Thorn and Misery - Chapter 1
A/N: You have no idea how ecstatic I am right now. Really, it's beyond words. After over a year of being locked out of my FF account for a reason no one would explain, being unable to post new stories, add chapters or edit existing ones, creating another account and having that ALSO not work, I am FINALLY back. Is it too much to hope that some of my lovely readers are still out there? Is it too, too much to hope that they aren't waiting to burn me at the stake for going AWOL?
In celebration of my return, this story will be undergoing a MAJOR overhaul. I'll be doing some edits after having read Inheritance (which was spectacular, by the way). Some of it is just little details, some of it is not so little. I've been working on it for quite a while, ever since I finished the book, but it will take some time for me to get everything up to speed. For that, I ask that you all bear with me just a little longer. I'd love to end up completely Inheritance-compliant, even though I know its going to be a huge job. I suppose that's what I get for starting a story like this before all the books were out. Anyone who has already read this will find things to be quite different, and, with any luck, better.
- Miss Maddie
Murtagh swept his dark, matted hair out of his face, sweating profusely. He was exhausted, but still he hurried on, following close behind Ajihad and his guards. The footsteps of the twenty soldiers reverberated around the stone corridor, resounding in Murtagh's ears. His laboured breathing was short and swift; his head ached fiercely.
The tunnel was lit only with torches, stuck in roughly hewn niches in the walls. Shadows danced along the wide expanse of stone, running ever on, never seeming to tire.
Murtagh wished they would stop mocking him.
He was gasping with effort and clutching a stitch in his side, but Murtagh knew stopping to rest would serve no purpose. Staring resolutely at pounding feet of the man in front of him, he tried to forget his fatigue.
The men's heavy breathing was drowned out only by that of the dwarves, whose stout, solid figures made them ill-suited for running such long distances. Despite their lack of speed, the dwarves' knowledge of the vast configuration of tunnels hidden beneath the immense Beor Mountains was essential for the completion of their task.
Their party had neither slept nor eaten a proper meal in the three days since they had departed Tronjheim, the great city-mountain that was the proud stronghold of the dwarves. They had taken only brief respites over the course of the journey, to catch their breath and gulp thirstily at their water flasks. That was why only the hardiest soldiers had been selected to take part in the arduous mission. The Varden's leader had driven his warriors to the brink of collapse, but it was only to do what was necessary to expunge the last of the Urgals from Farthen Dur.
Murtagh was now reasonably sure that Ajihad finally trusted him. As the son of Morzan, the evil King Galbatorix's greatest ally, Murtagh was met with distrust, even hatred, everywhere he went in Tronjheim. That Ajihad had forced him to reside in a locked cell at the bottom of the city was as much for Murtagh's protection as everyone else's.
On the eve of battle, however, Ajihad had visited Murtagh in his cell and offered him the chance to redeem himself by fighting alongside the Varden against Galbatorix's forces. Murtagh had accepted, and had been a great asset to the Varden in the fight under Farthen Dur.
Eager to further prove that he meant the Varden no harm, Murtagh had volunteered to help search Farthen Dur and the surrounding tunnels for any Urgals that may have lingered after the great battle that had raged under the mountain. After being clouted by an Urgal on his first trip, Murtagh had been sent back to Tronjhiem to recover, but had returned once the healers had deemed him reasonably fit. He had joined the equal force of men and dwarves had been ceaselessly searching the endless maze of tunnels and caverns that the dwarves had built to shelter their race and confuse their enemies. They had finished their task now, and the last of the Urgals had either been killed or had fled the passageways.
Only the Twins still regarded Murtagh with disdain. Both of the Varden's cruel, nameless sorcerers had glanced at him with odd expressions on their harsh, identical faces many times over the course of their journey. Murtagh heard they had offered their magical assistance during the fight, but still he did not trust them.
As the contingent of soldiers ran ever on through endless maze of tunnels, Murtagh pondered the immense battle. He had killed many Urgals, the creatures that were closer kin to beasts than to men, until that strange moment when the warring Urgal clans had suddenly stopped fighting and turned on each other. It was almost as though they had been released from the spell of their leader, the Shade, Durza.
It was his friend Eragon, the Dragon Rider, his dragon, Saphira, and the elf-maiden, Arya, who had killed Durza, and so had ended the battle. For three days, the people of the Varden had been calling Eragon 'Shadeslayer', and treating him with heightened respect. Even Ajihad's second-in-command, Jormundur, bowed low before Eragon whenever they crossed paths. To Murtagh, it all seemed like too much, but the fighting was over because of Eragon, and for that he was grateful.
Nothing pleased Murtagh more than to stop fighting, for when he was engaged in battle a sick, feral joy took over him, making him feel as if he were someone else entirely. It made Murtagh disturbingly happy to sheath his sword in his enemies, to feel the hot sting of their blood when it touched his skin. No sound was more pleasing to him than the resonant clang of steel against steel, blade against blade. It unnerved Murtagh greatly, though he did not know the cause of it.
As the group rounded the last bend and the end of the tunnel came into view, the men turned and helped their stout companions over a waist-high ledge, much to the dwarves' chagrin. Ajihad then raised a hand and the group formed two straight lines. Their task completed, the triumphant warriors re-entered Farthen Dur.
They had gone but a few paces when there was a flurry of movement behind them. Murtagh turned, and to his astonishment, saw a great host of Urgals advancing upon them, wielding their great axes with grim purpose. Some of the warriors moved as if to turn away from the oncoming Urgals, but quailed under Ajihad's menacing glare.
"Hold your positions!" Ajihad barked. His thickly accented voice was fierce and commanding. "We protect the Varden first!"
The men nodded, heartened, and raised their weapons.
Drawing his hand-and-a-half sword in a single fluid motion, Murtagh felt his other, battle-loving self take over his body as the day's exhaustion left him. His savage fury heightened his senses, and he set upon the first Urgal that approached him, gutting the monster with a flash of scarlet and silver. The Urgal fell, but was instantly replaced with another. Murtagh knew none of what was going on around him, intent only on slaughtering his enemies. He heard the screams of his companions, but they were drowned out by the swinging of his sword and the sickening crunch as he slew yet another Urgal.
Suddenly, there was a blinding flash of violet light, and one of the Twins severed an Urgal's arm. The monster screamed in agony and crumpled, clutching the bloody stump.
While Murtagh was fending off two Urgals at once, a third attacked him from behind. He heard the Urgal's heavy footfalls and turned, but he was a hair two slow, and the Urgal succeeded in landing a long cut along Murtagh's sword arm. The monster's stout blade bit through the leather bracer, leaving a long gash from his wrist to the crook of his elbow. The cut was shallow, but painful and awkwardly placed, hindering the movement in his arm. Smoothly switching his hand-and-a-half sword to his left hand, Murtagh gutted the Urgal before it could attack him again. It fell to the ground with a muted thump.
Then, without warning, there was an eerie lull in the fighting. A strange, pearly mist had settled around them with a speed so incredible that Murtagh knew it had to have come from magic. He had not known the Urgals possessed any type of sorcery.
The glistening fog cleared as quickly as it had arrived, throwing the battlefield into painfully sharp relief. Glancing around, Murtagh saw with horror that he, the Twins and Ajihad were the only members of their twenty-man fighting force still alive. Murtagh's fallen comrades lay everywhere, their mangled bodies tossed carelessly aside to make way for the angry horde of Urgals.
Looking towards Ajihad, Murtagh saw that the Varden's leader was losing his battle. Five slain Urgals lay around him, but Ajihad's muscled body was rent with countless wounds that bled heavily through his armour. Murtagh rushed to help him, but before he could get there, an enormous Kull, closer to nine feet than eight, stepped forward. It kicked aside a fallen body and lunged at Ajihad, slashed him across the chest with a cold glint in its black eyes.
As Ajihad fell with a pained groan, Murtagh felt a reckless hatred surge through him. Slaughtering three Urgals in quick succession, he raced towards the Kull. Raising his sword to attack, Murtagh was surprised to see that the Kull did not attempt to defend itself. Instead, it bared its pointed teeth in a cruel imitation of a smile. Murtagh had no time to ponder the Kull's strange actions before something very hard slammed into the back of his head. There was a flash of intense pain that settled into a pounding ache. Lights popped before his eyes and his head swam, his vision sliding in and out of focus. Murtagh fell, but the Kull caught him before he hit the ground. It scooped Murtagh's limp form up into its arms. Murtagh saw the blurry outline of an Urgal raise its arm in signal, and the throng of Urgals retreated with amazing speed back through the tunnel from which they had emerged.
Murtagh wished he had remembered to say goodbye to Eragon before entering the tunnels of Farthen Dur.
His vision cleared for a moment and he looked back towards the cavernous opening under the mountain. It seemed the whole of the Varden was running with all the speed it could muster towards its fallen leader. At the head of the pack were Eragon and Saphira. Arya ran under them, her long black hair fanned out behind her, keeping almost exact pace. But they were to be too late. The group of Urgals was too far away now, the tunnel entrance becoming no more than a minute speck of light.
Then the pain in Murtagh's head took him over, and he slipped into a blissful state of unconsciousness to the steady rhythm of the Kull's pounding feet.
After several hours' hard running, the contingent of Urgals came to halt before a broad gorge, still encased in the tunnels of Farthen Dur. They waited there for a few moments before two tall, robe-clad figures dismounted from identical black warhorses and stepped forward.
The Twins strode to where the Kull carrying Murtagh stood. They inspected the body silently, seeming pleased, until one of the Twins discovered the bloody knot at the base of Murtagh's skull where the Urgal had clubbed him.
"Idiot," he hissed angrily. "Are you so dull-witted that you lack the capacity to follow simple orders? King Galbatorix wants him alive, and unharmed." He motioned to the lump on Murtagh's head. "I suppose brute force is all your race is capable of." The man glared at the nine-foot–tall Kull, scorn carving deep lines in his face. The war-hardened monster quailed under his imposing stare.
The second Twin appraised the Kull. "You should consider yourself very fortunate that this is the extent of his injuries. If he had been hit any harder he would have been killed, and all our necks would have been on the line. Give him to us."
Within a few moments the Twins had removed the knot and healed the other small injuries Murtagh had received during the battle, including the long, shallow scratch on his arm. Releasing Murtagh into a bewitched sleep, they removed his armour and weapons. One of the Twins lashed it to his horse's back while the other placed Murtagh's bloodstained shirt at the edge of the crevice. They then removed their own robes, placing them next to the shirt.
"A moment, brother," whispered one of the Twins. Raising a hand over Murtagh's limp form, he said, "Waise skolíro fra draumr kópa!"
The other Twin nodded in satisfaction. The Varden's mages could scry all they wanted now – there was naught for it. The Twins' spell would protect Murtagh from all kinds of magical observation.
Summoning their strength, they then conjured a sturdy bridge that spanned the width of the gorge. The Urgals crossed it in silence, their heavy feet pounding the dry, cracked wood of the bridge.
The Twins mounted their horses and crossed after the Urgals, all the while glancing over their thin shoulders as if they thought they were being followed. They knew the Varden would not take the loss of their leader lightly. The rebels would be after them soon. With the dwarves' knowledge of the tunnels, the Varden could overtake them in mere hours if they were not careful. It would be some time yet before they reached their destination, and while they were still inside the underground tunnels of the Beor Mountains, their party was in danger.
The Twins looked back for a moment, and with a snap of their fingers the bridge dissolved into nothingness.
A/N: As you can see, I tacked what was once Chapter 2 onto the end. I just didn't think it was long enough to merit being its own chapter. That's happened quite a bit with my edits. The story will end up having fewer chapters, but the content will be the same.
- Miss Maddie