Brisingr [en]

moss, and other organic matter that would provide excellent food for crops. He pressed it to his lips and tongue. The soil tasted alive, full of hundreds of flavors, from pulverized mountains to beetles and punky wood and the tender tips of grass roots.

This is good farmland, thought Roran. He cast his mind back to Palancar Valley, and again he saw the autumn sun streaming through the field of barley outside his family’s house — neat rows of golden stalks shifting in the breeze — with the Anora River to the west and the snowcapped mountains rising high on either side of the valley. That is where I should be, plowing the earth and raising a family with Katrina, not watering the ground with the sap of men’s limbs.

“Ho there!” cried Captain Edric, pointing toward Roran from on his horse. “Have an end to your dawdling, Stronghammer, lest I change my mind about you and leave you to stand guard with the archers!”

Dusting his hands on his leggings, Roran rose from a kneeling position. “Yes, sir! As you wish, sir!” he said, suppressing his dislike for Edric. Since he had joined Edric’s company, Roran had attempted to learn what he could of the man’s history. From what he heard, Roran had concluded Edric was a competent commander — Nasuada never would have put him in charge of such an important mission otherwise — but he had an abrasive personality, and he disciplined his warriors for even the slightest deviation from established practice, as Roran had learned to his chagrin upon three separate occasions during his first day with Edric’s company. It was, Roran believed, a style of command that undermined a man’s morale, as well as discouraged creativity and invention from those underneath you. Perhaps Nasuada gave me to him for those very reasons, thought Roran. Or perhaps this is another test of hers. Perhaps she wants to know whether I can swallow my pride long enough to work with a man like Edric.

Getting back onto Snowfire, Roran rode to the front of the column of two hundred and fifty men. Their mission was simple; since Nasuada and King Orrin had withdrawn the bulk of their forces from Surda, Galbatorix had apparently decided to take advantage of their absence and wreak havoc throughout the defenseless country, sacking towns and villages and burning the crops needed to sustain the invasion of the Empire. The easiest way to eliminate the soldiers would have been for Saphira to fly out and tear them to pieces, but unless she was winging her way toward Eragon, everyone agreed it would be too dangerous for the Varden to be without her for so long. So Nasuada had sent Edric’s company to repel the soldiers, whose number her spies had initially estimated to be around three hundred. However, two days ago, Roran and the rest of the warriors had been dismayed when they came across tracks that indicated the size of Galbatorix’s force was closer to seven hundred.

Roran reined in Snowfire next to Carn on his dappled mare and scratched his chin while he studied the lay of the land. Before them was a vast expanse of undulating grass, dotted with occasional stands of willow and cottonwood trees. Hawks hunted above, while below, the grass was full of squeaking mice, rabbits, burrowing rodents, and other wildlife. The only evidence that men had ever visited the place before was the swath of trampled vegetation that led toward the eastern horizon, marking the soldiers’ trail.

Carn glanced up at the noonday sun, the skin pulling tight around his drooping eyes as he squinted. “We should overtake them before our shadows are longer than we are tall.”

“And then we’ll discover whether there are enough of us to drive them away,” muttered Roran, “or whether they will just massacre us. For once I’d like to outnumber our enemies.”

A grim smile appeared on Carn’s face. “It is always thus with the Varden.”

“Form up!” shouted Edric, and spurred his horse down the trail trampled through the grass. Roran clamped his jaw shut and touched his heels to Snowfire’s flanks as the company followed their captain.

Six hours later, Roran sat on Snowfire, hidden within a cluster of beech trees that grew along the edge of a small, flat stream clotted with rushes and strands of floating algae. Through the net of branches that hung before him, Roran gazed upon a crumbling, gray-sided village of no more than twenty houses. Roran had watched with ever-increasing fury as the villagers had spotted the soldiers advancing from the west and then had gathered up a few bundles of possessions and fled south, toward the heart of Surda. If it had been up to him, Roran would have revealed their presence to the villagers and assured them they were not about to lose their houses, not if he and the rest of his companions could prevent it, for he well remembered the pain and desperation and sense of hopelessness that abandoning Carvahall had caused him, and he would have spared them that if he could. Also, he would have asked the men of the village to fight with them. Another ten or twenty sets of arms might mean the difference between victory or defeat, and Roran knew better than most the fervor with which people would fight to defend their homes. However, Edric had rejected the idea and insisted that the Varden remain concealed in the hills southeast of the village.

“We’re lucky they’re on foot,” murmured Carn, indicating the red column of soldiers marching toward the village. “We would not have been able to get here first otherwise.”

Roran glanced back at the men gathered behind them. Edric had given him temporary command over eighty- one warriors. They consisted of swordsmen, spearmen, and a half-dozen archers. One of Edric’s familiars, Sand, led another eighty-one of the company, while Edric headed the rest himself. All three groups were pressed against one another among the beech trees, which Roran thought was a mistake; the time it took to organize themselves once they broke from cover would be extra time the soldiers would have to marshal their defenses.

Leaning over toward Carn, Roran said, “I don’t see any of them with missing hands or legs or other injuries of note, but that proves nothing one way or another. Can you tell if any of them are men who cannot feel pain?”

Carn sighed. “I wish I could. Your cousin might be able to, for Murtagh and Galbatorix are the only spellcasters Eragon need fear, but I am a poor magician, and I dare not test the soldiers. If there are any magicians disguised among the soldiers, they would know of my spying, and there is every chance I would not be able to break their minds before they alerted their companions we are here.”

“We seem to have this discussion every time we are about to fight,” Roran observed, studying the soldiers’ armaments and trying to decide how best to deploy his men.

With a laugh, Carn said, “That’s all right. I only hope we keep having it, because if not—”

“One or both of us will be dead—”

“Or Nasuada will have reassigned us to different captains—”

“And then we might as well be dead, because no one else will guard our backs as well,” Roran concluded. A smile touched his lips. It had become an old joke between them. He drew his hammer from his belt and then winced as his right leg twinged where the ox had ripped his flesh with its horn. Scowling, he reached down and massaged the location of the wound.

Carn saw and asked, “Are you well?”

“It won’t kill me,” said Roran, then reconsidered his words. “Well, maybe it will, but I’ll be blasted if I’m going to wait here while you go off and cut those bumbling oafs to pieces.”

When the soldiers reached the village, they marched straight through it, pausing only to break down the door to each house and tramp through the rooms to see if anyone was hiding inside. A dog ran out from behind a rain barrel, his ruff standing on end, and began barking at the soldiers. One of the men stepped forward and threw his spear at the dog, killing it.

As the first of the soldiers reached the far side of the village, Roran tightened his hand around the haft of his hammer in preparation for the charge, but then he heard a series of high-pitched screams, and a sense of dread gripped him. A squad of soldiers emerged from the second-to-last house, dragging three struggling people: a lanky, white-haired man, a young woman with a torn blouse, and a boy no older than eleven.

Sweat sprang up on Roran’s brow. In a low, slow monotone, he began to swear, cursing the three captives for not having fled with their neighbors, cursing the soldiers for what they had done and might yet do, cursing Galbatorix, and cursing whatever whim of fate had resulted in the situation as it was. Behind him, he was aware of his men shifting and muttering with anger, eager to punish the soldiers for their brutality.

Having searched all of the houses, the mass of soldiers retraced their steps to the center of the village and formed a rough semicircle around their prisoners.

Yes! crowed Roran to himself as the soldiers turned their backs to the Varden. Edric’s plan had been to wait for them to do just that. In anticipation of the order to charge, Roran rose up several inches above his saddle, his entire body tense. He tried to swallow, but his throat was too dry.

The officer in charge of the soldiers, who was the only man among them on a horse, dismounted his steed and exchanged a few inaudible words with the white-haired villager. Without warning, the officer drew his saber and decapitated the man, then hopped backward to avoid the resulting spray of blood. The young woman screamed