachable strip of sea blue, the highest sky Eragon had ever seen. A few thin clouds grazed the shoulders of the mountains.

An hour or so after noon, Eragon and Garzhvog slowed as a series of terrible roars echoed among the trees. Eragon pulled his sword from its sheath, and Garzhvog plucked a smooth river rock from the ground and fit it in the pocket of his sling.

“It is a cave bear,” said Garzhvog. A furious, high-pitched squeal, similar to metal scraping over metal, punctuated his statement. “And Nagra. We must be careful, Firesword.”

They proceeded at a slow pace and soon spotted the animals several hundred feet up the side of a mountain. A drove of reddish boars with thick, slashing tusks milled in squealing confusion before a huge mass of silver-brown fur, hooked claws, and snapping teeth that moved with deadly speed. At first the distance fooled Eragon, but then he compared the animals to the trees next to them and realized that each boar would have dwarfed a Shrrg and that the bear was nearly as large as his house in Palancar Valley.

The boars had bloodied the cave bear’s flanks, but that seemed to only enrage the beast. Rearing on his hind legs, the bear bellowed and swatted one of the boars with a massive paw, knocking it aside and tearing open its hide. Three more times the boar attempted to rise, and three more times the cave bear struck at it, until at last the boar gave up and lay still. As the bear bent to feed, the rest of the squealing pigs fled back under the trees, heading higher up the mountain and away from the bear.

Awed by the bear’s strength, Eragon followed Garzhvog as the Urgal slowly walked across the bear’s field of vision. Lifting his crimson snout from the belly of his kill, the bear watched them with small, beady eyes, then apparently decided they were no threat to him and resumed eating.

“I think even Saphira might not be able to overcome such a monster,” Eragon murmured.

Garzhvog uttered a small grunt. “She can breathe fire. A bear cannot.”

Neither of them looked away from the bear until trees hid it from view, and even then they kept their weapons at readiness, not knowing what other dangers they might encounter.

The day had passed into late afternoon when they became conscious of another sound: laughter. Eragon and Garzhvog halted, and then Garzhvog raised a finger and, with surprising stealth, crept through a wall of brush toward the laughter. Placing his feet with care, Eragon went with the Kull, holding his breath for fear his breathing would betray their presence.

Peering through a cluster of dogwood leaves, Eragon saw that there was now a well-worn path at the bottom of the valley, and next to the path, three dwarf children were playing, throwing sticks at each other and shrieking with laughter. No adults were visible. Eragon withdrew to a safe distance, exhaled, and studied the sky, where he spotted several plumes of white smoke perhaps a mile farther up the valley.

A branch snapped as Garzhvog squatted next to him, so that they were about level. Garzhvog said,

“Firesword, here we part.”

“You will not come to Bregan Hold with me?”

“No. My task was to keep you safe. If I go with you, the dwarves will not trust you as they should.

Thardûr mountain is close at hand, and I am confident no one will dare hurt you between here and there.”

Eragon rubbed the back of his neck and looked back and forth between Garzhvog and the smoke east of them. “Are you going to run straight back to the Varden?”

With a low chuckle, Garzhvog said, “Aye, but maybe not so fast as we did coming here.”

Unsure of what to say, Eragon pushed at the rotten end of a log with the tip of his boot, exposing a clutch of white larvae squirming in the tunnels they had excavated. “Don’t let a Shrrg or a bear eat you, eh? Then I would have to track down the beast and kill him, and I don’t have the time for that.”

Garzhvog pressed both his fists against his bony forehead. “May your enemies cower before you, Firesword.” Standing and turning, Garzhvog loped away from Eragon. The forest soon hid the Kull’s bulky form.

Eragon filled his lungs with the fresh mountain air, then pushed his way through the wall of brush. As he