Author's note: Reading back some of my older chapters, I'm seeing a lot of errors, partly due to my bad spelling, and partly due to Fanfiction messing up my formatting. When I hit chapter 30, I'll go back and correct everything before it, which will hopefully make it easier to read. We've also hit 20,000 views, so thanks to everyone who read my stuff, and to the people who have stuck with it. I really appreciate it. Anyway, here's the next chapter! Enjoy!
With thanks to my Patrons:
Regal Eagle
In response to reviews:
Daniel Clausen: Yeah, I had to keep Durzley (that was deliberate) alive until Farthen Dûr. Then he can be mercilessly killed. And thanks for that interesting stat! At this rate, Trial will almost definitely surpass the length of Eragon, which is crazy to think about. And yes, I think that I do better with fight scenes. Emotional bits aren't my strong suit. And yeah… it's been almost 9 months since I started this. How time flies…
Undead Night Fury: You're welcome to join, and thanks!
MoosHeadFamLit: Nice, and accurate, though I've never played Doom. Halo is my thing (from the MCC collection on Steam).
HalflingHobbit: I have read part of 'I am Number 4', and I did some research on the Chimæra, but I have never heard of 'Ranger's Apprentice'. Still, I'll try to cameo your guy in at some point, and thanks!
Cormin12: Only Plainswalkers who have a legit reason to shapeshift can. Cade can't, and he will remain that way. And every Plainswalker has certain adaptations to help their form fit in better with their new realm. For example, Cade now has three Eldunarí, where King Ghidorah doesn't have any, so when I say claws, think of Smaug in the Hobbit films, with fingers at that joint in the wing.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Inheritance Cycle. Thanks to Regal Eagle for beta reading.
Chapter 27: Race against Time.
We intercepted Saphira mid-flight as the sun peeked over the horizon, our massive wingbeats almost knocking her out of the sky given our relative sizes. After we gave her a bit more space, our fellow dragon roared happily, and we roared back in triumph as Saphira started a slow descent to where we'd left the horses.
"Are you three alright?" Saphira asked us.
"We're fine." Driscol reported. "Absolutely uninjured."
"And we cut off the Shade's arms and kicked him off the roof." Sparta bragged. "He's going to respawn, but he's going to be in agony for quite a while."
Eragon whistled, impressed.
"How's Amara doing?" Kevin asked in concern.
"I'm not sure." Murtagh said after Eragon relayed the question to him. "We'll have to check both her and the elf once we reach the ground."
We nodded, accepting Murtagh's statement.
"You should be proud." Islingr told us as we circled the campsite, allowing Saphira to land first. "Nobody can claim to have come out of a duel with a Shade unscathed."
Sparta snorted. "It wasn't an even fight. He wasn't using his abilities to his maximum potential. We would have been hard-pressed to fight him off if he was taking us seriously."
"Perhaps." Islingr said. "But you three were holding back too. I have taught you enough for you to know that Shades can only be killed by something piercing their heart. And yet you attacked him ferociously, delaying him and allowing your companions to escape. You were focused on inflicting pain on him."
"We wanted revenge for what he had done to Amara." We replied. "He'd hurt our cousin, and we were determined to pay him back for it. We… we need to find some way to forgive ourselves for leaving her. She didn't deserve whatever happened to her."
"You care for her as humans treat their family members." Islignr noted. "Dragons were never so protective of their nest-mates. To us, our brothers and sisters were competition. Not so much in our later years, but as hatchlings, we had to battle each other for the best of the food our parents brought us. I am beginning to think that the other races were superior to us in that regard."
"Yeah, but Amara's not our sister." Sparta said. "We're an only child."
"Even now?" Kevin laughed, earning him two smiles from the rest of us and a general sense of amusement from Islingr.
"I wonder what Mom would make of us." Driscol chuckled.
Kevin pulled off a rather accurate impression of Mom ranting. "Cade Mason! Your father and I always told you that dying was a bad idea! The salary is terrible and now you have two extra mouths to feed! How are you going to buy a house at this rate? We taught you to be responsible, but what do you go and do? You get yourself involved in a multiversal war! We are very disappointed in you, young man!"
Sparta and Driscol laughed, but the humor of the situation was a little marred by a pang of homesickness, and our worries about how bad our cousin was injured.
"Come on, let's see how Cuz is doing." Driscol said.
The rest of us nodded, and we landed with a loud thud that shook the ground. As we advanced towards Amara, we shrunk until we were Saphira's size before gently nudging Murtagh and Eragon aside. The others started their own conversation as we protectively curled up around Amara and started checking her for injuries.
Our cousin looked like she'd been on the wrong end of some kind of wild animal. And that was before we saw the burns, brands, and cuts. They were all fresh, and hadn't healed much. After all, Amara had been in captivity for two days maximum, but still. This was brutal. Add on the faint whiffs of the Bleach of Death, and we couldn't forgive ourself for leaving her alone when she transformed. We still had to pay for that, but as for Durza, our fight wouldn't be the Shade's only punishment for torturing our cousin.
We had half a mind to take her back to Locostral for treatment, although Eragon was competent at magical healing, and in the books, he'd managed to fix Arya apart from the poison that was in her. Perhaps he could help.
We were about to turn towards him when Amara yawned and blinked a few times before opening her eyes. "What time is it?"
"Morning, cuz." Kevin said as he nuzzled her hair affectionately.
"We got out okay?"
"Yes." Sparta said without any trace of arrogance or pride for beating Durza.
"And where are we now?"
"Outside Gil'ead." Driscol said. "It's been a few hours since we got you and Eragon out."
"Can you get me something to eat? I'm too tired to move."
"We're on it." Sparta said as Kevin gave Amara a happy lick.
Our cousin chuckled quietly, muttering something about three idiots she was related to as we got up and started to rummage through the saddlebags for something. During the two days we'd been prepping for the prison break, Murtagh had snuck back into Gil'ead with his fake beard and 'liberated' some supplies, so the provisions were all restocked.
Pulling out a hunk of bread, some cheese, and a waterskin, we returned to Amara, who was now shivering from the lack of our body heat. Curling back up around her, we offered her the food.
"Not the best breakfast I've ever had." She muttered as we tried our best to warm her up.
"How badly are you hurt?" Kevin asked.
"Not to bad." Amara said. "It's just surface wounds apart from places in my back where I think that guy with red hair dripped acid on me or something.
Kevin snarled instinctively and scratched at his neck, remembering the adventures of Captain Splashy. "Seithr Oil. The Bleach of Death."
"Excuse me?"
"That's what it does." Kevin said, looking our cousin straight in the face. "It's an acidic substance that eats away at living tissue. It's what we were searching for to lead us to the Ra'zac in Dras Leona, remember?"
"Oh. I'm assuming by that reaction that you have a bad experience with it, Kevin."
"I was ****ing melted off." Kevin said, shooting Eragon a glare.
There was a short pause before Amara burst into laughter. "You were melted off!? That's priceless... I can't get this image of you just slopping around in a bucket as Driscol and Sparta glare down at you!"
Sparta started laughing too while Kevin glared at our treacherous right head. Then he looked up at Driscol, activated puppy eyes and asked "Do you still love me, Senpai?"
That set Driscol off, and soon Amara and our middle and right heads were laughing hysterically as Kevin glowered at us.
Murtagh glanced at us and shook his head. "Crazy dragons."
Then Saphira slapped him with her tail, sending him sprawling as she and Eragon joined our party of laughing at someone else's expense. Murtagh and Kevin locked eyes and sighed. Poor guys.
Once everyone had regained control of themselves, we finally got round to asking Eragon to heal Amara. He nodded and approached our cousin, who allowed him to close all her wounds, although she squirmed around a lot, complaining that it itched. After she was all done, Eragon moved onto Arya.
She took a lot more of the young Rider's energy to heal, and Saphira had to help him. Unlike Amara, Arya had more wounds than not. Burns, brands, cuts, marks from whips, black and purple bruises… It was worse than we expected. However, there was no Seithr Oil. Perhaps Durza had been feeling particularly murderous towards the elf for making him lose Saphira's egg and wanted to break her slowly.
The full process took a few hours, and he was completely spent by the end of it.
"Is she gonna make it?" Amara asked, half to us, half to Eragon.
"I don't… I don't know." Eragon said, Saphira having to help keep him upright. "Elves are stronger than humans, but even they cannot endure constant torture like this without impunity. If I knew more about healing, I might be able to revive her, but..."
He let the sentence trail off.
Kevin put his ear to Arya's chest. "Well, she's breathing and has a pulse. You healing the surface wounds would have helped too."
Silence fell again, but this time, it was a little more hopeful.
"We should try to make some ground." Murtagh said as Eragon tore into lunch. "We're still much too close to Gil'ead for my liking."
We debated talking to Arya then and there, but Murtagh was right. We needed to move. We could make contact with her later.
The rest of the day was tense. At least, it was tense for the humans. Eragon and Murtagh had strapped Arya onto Saphira's saddle before mounting their respective horses. Then we realised Amara's situation, and we offered to give her a lift. She gladly accepted, and we spent an enjoyable afternoon just hanging out with Saphira and the unconscious Arya. Obviously, the elf wasn't a massive conversationalist, but we didn't do much talking.
Instead, our afternoon constituted in having to annihilate any and all soldiers on the two human's tails. From our limited knowledge of military airstrikes, Eragon was the guy with the radio, and we were the plane, although we just had to look down and spam gravity beams at our target. It was kind of fun, until we realised what we were doing, although we were so far down the 'kill or be killed' route, that we'd adjusted to having to take lives. And that was a morbid thought.
That evening, we landed alongside Saphira, a little tired, but not exhausted. We'd need to eat soon to replenish our energy. Eragon removed Arya from Saphira's saddle, and Amara slipped off our back, her armour scraping against ours.
They started talking, but we didn't especially care what they were discussing. We had an elf to contact. Curling up in our armour and giving the pretense of trying to rest, we extended our awareness to Arya.
We were about to generate our mindscape, but Sparta questioned. "Will she even have enough strength to... simulate that, for lack of a better term?"
"I'm not sure." Driscol said.
"So we go the traditional route then?" Kevin asked.
"I guess so." Driscol replied. "Shame, though. I like having a mindscape."
"Same here." Sparta said before asking Islingr "Ebrithil, mind backing us up if we need it?"
"I do not believe that my services will be needed," our mentor replied, "but I shall help if you need it. Start with the traditional elvish greeting. That will show that you wish to help her."
"Got it." Kevin said, and we focused on our connection to Arya.
The first thing we noticed was that elves' minds are weird. There's something undeniably non-human about them that we never got from anyone else apart from Rift. Although Rift made us feel like we were standing next to a nuclear bomb. Arya's mind was tamer than that, but it was still wild. It didn't feel like a human mind either. Everything was arranged logically, but with undeniable traces or 'weird'. It would be like having a set of filing cabinets with everything neatly in its place, but the drawers would be moving around- Inception style.
We sucked at languages, but we reckoned we could earn Arya's trust- or at least rouse her curiosity by using our muddled knowledge and swapping a few words out of general phrases. However, the elvish greeting was simple enough- just three lines that didn't change.
"Atra esterni ono thelduin." We thought in greeting. May good fortune rule over you.
There was a silence after that that drew out for so long that Kevin "Well, we broke her."
"Yeah…" Driscol agreed, drawing out the word until it was just a sound. "Mission failed, I guess."
"Atra du evarínya ono varda." Arya finally replied. May the stars watch over you.
Well, she'd responded. After 10 minutes! Still, we weren't out of the mental woods yet. We were saying hello, but that wouldn't say anything about our intentions. Still, we may as well complete the greeting, then go from there.
"Un atra mor'ranr lifa unin hjarta onr." We finished. And may peace live in your heart.
In the Ancient Language, Arya asked "Who are you, how do you know of my people's ways, and why have you contacted me in this manner?"
Thanks to our very limited knowledge of the Ancient Language, we started off with "Vae aí fricai un skulblaka. Vae kenna älfakyn fra Ebrithil."
That roughly translated to 'We are a dragon and a friend. We know the elves from our master.' Well, the actual grammar that we'd used was much worse than that, but we got the point across. We were her ally. Then we realised that we had no idea what to do next, so we flailed around with a couple of words before giving up.
"**** this, can we switch to English please?" Sparta asked in our native language. "Or Common, or whatever you people call it? We're really crappy with languages."
"...Very well." came the stunned response.
"Cool." Driscol said. "Right, where to start…?"
"Start on us?" Kevin suggested. "Then move on to what we're doing."
"Okay." Dridcol nodded. "Right, so we're Ghidorah, a three headed dragon. Separately, we're Driscol, Kevin, and Sparta. I'm Driscol. We come from a place beyond the sea, but we know a decent amount about Alagaësia. We're under oath to protect the new Rider, Eragon, and his companion, Saphira. She hatched… a little over six months ago if our math is right. We just had to free him from prison in Gil'ead, where we found you too. Your wounds were healed by Eragon, and we're now heading towards the Varden, although we don't know the way."
"This is… unexpected, Ghidorah-elda." Arya said after a long pause. "However, I am glad for your presence. I am Arya."
"Nice to meet you." Kevin said as we tried to remember what we should and shouldn't know. "But why haven't you woken up? We freed you last night, and your wounds are healed."
Arya's tone turned somber. "During my captivity, a rare poison, the Skilna Bragh, was given to me, along with the Empire's drug that suppresses magic. Every morning, the antidote to the previous day's poison was administered to me, by force if I refused it and tried to suicide so the secrets of the elves and the Varden would be safe. Without this antidote, I will die within a few hours. That is why I put myself into this trance."
"Ah, suspended animation." Sparta said. "Though a cryopod would be more effective."
"How long can you stay in this state?" Driscol asked.
"If I was at full strength, for weeks." Arya calculated. "Although after my imprisonment, that time would be drastically reduced. I have... perhaps five days to live."
What? Five? By our calculations, Arya should have had eight or nine days from Gil'ead, nearly double the time! What had happened? Was it just that we'd delayed at certain points by being injured, or going to Locostral? Were we behind schedule for the urgal attack on Farthen Dûr?! We'd have to come up with alternate plans fast. Those would probably involve us in a mad dash towards the Varden.
"Where can we get the antidote?" Kevin asked.
"It exists in only two places outside the empire." Arya supplied. "With the Varden, and my own people. However, my home is far beyond the reach of even dragonback."
Hmm. If we grew to our maximum size and flew flat-out, we could probably get there fairly quickly. And Farthen Dûr was actually further from Gil'Ead than Ellesméra was, so what the heck was that about? Perhaps Arya just didn't want to disclose the information. But why would she? We were a dragon, a member of the species that she was fighting to restore. Unless she was referring to home in a metaphorical sense, but as we'd said a long time ago, we weren't a psychologist.
"So how about the Varden?" Sparta said. "We were planning to go there anyway, but we don't know the way."
Thinking about it, our crappyness in the Ancient Language was to our benefit here. We could lie in English, and nobody could stop us! Still, thank… Rift for that? Was Rift like that? Perhaps not. Besides, if we suddenly started saying that, Ragnar would be furious with us for revealing secrets and getting everyone into a panic.
Arya seemed hesitant to reveal the info, but she said "I wish I could trust you on your word alone, Ghidorah-elda, but as you three know, these are dangerous times. I will share its location with you, as long as you swear that you will never reveal their location to Galbatorix or any who serve him."
Well that was easy.
"We swear." The three of us chorused.
Then we were hit by a rapidly sped-up mental video of riding through the Beor Mountains to the far south. There was a long, eastward journey, followed by a turn to the south, and a route down a narrow valley that twisted and turned between the mountains, ending at the base of a waterfall that thundered into a lake.
"It is far," Arya said, "but do not let the distance dissuade you. When you arrive at the lake at the end of the Beartooth River, a password is required. Take a rock, hit it against the cliff next to the waterfall, and cry 'Aí varden abr du Shur'tugalar gata vanga.' Then you will be admitted."
"And what's the antidote?" Kevin asked.
"Tell them... to give me Túnivor's Nectar." Arya said, her voice weakening. "I am sorry, great dragon, but I have expended too much energy already. You must break contact with me, although if there is no hope of reaching the Varden in time, which is a very real possibility, I must impart information to you that is crucial to the Varden's survival. Farewell Ghidorah Skulblaka, and good luck."
The mental connection fizzled away, and we returned to the fantasy-like reality of Alagaёsia as Murtagh said "Well? Is the desert open to us?"
Eragon was about to respond when Driscol butted in, saying "Hold up. **** just got real. We talked with the Elf. Her name's Arya, she's been poisoned, and she doesn't have long to live."
"What?!" Eragon said in surprise, spinning towards us.
We rose, stretching. Sparta said "You heard. She can be cured, but she needs to either get to the Varden, or the other elves to be treated. She gave us the route to the Varden, but we won't be able to make it in time for her to live."
Eragon swore, kicked a stone, and put his head in his hands. "Are you sure? There's got to be something we can do!"
"There is." Kevin said. "When Sparta said 'we won't be able to make it in time for her to live', he meant for us as a group to get to the Varden. However, if we- as in us three- fly non-stop to the Varden, we might be able to make it in time."
"Then go!" Eragon said, throwing out his arm in a gesture for us to leave. "If you can save her, go!"
"And that's where we run into problem number one." Driscol said. "We won't be able to protect you at the same time. We'd have to…"
He trailed off, and all three of us began thinking the same thing. We'd have to be in two places at once… which would be possible if we disgorged an Eldunarí. But we'd require some kind of housing for it… Sparta suggested that Amara could take possession of it, and nobody else would realise. But that would still have the problem of where exactly we'd put Arya while we were flying.
"What if we use Locostral as a storage locker?" Kevin suggested. "Where we use our key here doesn't affect our position there, so we could leave her in our along with any junk we don't need, then come back here, go big, then set off."
"That works." Driscol said.
Our brainstorm over, there were still some things we needed to take care of.
"Eragon, if we leave, you need to know the location of the Varden." Sparta said. "We know it, and we'll share it with you if you swear the same oath we did in the Ancient Language: to never reveal their location to Galbatorix or any who serve him."
"Are you sure?" Eragon asked, not happy about the concept of magically binding himself into a promise.
"Arya's conditions, not ours." Kevin said. "We had to do the same thing."
That seemed to settle his doubts, so he swore to the terms, and we sent him the route and gave him the passcode. That done, we asked Amara to follow us to a distance where we couldn't be overheard.
"Cuz… we need you to keep something safe for us." We said.
"And what would that be?" Amara asked.
"You know that we have Eldunarí?" Kevin asked casually.
Our cousin caught on to what we were planning very quickly after that. "Oh, no… Guys, you can't trust me with one of those! I'd accidentally lose it, or drop it, or-"
"We trust you." Sparta said, giving Amara a comforting nudge. "We failed you once. We won't fail you again. Just make sure that it doesn't get broken."
"Do you guys even know how to disgorge one of your... Eldunarí?" Amara asked us.
"Err…" Driscol said. "Ebrithil, a little help?"
"Are you three sure about this?" Islingr said seriously. "Once you do this, there is no return. If your Eldunarí are broken, then you die. If Galbatorix or his agents come into possession of them, he will have power over you, and you would be forced to obey him, no matter his command. He could order you to kill your cousin, or to kill Eragon and Saphira. You would have no choice. You would have to attack."
We shuddered at that concept, but if we wanted to do this, we had no choice. "We understand the risks, but the benefits in this situation outweigh them. How do we disgorge our Eldunarí?"
Islingr sighed. "You will need to locate the Eldunarí within your body, then focus on expelling it. The sensation will be equivalent to having something stuck in your throat that must be expelled."
"Right, so basically we throw up something a little bigger than a football." We said. "Let's get this over with."
Widening our stance, we braced ourselves for what was inevitably going to happen. Puking up part of ourself was never in our general plan, but desperate times called for desperate measures. We felt something in our chest shift slightly, then the horrible feeling of three something forcing themselves up our throats. Our eyes widened and we stared at each other in panic. We'd only meant to disgorge one!
Still, there was no turning back now. We'd have to deal with whatever came next. Opening our mouths in preparation, our throats contracted a few more times before our Eldunarí eventually found their way into our mouths, and we securely wrapped our tongues around them before slowly lowering them to the ground.
This felt weird. We were both inside and outside our body simultaneously. The closest analogy we had for it was like driving that reconnaissance robot we'd used in the record raid in Teirm, but that was a severe understatement. We had no senses relaying back through our three glowing heart of hearts, except for a massive amount of awareness of the minds around us, and feeling very exposed.
As Amara started to wipe the dripping saliva off one of them, we winced at a sudden influx of mental information from her physical contact, and an even bigger surge of information going out. She could feel our thoughts, feel our emotions, and had full access to our memory, which we thought was both severely freaky, and a giant violation of our privacy.
Growling at Amara to not touch our three, small weak spots, we started slamming up mental barriers, shields, and defensive weaponry. She hurriedly scrambled backwards as we tried to get used to the new sensations. This was sacrily open. Too open for our liking. But we had to deal with it.
When we finally got the hang of managing the three cradles of our consciousnesses, we allowed Amara to approach as we started wiping our drool and goop off shining spheres. They were near perfectly round, and glittered the same gold colour as our scales. However, as we turned them over, we found a glowing orange symbol in them- a silhouette of our Plainswalker key, in the same colour as the rift.
"Did you mean to disgorge all three?" Amara asked us, flicking our drool in our faces.
"Hey, cut that out!" Kevin said, retreating out of range.
"No." Driscol said, nudging one of the gold orbs with one of our fingers. "We only meant to cough up one. This was an accident."
"It also puts you at three times as much risk." Islingr pointed out.
"We could stash them in Locostral." Sparta suggested. "Make sure that the others know what they are and how important they are, and they'll be safe."
"Talking about Arya, can we stash her in a cryopod?" Kevin asked. "It'd stop the poison's effects."
"But she'd mentally detect the change." Driscol argued. "She'd realise that something would be going on, and question it."
"Then… can we heal her there?" Kevin suggested.
"No, because it'd raise a lot of questions." Sparta said. "If Arya was poisoned one day, then cured the next, how would you react to the news if you were an Alagaësian?"
"Err… presume it was magic?" Our left head said. "I do get the point though. We are nowhere near ready to tell people about Locostral."
"Yo cuz, remember that some people here don't pick up on your internal conversations? Namely me?" Amara said.
"Sorry Amara, just brainstorming." Sparta said. "Shall we go over the general plan?"
"Yes please."
"Step one," Kevin said, "disgorge Eldunarí. Leave it with you so we can remain in contact."
"Step two," Drsicol added, "take Arya to Locostral and leave her in our room along with our other Eldunarí and everything else apart from our key to get rid of unnecessary weight. Grow to our maximum size and fly to the Varden."
"Step three," Sparta finished, "arrive with Arya. Get her cured, then replenish energy for the battle against the urgals. We won't be flying back to you, but we'll be there when you arrive. Stay in your human form until you reach the Varden too. If you don't, you might make some unforeseen complications. Got all that?"
Amara nodded. "I'm a little worried that you won't be flying back to us, but I get your logic. If there's a battle coming, you'll need to be at full strength to zap everything. And I don't even know how to get back into my dragon form, so don't worry."
"We'll work on that later." Driscol said. "Now, shall we make our goodbyes?"
Amara nodded, and we walked back towards the others.
The skies were dark by the time we were finally ready. We'd already dropped off Arya in Locostral along with our two other Eldunarí, as well as Islingr's one and our gear. Not many people had noticed us come... home, but we did spot Spanners looking at the two glowing, golden orbs in our mouths, and we could practically see the gears turning in her head. We returned to Mount Bluepeak after that, quickly explained to Gem 'what the **** we were doing', then dropped everything apart from our key. That done, we came back to Alagaësia and prepared to take off under the cover of darkness and grow to our full size.
Our companions hadn't exactly been happy with what we were doing, but they understood, and it allowed them to not have to rush as much, although we strongly advised them to keep on riding as hard as possible. Obviously, we couldn't say that the Varden was under imminent attack, but we bull ****ed some excuse about the Empire being hot on their heels. Which was true, but it kinda felt like a lie when we said it. We all knew that lying was necessary to make sure our knowledge of the future would be kept secret, but we wished we didn't have to. At some point, we were going to lie ourselves into a corner, and the Ancient Language wouldn't even let us do that. We'd have to master the elves' technique of manipulating the truth, or saying one thing but meaning another, or whatever they did.
Saphira had been particularly against us leaving, although she eventually conceded to our logic, and the need to save Arya.
"Just… stay safe." She said before we parted ways.
"Us?" Sparta said. "We can regenerate, and we just have to fly in a straight line. We're more concerned about you guys."
"Make sure they stay out of trouble, okay?" Driscol added.
"And please look after Amara for us." Kevin finished. "With us being exiled, she's the only family we have left."
Well, we'd adopted Gem as our big sister, but Amara was our relative by blood.
"I shall." Saphira promised. "Though I shall miss you three."
"It's only a couple of days." Driscol pointed out. "We'll reunite soon enough."
The blue dragoness nodded. "Very well. I shall look forward to seeing you again."
We nodded, preparing to find somewhere more discrete to take off from. "See you later, alligator."
"Wait, what?"
We chuckled and started loping away, quickly disappearing between the trees. "Ask Amara!"
Then, when we were far enough away, we spread our wings and beath them hard, sending us shooting into the sky. As we gained altitude, we grew to our maximum size. Our whole body became larger, but flying became so much easier, despite the extra weight we'd gained. Our wing muscles had become stronger, and we easily surged up through the sky.
The Beor Mountains were in a south-eastern direction from Gil'ead, so we aimed ourselves in that vague direction and flew, always making sure that the city was directly behind us. According to the map, if we followed the Ramr River towards Bullridge, then flew in that direction, we should eventually hit the Beartooth River. Then we could follow that to the lake Kóstha-watsit to Farthen Dúr. Piece of cake.
Still, we couldn't just sit tight. We had a lot of ground to cover, and not much time. However, King Ghidorah had flown from Antarctica to Boston in about a day if we remembered right, so we would probably be in for a fairly brief flight under the light of the moon.
"Perhaps we could go there one day." Kevin said.
"Err… I think that'd need us to have a much better understanding of orbital mechanics to actually get there." Sparta pointed out.
Driscol laughed. "Still, one small step for a dragon. One giant flight for dragonkind."
The three of us chuckled as we flew on, into the night. If Eragon and Murtagh could do this on horseback in eight days, we'd be damned if we couldn't make it in a limit of five.
Snapshot #7:
"Okay Gem, why are we here?" Darius asked as he, Regal, Rosa, Gem, and the three of us stood outside Locostral's hospital.
"Well." Gem began. "If you haven't noticed, you're all beasts now."
"Duh." Kevin said. "But what does that have to do with the hospital?"
"Well, since Plainswalkers can still die from illnesses," our Clan Leader explained, "you five need to get… shots."
Darius and Rosa both groaned, Regal's eyes went wide, and we instantly tried to bolt. We hated vaccinations with a passion, purely because of the concept of a needle stabbing into us. Granted, we probably wouldn't even be able to feel it now, but we still remembered vaccinations when we were human. Nasty things.
We said that we 'tried' to bolt, as Gem quickly grabbed hold of one of our tails as we attempted to run. "Agh! Cade, what have you been eating?! Darius, Rosa, help me out here!"
"No!" The three of us screamed as we were dragged into the hospital by three dragons that were all as big and strong as us in our current size. "No! Not the needles! Noooooooo!"
