dwarf’s inexplicable speed. As the falchion neared its target, the dwarf tilted his shield, so as to deflect the blow to the side.
Two plumes of sparks erupted from the surface of the shield as the falchion glanced off the upper part and then the steel spike mounted in the center. Momentum carried the falchion farther than Eragon had intended, and it continued flying through the air until it struck edge-first against a wall, jarring Eragon’s arm. With a crystalline sound, the blade of the falchion shattered into a dozen pieces, leaving him with a six-inch spike of jagged metal protruding from the hilt.
Dismayed, Eragon dropped the broken sword and gripped the rim of the dwarf’s buckler, wresting with him back and forth and struggling to keep the shield between him and the dagger graced with a halo of translucent colors. The dwarf was incredibly tough; he matched Eragon’s efforts and even succeeded in pushing him back a step. Releasing the buckler with his right hand but still holding on with his left, Eragon drew back his arm and struck the shield as hard as he could, punching through the tempered steel as easily as if it were made of rotten wood. Because of the calluses on his knuckles, he felt no pain from the impact.
The force of the blow threw the dwarf against the opposite wall. His head lolling upon a boneless neck, the dwarf dropped to the ground, like a puppet whose strings had been severed.
Eragon pulled his hand back through the jagged hole in the shield, scratching himself on the torn metal, and drew his hunting knife.
Then the last of the black-garbed dwarves was upon him. Eragon parried his dagger twice... thrice... and then cut through the dwarf’s padded sleeve and scored his dagger arm from the elbow to the wrist. The dwarf hissed with pain, blue eyes furious above his cloth mask. He initiated a series of blows, the dagger whistling through the air faster than the eye could follow, which forced Eragon to hop away to avoid the deadly edge. The dwarf pressed the attack. For several yards, Eragon succeeded in evading him, until his heel struck a body and, in attempting to step around it, he stumbled and fell against a wall, bruising his shoulder.
With an evil laugh, the dwarf pounced, stabbing downward toward Eragon’s exposed chest. Throwing up an arm in a futile attempt to protect himself, Eragon rolled farther down the hallway, knowing that this time his luck had run out and he would not be able to escape.
As he completed a revolution and his face was momentarily turned toward the dwarf again, Eragon glimpsed the pale dagger descending toward his flesh, like a bolt of lightning from on high. Then, to his astonishment, the tip of the dagger caught on one of the flameless lanterns mounted on the wall. Eragon whirled away before he could see more, but an instant later, a burning hot hand seemed to strike him from behind, throwing him a good twenty feet through the hall, until he fetched up against the edge of an open archway, instantly accumulating a new collection of scrapes and bruises. A booming report deafened him. Feeling as if someone were driving splinters into his eardrums, Eragon clapped his hands over his ears and curled into a ball, howling.
When the noise and the pain had subsided, he lowered his hands and staggered to his feet, clenching his teeth as his injuries announced their presence with a myriad of unpleasant sensations. Groggy and confused, he gazed upon the site of the explosion.
The blast had blackened a ten-foot length of the hallway with soot. Soft flakes of ash tumbled through the air, which was as hot as the air from a heated forge. The dwarf who had been about to strike Eragon lay on the ground, thrashing, his body covered with burns. After a few more convulsions, he grew still. Eragon’s three remaining guards lay at the edge of the soot, where the explosion had thrown them. Even as he watched, they staggered upright, blood dripping from their ears and gaping mouths, their beards singed and in disarray. The links along the fringe of their hauberks glowed red, but their leather under-armor seemed to have protected them from the worst of the heat.
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.
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 Kvistor, hoping that he might still save the dwarf from the clutches of death. As soon as he beheld Kvistor’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, “Barzul! 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 Anhuin.”
Eragon frowned. “Grimstborith Vermund 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 Anhuin 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 Anhuin 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 Kvistor’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 Durgrimst Ingeitum. This I swear to you, as a Dragon Rider and as a fellow member of Durgrimst 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
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.
Then he thought,
