Brisingr [en]

attacked, even though Eragon could sense the men approaching long before they arrived. Their encounters with the soldiers devolved into dark and desperate struggles, broken only by the occasional burst of fire or magic. More than once, Saphira wrecked the front of a house with a careless sweep of her tail. She and Eragon always managed to escape permanent injury — through a combination of luck, skill, and Eragon’s wards — but the attacks made them even more cautious and tense than they normally were in battle.

The fifth such confrontation left Eragon so enraged that when the soldiers began to withdraw, as they always did in the end, he gave chase, determined to kill every last one. They surprised him by swerving off the street and crashing through the barred door of a millinery shop.

Eragon followed, leaping over the cracked wreckage of the door. The inside of the shop was pitch-black and smelled like chicken feathers and stale perfume. He could have lit the shop with magic, but since he knew the soldiers were at a greater disadvantage than he was, he refrained. Eragon felt their minds nearby, and he could hear their ragged breathing, but he was uncertain of what lay between him and them. He inched deeper into the inky shop, feeling his way with his feet. He held his shield in front of him and Brisingr over his head, ready to strike.

Faint as a line of thread falling to the floor, Eragon heard an object flying through the air.

He jerked backward and staggered as a mace or a hammer struck his shield, breaking it into pieces. Shouts erupted. A man knocked over a chair or a table and something shattered against a wall. Eragon lashed out and felt Brisingr sink into flesh and bury itself in bone. A weight dragged on the end of his sword. Eragon yanked it free, and the man he had struck collapsed across his feet.

Eragon dared a glance back at Saphira, who was waiting for him in the narrow street outside. Only then did Eragon see that there was a lantern mounted on an iron post beside the street and that the light it cast rendered him visible to the soldiers. He quickly moved from the open doorway and threw away the remnants of his shield.

Another crash echoed through the shop, and there was a confusion of footsteps as the soldiers rushed out the back and up a flight of stairs. Eragon scrambled after them. The second story was the living quarters of the family who owned the store below. Several people screamed and a baby began to wail as Eragon bounded through a maze of small rooms, but he ignored them, intent as he was on his prey. At last he cornered the soldiers in a cramped sitting room illuminated by a single flickering candle.

Eragon slew the four soldiers with four strokes of his sword, wincing as their blood splattered him. He scavenged a new shield from one, then paused and studied the corpses. It seemed rude to leave them lying in the middle of the sitting room, so he threw them out a nearby window.

On his way back to the stairs, a figure stepped around a corner and stabbed a dagger toward Eragon’s ribs. The tip of the dagger stopped a fraction of an inch from Eragon’s side, halted by his wards. Startled, Eragon swept Brisingr upward and was about to strike his attacker’s head from his shoulders when he realized that the holder of the dagger was a thin boy of no more than thirteen.

Eragon froze. That could be me, he thought. I would have done the same if I were in his shoes. Looking past the boy, he saw a man and a woman standing in their nightgowns and knit caps, clutching each other and staring at him with horror.

A tremor ran through Eragon. He lowered Brisingr and, with his free hand, removed the dagger from the boy’s now-soft grip. “If I were you,” Eragon said, and the loudness of his voice shocked him, “I would not go outside until the battle is over.” He hesitated, then added, “I’m sorry.”

Feeling ashamed, he hurried from the shop and rejoined Saphira.

They continued along the street.

Not far from the millinery shop, Eragon and Saphira came across several of King Orrin’s men carrying gold candlesticks, silver plates and utensils, jewelry, and an assortment of furnishings out of a well-appointed mansion the men had broken into.

Eragon dashed a pile of rugs from the arms of one man. “Put these things back!” he shouted to the entire group. “We’re here to help these people, not steal from them! They are our brothers and sisters, our mothers and fathers. I’ll let you off this once, but spread the word that if you or anyone else goes looting, I’ll have you strung up and whipped as the thieves you are!” Saphira growled, emphasizing his point. Under their watchful gaze, the chastened warriors returned the spoils to the marble-clad mansion.

Now, Eragon said to Saphira, maybe we can—

“Shadeslayer! Shadeslayer!” shouted a man, running toward them from deeper within the city. His arms and armor identified him as one of the Varden.

Eragon tightened his grip on Brisingr. “What?”

“We need your help, Shadeslayer. And yours too, Saphira!”

They followed the warrior through Feinster until they arrived at a large stone building. Several dozen Varden sat hunched behind a low wall in front of the building. They appeared relieved to see Eragon and Saphira.

“Stay back!” said one of the Varden, gesturing. “There’s a whole group of soldiers inside, and they have bows aimed at us.”

Eragon and Saphira halted just out of sight of the building. The warrior who had brought them said, “We can’t get at them. The doors and windows are blocked, and they shoot at us if we try to chop our way in.”

Eragon looked at Saphira. Shall I, or shall you?

I’ll attend to it, she said, and jumped into the air with a rush of spreading wings.

The building shook, windows shattering, as Saphira landed on the roof. Eragon and the other warriors watched with awe as she fit the tips of her claws into the mortared grooves between the stones and, snarling from the effort, tore the building apart until she exposed the terrified soldiers, whom she killed like a terrier kills rats.

When Saphira returned to Eragon’s side, the Varden edged away from her, clearly frightened by her display of ferocity. She ignored them and began licking her paws, cleaning the gore from her scales.

Have I ever told you how glad I am we’re not enemies? Eragon asked.

No, but it’s very sweet of you.

* * *

Throughout the city, the soldiers fought with a tenacity that impressed Eragon; they gave ground only when forced and made every attempt to slow the Varden’s advance. Because of their determined resistance, the Varden did not arrive at the western side of the city, where the keep stood, until the first faint light of dawn began to spread across the sky.

The keep was an imposing structure. It was tall and square and adorned with numerous towers of differing height. The roof was made of slate, so attackers could not set it on fire. In front of the keep was a large courtyard — in which were several low outbuildings and a row of four catapults — and encircling the lot was a thick curtain wall interspersed with smaller towers of its own. Hundreds of soldiers manned the battlements and hundreds more teemed within the courtyard. The only way to enter the courtyard on the ground was through a wide, arched passageway in the curtain wall, which was closed off by both an iron portcullis and a set of thick oaken doors.

Several thousand of the Varden stood pressed against the curtain wall, striving to break through the portcullis with the battering ram they had brought from the main gate of the city or else to surmount the walls with grappling hooks and ladders, which the defenders kept pushing away. Flocks of whining arrows arched back and forth over the wall. Neither side seemed to have the advantage.

The gate! said Eragon, pointing.

Saphira swept down from on high and cleared the parapet above the portcullis with a jet of billowing fire, smoke venting from her nostrils. She dropped onto the top of the wall, jarring Eragon, and said, Go. I’ll see to the catapults before they start lobbing rocks at the Varden.

Be careful. He lowered himself to the parapet from her back.

It is they who must be careful! she replied. She snarled at the pikemen gathering around the catapults. Half of them turned and fled inside.

The wall was too high for Eragon to comfortably jump to the street below, so Saphira draped her tail over the side and wedged it between two merlons. Eragon sheathed Brisingr, then climbed down, using the spikes on her tail like rungs on a ladder. When he reached the tip, he released his hold and fell the remaining twenty feet. He rolled to lessen the impact as he landed amid the press of Varden.