that the seneschal would have paid a handsome price for further details — any information about Eragon or Saphira was valuable in Orrin’s government.
The food, water, and map were soon brought by two wide-eyed pages. At Eragon’s word, they deposited the items beside Saphira, looking terribly frightened as they did, then retreated behind Dahwar. Kneeling on the ground, Dahwar unrolled the map — which depicted Surda and the neighboring lands — and drew a line northwest from Aberon to Cithri. He said, “Last I heard, King Orrin and Lady Nasuada stopped here for provender. They did not intend to stay, however, because the Empire is advancing south along the Jiet River and they wished to be in place to confront Galbatorix’s army when it arrives. The Varden could be anywhere between Cithri and the Jiet River. This is only my humble opinion, but I would say the best place to look for them would be the Burning Plains.”
“The Burning Plains?”
Dahwar smiled. “You may know them by their old name, then, the name the elves use: Du Vollar Eldrvarya.”
“Ah, yes.” Now Eragon remembered. He had read about them in one of the histories Oromis assigned him. The plains — which contained huge deposits of peat — lay along the eastern side of the Jiet River where Surda’s border crossed it and had been the site of a skirmish between the Riders and the Forsworn. During the fight, the dragons inadvertently lit the peat with the flames from their mouths and the fire had burrowed underground, where it remained smoldering ever since. The land had been rendered uninhabitable by the noxious fumes that poured out of the glowing vents in the charred earth.
A shiver crawled down Eragon’s left side as he recalled his premonition: banks of warriors colliding upon an orange and yellow field, accompanied by the harsh screams of gore-crows and the whistle of black arrows. He shivered again.
In short order, he and Orik packed the supplies, remounted Saphira, and from her back thanked Dahwar for his service. As Saphira was about to take off again, Eragon frowned; a note of discord had entered the minds he was monitoring. “Dahwar, two grooms in the stables have gotten into an argument and one of them, Tathal, intends to commit murder. You can stop him, though, if you send men right away.”
Dahwar widened his eyes in an expression of astonishment, and even Orik twisted round to look at Eragon. The seneschal asked, “How do you know this, Shadeslayer?”
Eragon merely said, “Because I am a Rider.”
Then Saphira unfurled her wings, and everyone on the ground ran back to avoid being battered by the rush of air as she flapped downward and soared into the sky. As Borromeo Castle dwindled behind them, Orik said, “Can you hear my thoughts, Eragon?”
“Do you want me to try? I haven’t, you know.”
“Try.”
Frowning, Eragon concentrated his attention on the dwarf’s consciousness and was surprised to find Orik’s mind well protected behind thick mental barriers. He could sense Orik’s presence, but not his thoughts and feelings. “Nothing.”
Orik grinned. “Good. I wanted to make sure I hadn’t forgotten my old lessons.”
By unspoken consent, they did not stop for the night, but rather forged onward through the blackened sky. Of the moon and stars they saw no sign, no flash or pale gleam to breach the oppressive gloom. The dead hours bloated and sagged and, it seemed to Eragon, clung to each second as if reluctant to surrender to the past.
When the sun finally returned — bringing with it its welcome light — Saphira landed by the edge of a small lake so Eragon and Orik could stretch their legs, relieve themselves, and eat breakfast without the constant movement they experienced on her back.
They had just taken off again when a long, low brown cloud appeared on the edge of the horizon, like a smudge of walnut ink on a sheet of white paper. The cloud grew wider and wider as Saphira approached it, until by late morning it obscured the entire land beneath a pall of foul vapors.
They had reached the Burning Plains of Alagaesia.
THE BURNING PLAINS
Eragon coughed as Saphira descended through the layers of smoke, angling toward the Jiet River, which was hidden behind the haze. He blinked and wiped back tears. The fumes made his eyes smart.
Closer to the ground, the air cleared, giving Eragon an unobstructed view of their destination. The rippling veil of black and crimson smoke filtered the sun’s rays in such a way that everything below was bathed in a lurid orange. Occasional rents in the besmirched sky allowed pale bars of light to strike the ground, where they remained, like pillars of translucent glass, until they were truncated by the shifting clouds.
The Jiet River lay before them, as thick and turgid as a gorged snake, its crosshatched surface reflecting the same ghastly hue that pervaded the Burning Plains. Even when a splotch of undiluted light happened to fall upon the river, the water appeared chalky white, opaque and opalescent — almost as if it were the milk of some fearsome beast — and seemed to glow with an eerie luminescence all its own.
Two armies were arrayed along the eastern banks of the oozing waterway. To the south were the Varden and the men of Surda, entrenched behind multiple layers of defense, where they displayed a fine panoply of woven standards, ranks of proud tents, and the picketed horses of King Orrin’s cavalry. Strong as they were, their numbers paled in comparison to the size of the force assembled in the north. Galbatorix’s army was so large, it measured three miles across on its leading edge and how many in length it was impossible to tell, for the individual men melded into a shadowy mass in the distance.
Between the mortal foes was an empty span of perhaps two miles. This land, and the land that the armies camped on, was pocked with countless ragged orifices in which danced green tongues of fire. From those sickly torches billowed plumes of smoke that dimmed the sun. Every scrap of vegetation had been scorched from the parched soil, except for growths of black, orange, and chartreuse lichen that, from the air, gave the earth a scabbed and infected appearance.
It was the most forbidding vista Eragon had clapped eyes upon.
Saphira emerged over the no-man’s-land that separated the grim armies, and now she twisted and dove toward the Varden as fast as she dared, for so long as they remained exposed to the Empire, they were vulnerable to attacks from enemy magicians. Eragon extended his awareness as far as he could in every direction, hunting for hostile minds that could feel his probing touch and would react to it — the minds of magicians and those trained to fend off magicians.
What he felt instead was the sudden panic that overwhelmed the Varden’s sentinels, many of whom, he realized, had never before seen Saphira. Fear made them ignore their common sense, and they released a flock of barbed arrows that arched up to intercept her.
Raising his right hand, Eragon cried, “Letta orya thorna!” The arrows froze in place. With a flick of his wrist and the word “Ganga,” he redirected them, sending the darts boring toward the no-man’s-land, where they could bury themselves in the barren soil without causing harm. He missed one arrow, though, which was fired a few seconds after the first volley.
Eragon leaned as far to his right as he could and, faster than any normal human, plucked the arrow from the air as Saphira flew past it.
Only a hundred feet above the ground, Saphira flared her wings to slow her steep descent before alighting first on her hind legs and then her front legs as she came to a running stop among the Varden’s tents.
“Werg,” growled Orik, loosening the thongs that held his legs in place. “I’d rather fight a dozen Kull than experience such a fall again.” He let himself hang off one side of the saddle, then dropped to Saphira’s foreleg below and, from there, to the ground.
Even as Eragon dismounted, dozens of warriors with awestruck expressions gathered around Saphira. From within their midst strode a big bear of a man whom Eragon recognized: Fredric, the Varden’s weapon master from Farthen Dur, still garbed in his hairy ox-hide armor. “Come on, you slack-jawed louts!” roared Fredric. “Don’t stand here gawking; get back to your posts or I’ll have the lot of you chalked up for extra watches!” At his command, the
