Yeah, I'm posting. Already. The end of the world is indeed coming. I started writing on the same day I posted, and I've done neglected most of everything since.
First off, a note. If I suffer any errors in my book events, my books have gone walkabouts after I lent them out. And I haven't read them in a while, so if I'm getting events at least close, that's probably an achievement more than anything, but feel free to point them out so I can correct them.
Second... I had hoped, after such a long time, for at least a decent review/reader count after I posted. Well, I tell you now, I got an expansive amount of individual visitors in a these few days. Not hits, individual visitors, on just this chapter. So lets say I was expecting to reply to a few people.
I got seven. To me, that just seems lazy. To those who reviewed, you know who you are, and I thank you once more.
...I suppose some people don't always have something to say. But I can't resist being a little disappointed.
Well, on to notes about this chapter. It isn't one of my most deeply thought ones, but what needs to happen has. Hopefully I've tied up of few loose ends and added a few twists for you all to grind your teeth on.
Heh, enjoy the chapter.
---
"Chicken."
"Coward."
"Ignore it."
Her voice distracted him less than he would have liked.
A boy closed his eyes, meditating for a moment. The masters had said it would help him clear his mind. He had been somewhat adept at it, but this moment was trying his patience too much.
The two others continued to glare.
"Heh, lets go. The great prodigies of Doru Areaba, just graduated, are too scared to go on a simple border run. We've got a sniveling child and a blue-blood dragon." The man sneered.
Alacalia growled.
The boy turned angrily. "Fine. If just to prove that you two run at the first sight of an Urgal."
The glares produced by the two men intensified.
"Two hours from the north tower." Snarled the second.
And they walked away.
Vanir sighed.
It had been the fourth time he had to reject Arya's entrance. Princess or not, it was neither her place nor her allowance.
Not in this treehouse.
Not now.
He laughed to himself. And certainly not while the entire structure was protected by an unknown but certainly expansive energy.
He hadn't taken the belt off, not once. So Eragon did ask, he would do. He hadn't given fealty that day for nothing. He remembered the others, how they how looked at him with such eyes. Fealty to a human, rider or no, whatever he looked like? Unthinkable. But he had. And he wore no regrets.
There had been no pause when Eragon finally woke. Vanir had tried to keep him down. He had exhausted himself quite thoroughly. The burnt smell of ozone still stuck in the forest, lingering. But Eragon didn't care. Words muttered as he unclasped the leather belt he wore and told Vanir to never take it off.
His trust had been heartfelt. The elf couldn't have refused even if he wanted to.
Perhaps the true test of him was how he paused by her side. Pausing, mutely screaming as he dug his nails into his hands until they bled. He had passed by a cupboard and pulled out a small bottle, and drank it. The whole thing. It smelled of faelnirv. Eragon had coughed and spluttered then reached under a bed and forced a sword into Vanir's arms.
He didn't even realise the rider had handed him Naegling, of all things, until he reached the door and paused and turned and really did scream this time just before he leapt of the side, howling for just a second before silence caught the world once more.
Vanir had only just now gotten to examining the belt, after handling the sword nearly religiously for two whole days, gently touching all those masterfully made parts of Rhunon-elda's work.
He felt kind of dirty now, for some reason.
...So, Eragon had vanished into the night. Vanir really wished he knew where the rider had went, but alas. He had even tried scrying him, but that had been worthless. All he had seen was the abyss of darkness no matter how long he tried it.
And so he now took to wandering around the treehouse, often replacing the sodden rags on Saphira's skin to help relieve the fever. Her skin paled horribly, with the exception of the thin spots of skin on her head which had turned rotten green.
The destruction of Death Cap. It was incredible.
Then again, no-one had ever seen the toxin progress. It usually meant instant death. Now, he had to see if she could survive as her blood mutated and dark things grew in her veins while the whole time her muscles were eaten away.
He had tried his best to alleviate some with his spells, but he just did not know how to do it right, if at all. Neither the words or the knowledge. He needed Eragon. Oromis. Any rider could have done this better than he.
Vanir sighed and looked out into the shadowed day. Clouds were heavy. Du Weldenvarden was slathered in gloom.
Come back soon, Eragon.
"Why'd you do it. You only rose to their taunts." Admonished Alacalia.
"Then why didn't you stop me?" He replied.
"I'll do whatever you want to do."
She flicked her gaze to the side, spying two men aloft dragons a mile to the side. She hadn't wanted to fly close to them. She felt too uncomfortable in the reach of the two older males.
"I probably should use my youth as an excuse."
She looked at him skeptically. He was young, true, barely past manhood at the age of seventeen. But his figure didn't show it. His muscles were lean and strong, and his face spoke of experience beyond his years.
He laughed. It was a too temporary sound.
"...I could take hits to my honour, but not yours."
"Don't do this for me." Alacalia replied.
"And you're going to tell me you weren't going to react the exact same way If I hadn't first?"
"...Not for me..." She muttered in reply.
He smiled sadly. "But for me." He stroked the crest of her eyes softly when she turned to look at him. "What wonders we are..."
She nuzzled him in reply. "Be ready. We are almost there."
The boy-turned man brushed his hair black hair from his eyes, and drew a silver sword.
He would forever marvel at how perfectly it matched Alacalia's scales.
She dived. "It is time."
Beneath, none saw the eyes watching their decent. Dull horns flashed in the undergrowth for a second, and then were gone.
Madness, he deemed, was all conquering.
Once it had begun, there was no way to escape the tendrils buried in your consciousness.
Eragon's speed was undiminished as he cleared yet another grassy plain. But there was a difference in that he concentrated the whole way. Trying to hold it back the adrenaline, the anger of what he was becoming.
He didn't want to lose himself again.
He didn't want to awaken covered in blood.
But still, he should have stopped. He knew that.
To escape the trees and move faster, he had headed towards Gil'lead first. He would pass around it and go past Daret before arriving at Carvahall. He should stop there. He had intended too. After two days of running, he needed food. His stomach screamed protestations and his muscles weakened.
He didn't stop, not even a slowness of step.
Never halting, never pausing.
Who knew what would happen if even a city guard recognised him. By the time he regained himself, he could have the blood of a thousand on his conscience.
Only a tiny part of him still cared.
...No-one had suspected an ambush.
He would have bet that they'd all have died five minutes from now, in a hail of arrows, if he hadn't opened his mind to check for something like this.
He'd been stupid not to think of it before.
Too inexperienced.
Too utterly careless.
But that didn't mean he was giving up.
Alacalia covered his back as he swung Arget-evarini in a bloody arc, beheading an Urgal before wounding another just in time to come up for a block against the Urgal's great-axe. His muscles, even when magically augmented, shook trying to resist the blow.
He dared not try any more magic than he already was. He was already pushing his limits holding the hail of arrows back. Alacalia strained momentarily as another wave hit and froze in mid air. The strength was coming from her. She reared back, and both rider and dragonness felt a wrench of pain as a blade was buried in her leg. She moaned, then breathed, and the Urgals before her were smothered in silver-red flame.
The boy cursed, his heart hurting and he forced himself to turn away. He continued the fight.
A roar sounded over the battle. It screamed of rage and agony.
He knew without knowing, that one of the others was dead. A moment later, the roar was cut short, and the sound of something wet hit the ground.
No-one dared to look.
"Where is the magician?" Came Alacalia's mental shout.
It was hopeful thinking. If there was a magician, there was a chance of survival. If not, and all those arrows were being fired by real Urgals, they were all dead.
"I'm looking!" He replied desperately. His mind searched, jumping from one Urgal to another, forcing them into suicide along the way, while the whole time he blocked and slashed and parried and stabbed. But nothing he did ever halted the horde.
Another pair of screams. Dragon first this time.
Alacalia shivered, his eyes welling with tears for a moment, then she shook it off and breathed flames once more.
"...We... aren't going to make it, are we Tory..."
He snarled mutely as he watched two more drive their own blades into their stomachs. He turned, ran and leapt, just in time to decapitate the Kull, Kull!, that was about to bury an axe in Alacalia's neck.
And that's when he saw him.
Another Kull, taller than the rest. He raised his bow, it glittered with eldritch power as waves of energy were channeled into an arrow.
The boy snarled, assaulting his mind with a brutal stab of energy, but the iron walls held solid.
And the Kull aimed.
He fought.
Aimed.
Alacalia slashed, trampled, breathed.
...And fired.The shining bolt pierced his wards and slammed into Alacalia's chest. She paused mid-strike, keeling slightly before she let out a great moan of pain and fell, her chest churning with blood.
"No!"
The Kull magician raised his bow, grinning.
Alacalia let out a whisper of flame. It did nothing, and she drew a shuddering breath.
NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!
...And the boy turned. Mindless. Soulless as he stabbed into the Kull's mind with unstoppable force. Everywhere, arrows lifted from quivers and fired.
One hundred bodies fell to the ground in a single moment.
...The silver she-dragon breathed blood.
Closer...
Fl-flash.
Daret loomed in the distance, and then a second later, or so it seemed, was far behind him.
Eragon shuddered, even as he ran.
The battle in his consciousness intensified.
...
...
...He was loosing.
Fl-flash.
...It was dark, and he stood in the remains of carvahall.
Not far now.
Fl-flash!
...He stood next to the farmhouse.
The place that, for fifteen years, he had known as home.
Nature had begun its progression.
The fields were overgrown with weeds.
Moss had claimed the house. Spiders and other little things had made its charred remains their home.
He did not disturb them, only look out into the field in thought.
Somewhere, below the green grass, lay the remains of an egg to large to ever have belonged to a bird.
Saphira's beginnings, his first great treasure, were somewhere, steps away.
"...Waise heill!"
Nothing.
"WAISE HEILL!"
He sobbed.
"I... can't do it Cali... I... I just don't know how."
He looked to the ground, and tears ran down his cheeks, dripping on the dirt frenzily.
Something touched his chin, forcing it back up.
Alacalia retreated her tail and nuzzled him.
"I barely feel it. It's like... ahh... peace. It's comfort."
A moment passes.
His tears fall silent.
"It's home."
She reached over and nuzzles him with her nose, even though it trails blood the whole way.
"It's you... waiting. Everything I ever wanted."
"I can't do it... I won't do it." He cried and hugged her, pressing close like he did, had, every night. "...Not without you Cali..."
For some reason, she smiles, even as a fresh wave of lifeblood pools from her.
"Don't cry... I don't want you to cry for me. It hurts to watch... oh, how I feel so selfish now... but it hurts to see you hurt."
"I won't drag you with me... I am too selfish for that. I want you to find happiness withou...-" Now, even her thoughts rumbled to a stop.
"NO! Not without you! You're everything, you hear! Everything I ever wanted or wished or even dreamed for. I... I won't... can't... give that all..." His tears obscure everything, and he wills his trembling muscles to hold on to her, hoping for some reason that if he doesn't let go she won't away.
Alacalia shook her head. "...One... one last thing... my little one... ...my Tory..." She looked at him, and as their eyes meet his tears as suddenly banished.
"...Kiss me."
Her silver stare wavers. Her body shudders as she tries to draw another breath.
...But she doesn't care.
"Kiss me Tory! Kiss me like I know you wanted to. Like you wanted back then. Like you wanted to only an hour ago..."
A moment of painful silence. "...Kiss me like you always wanted to..."
Even her thoughts fall to a dead whisper.
"...Like I always wanted you to..."
There is a moment of pause.
Misunderstanding.
Comprehension.
And he does. His lips meet hers for a long moment. He feels dwarfed, but... even now, now, oh how it feels so right. So perfect.
He finally pulls away, and Alacalia let out a long shallow moan.
It had nothing to do with pain or bleeding or even something so trivial as the sword in her side.
"Now..." Her body slumps... as if she was going to sleep. "Now... I... ...am... ... ...complete......"
And the boy feels pain. His body aches for a moment.
Her eyes close.
"Alacalia?"
His soul starts tearing, one half of his mind dies and is suddenly empty.
"CALI!"
The rending is finished.
For a moment, amongst the blood and tears and death, nothing moves.
...And the silence is utter, amongst every dead heart.
Galbatorix looks up to the sky, and screams.
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Have fun? Another chapter down.
I make only a single note here. If you thought the literacy of his scenes sucked, which is possible, I'll bequeath the knowledge that it is ...difficult... to write a bit with new characters without names. Especially if that bit is extended.
Heh, oh well. I wonder if that will stop people from reviewing.
-Fallen Dragonfly