Inheritance

THE WORD OF A RIDER

Eragon grabbed Brisingr, and then he and Arya dashed from the tent.

Outside, Eragon staggered and fell to one knee as the ground seemed to pitch underneath him. He clutched at a tuft of grass, using it as an anchor while he waited for the dizziness to abate.

When he dared look up, he squinted. The light from the nearby torches was painfully bright; the flames swam before him like fish, as if detached from the oil-soaked rags that fed them.

Balance is gone, thought Eragon. Can’t trust my vision. Have to clear my mind. Have to-

A patch of motion caught his eye, and he ducked. Saphira’s tail swept over him, passing only inches above his head, then struck his tent and flattened it, breaking the wooden poles like so many dry twigs.

Saphira snarled, snapping at the empty air as she struggled to her feet. Then she paused, confused.

Little one, what-

A sound like a mighty wind interrupted her, and from out of the blackness of the sky, there emerged Thorn, red as blood and glittering like a million shifting stars. He landed close to Nasuada’s pavilion, and the earth shook from the impact of his weight.

Eragon heard Nasuada’s guards shouting; then Thorn swung his right forepaw across the ground, and half the shouts went silent.

From rigging strapped to the sides of the red dragon, several dozen soldiers leaped down and spread outward, stabbing into tents and cutting down the watchmen who ran at them.

Horns blared along the perimeter of the camp. At the same time, the sounds of combat erupted near their outer defenses, marking, Eragon thought, a secondary attack, from the north.

How many soldiers are there? he wondered. Are we surrounded? Panic blossomed within him so strongly that it almost overrode his sense of reason and sent him running blindly into the night. Only the knowledge that the faelnirv was responsible for his reaction held him in place.

He whispered a quick healing spell, hoping it might counteract the effects of the liqueur, but to no avail. Disappointed, he carefully stood, drew Brisingr, and joined Arya to stand shoulder to shoulder with her as five soldiers ran toward them. Eragon was not sure how he and Arya could fight them off. Not in their condition.

The men were less than twenty feet away when Saphira growled and slapped the ground with her tail, knocking the soldiers over. Eragon-who had sensed what Saphira was about to do-grabbed Arya, and she grabbed him, and by supporting each other, they were able to remain upright.

Then Blodhgarm and another elf, Laufin, sprinted out of the maze of tents and slew the five soldiers before they could regain their footing. The other elves followed close behind.

Another group of soldiers, this one over twenty strong, ran toward Eragon and Arya, almost as if the men knew where to find them.

The elves arranged themselves in a line in front of Eragon and Arya. But before the soldiers came within reach of the elves’ swords, one of the tents burst open and Angela charged howling into the midst of the soldiers, catching them by surprise.

The herbalist was wearing a red nightgown, her curly hair was in disarray, and in each hand she wielded a wool comb. The combs were three feet long and had two rows of steel tines mounted at an angle on the ends. The tines were longer than Eragon’s forearm and were sharpened to needle-like points-he knew that if you pricked yourself, you could catch blood poisoning from the unwashed wool they had been drawn through.

Two of the soldiers fell as Angela buried the wool combs in their sides, driving the tines right through their hauberks. The herbalist was more than a foot shorter than some of the men, but she showed no sign of fear as she bounded among them. To the contrary, she was the picture of ferocity, with her wild hair and her shouting and her dark-eyed expression.

The soldiers encircled Angela and closed in around her, hiding her from sight, and for a moment, Eragon feared they would overwhelm her.

Then, from elsewhere in the camp, he saw Solembum racing toward the knot of soldiers, the werecat’s ears pressed flat against his skull. More werecats trailed him: twenty, thirty, forty-a whole pack, and all in their animal forms.

A cacophony of hisses, yowls, and screams filled the night as the werecats sprang upon the soldiers and pulled them to the ground, tearing at them with claws and teeth. The soldiers fought back as best they could, but they were no match for the large, shaggy cats.

The whole sequence, from Angela’s appearance to the intervention of the werecats, transpired with such speed, Eragon barely had time to react. As the werecats swarmed the soldiers, he blinked and wet his parched mouth, feeling a sense of unreality about everything around him.

Then Saphira said, Quick, onto my back, and she crouched so he could climb onto her.

“Wait,” said Arya, and put a hand on his arm. She murmured a few phrases in the ancient language. An instant later, the distortion of Eragon’s senses vanished and he again found himself in full command of his body.

He gave Arya a grateful glance, then tossed Brisingr’s scabbard onto the remains of his tent, scrambled up Saphira’s right foreleg, and settled into his usual position at the base of her neck. Without a saddle, the sharp edges of her scales dug into the insides of his legs, a feeling he well remembered from their first flight together.

“We need the Dauthdaert,” he shouted down to Arya.

She nodded and ran toward her own tent, which was several hundred feet away, on the eastern side of the camp.

Another consciousness, not Saphira’s, pressed against Eragon’s mind, and he drew in his thoughts to protect himself. Then he realized the being was Glaedr, and he allowed the golden dragon past his guard.

I will help, said Glaedr. Behind his words, Eragon sensed a terrible, seething anger directed at Thorn and Murtagh, an anger that seemed powerful enough to burn the world to cinders. Join your minds with me, Eragon, Saphira. And you as well, Blodhgarm, and you, Laufin, and the rest of your kind. Let me see with your eyes, and let me listen with your ears, so that I can advise you as to what to do, and so that I can lend you my strength when needed.

Saphira leaped forward, half flying, half gliding over the rows of tents toward the huge ruby mass of Thorn. The elves followed below, killing what soldiers they encountered.

Saphira had the advantage of height, as Thorn was still on the ground. She angled toward him-intending, Eragon knew, to alight on Thorn’s back and fix her jaws upon his neck-but as he saw her coming, the red dragon snarled and twisted to face her, crouching like a smaller dog confronting a larger one.

Eragon just had time to notice that Thorn’s saddle was empty, and then the dragon reared and batted at Saphira with one of his thick, muscular forelegs. His heavy paw swung through the air with a loud rushing sound. In the gloom, his claws appeared startlingly white.

Saphira veered to the side, contorting her body to avoid the blow. The ground and the sky tilted around Eragon, and he found himself looking up at the camp as the tip of Saphira’s right wing tore apart someone’s tent.

The force of the turn tugged on Eragon, pulling him away from Saphira. Her scales started to slip out from between his legs. He clenched his thighs and tightened his hold on the spike in front of him, but Saphira’s motion was too violent to withstand, and a second later, his grip gave way and he found himself tumbling through the air, without a clear idea of which direction was up and which was down.

Even as he fell, he made sure to maintain his grasp on Brisingr and to keep the blade well away from his body; wards or no wards, the sword could still injure him, due to Rhunon’s spellwork.

Little one!

“Letta!” Eragon shouted, and with a jolt, he stopped dead in the air, no more than ten feet above the ground. While the world seemed to keep spinning for another few seconds, he glimpsed Saphira’s sparkling outline as she circled around to retrieve him.

Thorn bellowed and sprayed the rows of tents between him and Eragon with a layer of white-hot flames that leaped up toward the sky. Screams of agony swiftly followed as the men within burned to death.

Eragon raised a hand to shield his face. His magic protected him from serious injury, but the heat was uncomfortable. I’m fine. Don’t turn back, he said, not only to Saphira but also to Glaedr and the elves. You have to stop them. I’ll meet you by Nasuada’s pavilion.

Saphira’s disapproval was palpable, but she altered her course to resume her attack on Thorn.

Eragon released his spell and dropped to the ground. He landed lightly on the balls of his feet, then set off at a run between the burning tents, many of which were already collapsing, sending up pillars of orange sparks.

The smoke and the stench of burnt wool made it hard for Eragon to breathe. He coughed, and his eyes began to water, blurring the lower part of his vision.

Several hundred feet ahead, Saphira and Thorn tussled, two giants in the night. Eragon felt a sense of primal fear. What was he doing running toward them, toward a pair of snapping, snarling creatures, each larger than a house-larger than two houses in Thorn’s case-and each with claws, fangs, spikes larger than his whole body? Even after the initial surge of fear subsided, a small amount of trepidation remained as he raced ahead.

He hoped Roran and Katrina were safe. Their tent was on the opposite side of the camp, but Thorn and the soldiers might turn in that direction at any moment.

“Eragon!”

Arya loped through the burning debris, carrying the Dauthdaert in her left hand. A faint green nimbus surrounded the barbed blade of the lance, although the glow was hard to see against the backdrop of flames. Trotting alongside her was Orik, who barreled through the tongues of fire as if they were no more dangerous than wisps of vapor. The dwarf was shirtless and helmetless. He held the ancient war hammer Volund in one hand and a small round shield in the other. Blood smeared both ends of the hammer.

Eragon greeted them with a raised hand and a cry, glad to have his friends with him. When she caught up, Arya offered him the lance, but Eragon shook his head. “Keep it!” he said. “We’ll have a better chance of stopping Thorn if you use Niernen and I use Brisingr.”

Arya nodded and tightened her grip on the lance. For the first time, Eragon wondered if, as an elf, she would be able to bring herself to kill a dragon. Then he put the thought aside. If there was one thing he knew about Arya, it was that she always did what was necessary, no matter how difficult.

Thorn clawed Saphira’s ribs, and Eragon gasped as he felt her pain through their bond. From Blodhgarm’s mind, he gathered that the elves were close to the dragons, busy fighting the soldiers. Not even they dared move any nearer to Saphira and Thorn, for fear of being crushed underfoot.

“Over there,” said Orik, and pointed with his hammer toward a cluster of soldiers moving through the rows of destroyed tents.

“Leave them,” said Arya. “We have to help Saphira.”

Orik grunted. “Right, then, off we go.”

The three of them dashed forward, but Eragon and Arya soon left Orik far behind. No dwarf could hope to keep up with them, not even one as strong and fit as Orik.

“Go on!” shouted Orik from behind. “I’ll follow as fast as I can!”

As Eragon dodged scraps of burning fabric that were floating through the air, he spotted Nar Garzhvog amid a knot of ten soldiers. The horned Kull appeared grotesque by the ruddy light of the flames; his lips were drawn back from his fangs, and the shadows on his heavy brow ridge gave his face a crude, brutal look, as if his skull had been hacked out of a boulder with a dull chisel. Fighting barehanded, he grabbed a soldier and tore him limb from limb as easily as Eragon might tear apart a roast chicken.

A few paces later, the burning tents ended. On the other side of the flames, all was confusion.

Blodhgarm and two of his spellcasters stood facing four black-robed men, who Eragon assumed were magicians of the Empire. Neither the men nor the elves stirred, though their faces displayed immense strain. Dozens of soldiers lay dead on the ground, but others still ran free, some bearing wounds so horrendous that Eragon knew at once the men were immune to pain.

He could not see the rest of the elves, but he could sense their presence on the other side of Nasuada’s red pavilion, which stood in the center of the havoc.

Groups of werecats chased soldiers back and forth throughout the clearing around the pavilion. King Halfpaw and his mate, Shadowhunter, led two of the groups; Solembum led a third.

Close to the pavilion stood the herbalist, dueling with a large, burly man-she fighting with her wool combs, he with a mace in one hand and a flail in the other. The two seemed fairly matched, despite their differences in sex, weight, height, reach, and equipment.

To Eragon’s surprise, Elva was there as well, sitting on the end of a barrel. The witch-child had her arms wrapped around her stomach and appeared deathly ill, but she too was participating in the battle, albeit in her own unique way. Clustered before her were a dozen soldiers, and Eragon saw that she was speaking rapidly to them, her small mouth moving in a blur. As she spoke, each man reacted differently: one stood fixed in place, seemingly unable to move; one cringed and covered his face with his hands; one knelt and stabbed himself in the chest with a long dagger; another flung down his weapons and ran off through the camp; and still another babbled like a fool. None lifted their swords against her, and none went on to attack anyone else.

And looming above the mayhem, like two living mountains, were Saphira and Thorn. They had moved off to the left of the pavilion and were circling each other, trampling row after row of tents. Tongues of flames flickered in the pits of their nostrils and in the gaps between their saber-like teeth.

Eragon hesitated. The welter of sounds and motions was hard to take in, and he was uncertain where he was needed most.

Murtagh? he asked Glaedr.

We’ve yet to find him, if he’s even here. I can’t feel his mind, but it’s hard to know for sure with so many people and spells in one place. Through their link, Eragon could tell that the golden dragon was doing far more than just talking to him; Glaedr was listening simultaneously to the thoughts of Saphira and the elves, as well as helping Blodhgarm and his two companions in their mental struggle against the Empire’s magicians.

Eragon was confident that they would be able to defeat the magicians, just as he was confident that Angela and Elva were perfectly capable of defending themselves from the rest of the soldiers. Saphira, however, was already wounded in several places, and she was hard-pressed to keep Thorn from attacking the rest of the camp.

Eragon glanced at the Dauthdaert in Arya’s hand, then back at the massive shapes of the dragons. We have to kill him, Eragon thought, and his heart grew heavy. Then his eye fell on Elva, and a new idea took root in his mind. The girl’s words were more powerful than any weapon; no one, not even Galbatorix, could withstand them. If she could but speak to Thorn, she could drive him away.

No! growled Glaedr. You waste time, youngling. Go to your dragon-now! She needs your help. You must kill Thorn, not scare him into fleeing! He is broken, and there is nothing you can do to save him.

Eragon looked at Arya, and she looked at him.

“Elva would be faster,” he said.

“We have the Dauthdaert-”

“Too dangerous. Too difficult.”

Arya hesitated, then nodded. Together they started toward Elva.

Before they reached her, Eragon heard a muffled scream. He turned and, to his horror, saw Murtagh striding out of the pavilion, dragging Nasuada by her wrists.

Nasuada’s hair was disheveled. A nasty scratch marred one of her cheeks, and her yellow dressing gown was torn in several places. She kicked at Murtagh’s knee, but her heel bounced off a ward, leaving Murtagh untouched. He pulled her closer with a cruel tug, then struck her on the temple with the pommel of Zar’roc, knocking her unconscious.

Eragon yelled and swerved toward them.

Murtagh gave him a brief look. Then he sheathed his sword, hoisted Nasuada onto a shoulder, and knelt on one knee, where he bowed his head, as if in prayer.

A spike of pain from Saphira distracted Eragon, and she cried, Beware! He’s escaped me!

As Eragon leaped over a mound of corpses, he risked a quick glance upward and saw Thorn’s glittering belly and velvet wings blotting out half the stars in the sky. The red dragon spun slightly as he drifted downward, like a large, weighted leaf.

Eragon dove to the side and rolled behind the pavilion, trying to put distance between himself and the dragon. A rock dug into his shoulder as he landed.

Without slowing, Thorn reached down with his right foreleg, which was as thick and knotted as a tree trunk, and closed his enormous paw around Murtagh and Nasuada. His claws sank into the earth, excavating a plug of dirt several feet deep as he picked up the two humans.

Then, with a triumphant roar and the bone-jarring thuds of flapping wings, Thorn arched upward and started to climb away from the camp.

From where she and Thorn had been grappling, Saphira took off in pursuit, streamers of blood unfurling from bites and claw marks along her limbs. She was faster than Thorn, but even if she caught him, Eragon could not imagine how she could rescue Nasuada without injuring her.

A breath of wind tugged at his hair as Arya sped past him. She ran up a pile of barrels and jumped, and her leap carried her high into the air, higher than any elf could jump without assistance. Reaching out, she grabbed hold of Thorn’s tail and hung dangling from it like an ornament.

Eragon took a half step forward, as if to stop her, then cursed and growled, “Audr!”

The spell launched him into the sky, like an arrow from a bow. He reached out to Glaedr, and the old dragon fed him energy to sustain his ascension. Eragon burned the energy without heed, not caring the price, only wanting to reach Thorn before something horrible happened to Nasuada or Arya.

As he hurtled past Saphira, Eragon watched as Arya began to climb up Thorn’s tail. She clung to the spikes along his spine with her right hand, using them like the rungs on a ladder. With her left, she plunged the Dauthdaert into Thorn, anchoring herself with the blade of the spear even as she pulled herself higher and higher up his heaving body. Thorn wriggled and twisted and snapped at her, like a horse irritated by a fly, but he could not reach her.

Then the blood-red dragon drew in his wings and legs, and with his precious cargo cradled close against his chest, he dove toward the ground, spinning round and round in a death spiral. The Dauthdaert tore loose from Thorn’s flesh, and Arya stretched out at an angle to him as she held on to a spike with only her right hand-her weak hand, the hand she had injured in the catacombs under Dras-Leona.

Ere long, her fingers loosened and she fell away from Thorn, her arms and legs flung outward like the spokes of a wagon wheel. No doubt the result of a spell she had cast, her gyrations slowed and then ceased, as did her downward trajectory, until at last she floated upright in the night sky. Illuminated by the glow of the Dauthdaert, which she still held, she appeared to Eragon like a green firefly hovering in the darkness.

Thorn flared his wings and looped back toward her. Arya’s head swiveled as she looked over at Saphira; then she rotated in the air to face Thorn.

A malefic light sprang into existence between Thorn’s jaws an instant before an ever-expanding wall of flames billowed out of his maw and rolled over Arya, obscuring her form.

By then, Eragon was less than fifty feet away-close enough that the heat stung his cheeks.

The flames cleared to reveal Thorn turning away from Arya, doubling back on himself as quickly as his bulk would allow. As he did, he swung his tail, whipping it through the air faster than she could hope to evade.

“No!” shouted Eragon.

There was a crack as the tail struck Arya. It knocked her into the darkness, like a stone loosed from a sling, and the Dauthdaert separated from her and arced downward, its glow dwindling to a faint point that soon vanished altogether.

Iron bands seemed to tighten around Eragon’s chest, squeezing the breath out of him. Thorn was pulling away, but Eragon might still be able to overtake the dragon if he drew even more energy from Glaedr. However, his connection with Glaedr was growing tenuous and Eragon could not hope to best Thorn and Murtagh alone and high above the ground, not when Murtagh had dozens or more Eldunari at his disposal.

Eragon swore, cut off the spell that was propelling him through the air, and dove headfirst after Arya. The wind screamed in his ears and tore at his hair and clothes, and mashed the skin on his cheeks flat, and forced him to narrow his eyes to slits. An insect struck him on the neck; the impact stung as fiercely as if he had been hit by a pebble.

As he fell, Eragon searched with his mind for Arya’s consciousness. He had just sensed a glimmer of awareness somewhere in the gloom below when Saphira shot out beneath him, her scales muted in the light of the stars. She turned upside down, and Eragon saw her reach out and catch a small, dark object with her forepaws.

A jolt of pain went through the mind Eragon had touched; then all thought ceased within it and he felt no more.

I have her, little one, said Saphira.

“Letta,” Eragon said, and he slowed to a halt.

He looked for Thorn again, but saw only stars and blackness. To the east, he heard twice the indistinct sound of flapping wings, then all was silent.

Eragon looked toward the Varden’s camp. Patches of fire glowed orange and sullen through layers of smoke. Hundreds of tents lay crumpled in the dirt, along with however many men had failed to escape before Saphira and Thorn trampled them. But those men were not the only victims of the attack. From his height, Eragon could not pick out the bodies, but he knew the soldiers had killed scores.

The taste of ashes filled Eragon’s mouth. He was shaking; tears of rage and fear and frustration clouded his eyes. Arya was injured-perhaps dead. Nasuada was gone, captured, and soon she would be at the mercy of Galbatorix’s most skilled torturers.

Hopelessness overcame Eragon.

How could they continue now? How could they possibly hope for victory without Nasuada to lead them?