3-Brisingr-3 (63 page)

Eragon took a single step forward, then stopped and groaned as a patch of agony bloomed between his shoulder blades. He tried to twist his arm around to feel the extent of the wound, but as his skin stretched, the pain became too great to continue. Nearly losing consciousness, he leaned against the wall for support. He glanced at the burnt dwarf again.
I must have suffered similar injuries on my back
.

Forcing himself to concentrate, he recited two of the spells designed to heal burns that Brom had taught him during their travels. As they took effect, it felt as if cool, soothing water were flowing across his back.

He sighed with relief and straightened.

“Are you hurt?” he asked as his guards hobbled over.

The lead dwarf frowned, tapped his right ear, and shook his head.

Eragon muttered a curse and only then did he notice he could not hear his own voice. Again drawing upon the reserves of energy within his body, he cast a spell to repair the inner mechanisms of his ears and of theirs. As the incantation concluded, an irritating itch squirmed inside his ears, then faded along with the spell.

“Are you hurt?”

The dwarf on the right, a burly fellow with a forked beard, coughed and spat out a glob of congealed blood, then growled, “Nothing that time won’t mend. What of you, Shadeslayer?”

“I’ll live.”

Testing the floor with every step, Eragon entered the soot-blackened area and knelt beside Kvîstor, hoping that he might still save the dwarf from the clutches of death. As soon as he beheld Kvîstor’s wound again, he knew it was not to be.

Eragon bowed his head, the memory of recent and former bloodshed bitter to his soul. He stood. “Why did the lantern explode?”

“They are filled with heat and light, Argetlam,” one of his guards replied. “If they are broken, all of it escapes at once and then it is better to be far away.”

Gesturing at the crumpled corpses of their attackers, Eragon asked, “Do you know of which clan they

are?”

The dwarf with the forked beard rifled through the clothes of several of the black-garbed dwarves, then said, “Barzûl! They carry no marks upon them such as you would recognize, Argetlam, but they carry this.” He held up a bracelet made of braided horsehair set with polished cabochons of amethyst.

“What does it mean?”

“This amethyst,” said the dwarf, and tapped one of the cabochons with a soot-streaked fingernail, “this particular variety of amethyst, it grows in only four parts of the Beor Mountains, and three of them belong to Az Sweldn rak Anhûin.”

Eragon frowned. “Grimstborith Vermûnd ordered this attack?”

“I cannot say for sure, Argetlam. Another clan might have left the bracelet for us to find. They might want us to think it was Az Sweldn rak Anhûin so we do not realize who our foes really are. But . . . if I had to wager, Argetlam, I would wager a cartload of gold that it is Az Sweldn rak Anhûin who is responsible.”

“Blast them,” Eragon murmured. “Whoever it was, blast them.” He clenched his fists to stop them from shaking. With the side of his boot, he nudged one of the prismatic daggers the assassins had wielded.

“The spells on these weapons and on the . . . on the men”—he motioned with his chin—“men, dwarves, be as it may, they must have required an incredible amount of energy, and I cannot even imagine how complex their wording was. Casting them would have been hard and dangerous. . . .” Eragon looked at each of his guards in turn and said, “As you are my witnesses, I swear I shall not let this attack, nor Kvîstor’s death, go unpunished. Whichever clan or clans sent these dung-faced killers, when I learn their names, they will wish they had never thought to strike at me and, by striking at me, strike at Dûrgrimst Ingeitum. This I swear to you, as a Dragon Rider and as a fellow member of Dûrgrimst Ingeitum, and if any ask you of it, repeat my promise to them as I have given it to you.”

The dwarves bowed before him, and he with the forked beard replied, “As you command, so we shall obey, Argetlam. You honor Hrothgar’s memory by your words.”

Then another of the dwarves said, “Whichever clan it was, they have violated the law of hospitality; they have attacked a guest. They are not even so high as rats; they are
menknurlan
.” He spat on the floor, and the other dwarves spat with him.

Eragon walked to where the remains of his falchion lay. He knelt in the soot and, with the tip of a finger, touched one of the pieces of metal, tracing its ragged edges.
I must have hit the shield and the wall so
hard, I overwhelmed the spells I used to reinforce the steel,
he thought.

Then he thought,
I need a sword
.

I need a Rider’s sword.

A MATTER OFPERSPECTIVE

The wind-of-morning-heat-above-flat-land, which was different from the wind-of-morning-heat-above-hills, shifted. Saphira adjusted the angle of her wings to compensate for the changes in the speed and pressure of the air that supported her weight thousands of feet above the sun-bathed land below. She closed her double eyelids for a moment, luxuriating in the soft bed of the wind, as well as the warmth of the morning rays beating down upon her sinewy length. She imagined how the light must make her scales sparkle and how those who saw her circling in the sky must marvel at the sight, and she hummed with pleasure, content in the knowledge that she was the most beautiful creature in Alagaësia, for who could hope to match the glory of her scales; and her long, tapering tail; and her wings, so fair and well formed; and her curved claws; and her long white fangs, with which she could sever the neck of a wild ox with a single bite? Not Glaedr-of-the-gold-scales, who had lost a leg during the fall of the Riders. Nor could Thorn or Shruikan, for they were both slaves to Galbatorix, and their forced servitude had twisted their minds. A dragon who was not free to do as he or she wished was not a dragon at all. Besides, they were males, and while males might appear majestic, they could not embody the beauty she did. No, she was the most stunning creature in Alagaësia, and that was as it should be.

Saphira wriggled with satisfaction all the way from the base of her head to the tip of her tail. Today was a perfect day. The heat of the sun made her feel as if she were lying in a nest of coals. Her belly was full, the sky was clear, and there was nothing she needed to attend to, besides watching for foes who might wish to fight, which she did anyway, as a matter of habit.

Her happiness had only one flaw, but it was a profound flaw, and the longer she considered it, the more discontented she grew, until she realized she was no longer satisfied; she wished Eragon were there to share the day with her. She growled and loosed a brief jet of blue flame from between her jaws, searing the air in front of her, then constricted her throat, cutting off the stream of liquid fire. Her tongue tingled from the flames that had run over it. When was Eragon, partner-of-her-mind-and-heart-Eragon, going to contact Nasuada from Tronjheim and ask for her, Saphira, to join him? She had urged him to obey Nasuada and travel to the mountains-higher-than-she-could-fly, but now too long had passed, and Saphira felt cold and empty in her gut.

There is a shadow in the world,
she thought.
That is what has upset me. Something is wrong with
Eragon. He is in danger, or he was in danger recently. And I cannot help him
. She was not a wild dragon. Since she had hatched, she had shared her entire life with Eragon, and without him, she was only half herself. If he died because she was not there to protect him, she would have no reason to continue living, save for revenge. She knew she would tear his killers apart and then she would fly on the black city of the egg-breaker-traitor who had kept her imprisoned for so many decades, and she would do her best to slay him, no matter that it would mean certain death for her.

Saphira growled again and snapped at a tiny sparrow that was foolish enough to fly within range of her teeth. She missed, and the sparrow darted past and continued on its way unmolested, which only exacerbated her foul mood. For a moment, she considered chasing the sparrow but then decided it was not worth bothering herself over such an inconsequential speck of bones and feathers. It would not even make a good snack.

Tilting on the wind and swinging her tail in the opposite direction to facilitate her turn, she wheeled around, studying the ground far below and all the small scurrying things that strove to hide from her hunter’s eyes. Even from her height of thousands of feet, she could count the number of feathers on the back of a chicken hawk that was skimming the fields of planted wheat west of the Jiet River. She could see the blur of brown fur as a rabbit dashed to the safety of its warren. She could pick out the small herd of deer cowering underneath the branches of the currant bushes clustered along a tributary of the Jiet River. And she could hear the high-pitched squeaks of frightened animals warning their brethren of her presence. Their wavering cries gratified her; it was only right that her food should fear her. If ever she should fear it, she would know it was her time to die.

A league farther upstream, the Varden were packed against the Jiet River like a herd of red deer against the edge of a cliff. The Varden had arrived at the crossing yesterday, and since then, perhaps a third of the men-who-were-friends and the Urgals-who-were-friends and the horses-she-must-not-eat had forded the river. The army moved so slowly, she sometimes wondered how humans ever had time to do anything other than travel, considering how short their lives were.
It would be much more convenient if
they could fly,
she thought, and wondered why they did not choose to. Flying was so easy, it never ceased to puzzle her why any creature would remain earthbound. Even Eragon retained his attachment to the soft-hard-ground, when she knew he could join her in the sky at any time merely by uttering a few words in the ancient language. But then, she did not always understand the actions of those who tottered about on two legs, whether they had round ears, pointed ears, or horns or were so short she could squash them under her feet.

A flicker of movement to the northeast caught her attention, and she angled toward it, curious. She saw a line of five-and-forty weary horses trudging toward the Varden. Most of the horses were riderless; therefore, it did not occur to her until another half hour had elapsed and she could make out the faces of the men in the saddles that the group might be Roran’s returning from their raid. She wondered what had happened to so reduce their numbers and felt a momentary twinge of unease. She was not bonded to Roran, but Eragon cared for him, and that was reason enough for her to worry about his well-being.

Pushing her consciousness down toward the disorganized Varden, she searched until she found the music of Arya’s mind, and once the elf acknowledged her and allowed access to her thoughts, Saphira said,
Roran shall be here by late afternoon. However, his company is sore diminished. Some great
evil befell them this trip
.

Thank you, Saphira,
said Arya.
I shall inform Nasuada.

As Saphira withdrew from Arya’s mind, she felt the questing touch of black-blue-wolf-hair-Blödhgarm.
I
am not a hatchling,
she snapped.
You need not check on my health every few minutes
.

You have my most humble apologies, Bjartskular, only you have been gone for quite some time
now, and if any are watching, they will begin to wonder why you and—

Yes, I know,
she growled. Shortening her wingspan, she tilted downward, the sensation of weight leaving her, and gyrated in slow spirals as she dove toward the turgid river.
I shall be there shortly
.

A thousand feet above the water, she flared her wings and felt the strain in her flight membranes as the wind pressed against them with immense force. She slowed to a near standstill, then spilled air from her wings and accelerated once more, gliding to within a hundred feet of the brown not-good-to-drink-water. With an occasional flap to maintain her altitude, she flew up the Jiet River, alert for the sudden changes of pressure that plagued cool-air-above-flowing-water and that could push her in an unexpected direction or, worse, into sharp-pointy-trees or the break-bone-ground.

She swept high above the Varden gathered next to the river, high enough that her arrival would not unduly frighten the silly horses. Then, drifting downward upon still wings, she landed in a clearing among the tents—a clearing Nasuada had ordered set aside just for her—and crawled through the camp to Eragon’s empty tent, where Blödhgarm and the eleven other elves he commanded were waiting for her.

She greeted them with a blink of her eyes and a flick of her tongue and then curled up in front of Eragon’s tent, resigned to dozing and waiting for dark as she would if Eragon were actually in the tent and he and she were flying missions at night. It was dull, tedious work, lying there day after day, but it was necessary in order to maintain the deception that Eragon was still with the Varden, so Saphira did not complain, even if after twelve or more hours spent on the rough-hard-ground dirtying her scales, she felt like fighting a thousand soldiers, or razing a forest with tooth and claw and fire, or leaping up and flying until she could fly no more or until she reached the end of earth, water, and air.