Inheritance

AND THE WALLS FELL …

The sound of crashing masonry caused Eragon to pause and look back.

Between the peaks of two distant houses, he saw an empty space where the barbed spire of the cathedral used to be. In its place, a column of dust billowed toward the clouds above, like a pillar of white smoke.

Eragon smiled to himself, proud of Saphira. When it came to spreading chaos and destruction, dragons were without equal. Go on, he thought. Smash it to pieces! Bury their holy places under a thousand feet of stone!

Then he resumed trotting down the dark, winding cobblestone street, along with Arya, Angela, and Solembum. There were a number of people already in the streets: merchants going to open their shops, night watchmen on their way to bed, drunk noblemen just emerging from their revels, vagrants sleeping in doorways, as well as soldiers running pell-mell toward the city walls.

All of the people, even those who were running, kept looking in the direction of the cathedral as the noise of the two dragons fighting rumbled through the city. Everyone-from the sore-ridden beggars to the hardened soldiers to the richly dressed nobles-appeared terrified, and none of them gave Eragon or his companions so much as a second glance.

It helped, Eragon supposed, that he and Arya could pass for ordinary humans on brief inspection.

At Eragon’s insistence, Arya had deposited the unconscious novitiate in an alleyway a fair distance from the cathedral. “I promised we’d take him with us,” Eragon had explained, “but I never said how far. He can find his own way from here.” Arya had acquiesced and seemed relieved to be rid of the novitiate’s weight.

As the four of them hurried down the street, a strange sense of familiarity came over Eragon. His last visit to Dras-Leona had ended in much the same way: with him running between the dirty, close-set buildings, hoping to reach one of the city’s gates before the Empire found him. Only this time he had more to fear than just the Ra’zac.

He glanced toward the cathedral again. All Saphira had to do was keep Murtagh and Thorn busy for another few minutes, and then it would be too late for either of them to stop the Varden. However, minutes could be like hours during a battle, and Eragon was acutely aware of how fast the balance of power could change.

Hold fast! he thought, though he did not send his words to Saphira, lest he distract her or give away his position. Just a little longer!

The streets grew ever narrower as they approached the city wall, and the overhanging buildings-houses mostly-blocked out everything but a thin strip of the azure sky. Sewage lay stagnant in the gutters along the edges of the buildings; Eragon and Arya used their sleeves to mask their noses and mouths. The stench seemed not to affect the herbalist, although Solembum growled and whipped his tail in annoyance.

A flicker of movement on the roof of a nearby building caught Eragon’s attention, but whatever caused it had vanished by the time he looked. He continued to gaze upward and, after a few moments, began to pick out certain odd sights: a patch of white against the soot-coated bricks of a chimney; strange pointed shapes outlined against the morning sky; a small oval spot, the size of a coin, that gleamed firelike in the shadows.

With a shock, he realized that the rooftops were lined with dozens of werecats, all in their animal form. The werecats ran from building to building, watching silently from above as Eragon and his companions threaded their way through the dim maze of the city.

Eragon knew that the elusive shapeshifters would not deign to help except in the most desperate of circumstances-they wished to keep their involvement with the Varden a secret from Galbatorix for as long as possible-but he found it heartening to have them so close.

The street ended at an intersection of five other lanes. Eragon consulted with Arya and the herbalist; then they decided to take the path opposite theirs and continue in the same direction.

A hundred feet ahead, the street they had chosen took a sharp turn and opened onto the square that lay before Dras-Leona’s southern gate.

Eragon stopped.

Hundreds of soldiers stood gathered before the gate. The men milled about in seeming confusion as they donned weapons and armor, and their commanders bellowed orders at them. The golden thread stitched onto the soldiers’ crimson tunics glittered as they rushed to and fro.

The presence of the soldiers dismayed Eragon, but he was even more dismayed to see that the city’s defenders had piled a huge mound of rubble against the inside of the gates, to keep the Varden from battering them in.

Eragon swore. The mound was so large, it would take a team of fifty men several days to clear it away. Saphira could dig the gates free in a few minutes, but Murtagh and Thorn would never give her the opportunity.

We need another distraction, he thought. What that distraction should be, however, eluded him. Saphira! he cried, casting his thoughts out toward her. She heard him, of that he was sure, but he had no time to explain the situation to her, for at that very moment, one of the soldiers stopped and pointed at Eragon and his companions.

“Rebels!”

Eragon tore Brisingr from its scabbard and sprang forward before the rest of the soldiers could heed the man’s warning. He had no other choice. To retreat would be to abandon the Varden to the mercies of the Empire. Besides, he could not leave Saphira to deal with both the wall and the soldiers by herself.

He shouted as he leaped, as did Arya, who joined him in his mad charge. Together they cut their way into the midst of the surprised soldiers. For a few brief moments, the men were so bewildered, several did not seem to realize Eragon was their foe until he had stabbed them.

Flights of arrows arced down into the square from the bowmen stationed on the parapet. A handful of the shafts bounced off Eragon’s wards. The rest killed or injured the Empire’s own men.

Fast as he was, Eragon could not block all of the swords and spears and daggers poking at him. He could feel his strength ebbing at an alarming rate as his magic repelled the attacks. Unless he could win free of the press, the soldiers would end up exhausting him to the point where he could no longer fight.

With a ferocious war cry, he spun in a circle, holding Brisingr close to his waist as he scythed down all the soldiers standing within reach.

The iridescent blue blade cut through bone and flesh as if they were equally insubstantial. Blood trailed from the tip in long, twisting ribbons that slowly separated into glistening drops, like orbs of polished coral, while the men he cut doubled over, clutching at their bellies as they attempted to hold closed their wounds.

Every detail seemed bright and hard-edged, as if sculpted from glass. Eragon could make out individual hairs in the beard of the swordsman in front of him. He could count the drops of sweat that beaded the skin below the man’s eyes, and he could have pointed to every stain, scuff, and tear in and on the swordsman’s outfit.

The noise of combat was painfully loud to his sensitive ears, but Eragon felt a deep sense of calm. He was not immune to the fears that had troubled him before, but they did not waken quite so easily, and he fought better because of it.

He completed his spin and was just moving toward the swordsman when Saphira swooped past overhead. Her wings were pulled tight against her body, and they fluttered like leaves in a gale. As she passed by, a blast of wind tousled Eragon’s hair and pressed him toward the ground.

An instant later, Thorn followed Saphira, teeth bared, flames boiling in his open maw. The two dragons hurtled a half mile beyond Dras-Leona’s yellow mud wall; then they looped around and began to race back.

From outside the walls, Eragon heard a loud cheer. The Varden must be almost to the gates.

A patch of skin on his left forearm burned as if someone had poured hot fat on it. He hissed and shook his arm, but the feeling persisted. Then he saw a blotch of blood soaking through his tunic. He glanced back at Saphira. It had to be dragon blood, but he could not tell whose.

As the dragons approached, Eragon took advantage of the soldiers’ momentary daze to kill three more. Then the rest of the men regained their wits, and the battle resumed in earnest.

A soldier with a battle-ax stepped in front of Eragon and started to swing at him. Halfway through the stroke, Arya dispatched the man with a slash from behind, nearly cutting him in twain.

With a quick nod, Eragon acknowledged her help. By unspoken agreement, they stood back to back and faced the soldiers together.

He could feel Arya panting as hard as he was. Though they were stronger and faster than most humans, there was a limit to their endurance, a limit to their resources. They had already killed dozens, but hundreds remained, and Eragon knew that reinforcements would soon arrive from elsewhere in Dras-Leona.

“What now?” he shouted, parrying a spear jabbed at his thigh.

“Magic!” Arya replied.

As Eragon fended off the soldiers’ attacks, he began to recite every spell he could think of that might kill their enemies.

Another gust of wind ruffled his hair, and a cool shadow swept over him as Saphira circled above, dissipating her excess speed. She flared her wings and started to drop toward the battlements of the wall.

Before she could land, Thorn caught up with her. The red dragon dove, breathing a jet of flame over a hundred feet long. Saphira roared with frustration and veered away from the wall as she flapped quickly to gain altitude. The two dragons spiraled around each other as they climbed into the sky, biting and clawing with furious abandon.

Seeing Saphira in danger only reinforced Eragon’s determination. He increased the speed with which he spoke, chanting the words of the ancient language as quickly as he could without mispronunciation. But no matter what he tried, neither his spells nor Arya’s had any effect on the soldiers.

Then Murtagh’s voice boomed out of the sky, like the voice of a cloud-scraping giant: “Those men are under my protection, Brother!”

Eragon looked up and saw Thorn plummeting toward the square. The red dragon’s sudden change in direction had caught Saphira unawares. She still hung high above the city, a dark blue shape against the lighter blue of the sky.

They know, Eragon thought, and dread punctured his earlier calm.

He lowered his gaze and swept it over the throng. More and more soldiers were streaming out of the streets along either side of Dras-Leona’s wall. The herbalist was backed up against one of the bordering houses, throwing glass vials with one hand and swinging Tinkledeath with the other. The vials released clouds of green vapor when they broke, and any soldiers caught in the miasma fell to the ground, clutching their throats and thrashing as little brown mushrooms sprang up on every inch of exposed skin. Behind Angela, upon a flat-topped garden wall, crouched Solembum. The werecat used his vantage point to claw at the soldiers’ faces and pull off their helms, distracting them as they attempted to close with the herbalist. Both he and Angela looked beleaguered, and Eragon doubted they would be able to hold out much longer.

Nothing Eragon saw gave him hope. He turned his eyes back toward the immense bulk of Thorn even as the red dragon filled his wings with air and slowed his descent.

“We have to leave!” Arya shouted.

Eragon hesitated. It would be a simple matter to lift Arya, Angela, Solembum, and himself over the wall, to where the Varden would be waiting. But if they fled, the Varden would be no better off than before. Their army could not afford to wait any longer: after another few days, their supplies would run out and the men would begin to desert. Once that happened, Eragon knew they would never again succeed in uniting all the races against Galbatorix.

Thorn’s body and wings blotted out the sky, casting the area in ruddy darkness and hiding Saphira from view. Globules of blood, each the size of Eragon’s fist, dripped from Thorn’s neck and legs, and more than one of the soldiers cried out in pain as the liquid scalded them.

“Eragon! Now!” shouted Arya. She grabbed his arm and pulled, but still he held his ground, unwilling to admit defeat.

Arya pulled harder, forcing Eragon to look down in order to stay on his feet. As he did, his eye fell on the third finger of his right hand, where he wore Aren.

He had hoped to save the energy contained within the ring for the day when he might finally confront Galbatorix. It was a meager amount compared with what the king had undoubtedly accumulated during his long years on the throne, but it was the greatest store of power Eragon possessed, and he knew he would not have the chance to gather its equal before the Varden reached Uru’baen, if indeed they did. Also, it was one of the few things Brom had left him. For both those reasons he was reluctant to use any of the energy.

Nevertheless, he could think of no alternative.

The pool of energy within Aren had always seemed enormous to Eragon; now he wondered if it would be enough for what he intended.

At the edge of his vision, he saw Thorn reaching toward him with talons as large as a man, and some small part of him screamed to run away before the monster above caught him and ate him alive.

Eragon drew in his breath, then he breached Aren’s precious hoard and shouted, “Jierda!”

The torrent of energy that flowed through him was greater than any he had ever experienced; it was like an ice-cold river that burned and tingled with almost unbearable intensity. The sensation was both agonizing and ecstatic.

At his command, the huge pile of rubble blocking the gates erupted toward the sky in a solid pillar of earth and stone. The rubble struck Thorn in the side, shredding his wing and knocking the screeching dragon beyond the outskirts of Dras-Leona. Then the pillar spread outward, forming a loose canopy over the southern half of the city.

The launch of the rubble shook the square and drove everyone to the ground. Eragon landed on his hands and knees and remained there, staring upward as he maintained the spell.

When the energy in the ring was almost depleted, he whispered, “Ganga raehta.” Like a dark thunderhead caught in a gale, the plume drifted to the right, in the direction of the docks and Leona Lake. Eragon continued to push the rubble away from the center of the city for as long as he could; then, as the last remnants of the energy coursed through him, he ended the spell.

With a deceptively soft sound, the cloud of debris collapsed inward. The heavier elements-the stones, the broken pieces of wood, and the clumps of dirt-fell straight down, pummeling the surface of the lake, while the smaller particles remained suspended in the air, forming a large brown smudge that slowly drifted farther west.

Where the rubble had been was now an empty crater. Broken paving stones edged the hollow, like a circle of shattered teeth. The gates to the city hung open, warped and splintered, damaged beyond repair.

Through the off-kilter gates, Eragon saw the Varden massed in the streets beyond. He released his breath and allowed his head to fall forward in exhaustion. It worked, he thought, dumbfounded. Then he slowly pushed himself upright, vaguely aware that the danger had not yet passed.

While the soldiers struggled to their feet, the Varden poured into Dras-Leona, shouting war cries and banging their swords on their shields. A few seconds later, Saphira landed among them, and what had been about to turn into a pitched battle became a rout as the soldiers scrambled to save themselves.

Eragon glimpsed Roran among the sea of men and dwarves but lost sight of him before he could catch his cousin’s attention.

Arya …? Eragon turned and was alarmed to find that she was not next to him. He broadened his search and soon spotted her halfway across the square, surrounded by twenty or so soldiers. The men were holding her arms and legs with grim tenacity as they tried to drag her away. Arya freed one of her hands and struck a man in the chin, breaking his neck, but another soldier took his place before she could swing again.

Eragon sprinted toward her. In his exhaustion, he let his sword arm swing too low, and the tip of Brisingr caught on the mail hauberk of a fallen soldier, tearing the hilt from his grip. The sword clattered to the ground, and Eragon hesitated, not sure if he should turn back, but then he saw two of the soldiers stabbing at Arya with daggers, and he redoubled his speed.

Just as he reached her, Arya shook off her attackers for a moment. The men lunged with outstretched hands, but before they could recapture her, Eragon struck one man in the side, driving his fist into the man’s rib cage. A soldier with a pair of waxed mustachios stabbed at Eragon’s chest. Eragon caught the blade with his bare hands, ripped it from the soldier’s grip, broke the sword in two, and eviscerated the soldier with the stump of his own weapon. Within seconds, all the soldiers who had threatened Arya lay dead or dying. Those Eragon had not killed, Arya slew.

Afterward, Arya said, “I would have been able to defeat them on my own.”

Eragon leaned over, resting his hands on his knees as he caught his breath. “I know.…” He nodded toward her right hand-the one she had injured pulling through the iron cuff-which she held curled against her leg. “Consider it my thanks.”

“A grim sort of present.” But she said it with a faint smile on her lips.

Most of the soldiers had fled the square; those who remained were backed against the houses, hemmed in by the Varden. Even as Eragon looked about, he saw scores of Galbatorix’s men throw down their weapons and surrender.

Together he and Arya retrieved his sword, and then they walked to the yellow mud wall, where the ground was relatively clear of filth. Sitting against the wall, they watched the Varden march into the city.

Saphira soon joined them. She nuzzled Eragon, who smiled and scratched her snout. She hummed in response. You did it, she said.

We did it, he replied.

Up on her back, Blodhgarm loosened the straps that held his legs in Saphira’s saddle, then slid down her side. For a moment, Eragon had the supremely disorienting experience of meeting himself. He immediately decided that he disliked how his hair curled at the temples.

Blodhgarm uttered an indistinct word in the ancient language; then his shape shimmered like a heat reflection and he was once again himself: tall, furred, yellow-eyed, long-eared, and sharp-toothed. He appeared neither elf nor human, but in his tense, hard-set expression, Eragon detected the stamp of sorrow and anger combined.

“Shadeslayer,” he said, and bowed to both Arya and Eragon. “Saphira has told me of Wyrden’s fate. I-”

Before he could finish his sentence, the ten remaining elves under Blodhgarm’s command emerged from within the press of the Varden and hurried over, swords in hand.

“Shadeslayer!” they exclaimed. “Argetlam! Brightscales!”

Eragon greeted them tiredly and strove to answer their questions, even though he would rather have done nothing at all.

Then a roar cut through their conversation, and a shadow fell across them, and Eragon looked up to see Thorn-whole and sound once more-balancing on a column of air high above.

Eragon cursed and scrambled onto Saphira, drawing Brisingr, while Arya, Blodhgarm, and the other elves formed a protective circle around her. Their combined might was formidable, but whether it would be enough to fend off Murtagh, Eragon did not know.

As one, the Varden gazed upward. Brave they might be, but even the bravest might shrink before a dragon.

“Brother!” shouted Murtagh, his augmented voice so loud that Eragon covered his ears. “I’ll have blood from you for the injuries you caused Thorn! Take Dras-Leona if you want. It means nothing to Galbatorix. But you’ve not seen the last of us, Eragon Shadeslayer, that I swear.”

And then Thorn turned and flew north over Dras-Leona, and soon vanished within the veil of smoke that rose from the houses burning next to the ruined cathedral.