1
Blasts of cold wind pushed Thorn back and down towards the ground. He pushed harder, and the old red dragon gained altitude again. He was growing tired after flying for days straight with Murtagh, but he had not yet reached his limit.
He spoke to his rider, We will reach the peaks quickly, within the hour... Have you felt anything yet?
Nothing of import. The forest below is teeming with activity, but nothing larger than a jungle cat. Have you seen anything?
Only bears and wolves and deer several miles into the mountains.
He has hidden himself well. I wonder if we are still welcome, Murtagh mused.
He offered many years ago, but he has never struck me as one to change his mind easily. Similar to you, I should think.
Murtagh considered that. Similar to me… we will see. Eighty years is a long time.
In some ways. In others eighty years seems to be not enough, Thorn said, as his flight muscles laboured again against the freezing winds that tried to push them back to the west.
2
Deep in the Spine, Katrina held her breath. The puffs of frozen water stopped slipping from her mouth as the doe turned to look at her hiding spot. She stayed perfectly still until a low sound from the north brought the deer's head around the other way. It was then that her sister loosed the arrow she had trained on the animal.
The shaft was buried half way through the neck of the doe before it started running; by then it was too late, and fifty yards away it crashed into a tree as it lost consciousness. It's neck pooled blood onto snow that still covered the mountains in spring.
Katrina let out that same shaky breath and looked to her sister, Mira. With a grin on her face she said, "That was lucky, and you damn well know it. Aim for the heart."
"It's not my fault! The wind carried it some, I did exactly what you told me to!" Mira groaned indignantly. She rose from her low crouch.
"The wind this deep into the woods is too weak to carry an arrow, I've told you that Mira. You need to shoot when you're exhaling," Katrina spoke while walking to where the doe lay dying, "otherwise the bow lifts and you're off target."
Mira huffed. She had come up to the deer now, and was too happy with her second kill to worry much about her older sister's annoyance. "Oh, she's so big. Father's going to be happy with this one!"
"If he hasn't died from worry. We said we'd be back two days ago."
Still smiling, Mira said, "He's dealt with worse. I remember three years ago you stayed out for nigh on three weeks before coming back. Coming back with nothing to show for it." That seemed to embarrass Katrina, which was uncommon for her.
"I was only fifteen. You'd have been the same, I'm sure."
"Oh I would have been worse… but it wasn't me. It was you." Mira said, smirking as she pulled her arrow from the big animal.
3
Katrina and Mira entered Carvahall two days later with the doe. They walked through the north gatehouse, nodding to the two men playing cards at the table just beyond the gate. As they passed the wall, the small castle overlooking the town became fully visible. Their great-great-grandfather had built the castle seventy years ago, with the help of some dwarves. The cool spring air was hard against her skin, but she warmed inside as she saw her family's legacy.
The girls made their way to the three-story log house in the middle of town, their home. Their mother, Silvia, was standing on the porch talking to the smith, Bastion. She smiled warmly at her two daughters, though still faced the young man that worked the town's metal.
"…and Therinsford is asking for another shipment, but I doubt we'll have time, what with Ceunon needing our help as-", Bastion was saying, but stopped short as he heard the two girl's walk up.
Silvia spoke, "Your father was getting edgy, thank goodness you're back. Oh, that's a nice one, was that yours Mira?"
The younger daughter glowed as she nodded vigorously nodded, saying, "I got him through the neck! He ran off for a few yards before he fell, and I was…"
Mira continued on for several minutes, telling her mother exactly what happened during the hunt. Meanwhile Katrina had walked up to Bastion, wearily saying hello to her closest friend.
Smiling widely, the young smith rumbled, "You seem more tired than usual, was it the walking or the talking?" His voice was richer than anyone else's in town, and darker too. Katrina loved it.
"Walking. Mira's not as good as I am at picking trails. And she insisted on bagging the largest doe in the herd, naturally. My feet hurt."
"You should have a bath. You have a tub, use it."
"I hate baths. All that grime just stays in the water, I feel like I'm bathing in filth. I prefer going to the spring."
Katrina went every few weeks to the fountain of hot water that had sprung up a few miles to the west last spring. Apart from Mira and Bastion she was the only one who knew about it. It was sheltered from the cold winds in a depression half way up a small rocky hill. Sometimes when she went to bathe she could here roars echoing from the north. A thunder of young dragons had settled in the northern end of the Spine just before she was born. They had come from the far east, where the riders and dragons lived in seclusion from the rest of Alagaesia.
Katrina loved to relax in the hot water, listening to the scaled beasts as they flew south to hunt. She had even seen one once, far off above the mountain that grew above Carvahall. It seemed to be a bright purple to her, though it was so far off she could have been wrong.
"Yes, but you just walked out of the Spine, I doubt you want to go back." Bastion had been to the spring, but hated the long walk in the cold. He was used to the heat of his forge, and for all his muscle, warmth seemed to leave him quickly.
"Of course I do. I just can't. We need to store this meat and prepare for the festival. There's not much time left before it arrives." She thought for a moment. "Actually, I'm surprised it hasn't come yet."
"Kora ran into town yesterday, it's in Therinsford, so we'll be seeing it quite soon."
Silvia managed to stop Mira in her storytelling just then, and pushed them in to warm up and eat. Katrina said goodbye to Bastion, and the three women walked in to the proud wooden house.
4
There. To the south. Fire. Murtagh spoke calmly, but he was relieved they were going in the right direction. Days without sign of dragons or riders had made Murtagh question the directions he had received, especially as they required travel over ocean, a situation he and Thorn were unused to. But the green pillar of flame inspired fresh hope.
The pair had just flown over a narrow channel of water called the Aepori Straight, which separated the mainland from an archipelago of thousands of islands. Thorn banked to face the coloured flare of light, and descended to meet the source of it. His wings burned, but he pushed on. Hopefully the youngling would be able to communicate how close they were to the mountain they sought.
Murtagh thought to how he had come to his decision to join his brother in the east. The pair had almost traveled south into the Empire after their self-imposed exile. But at the sight of so many people Murtagh had become uneasy. The memory of the horrors Murtagh and Thorn had committed seemed surprisingly fresh to the minds he touched. We have ripped a deeper rift than a few generations can heal, he thought bitterly. Thus they turned reluctantly away from their old home, and resumed wandering the uncharted wilderness. That was six years ago.
Two years after their foray, Thorn saw another dragon flying in the northern skies he roamed. It was a young female, with indigo scales and dark claws. The young wild one was faster than he, and he never saw her again. After seeing his kin heading back into the west, Thorn had begun pushing Murtagh to find his half-brother, and the heart of where the wild dragons were racing from. Murtagh had acquiesced, in the end. Thorn had calmed faster than Murtagh while they journeyed, and missed his own kind. And Murtagh did not blame him for that.
5
The young elf lifted his hand, and a ball of white light shone in the darkness. The were-light rose in the sky, illuminating all of Carvahall, and signaled that the Festival of the Eggs had begun for the small town.
Katrina and her family stood on their front porch. The festival took place in the middle of the town, right in front of their tall house. Silvia and Garrard, Katrina's father, had opened their house to the town for the duration of the festival, as it was their duty as the towns foremost family. They would also be hosting some of the representatives from the other races who came to protect and ferry the egg that was the center of the festival. The egg sat on a raised platform in the town square, surrounded by several fires to keep it warm throughout the cool nights to come.
The Festival of the Eggs was the largest event that Carvahall hosted, larger even than when the trading caravans made their yearly trips. It had only happened twice before, both times before Katrina's life, and her parents' lives.
Whenever a Festival arrived at a town or city, the guardians of the egg it travelled with would allow any children who wished to present themselves to the egg. There were four eggs in Alagaesia at the moment, if Katrina remembered correctly, and so four festivals were being held at any given time. Children from each of the four races would be walking up to four different eggs for the next few days, before the guardians would gather up their eggs and try another town nearby.
"Katrina!" Bastion called from the other end of the square. She made her way over to him, walking sideways so she could keep watching what happened.
The guardians consisted of an elf, two dwarves, an urgal, and three humans. All wore the white steel armour her grandmother had told her about before bedtime. All seven were armed and stony faced, especially the elf and urgal, who had yet to relax by any noticeable amount. The humans were smiling at their brethren assembled before them, and the dwarves had cracked wide smiles as soon as the town's barrels of mead had been rolled out.
Arriving at Bastion's side, she asked excitedly, "Are you going to walk by the egg?"
"Um. Maybe… a dragon doesn't seem that useful to me."
"Useful. They're not tools, you blunder head. They're people."
"I know," he said, and continued, sheepishly now, "but after father died I've not really had the time to do anything but tend to the business. And I've never liked the idea of flying, you know that."
"Yes, but you do like the idea of travelling. You've been to Ceunon more than anyone I know, and you're going to Illirea next year with the traders, if you remember."
"I remember. But things here aren't looking too bad either…"
At this Katrina paused. She couldn't tell what he meant by that. "How do you me-" however at that moment her attention was called back to the center of the town.
The master of the festival, a wizened old dwarf with an intricately braided beard, had stepped up on the platform to stand next to the egg. He looked older than anyone Katrina had ever seen. The town silenced itself for the elder dwarf, and he began to speak.
6
He looks bigger than it first seemed, Thorn sung in his low voice.
One of the first, Murtagh replied, considering the green dragon. It had noticed them, and was flapping to gain the height necessary to defend himself.
See how he turns with the wind? And the way he lifts his tail? Saphira-Old Friend-Old Enemy has had a say in his teaching. Thorn was letting the wind push him lower in the sky; he did not want to seem overly aggressive. They had no desire to fight.
Closer to the green, they could see that he was thickly built, and healthy. His claws and teeth were wide and long, and he flew easily.
They felt his mind brush against theirs. Murtagh couldn't detect any language in the green's mind, but Thorn seemed readily able to communicate.
Images, sounds, and memories clouded Thorn's mind while he told the green of their path. The younger dragon hovered a hundred yards away, and above them, while it listened to their account. Attentive and cautious he was, but after Thorn had finished he took them both into his mind to show them the way.
Suddenly Murtagh was flying across the archipelago they had ventured into, but to the southeast of where they were. The green had an eye for detail. He shared how to fly with the common winds of the area, and how not to get lost in the scattered mountaintops that punched above the seas.
As they withdrew from his mind, the wild green dove under them, and continued his hunt. He lost interest with them as quickly as he fell from their high perch in the sky.
I know the way now. Let us be done with this tiresome voyage.
Murtagh tapped his approval on Thorn's corded neck, and the bonded red flew to the southeast to Eragon-Old Friend-Old Enemy's new nest.
7
The old dwarf began in his rough baritone,
"Welcome! The Festival welcomes you all, but especially you, children! You are the focus of our efforts, and you are the hope for this new world we are building. We hope you will present yourself to our charge, and join the noblest order Alagaesia has ever seen! The path of a Dragon Rider is the hardest path of all, and though it is an honour, the choice is an important one.
"This town is as well known now as the capital of the Empire. It is here that a young man by the name of Eragon Bromsson was raised. And it is here that his partner, Saphira, hatched for him. The pair of them left with Brom, who was a storyteller, warrior, leader, and a rider. They flew to Farthen Dur, the dwarf capital, to Du Weldenvarden, the home of the elves. They learned from Oromis and Glaedr, who were the last remaining riders after the Fall, and from the elven princess, Arya. They defeated a Shade, they felled the Ra'zac, and won the Varden countless victories all the way to Illirea, or as it was known then, Uru'baen. There they struck down the Mad King Galbatorix, and freed the Empire from his evil.
"It is here that Eragon's cousin, Roran Garrowsson, was born and raised. Roran led this village to a triumphant victory over our enemy, and then led them to the Varden, where they all worked to overcome the Mad King. Roran was the Hero of Aroughs, and the killer of Lord Barst, who had struck down Queen Islanzadi.
"Roran Stronghammer and Eragon Shadeslayer. These two are this towns heritage. We return here, eighty years after they set out, to bring hope back into this valley.
The grey-haired dwarf became somber now, continuing, "Though the war between Galbatorix and the Varden ended with our victory, we cannot forget what it cost our world. Eragon and Saphira have saved the race of dragons from extinction. But there was a time, not long ago, when there were no riders to govern our lands. When there were no dragons flying into the west, and when a tyrant loomed over us all.
"Should you be chosen by the egg, remember what this world has been, and what it has suffered at the hands of Galbatorix and his servants. Remember too that this new order we are building is built on the foundation of heroes. Be proud to join them in the skies."