Um, wow, so I haven't visited this in a looong time, but on the prompting of Sam, I'm going to update this chatper. This story will be set up sort of like a play; Acts and scenes and interludes. This is the first scene of Act I, which is titled "The Shattered Light." It will all be from Eragon's POV. Cool?
Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own Inheritance Cycle. I own a laptop and several jars full of tea.
Warning: DARK story. Mentions of murder, brutality, and so on. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
Scene I: Urbs a Damno (The City of the Damned)
The earth was hard underneath his feet. It crunched and cracked, the once-soft land baked by the harshness of the unforgiving summer sun and the lack of rain.
It has not rained in the north in ten years. Well, not naturally, of course. The clouds had all been driven to the east and the south—the north was a dried-out husk, a shell of its former self.
Not that Eragon particularly cared. All the inhabitants of the north had either moved on or died, so it was of no particular importance that the mighty forest of Du Weldenvarden was a land of brittle trees and that the towns were dust and weeds blowing in the wind. Occasionally the King and his loyal Riders would create rain, to irrigate the slave-farms, but that was only rarely, when the rivers fell too low.
He and his Master had no use for the north now, and therefore it did not matter.
Saphira stepped down, her talons slicing the baked dirt. She sniffed distastefully. There is nothing here. She growled. This is a city of the dead.
We were ordered here none the less. Eragon pointed out, his fingers resting on the pommel of Brisingr. He too sniffed the air, and only the scent of dust hit his nostrils.
Doru Araeba was ash and bones now.
And yet, Master had seen fit to send his right hand to the wasted island of Vroengard to search. Perhaps there were rebels about? It had to be a matter of importance, because the King rarely sent Eragon out nowadays. He had the Halflings and their half-Riders to do his dirty work, and then there were the new ones, the dragons borne from Saphira and their Riders.
Not that Eragon would complain. It had been far too long since he had the opportunity to stretch his legs and swing his sword—being cooped up in Uru'baen had started to take its toll.
After Saphira had devoured that one duchess in a fit of irritation, the King thought it necessary to send his chief servants to the old city of the Riders, to do whatever the hell needed to be done there.
"You will know what to do." The King had said.
Eragon and Saphira warily advanced towards the ruined gates of Doru Araeba. The blue dragon brushed aside a pile of bones with her powerful claws. The bones were small and dragonic. A youngling had died by the gates of Doru Araeba. The pair walked past the bones, and into the city.
It was a miserable place.
In the one hundred and nineteen years since the fall of the Dragon Riders, the city had not been consumed by nature.
The buildings, hewn from stone and trees, had collapsed, worn by the winds and the rain. Everything was crumbling, wrecked, and piles of bones littered the shattered remains of the city.
The scent of dust choked the air, and Eragon hissed at the way it irritated his nose. Saphira sneezed, crackling blue flame scorching a ruined tree-hut and burning to cinders.
What are we supposed to be looking for? She snarled. There is nothing here.
Eragon privately agreed with her, but he could not return to his Master empty-handed. Together they advanced down what had once been the main street of the Rider's city. Eragon's neck prickled; he felt like he was being watched, and more than once he saw the glimmer of strange eyes in the shadows of crumbled doorways or the flit of a shadow darting in the wrecked alleys.
We are being watched. He commented, his hand tightening on his blade.
Saphira bared her teeth hungrily. By what?
We shall find out. The Rider returned her feral grin. He neither smelled nor heard anything, but his eyes did not deceive him, and he carefully probed out with his mind.
To his faint surprise, several wild, frightened minds fled from his, plunging deep into the shadows. They had a human taste, but also the feel of a wild animal; stupid, non-sentient. There was no magical prowess in their flavor.
Not a threat. Eragon dismissed.
But perhaps lunch. And Saphira dove to the side, her large body twisting with stunning agility, and her teeth flashed, and she backed out of an alley, a screaming, kicking creature pinned in her jaws.
It was a grotesque thing, with a human head and torso but the lower half of some hoofed creature, a deer or a goat, perhaps. Its face was twisted in terror, but the kind of fear prey has for a predator. The thing had a human face, but it was not human. It had no scent, which proved that it was created by magic.
Saphira tossed her head back and it vanished. Tastes like goat. She commented.
Eragon snorted and put the goat-men out of his mind. They were not important. The dragon and the Rider continued on.
New piles of bones began to appear, many of them recent, the bones still yellow, not yet bleached by the sun. They were the bones of fantastic creatures.
Horses with wings. Huge cats with the heads and wings of eagles. Strange beasts, each more wild and fantastical than the next.
It appears the Riders were fond of experiments. Saphira rumbled, nudging the bones of a snake-tailed cat.
It appears so. Eragon blinked and looked around. Were they trying to combat Master?
I do not know.
Eragon had heard rumors of the strange imhabitants of Vroengard as a boy, and Galbatorix always alluded to the island as a "place of abnormalities." It was easily conceivable that the old Order, in a desperate attempt to save themselves, created bizarre beings to help defend themselves. The bird-cats looked particularly fierce, with razored claws.
Further and further they went, until, near the center of the city, signs of recent life began to appear. There were scraps of fish and food, discarded stone plates, ash pits where fires had recently burned. A few new graves stood off to the side, in an area that had once belonged to an elf's tree-hut. Kneeling, the Rider read them.
General Jormundor Stoutheart
Leader of the Varden
Long Live Freedom
His grave was followed closely by the next:
Katrina Swiftdagger
Do Not Fear Death
It is Not an End
But the Beginning
Eragon rocked back on his heels, and he hissed in anger.
The Varden, the scum of Alagaesia, had been residing in Doru Araeba. They had been living here, the scattered rabble, for months at a time. They had been seen, at the start of winter, near Teirm, and then had lost the Halfling scouts in the Spine.
It had been too much to hope that they would die in the Spine, then. Pity.
At least they lost their two strongest leaders. Saphira snorted, smoke billowing from her nostrils.
Yes. Eragon said reflectively. Jormundor's death was no surprise; he was old, far too old to spend the long northern winter in a place with little protection from the harsh sea winds. Katrina had been raised in the north, so her death was a little more surprising, but Eragon did not care how she died, just that she was dead.
With those two dead, the Varden will be hard-pressed to survive much longer. Eragon murmured. Katrina and Jormundor had been the leaders since the black-skinned Nasuada's death, sixteen years ago.
Her face was stained with blood and betrayal, and she looked at him with nothing but confusion; not hate or pain or sorrow.
"Why?" She asked.
And his face was made of stone and he turned away. For her. His mind whispered, and he heard the blade fall.
Saphira snorted at the gravestones, and with one swipe of her paw, shattered the rocks. Let us move on. She said. We still have not found what the Master thinks we will find.
Very well.
The pair turned and proceeded through the city of monsters and dead. The great ruin of the Hall of the Riders seemed to be the place where the Varden had spent the most time; ashes were scattered every few feet inside it and several maps were still tacked in place, stained by the weather and worn by age. They were severely outdated maps, of course. The forest of Du Weldenvarden was still colored darkly and the coastal town of Narda was still marked.
They are low on funds. Eragon observed.
Well where would they get them?
True.
They wandered through the hall, deeper and deeper. Several of the rooms had roofs, and Eragon imagined that the Varden, cold and tired, had huddled here in the dead of winter, seeking warmth and protection. In one room, drawings coated the walls. They were done in charcoal, and they were of people and the beasts that lived on Vroengard.
The bird-cat on the wall had fur and feathers, and gryphon was spelled underneath it. The creature Saphira had eaten earlier was labeled faun, and there were others, including hurrok, basilisk, and unicorn. Then came the people.
Katrina was drawn, her face far more lined than Eragon had ever seen it. A bold-faced man with father written below him, and then a stout woman with mother beneath her aged face. A youth had lived in this room. And then Eragon's eyes fell upon the face of a child.
The boy was fifteen or so, with shaggy hair and a toothy grin. His eyes seemed to spark on the wall, and he was laughing. He was a handsome boy, but for some reason, his name was wiped out. Eragon looked at the drawing and his skin prickled. He brushed it aside, and looked down.
Below the drawing, one of the stones had been pulled away, leaving a niche. Eragon crouched and peered inside it; his eyes fell upon a folded piece of parchment. He opened it, and snarled in rage, heat oozing from his enraged body.
It was a map of Uru'baen, recent and completely detailed. A passage was lined heavily in red berry juice, and Eragon recognized it at once as one of the many tunnels that led in and out of the castle, one of many that he and his Master had not been able to close. This particular passage led to the throne room.
The Varden was going after an egg.
And underneath the map, written in the charcoal handwriting of the owner of the room, was this:
Catch us if you can, you damned traitor!
The Varden had known that Eragon was coming. They had known he was coming and had lit out before he and Saphira had arrived. And now… now they were going to steal the eggs that Saphira and her offspring had so carefully laid and built up.
Was this what Galbatorix wanted his servants to find? Did he know already? Was he expecting it?
The map caught fire, and Eragon tilted his head back. He howled, his magic spilling through the ruined Hall, blowing stone and dust everywhere, and the black rage washed over the city of the damned.
This meant war.
So do you like it? This Eragon is different. He's older, darker, and very, very twisted.
Review, and tell me what you think!!
~WSS
