“I’ll do it. I promise.” They released each other, and she looked him in the eye. “Fight well, my husband.”
He nodded, then turned and left before he lost his composure.
The men under his command were assembling by the northern entrance to the camp when he joined them. The only light they had was from the faint glow above and the torches planted along the outer breastwork. In the dim, flickering illumination, the warriors’ figures seemed like a pack of shuffling beasts, threatening and alien.
Among their ranks were a large number of Urgals, including some Kull. His battalion contained a greater share of the creatures than most, as Nasuada had deemed them more likely to follow orders from him than from anyone else. The Urgals carried the long and heavy siege ladders that would be used to climb over the city walls.
Also among the men were a score of elves. Most of their kind would be fighting on their own, but Queen Islanzadí had granted permission for some to serve in the Varden’s army as protection against attack by Galbatorix’s spellcasters.
Roran welcomed the elves and took the time to ask each their name. They answered politely enough, but he had a feeling they did not think very highly of him. That was all right. He did not care for them either. There was something about them he did not trust; they were too aloof, too well practiced, and above all, too different. The dwarves and Urgals, at least, he understood. But not the elves. He could not tell what they were thinking, and that bothered him.
“Greetings, Stronghammer!” said Nar Garzhvog in a whisper that could be heard at thirty paces. “Today we shall win much glory for our tribes!”
“Yes, today we will win much glory for our tribes,” Roran agreed, moving on. The men were nervous; some of the younger ones looked as if they might be sick—and some were, which was only to be expected—but even the older men seemed tense, short-tempered, and either overly talkative or overly withdrawn. The cause was obvious enough: Shruikan. There was little Roran could do to help them other than to hide his own fears and hope that the men did not lose courage entirely.
The sense of anticipation that clung to everyone there, himself included, was dreadful. They had sacrificed much in order to reach this point, and it was not just their lives that were at risk in the battle to come. It was the safety and well-being of their families and descendants, as well as the future of the land itself. All of their prior battles had been similarly fraught, but this was the final one. This was the end. One way or another, there would be no more battles with the Empire after this day.
The thought hardly felt real. Never again would they have the chance to kill Galbatorix. And while confronting Galbatorix had seemed fine enough in conversations late at night, now that the moment was almost upon them, the prospect was terrifying.
Roran sought out Horst and the other villagers from Carvahall, and the lot of them formed a knot within the battalion. Birgit was among the men, clutching an ax that looked freshly sharpened. He acknowledged her by lifting his shield, as he might a mug of ale. She returned the gesture, and he allowed himself a grim smile.
The warriors muffled their boots and feet with rags, then stood waiting for the order to depart.
It soon arrived, and they marched out of the camp, doing their best to keep their arms and armor from making noise. Roran led his warriors across the fields to their place before the front gate of Urû’baen, where they joined two other battalions, one led by his old commander Martland Redbeard and one led by Jörmundur.
The alarm went up in Urû’baen soon afterward, so they pulled the rags off their weapons and feet and prepared to attack. A few minutes later, the Varden’s horns sounded the advance and they set off at a run across the dark ground toward the immensity of the city wall.
Roran took a place at the forefront of the charge. It was the fastest way to get himself killed, but the men needed to see him braving the same dangers they faced. It would, he hoped, stiffen their spines and keep them from breaking rank at the first sign of serious opposition. For whatever happened, Urû’baen would not be easy to take. Of that, he was sure.
They ran past one of the siege towers, the wheels of which were over twenty feet high and creaked like a set of rusty hinges, and then they were on open ground. Arrows and javelins rained upon them from the soldiers atop the battlements.
The elves shouted in their strange tongue, and by the faint light of dawn, Roran saw many of the arrows and spears turn and bury themselves harmlessly in the dirt. But not all. A man behind him uttered a desperate cry, and Roran heard a clatter of armor as men and Urgals leaped aside to avoid stepping on the fallen warrior. Roran did not look back, nor did he or those with him slow their headlong dash toward the wall.
An arrow struck the shield he held over his head. He barely felt the impact.
When they arrived at the wall, he moved to the side, shouting, “Ladders! Make way for the ladders!”
The men parted to allow the Urgals carrying the ladders to move forward. The ladders’ great length meant that the Kull had to use poles made of trees lashed together to push them upright. Once the ladders touched the wall, they sagged inward under their own weight, so that the upper two-thirds lay flat against the dressed stone and slid from side to side, threatening to fall.
Roran elbowed his way back through the men and grabbed one of the elves, Othíara, by the arm. She gave him a look of anger, which he ignored. “Keep the ladders in place!” he shouted. “Don’t let the soldiers push them away!”
She nodded and began to chant in the ancient language, as did the other elves.
Turning, Roran hurried back to the wall. One of the men was already starting to climb the nearest ladder. Roran grabbed him by the belt and pulled him off. “I’ll go first,” he said.
“Stronghammer!”
Roran slung his shield over his back, then began to climb, hammer in hand. He had never been fond of heights, and as the men and Urgals grew smaller below him, he felt increasingly uneasy. The feeling just grew worse when he reached the section of the ladder that lay flat against the wall, for he could no longer wrap his hands all the way around the rungs, nor could he get a good foothold—only the first few inches of his boots would fit on the bark-covered branches, and he had to move carefully to ensure that they did not slip off.
A spear flew past him, close enough that he felt the wind on his cheek.
He swore and kept climbing.
He was less than a yard from the battlements when a soldier with blue eyes leaned over the edge and looked straight at him.
“Bah!” Roran shouted, and the soldier flinched and stepped back. Before the man had time to recover, Roran scrambled up the remaining rungs and hopped over the battlements to land on the walkway along the top of the wall.
The soldier he had scared stood several feet in front of him, holding a short archer’s sword. The man’s head was turned to the side as he shouted at a group of soldiers farther down the wall.
Roran’s shield was still on his back so he swung his hammer at the man’s wrist. Without the shield, Roran knew he would have difficulty fending off a trained swordsman; his safest course was to disarm his opponent as quickly as possible.
The soldier saw what he intended and parried the blow. Then he stabbed Roran in the belly.
Or rather, he tried to. Eragon’s spells stopped the tip of the blade a quarter inch from Roran’s gut. Roran grunted, surprised, then knocked aside the blade and brained the man with three rapid strikes.
He swore again. It was a bad beginning.
Up and down the wall, more of the Varden tried to climb over the battlements. Few made it. Clumps of soldiers waited at the top of most every ladder, and reinforcements were streaming onto the walkway from the stairs to the city.
Baldor joined him—he had used the same ladder as Roran—and together they ran toward a ballista manned by eight soldiers. The ballista was mounted near the base of one of the many towers that rose out of the wall, each of which stood about two hundred feet apart. Behind the sol
diers and the tower, Roran saw the illusion of Saphira that the elves had created, flying over and around the wall, breathing fire on it.
The soldiers were smart; they grabbed their spears and poked at him and Baldor, keeping them at a distance. Roran tried to catch one of the spears, but the man wielding it was too fast, and Roran nearly got stabbed again. A moment more and he knew the soldiers would overwhelm him and Baldor.
Before that could happen, an Urgal pulled himself over the edge of the wall behind the soldiers, then lowered his head and charged, bellowing and swinging the ironbound club he carried.
The Urgal struck one man in the chest, breaking his ribs, and another on the hip, breaking his pelvis. Either injury ought to have incapacitated the soldiers, but as the Urgal bulled past them, the two men picked themselves off the stone as if nothing had happened and proceeded to stab the Urgal in the back.
A sense of doom settled upon Roran. “We’ll have to bash in their skulls or take off their heads if we’re going to stop them,” he growled to Baldor. Keeping his eyes on the soldiers, he shouted to the Varden behind them, “They can’t feel pain!”
Out over the city, the illusionary Saphira crashed into a tower. Everyone but Roran paused to look; he knew what the elves were doing.
Jumping forward, he slew one of the soldiers with a blow to the temple. He used his shield to shove the next soldier aside; then he was too close for their spears to be of any use, and he was able to make short work of them with his hammer.
Once he and Baldor had killed the rest of the soldiers around the ballista, Baldor looked at him with an expression of despair. “Did you see? Saphira—”
“She’s fine.”
“But—”
“Don’t worry about it. She’s fine.”
Baldor hesitated, then accepted Roran’s word, and they rushed at the next clump of soldiers.
Soon afterward, Saphira—the real Saphira—appeared over the southern part of the wall as she flew toward the citadel, prompting cheers of relief from the Varden.
Roran frowned. She was supposed to remain hidden for the whole of her flight. “Frethya. Frethya,” he said quickly under his breath. He remained visible. Blast it, he thought.
Turning, he said, “Back to the ladders!”
“Why?” demanded Baldor as he grappled with another soldier. Uttering a ferocious shout, he pushed the man off the wall, into the city.
“Stop asking questions! Move!”
Side by side, they fought their way through the line of soldiers that separated them from the ladders. It was bloody and difficult, and Baldor received a cut on his left calf, behind his greave, and a severe bruise on one of his shoulders, where a spear nearly pierced his mail shirt.
The soldiers’ immunity to pain meant that killing them was the only sure way to stop them, and killing them was no easy task. Also, it meant that Roran dared not show mercy. More than once, he thought he had killed a soldier, only to have the wounded man rear up and strike at him while he was engaged with another opponent. And there were so many soldiers on the walkway, he began to fear that he and Baldor would never make it off.
When they reached the nearest ladder, he said, “Here! Stay here.”
If Baldor was puzzled, he did not show it. They held off the soldiers by themselves until another two men climbed up the ladder and joined them, then a third, and at last Roran began to feel as if they had a good chance of pushing back the soldiers and capturing that segment of the wall.
Even though the attack had been devised as only a distraction, Roran saw no reason to treat it as such. If they were going to risk their lives, they might as well get something out of it. They needed to clear the walls anyway.
Then they heard Thorn roar with rage, and the red dragon appeared above the tops of the buildings, winging his way toward the citadel. Roran saw a figure he thought was Murtagh on his back, crimson sword in hand.
“What does it mean?” shouted Baldor between sword strokes.
“It means the game is up!” Roran replied. “Brace yourself; these bastards are in for a surprise!”
He had barely finished speaking when the voices of the elves sounded above the noise of the battle, eerie and beautiful as they sang in the ancient language.
Roran ducked under a spear and poked the end of his hammer into a soldier’s belly, knocking the wind from the man’s lungs. The soldiers might not be able to feel pain, but they still had to breathe. As the soldier struggled to recover, Roran slipped past his guard and crushed his throat with the rim of his shield.
He was about to attack the next man when he felt the stone tremble beneath his feet. He retreated until his back was pressed against the battlements, then widened his stance for balance.
One of the soldiers was foolish enough to rush him at that very moment. As the man ran toward him, the trembling grew stronger, then the top of the wall rippled, like a blanket being tossed, and the onrushing soldier, as well as most of his companions, fell and remained prone, helpless to rise as the earth continued to shake.
From the other side of the wall tower that separated them from Urû’baen’s main gate came a sound like a mountain breaking. Fan-shaped jets of water sprayed into the air, and then with a great noise, the wall over the gate shuddered and began to crumble inward.
And still the elves sang.
As the motion beneath his feet subsided, Roran sprang forward and killed three of the soldiers before they were able to stand. The rest turned and fled back down the stairs that led into the city.
Roran helped Baldor to his feet, then shouted, “After them!” He grinned, tasting blood. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad start after all.
THAT WHICH DOES NOT KILL …
“STOP,” SAID ELVA.
Eragon froze with his foot in the air. The girl waved him back, and he retreated.
“Jump to there,” said Elva. She pointed at a spot a yard in front of him. “By the scrollwork.”
He crouched, then hesitated as he waited for her to tell him whether it was safe.
She stamped her foot and made a sound of exasperation. “It won’t work if you don’t mean it. I can’t tell if something is going to hurt you unless you actually intend to put yourself in danger.” She gave him a smile that he found less than reassuring. “Don’t worry; I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Still doubtful, he flexed his legs again and was just about to spring forward when—
“Stop!”
He cursed and waved his arms as he tried to keep from falling onto the section of floor that would trigger the spikes hidden both above and below.
The spikes were the third trap Eragon and his companions had encountered in the long hallway leading to the golden doors. The first had been a set of hidden pits. The second had been blocks of stone in the ceiling that would have squished them flat. And now the spikes, much like those that had killed Wyrden in the tunnels beneath Dras-Leona.
They had seen Murtagh enter the hallway through the open sally port, but he had made no effort to pursue them without Thorn. After watching for a few seconds, he had disappeared into one of the side rooms where Arya and Blödhgarm had broken the gears and wheels used to open and close the stronghold’s main gate.
It might take Murtagh an hour to fix the mechanisms, or it might take him minutes. Either way, they dared not dawdle.
“Try a little bit farther out,” said Elva.
Eragon grimaced, but did as she suggested.
“Stop!”
This time he would have fallen had Elva not grabbed the back of his tunic.
“Even farther,” she said. Then, “Stop! Farther.”
“I can’t,” he growled, his frustration increasing. “Not without a running start.” But with a running start, it would be impossible to stop himself in time, should Elva determine that the jump was dangerous. “What now? If the spikes go all the way to the doors, we’ll never reach them.” They had already thought of using magic to float over the trap, but even the smallest spe
ll would set it off, or so Elva claimed, and they had no choice but to trust her.
“Maybe the trap is meant for a walking dragon,” said Arya. “If it’s only a yard or two long, Saphira or Thorn could step right over without ever realizing it was there. But if it’s a hundred feet long, it would be sure to catch them.”
Not if I jump, said Saphira. A hundred feet is an easy distance.
Eragon exchanged concerned glances with Arya and Elva. “Just make sure you don’t let your tail touch the floor,” he said. “And don’t go too far, or you might run into another trap.”
Yes, little one.
Saphira crouched and gathered herself in, lowering her head until it was only a foot or so above the stone. Then she dug her claws into the floor and leaped down the hallway, opening her wings just enough to give herself a bit of lift.
To Eragon’s relief, Elva remained silent.
When Saphira had gone two full lengths of her body, she folded her wings and dropped to the floor with a resounding clatter.
Safe, she said. Her scales scraped on the floor as she turned around. She jumped back, and Eragon and the others moved out of the way to give her room to land on her return. Well? she said. Who’s first?
It took her four trips to ferry them all across the bed of spikes. Then they continued forward at a swift trot, Arya and Elva again in the lead. They encountered no more traps until they were three-quarters of the way to the gleaming doors, at which point Elva shuddered and raised her small hand. They immediately stopped.
“Something will cut us in two if we continue,” she said. “I’m not sure where it will come from … the walls, I think.”
Eragon frowned. That meant that whatever would cut them had enough weight or strength behind it to overcome their wards—hardly an encouraging prospect.
“What if we—” he started to say, then stopped as twenty black-robed humans, men and women alike, filed out of a side passageway and formed a line in front of them, blocking the way.
Eragon felt a blade of thought stab into his mind as the enemy magicians began to chant in the ancient language. Opening her jaws, Saphira raked the spellcasters with a torrent of crackling flame, but it passed harmlessly around them. One of the banners along the wall caught fire, and scraps of smoldering fabric fell to the floor.