Arlen woke up, his chest itching. As he opened his eyes, he saw a woman with dark skin—like Queen Nasuada was said to have—kneeling over him. Startled, he rolled away from her. He then got up and reached for his belt where his sword was, but he didn't find it. What was going on?
He quickly became aware of several things around him. There were several wounded Urgals being carried by other Urgals past him. Two Dragons—a large red one, and a smaller, though still larger than Artsanna, purple one—were lounging off to the side. The dark-skinned woman in front of him had a bejeweled sword sheathed in a scabbard with a red emblem on it. But most importantly, Rose, Lynde, and Artsanna weren't there.
The woman tried to calm him down. "Hold on, you're not fully healed yet," she said.
"What are you talking a…" he started to say, but he felt a pain in his chest and fell to the ground.
She rushed over to him. "You're only going to hurt yourself if you don't stay down. Now let me heal your ribs."
She put her hand over his chest, and he felt itchy again. He had to ask though, "What happened?"
She answered plainly. "There was a Shade here. He manipulated an Urgal tribe to attack another, and attacked you and a couple of women. He cracked most of your ribcage, except two that he broke. You should be fine though—I've been told I'm a master healer."
She didn't mention Artsanna. Either she wanted to keep the Dragon a secret or she didn't know about her. Though he did wonder where Lynde and Rose were. He tried to ask it without giving away too much. "Where are the women who the Shade attacked? And where's the Shade?"
"The Shade ran off before we could get to him." So he was a coward. "Alaric's taking the women to a safe place."
He tried sitting up, but she pushed him back down. Alaric had been here? And what did she mean by "a safe place". He would ask. "Safe?"
"Well…" She hesitated. "I don't like to give my patients news like this, but… They're magicians, so he's going to Gil'ead to get a ruling on them. They'll either join the Queen's Magicians or get on their watch list." She drew away saying, "All done. You should be good as new."
"Thanks." He got up and stared at her. "Who are you?"
She put her hand forward. "I am Karasi, Dragon Rider," she explained, "formally of the Wander Tribes."
"I'm Arlen," he replied, shaking her hand, and intentionally not including the name of his home town for reasons he couldn't explain. Then a question came to mind. "Why were you here?"
Karasi answered without hesitation. "We were brought in because of the Urgals. We heard one tribe was going to go to war with another, so we went in to stop them. Rider justice at work. Of course we never thought that a Shade would be behind it, or that we'd find magicians."
"Karasi," said deep voice with an Urgal accent behind them. Arlen turned around to see an Urgal with a sword similar to Karasi's sheathed, only the emblem was purple. "Have you found out if he's a magician yet?"
"I'm not," Arlen said. "You can use whatever detection spells on me you want—I'm not one of them, even if the ones you took are my friends."
The Urgal stepped forward, ready to draw his sword. "You were harboring magicians?"
"Stand down, Valvesz," Karasi said. "We're not the Queen's lapdogs; we're Riders. If we followed the letter of the law, we'd make more problems than we'd solve. Besides, we can't do anything about it now. We'd probably get caught in the storm."
He turned back to Karasi. "What storm?"
She answered simply. "There's a snowstorm on the way. When Alaric left, he had a chance to beat it riding Magnora. But riding our Dragons, even with a day's head start, we'd still get caught in the middle of it. Magnora's a lot faster than our Dragons." Suddenly she had a look in her eyes like the look Lynde got when she talked to Artsanna.
Arlen looked at both of them and said, "Do you know what happens to magicians that refuse to either be watched or recruited?" Karasi and Valvesz looked at him, interested. "I've seen it happen. The healer of my village turned out to be a magician, but when the Queen's Magicians came, she refused to be watched or to join them. Do you know what happened?"
Karasi had an answer, though she was obviously unsure of it. "They watched her anyway?"
Arlen shook his head. "They took her away. They took the only person who knew how to heal people away, and that year so many died because we didn't have anyone to treat us when we were sick or wounded. Children died because of the Queen's Magicians. Now does that sound like justice to you?"
There was a long pause before either of the Riders spoke. "Human," Valvesz said. "What is your name?"
"Arlen."
"Arlen, for now I have arranged for you to stay with tribe Ugnok," Valvesz said. "You should get some rest for now."
"Thank you," Arlen said, cautiously. "I will." And he started back to the village.
As he was leaving, he looked back, and the Riders were talking amongst themselves. He wondered if they were talking about the Queen's Magicians and Lynde's mother. In fact, he hoped it. If the Riders could stop what the Queen was doing to magicians, then perhaps a bit of good could come out of it. At the very least they would think about it. Of course, it could have nothing to do with them. In any case Arlen just kept walking back to the Urgal village.
Once he got back to the guest house, Artsanna's "voice" entered his mind. Arlen! You're not hurt!
He didn't know how Lynde spoke to Artsanna without actually talking, so he just spoke out loud. "I'm not. Where are you?"
I'm hiding among the many caves in this mountain. I should be fine for now. But do you know where they took Lynde?
"To Gil'ead. We can't rescue them from that place."
Artsanna's thoughts sounded like an angry growl. We must! We must rescue Lynde!
"I understand your anger," he said. "But you need to think this through."
NO! No thought! We must take action. We must go after her!
"Alaric and Magnora are with them. How do you think we'll fight them?"
We don't need to fight them. We only need to take back Lynde.
"And Rose."
If she doesn't free herself, maybe. Whatever our plan, we need to get some things before we leave.
Lynde's sword came to mind, as did the metal arrow that Rose tried to use on Raud. He wondered if Artsanna was bringing these things up in his mind because he saw no reason to get the arrow. Suddenly he did—it wasn't an ordinary arrow, and it might be able to kill Raud, or perhaps even Alaric, though he wouldn't want to try that. "Alright, we'll get them before we go," he said. "But we'll wait until the Riders fall asleep. I don't want to take any risks."
Agreed.
So they waited. They waited until Artsanna, from wherever she was hiding, saw the two Riders fall asleep outside. The way they slept Arlen found odd—they were each curled up with their Dragons. But they were asleep, so they could move.
Arlen snuck out to where they fought. He found the arrow Rose used, though it looked different than he remembered. He also found his sword, which he was glad to have back. Though he couldn't find Lynde's sword—just another sword that may have been Raud's, though he didn't remember it looking like that.
It is an illusion, Artsanna told him. Rose cast a spell with the last of her energy to hide it and the arrow. He turned to the sword that he thought might've been Raud's. He felt around the cross-guard, and while he couldn't see the diamond, he could feel it. As he picked it up, he felt that it was very heavy. It was Lynde's sword alright.
He carried the sword and the arrow to a place that Artsanna had told him to. She crawled out of a nearby cave. There was something about her that made him think she was tired. It might've been her movements or her eyes, but she was tired. Get in the saddle. I'll fly us out of here.
"No," he whispered as he put Lynde's sword and the arrow awkwardly in one of Artsanna's saddlebags. "You remember what Vorashz said. If you try, you could alert everyone and even get yourself killed."
Then we should run—silently.
"Can you do that?"
You just watch me. But get in the saddle so we can run!
Arlen mounted up. It was strange sitting up there. He'd had many a conversation with Artsanna, and now he was riding her like she was a horse. He tried not to think about it too much as she silently tread out of there.
He was impressed about how quiet Artsanna could be. He could barely hear her breathing, and her footsteps, while slow, were especially quiet. They made it out of the valley without anyone noticing them.
After leaving the Spine, Arlen and Artsanna were hit with a massive snowstorm. The wind kept them from flying, the snow kept them from seeing very far in front of them, and all Arlen could do against the cold was shiver. So this was why the Riders didn't want to fly.
He had been warned about it, and he'd ignored that warning. He'd been a fool to do this now. He should have stopped Artsanna, but… Why didn't he listen?
He stopped. "We should turn back," he said.
We could not even if we tried, Artsanna replied as she stopped alongside him. I lost my way long ago.
"Then… we're lost."
Yes.
There was a mutual silence for a while. "We're going to die here," he admitted to himself.
You might… but I… Artsanna suddenly collapsed.
"Artsanna!" He knelt next to her head. "Are you alright?"
No… I'm… cold. Why I am I so cold? She was freezing to death. He didn't think dragons could freeze to do, breathing fire and all that. But then again, she couldn't breathe fire.
They were going to die there, and there was nothing they could do about it.
Suddenly, there was a thud behind him. He saw the red silhouette of a Dragon through the snow. It had to be one of the Riders coming after them—or at least him if they didn't know about Artsanna.
He drew his sword just in case they were hostile, and prepared himself to defend Artsanna. While he knew he could do little to fight a Rider, he'd at least make the effort.
The Rider came down and walked towards followed by the Dragon. While it may have been his imagination, the Dragon seemed bigger than before. Once the Rider was within sight of Arlen, he could see that the Rider was probably a man, and that he had a hood over his head. He drew his sword—a one handed, blood-red sword—and pointed it at Arlen. "Who are you?" the Rider asked.
"Arlen," he replied. "Who are you?"
"So you don't know, Rider?" the man said. "Eragon didn't send you to kill me or anything?" Before Arlen could reply, the man continued. "Of course he didn't; I'd think something was wrong if he did. But the question still stands: who am I?" He reached for his hood with one hand, pulling it down while he kept his sword pointed at Arlen. He had pointed ears like an elf, but he didn't look like one otherwise. "I am Murtagh."