Chapter 9
Harrison woke up, feeling his limbs stiffness he was a little disappointed that the advanced healing which had saved his life didn't cover minor wounds as well.
He sat up and looked at his men sleeping and Brom who still had a small almost undetectable grin on his face from last night Harrison suspected, as he remembered his men and himself getting beaten up by a man who was supposed to be in his late fifties.
Harrison would hate to see what his old trainer would say if he saw the display of eight elite men from a military might get beaten by an old man and a piece of wood.
Harrison gave into a small chuckle, it was pretty funny when you thought of it like that. He picked up an M1 and left to hunt, he found a small deer and shot it through the head as to avoid unnecessary pain.
He brought it back to camp and started skinning it when Eragon awoke. "How did you kill that"? asked Eragon. "I shot it with my rifle". Eragon looked at his weapon then asked "did you kill my Uncle in the same fashion"? Harrison stopped what he was doing and looked at Eragon, he pulled out his Colt and handed it to Eragon "this is the weapon I used". "I'm a soldier through and through and I don't mind killing for a cause, but it is never easy killing innocents or friends, I've now done both though so…".
Eragon nodded sadly and looked over the weapon, "how does it work"? "I don't build I just use them, but it fires metallic projectiles at people using a type of gas, it used to be gunpowder but now it's something else so that's about as much as I know".
Eragon stared at it in amazement and Harrison said "tell you what, you keep it, I don't really want it and I have one spare". Eragon started to protest but Harrison insisted and gave him instructions and a spare clip to use".
Eragon pointed it at a bird and Harrison instructed "perhaps you should wait till everyone is awake". Eragon nodded and started to help Harrison skinning the deer.
When everyone was up and fed they continued along the path until they reached Thersiford where a rather grubby thug got his money taken by the witty Brom for trying to make them all pay taxes. Using all the money they bought six horses, two for Brom and Eragon and four for the men to share. There funds certainly reduced, but there speed greatly increased and Brom said that the Raz'ac were only a couple of days ahead of them now and they should pick up the pace to Yazuc.
The men's moods were mixed, but with the sword practice at night and the hard riding by day Harrison expected this. They pushed on for two more days until Yazuc was in sight. "How come there are no sounds"? asked Eragon. "No dogs or nothing" said Barrel.
They approached cautiously until they were at the side entrance of the small settlement. They entered carefully and Harrison turned away when he saw carnage, bogies in piles, men's heads hanging from trees and a baby on a spear. He and his men had witnessed atrocities like this before but never in such a mass. Eragon shot a crow with his bow and then threw up along with the young ones in Harrison's team.
They went on, looking around in disgust "who could have done this"? asked Eragon. "Urgals, most likely" said Brom. "What are Urgals"? asked Harrison. "Urgals, well if you'll take a look around then you'll know how they act towards humans and pretty much themselves, as for what they look like, about seven or eight foot, horns poking out of their heads, we should get out of here before…" Brom stopped suddenly and looked up from the ground he was studying.
"Ride everyone Now"! he shouted as he swung up onto his horse, but the warning was too late as thirty Urgals leaped out from a pile of bodies and charged them, screaming cries of battle. The men and Harrison to some extent were in shock, but Harrison quickly recovered and screamed "Cover now, protect Eragon"!
The men moved quickly as they slid behind debris and bodies. They opened fire and the Urgals began to fall. Harrison loaded a full clip into one and it still moved. He was pretty astonished, thinking they couldn't die, when it stopped moving and he breathed a sigh of relief. He kept shooting until there were none left.
He looked over at Brom, who was bleeding pretty heavily from the head, he shouted for Barrel to tend to him and then looked for Eragon. "Sir"! shouted Erak. Distracted he ran over to where his men were in a semicircle around a figure.
Harrison prayed it wasn't the boy as he shouldered past the men, he was relieved that it wasn't the boy but then he was crushed to see it was Private Samson who had been wounded by some form of Halberd in the chest.
Harrison hung his head until he saw the man begin to breathe and the blue veins began to stand out. "Looks like we all got the same special powers then hey Captain" said Winter's.
Harrison looked around and asked "where's the boy"? The men looked around and said "Samson was last with him sir".
Harrison heard a loud bang, and saw flames erupt from a nearby alleyway. "Erak, Johnson with me, the rest of you get ready to move". Harrison and his men ran to the alleyway where they found Eragon on the verge of unconsciousness and three dead Urgals which were all blown to bits. Eragon stumbled forward into Harrison's arms and asked "did we win"? then he passed out.
Harrison ordered the men to cover the rear as he carried the boy back to the horse. Upon reaching it he tied the boy to the reins and contacted Saphira, telling her to land half a mile away, deep in the trees.
After a brutal gallop in complete silence they reached the spot where Saphira had landed and began to tend to everyone's wounds. Brom had a concussion and Eragon had series lack of energy. They left Samson as comfortable as they could as he began to moan and cry out in pain as his body slowly regenerated his cells. Harrison sure felt for Samson, knowing how painful it could be.
"Thank you for taking care of my rider Captain, if you weren't there then I don't know what I would have done". "They could manage, we just helped". "I'm sorry about your colleague" said Saphira. "He'll be alright" said Harrison as Samson let out another cry of pain.
They talked for a minute longer before Harrison started to scan around them for any sign of detection, he paused as he figured he could always use the thing he did with his head to communicate with Saphira. If Brom could hear his thoughts then why couldn't he hear others.
He tried this now, reaching out with his mind… he felt everything, the lives of trees plants and his men who were thinking about the same thing at that moment. Home, which Harrison really wanted to give to them but couldn't.
He sighed as he assigned watch to his team and bunked down, it was going to be a hard few days with everyone recovering from their ordeal.
