All I can say is "sorry" for the unbelievable-and unreasonable-wait. Procrastinating is a trait that doesn't really work with me. So yeah, here is the second chapter of End Of Extinction. Can't really say much else after this long of a wait (over a year!).
End of Extinction
Chapter 2
It was not even a day until the Greatest Forum would commence, and he already knew what he was going to be saying. Nonetheless, Angvard looked over the finished letter to Korchulan, the ruling god of the humans.
Sifting through the list of humans whose time was to come on that day, he shoved the letter back under his desk. It was a simple storage method for his argument. He had no desire to actually read it to Korchulan, not just because he would present his argument tomorrow, but that he would be mocked and sneered at anywhere else. At least if he made his case at the Greatest Forum, there would be no chance at mockery and the saying of snide remarks.
It was a good thing that it was the Greatest Forum. If all of the other gods were to be heard and treated kindly, then there would be no reason for him to be exempt from the rules of polite engagement. He would be listened to for once.
Angvard stood up from his chair and walked over to his scythe, before he walked out of the study and locked the doors behind him. He would be the last thing four hundred sixty three humans would see in life before they departed for his realm. Eternal twilight would be the first in death.
EOE
The last minutes of dusk clung to the sky, painting it a deep shade of orange and purple. Watch fires were being set in and around the city of Aroughs at various checkpoints. Everyone knew who he was, though; none of the soldiers questioned him as he made his way to the courtyard for dinner.
Eragon simply nodded back tot hem when they did the same. The time for words had passed a while ago. Yes, he had killed a Shade and had slayed the former Alagaësian King and Dragon Rider traitor Galbatorix when he had attempted to stave off the rebels from taking Aroughs. But in his mind, he was just the right man in the right place. He had been helped by his half brother Murtagh and his dragon Saphira, not to mention the elven princess Arya. They were all lucky that she had attacked one of the death god Angvard's servants and had therefore been able to come back to life. If not, then it was more than likely that Galbatorix would have killed him and Murtagh.
Urû'baen was the Resistance's next target, and once it had been captured, Belatona was the final city they would attack. Eragon knew that it was pointless trying to take any cities for supplies; rather, the Resistance was striking the formerly large cities of Alagaësia simply to gain ground and deplete Angvard's forces, no matter how many of their own died in the process. He did not think that it was not a big deal and pushed it aside in a vain attempt to comfort himself. Ever the so-called "War of the Undead" had started, more than three hundred thousand Alagaësians had been killed by the barbaric army and monstrous beasts of the insane death god. He had known several of them personally, such as the elven queen and Arya's mother, Islanzadí, who had been killed during the Siege of Feinster by the arrows of Angvard's Army. With less than twelve thousand able soldiers now fighting for the Resistance, it was going to be more than a metaphorical uphill battle to finally defeat Angvard.
He took a seat on one of the benches and stared at his dinner with no small amount of contemplation. The food reflected the increasingly desperate situation the Resistance was in; it was maybe only a dozen beans, an incredibly thin slice of white cheese, and four pieces of hardly cooked lamb. The more time they spent discussing what to do next and arguing amongst each other, the more time Angvard had to come up with new ways to crush them.
With a sigh, Eragon plunged his fork into the beans and quickly ate them in less than ten seconds. It had not even taken him three minutes to finish the meal, so quickly was he eating it that he did not notice the man sitting next to him until he stood up to return his plate and utensils.
"Oh. Hello, Voriadd" he greeted the Ra'zac that had joined them and revealed his long-secret alliance with the Varden, been killed by Galbatorix at Aroughs and turned into one of Angvard's undead slaves, and had been revived when he attacked one of Angvard's servants. He had detested the very existence of the Ra'zac and his older Lethrblaka brother when they had first appeared, his memories of his uncle Garrow's death at the hands of Voriadd's siblings still fresh. He had seen Nasuada's hiding of Voriadd and his brother's alliance with the Varden as a stab in the back; Eragon's opinion of her had dropped dramatically when he learned that her previous anti-Ra'zac rhetoric had been a coverup.
But it was his half-brother Murtagh that made him realize how wrong he was. The realization that he was a bigot had dawned heavily on Eragon when he could not think of any reasons as to how the Ra'zac and Lethrblaka were truly pure evil. He had applied the actions of four creatures to two entire species; he realized that he had never accused the dragons of all being evil just because thirteen of them had sided with Galbatorix.
"Hello, Eragon" Voriadd muttered back while shoving a thick piece of dog meat into his beak. He didn't look up as he said those two simple words.
Curious as to the real nature of the Ra'zac and Lethrblaka, Eragon sat back down and moved a bit closer to Voriadd. To his credit, Voriadd did not seem disturbed by Eragon's odd lack of personal space. He continued to focus on his dinner.
"You said that you read the Domia abr Wyrda, right?" Eragon asked him.
Voriadd looked up at him with a confused look on his face, not completely understanding what Eragon was asking him and why.
Idiot, Eragon mentally scolded himself, I could not have made that question come out of nowhere to any greater degree!
"Umm, er...yes. Why?" Voriadd asked hesitantly.
"You said that Heslant the Monk mostly made up what he said about the Ra'zac and Lethrblaka, right?"
"...Yes, I did. Where is this going, Eragon?"
Eragon leaned in even closer, his face barely a few inches from Voriadd's beak. "I want to know about the real history of the Ra'zac and Lethrblaka."
Voriadd chuckled. "What makes you think, Eragon, that I really know anything about our two species? Do you believe that we inherit memories in our blood like the dragons? Do you even know how many thousands of years ago the humans and our people came to Alagaësia from the southwest?"
"But you were a secret agent of the Varden! Surely, you read some historical accounts in the libraries of the dwarves and elves!" Eragon pressed.
"Fair point" Voriadd nodded. "Yes, as it turns out, my brother and I have read several accounts of life in the southwest lands. All written by long-forgotten Ra'zac scholars, for the humans had become little more than barbarians."
"Become?"
"Indeed. Allow me to start from the beginning, according to the information." Voriadd cleared his throat and placed his utensils on his plate before he started.
"Our people believe that the Ra'zac were created by our chief god, Gerieven, god of the sun and flame. We believe that he created us from the eagle, the anaconda, and the rhinoceros beetle."
"Rhinoceros beetle?" Eragon repeated.
"Yes, it is a large black beetle with amazingly huge mandibles. We named it after a creature from our homeland, the rhinoceros. Large gray beasts with two horns sprouting from above their mouth. Beautiful beasts of burden; I wonder if they are still alive." Voriadd paused before he continued, as if though he was expecting Eragon to interrupt again.
"The Lethrblaka, though, are believed to have been created when Gerieven's mate, the fertility goddess Narezvega looked upon the Ra'zac and took pity on them for being unable to traverse such wide stretches of land. It is she who gave the Ra'zac the ability to mature into a Lethrblaka upon their twentieth birthday when the first full moon arrives. To us, she is the Mother Goddess."
"Did any of the gods instill the craving for human meat in the Ra'zac and Lethrblaka?" Eragon asked.
"No, no, I am getting to that. Now, the ancient humans were believed to have had a magnificent empire tens of thousands of years ago, but they had no writing. They are said to have been arrogant and employed simple drawings to convey their messages. When a civil war broke out amongst them, it was the end of their empire and the end of their dominance. The humans had become animals."
"Now, the Ra'zac's enjoyment of eating human flesh. It is believed that a young Ra'zac had been walking through the forest when he was attacked by several humans. The identity of this Ra'zac has been lost to time, but it is said that he drew his knife and sliced off the face of one of his attackers. This still did not deter them, though, so he decided to start eating the face to scare them away. And sure enough, it did. But that Ra'zac did not stop there. He was overwhelmed by the previously untapped taste of man and completely ate the face before he rushed back to his village to tell everyone of how delicious humans were. At first, they were skeptical and rather horrified, for they still feared the wrath of mankind. But once they started eating the body, they too were filled with euphoria and left practically nothing of the corpse. They even broke open the bones and poured marrow into their cups."
"But if that is the truth, then how did all Ra'zac and Lethrblaka start eating humans?" Eragon asked, growing ever more disgusted.
"Simple. The word was spread to other villages, and soon, the Ra'zac and Lethrblaka were actively hunting all humans. They simply could not get enough of the human meat. But humanity was not so stupid as to cower and hide. They were still loosely organized in tribes scattered across the lands, and these tribes started banding together to fight off potential extinction."
"The humans fought back angrily and mercilessly, and they slaughtered countless Ra'zac and Lethrblaka. Not just the men and women fighting, either. Children, eggs smashed, the sick and disabled. Nobody was safe. But the humans were fighting a pyrrhic war. Even if they had wiped us out, millions of their own had been killed and entire tribes were destroyed. We destroyed their crops and salted the earth around us. It was a hopeless war for your race."
"But then humanity left for Alagaësia" Eragon added, almost whispering.
"Yes, they did. The first human king, the man named Palancar, was a tribe leader. He organized an evacuation of the human race, and when his compatriots protested, he waged a smaller war against the rival tribes, executing their leaders and absorbing their people. It is how he was able to become king of your people, despite the illiteracy of the humans."
"But then what about Nasuada's people? The Wandering Tribes? They are also human" Eragon asked, finding it odd that humanity lived in tribes but were now almost completely under a monarch-or at least, used to be.
Voriadd laughed at that. "The Wandering Tribes-odd members of your race. Some have believed that it is they who started the war that broke the human empire and reduced them to brutes. They fought the Ra'zac as well, but they stood their ground when Palancar began his war of merging. Of all the Ra'zac scholars and historians I've read, our two people could not faced a more tenacious and driven foe. A shame we enjoyed eating them as well."
"So then the humans sailed to this land, and the Ra'zac and Lethrblaka followed."
"Yes, but it was not until some hundred years after the fact. Many humans had decided to stay, and so it was not until the human population was less than a million that the majority of our two species realized that it was time to leave."
"Majority?" Eragon asked with a slight quizzical tilt of his head.
"Quite a few Ra'zac and Lethrblaka still remained in our ancestral lands. They protested the belief that they would wipe out the humans, stating their desire to farm them. The immigrants were not exactly fond of that ideology; of course they enjoyed devouring your kind, but they knew that they were people with their own society and beliefs as well. Thus, most of our people left, while the rest stayed behind."
"What do you think has happened in the Ra'zac homeland?" Eragon asked, hesitantly.
Voriadd looked down at his drink and slowly shook the wooden cup, spinning the liquid inside. Without looking up, he answered, "I hope that the fighting has ended and our races have been able to make peace. Of course, such a concept would be difficult to implement after years of bloodshed, the murder of children, the eating of your people's meat. The most likely outcome of the Ra'zac staying behind is that your race has been wiped out in it's homeland."
Eragon shuddered at the thought while Voriadd poured his drink down his throat. The thought that his race was alive and still fighting in Alagaësia but dead in their homeland was a discouraging, painful one. A whole population of humans butchered and devoured by a fanatical population of the Ra'zac and Lethrblaka, never having the chance to learn to read and write and live alongside their enemies. He could have traveled to the southwest if they won, but now, it seemed that there was not much of a chance to find the humans who stayed behind.
"And you know the rest" Voriadd growled. "The Riders waged a campaign of genocide on my people, Galbatorix made a deal with my two older brother and sister and parents, they killed my grandparents, and my brother and I realized we had no choice but to join the Varden. We had to join in secret; no mere human soldier would want to fight with us."
"Circumstances have changed."
They sat in silence as Voriadd finished his dinner. The Ra'zac rose from his seat and was about to walk off with his plate and cup when Eragon stood and placed his hand on his shoulder.
"Why were you so reluctant to tell me about the history of your people?" he asked.
"Because it has all been written by Ra'zac. We have bias as well, Eragon. For all we know, my people could be the most cruel in the world."
And with that, he left. Perhaps those Ra'zac historians were biased and were presenting themselves as tragic figures, similar to how the elves covered up their and the Riders' various crimes. Maybe they wrote lies to explain their murder of humans.
But their accounts were the only ones left in Alagaësia. If they won this war, he would find those accounts and gather them into a single reading compendium, no matter how long it took. The land needed to hear the stories of all it's inhabitants.
Sorry for the wait, and for a pretty boring chapter. Don't know when the hell the next chapter is coming, or when it'll get interesting. R&R.