AN: Double Update! Dras Leona and Murtagh, we diverge from canon quite a bit here.

CHAPTER 21 - DRAGONREND

ERAGON

"Explain it to me again," Nasuada said.

Eragon shifted his weight in impatience, but held his tongue. From the piles of carefully stacked books and sorted scrolls in front of him, Jeod picked up a smil volume bound in red leather and began his narrative for the second time. "Some five hundred years ago, as best as I can tell– "

Jörmundur interrupted him. "We know this is speculation. Leave out the unnecessary details, and start where you've found your supposed solution."

Jeod began again, almost as if he dared them to interrupt him while he told the story of how queen Forna sent Erst Graybeard to the former city of Dras Leona, during a time of unrest and conflict between the dwarven clans. Hoping to secure the support of King Radgar, this failed due to an assassination and Erst Graybeard had to flee but not before beginning his work on a sewer system for Dras Leona. Then Jeod showed them several other marked pages with mentionings of an underground network existing, explaining his theory of the tunnel entrance possibly not far from their camp and more importantly outside the city wall.

"Nothing you have shown us so far, Goodman Jeod, has yet to prove that this is actually a tunnel. If there is a space under the city, it might very well be a cellar or a catacomb or some other chamber that only leads to the building above. Even if it is a tunnel, we do not know if it exists anywhere outside of Dras-Leona, nor, assuming its existence, where it would lead. To the heart of the palace, perhaps? What's more, by your own account, it's likely the construction of this hypothetical tunnel was never completed in the first place."

"It seems unlikely it could be anything but a tunnel, given its shape, Your Majesty," said Jeod.

"No cellar or catacomb would be so narrow or long. As for whether it was completed … we know it was never used for its intended purpose, but we also know that it lasted at least up until Othman's time, which means the tunnel or passageway or what-have-you must have been finished to some degree, otherwise the water would have destroyed it long ago."

"Where do you suspect the outside access to this tunnel to be then?" Vanir asked from his vantage point, looking at the opened texts and frowning down at something.

Jeod scrabbled among the piles of scrolls for a few moments before pulling out another map of Dras-Leona, this one showing a portion of the surrounding landscape. "That I can't be sure about, but if it does lead out of the city, then it would exit somewhere around here—" He placed his index finger on a spot close to the eastern side of the city.

"But it's impossible to tell without going there to look for it in person."

Eragon saw Vanir leaning closer to the map. Nasuada was talking in hushed tones to Jörrmundur, while Orrin simply stood with crossed arms and a heavy frown. Eragon too had hoped Jeod's discovery was a bit more decisive, but after days of having nothing, anything was a clear step forward.

Finally Nasuada turned her focus back to Jeod, asking him, "How widely known would this tunnel be? Assuming it is as hidden as you make it out to be, how wide is it? How many men could fit in it?"

"I couldn't say. It might be– "

Orik cleared his throat, then said, "The earth here is soft and claylike, with a fair bit of silt layered throughout it—horrible for tunneling. If Erst had any sense, he wouldn't have planned to have one large channel carry away the city's waste; he would have laid down several smaller passageways, to reduce the likelihood of a cave in. I'd guess that none of them would be wider than a yard or so."

The dwarf had held himself in the background most of the time during the discussion, until now.

"Too narrow for more than a single man to pass through at a time," said Jeod.

Orik agreed.

Arya suggested sending out scouts to search for the tunnel entrance, ones who could hide themselves with magic.

"Perhaps," murmured Nasuada. "But I still don't like the idea of having them running about. The likelihood of the Empire noticing is too high. What if Murtagh is watching? Could you fool him? Do you even know what he is capable of now?" She shook her head. "No, we must act as if the tunnel exists and make our decisions accordingly. If events prove otherwise, it won't have cost us anything, but if the tunnel is there …"

"What do you have in mind?" asked King Orrin in a tone of caution.

"Something you're not going to like."

Eragon snorted softly. "Perhaps you should consult Roran, then."

"I have no need of Roran's help in devising my plans, Eragon."

"I'm sorry, mylady." he apologized. Her lack of any patience today had him swallow back a retort he'd have normally said when it was just lady Nasuada and the former dragon rider, but he realized she needed him to stay subservient now, at least in the surdanian king's presence. She went back to address the room at large, "This: we send a small team of warriors to open the gates from the inside."

"And how is anyone supposed to manage that?" demanded Orik. "It would be tricky enough if all they had to face were the hundreds of soldiers stationed in the area, but in case you have forgotten, there's also a giant, fire-breathing lizard lounging close by, and he's sure to take an interest in anyone foolish enough to pry open the gates."

The discussion went a bit further on who should infiltrate the city, and ended with Eragon and his guards having the highest probability of success in this endeavour. Then Nasuada began to discuss questions of logistics with Orrin and Orik, and Eragon withdrew somewhat from the conversation, for he had no wish to draw all three leaders' ire by intervening in their bickering.

In the privacy of his mind, he reached out to Vanir, who was equally left out now that the topic had changed to other matters again. This does feel awfully similar to our last siege plan, he commented. Vanir agreed. Still, this time the stakes are higher with Murtagh's presence.

He can't be as invincible as people say. Otherwise this war has no hope.

Vanir's presence in his mind let out a hum, accompanied by a sense of understanding that was nearly too much to bear. My people fought against dragons once, long ago. Far enough in our past that even we find it hard to remember.

The elves had battled dragons once, he remembered from his lessons with Oromis. One would be hard to believe the origins of the dragon riders were part of such bloody history by the way the elves revered dragons now.

Having insight to his thoughts, Vanir said, an era of peace is often preceded by war. The moment we forget what price was paid for our peace, we become discontent and naturally seek a way to satisfy that greed in our hearts. And war begins anew.

...that's a very dark outlook on it. Eragon replied.

Vanir gave what equaled a mental shrug.

They both refocused on the conversation, listening as the plans were finalized and set into stone, before Nasuada dismissed them to prepare for they'd make their move soon.

Eragon rolled his shoulders to have the hauberk settle more comfortably, before taking the dark cloak Arya offered him silently. She had her own dark cloak strapped over her armour, her weapons concealed by the length of material.

He'd only been able to see Roran for a moment upon his arrival, when his cousin came to make his report on what happened in Aroughs. They'd given each other a manly shove, before Roran had been the first to draw him into a fierce hug, glad to see the other alive and well. Eragon had wished to talk more, but he'd needed to go and get ready for their infiltration of the city.

Outside, the night was dark enough for even the elves to have trouble seeing, once they were far enough away from the torches lit in the encampment. The air was humid, promising a sudden downpour. Eragon could still see well enough, the world bleached of colours. He knew his ability to see was because of Saphira's echo residing in him.

Angela, who'd somehow wormed her way into their group, summoned a red werelight for the rest of the group, otherwise they'd have walked blindly.

Their group consisted of him, Arya, Angela, the wolf-elf Blödgharm, and two of his elven guards; Wyrden and a thin faced female elf named Invidia. Vanir was needed to stay back to lead the elven forces who resided with the Varden. It was also because their connection allowed them to communicate without lowering their mental shields.

Don't do anything stupid, came Vanir's voice througy their bond. Eragon huffed, only to be shushed by Arya who walked in front of him.

Who, me?

Yes, you. I swear, you're always stumbling into dangerous situations wherever we go. Just… don't seek out the wyrdfell.

I can't promise anything. We're going to face Murtagh and Thorn, no matter what we do.

They had reached the entrance to the hidden tunnel. The werelight shone its light on the trapdoor Wyrden was stemming open.

I'll find you inside the city, were Vanir's last words before Eragon felt his presence retreat so he could focus on his mission. They wouldn't be able to talk until after they'd taken the city, only for emergencies. They could shield at the same time but it was still a marginally small distraction.

The tunnel system was as Jeod had described it to them. Their group managed to squeeze through the opened trap door into a long corridor of cool stone. Eragon stretched his arm to one side and could lie his palm flat against the rough surface, leaving his palm slightly damp when he drew it back. There wasn't much space to the other side, barely enough for someone to walk beside him. The ceiling was of the same rough stone, and high enough to fit a human with a hand width's space between. Eragon's horns scraped the ceiling for long minutes of their trek – the horns were another thing; growing during his ride from Gil'ead to Dras Leona and leaving him more draconic than human, the horns were curved back and slightly jagged – he was left with no other option but to crouch a bit until the tunnel opened into a chamber with a higher ceiling. His relief over it was doused by the sight greeting them.

"Which way?" He asked the others. Arya stared fixedly at the three possible paths.

"It's always the left one," came the herbalist's helpful reply.

"But wouldn't the right one be the left one if I came from the other side?" he asked her. Angela made a thoughtful face.

The room was made of the same rough stone, no decorations or embellishments found anywhere, not even candle holders or leftover wax to signat that it had ever been in use. Which didn't exclude the use of magical light sources, but some sign of someone using one of the tunnels would have been a clue for them, Eragon thought. They were on limited time and couldn't take too long to puzzle over which way to take, before their hesitating became detrimental to the mission.

Eragon looked at the tunnels individually again. Each one was the same height and the same width, made from the same stone – a local mineral composition of the area, Orik had told him. Hard to work on with regular tools before the metal became blunt, but durable and able to withstand the elements. The dwarf had been eager to share his knowledge over stones and minerals with Eragon while they'd poured over plans on how to best include the dwarven and elven troops in the Varden's siege formation. It was this knowledge which led him to look closer at one of the tunnels. The stone walls rose from the ground to form a seemingly random uneven shaped round arch. His gaze followed the line of the arch again, and again, before he saw it. Around the height of his waist, the stone archway was indented, like someone had carefully filed an indent into the wall. The shadows cast by the werelight were hiding the small indentation almost perfectly. He'd have nearly missed it if not for a feeling telling him something was strange about the archway.

"This one." He pointed at the tunnel in the middle. Seeing he had the group's attention, he showed them the mark he'd spotted on the stone. Arya let out a sound of frustration, not having spotted it first.

Their group filed into the marked tunnel, where the ceiling thankfully continued in the same height as the chamber, so Eragon didn't have to crouch. The emptiness of the tunnel was leaving him on edge. While some of the oldest and least used tunnels beneath Farthen Dur were visually the same, they still held the feeling of warmth to it that Eragon found hard to describe. This secret passageway seemed liveless in comparison, almost ghostly. The shadows were like hidden assassins, making the already narrow tunnel feel even smaller. His wings were pressed to his back since he couldn't move them or chance hitting the walls.

Another two times they were met with this conundrum. Both times they found the markings, leading them further and further into, as Eragon hoped, the heart of the city.

A rustling sound was all the warning he got, before a dagger embedded itself in the stone right next to where his face had been a mere moment before. He snarled, turning to face his attacker. Arya drew her slim elven sword. Wyrden and Invidia did the same.

The assassin's face was masked by a cowl. He was clothed in dark robes, not wearing any heavy armour over it. He quickly drew another dagger from the folds of his robe. His next attack was blocked by Arya, having foreseen the move of the assassin's arm and dispatching him with another counter strike that sent the man flying to the ground with a 'thunk'. He didn't move again. She gave him a kick anyway. Invidia scoffed.

Eragon sensed the assassin's presence, finding it and delved into the man's mind. He retreated after he got information about the imperial troops inside the city, sending the unconscious man into an even deeper sleep with a simple spell.

"He was the guard on duty down here," he explained, "the priests of Helgrind use the old tunnel system to house their initiates and" he grimaced at the images he'd seen, "for their sacrifices."

The elves looked disgusted, knowing enough about the religious practices followed around the Helgrind to understand the implications. Angela grumbled something Eragon didn't catch, stepping up to the locked door. Eragon couldn't see what she did, probably some kind of spell to unlock it. The next moment, the door swung open to a small room filled with clutter of all kinds. They squeezed through into a dusty office that didn't seem to be in use anymore. A desk and its chairs were shoved aside, the shelves of a bookshelf were empty, one board was broken in the middle. The chandelier was thick with cobwebs and laid on the ground, likely taken from the ceiling when the chain had become brittle with rust.

Eragon moved to the door on the other side and listened for footsteps or voices on the other side. There were none, so he risked opening the door. Outside the office was a hall, light shining through stained glass windows, with long wooden benches in neat rows filling the space. At the front was an altar and an open cabinet with a goblet and a tray made from what he assumed was brass. The inside of the cabinet and the two side doors held each a vivid painting of a woman or man in richly dyed red or blue cloth. He wondered who these were meant to represent, but didn't linger on his observations for now. They were in the cathedral, which was better than they could have hoped for, the south gate not far from their location.

Vanir, he informed his husband, tell Nasuada to start the attack. The commotion will be enough of a distraction for us to get to the south gate, hopefully. We'll be there in the next few minutes.

After getting an affirmation, he closed the bond again.

He met Arya's sharp gaze with a curl of his mouth showing his unnaturally sharp teeth. There was nothing human about his fangs. "Let's let them in."

They exited the cathedral to the tolling of the bell, six cloaked figures that went unnoticed in the chaos of Dras Leona reacting to the Varden's attack. Eragon had cast a spell to hide them from sight by reflecting light and shadows from their forms. He winced at the onslaught of noise to his eardrums, the downside of enhanced hearing.

Ahead of them, they could see the giant red form of Thorn, ascending to the skies to defend the city from the Varden forces outside the wall. Old grief welled up in Eragon's heart at the sight of the dragon, knowing Murtagh was on his back. His brother who'd found it better to kill him than bring him back for Galbatorix to enslave them. His grip on Brisingr tightened. Thorn was bigger than Saphira had ever had the chance to be, the mad king's meddling clear in that Thorn was forced to grow to such size. Deep hatred welled up in Eragon at the perversity of it.

It was Arya who broke him from his fixated stare at the dragon rider with a careful touch to his shoulder. He looked into her understanding gaze and looked away, his hatred abating to make room for the overwhelming sense of loss he still felt whenever he thought of Saphira. Even with a small memory of her alive through the dragon's echo, she was dead and gone.

"They're counting on us to open the gate."

He nodded and broke away from her trying to comfort him. She let him go without a further word and he gave a sign for the others to follow him. The white cobblestone street was making reaching the south gate in time hard, crowded as it was by merchants, haggard beggars on the sides, noblemen, travellers, as well as farmers with their ox carts. Everyone was nervously shooting looks towards the red rider, none of them holding consideration for who was in their way as they escaped to the city centre. Soldiers rushing through the chaos to the sounds of a battering ram and fighting made the picture complete.

That's it! Eragon thought with mounting frustration, getting an elbow in the side by a person clothed in a dyed fur coat. It was no use to brace the crowd, they would never reach the gates in time. A considerate look towards the nearest roof on his left had him retreat to the empty doorway there. Arya and Bloedgharm appeared not a moment later. "We'll take the path over the rooftops." he said. "Inform the others." And without waiting for confirmation, trusting these two to transmit his order to the two elves who still made their way through the crowd, he scaled the brick walled house. His clawed hands were actually helpful for scaling a mostly flat surface, giving him a better hold by digging them into the malleable clay bricks. The hood of his cloak fell back during his way to the roof. On the top, he turned around to lend a hand to his companions who had followed him. From his elevated vantage point, he could make out Invidia. She and Wyrden were on their way and had reached the doorway of this building when one of the soldiers spotted the three on the roof.

Eragon cursed when he alarmed the whole street of the five intruders. He was cut off by a blade slitting across his throat. The guard sank to the ground, starting mass hysteria among the citizens. Eragon nodded to Angela in thanks. The herbalist retreated from the middle of the storm she'd unleashed with her action, bloodied blade in one hand and a small reddish brown figure at her heels.

Having been spotted, their time was running out. Eragon turned on his heel the moment the last of them was on the roof, shedding himself of the cloak for better mobility. He took a running sprint to jump to the next roof. And the next. Making his way to the south gate this way, they reached it before the soldiers who'd discovered the intruders could inform those stationed at the battlements.

At a sign from him, Arya and Invidia jumped down the last of the tiled rooftop buildings. They were still some length away from the walls with the gate mechanism, but they couldn't use the straw decked roofs that stood in irregular clusters from here to the wall. Wyrden cut across a soldier's throat, the man having scaled up from the street in an attempt to ambush them. His body fell down to the white cobblestone path, guided by gravity. His blood splashed across white stone as he landed with a sickening thud.

"The mechanism is inside that gatehouse, to the left. We'll stop them from barricading the gates meanwhile, argetlam." Bloedgharm said, following the female elves down to assist them in engaging the soldiers on ground level.

Eragon jumped forward, his feet leaving the edge of the roof to be met with nothing but air. His wings spread wide on either side of him, they caught the air beneath the leathery membranes, catching him. In several powerful flaps, he rose into the air. The soldiers on the battlements who weren't defending from the Varden on the other side let out bewildered shouts at the sight of Eragon suddenly there, still in flight. He used his momentum to kick two soldiers down, their terrified shouts as they tumbled down to their deaths swallowed by the sound of the Varden's battering ram. Thorn roared above them and Eragon felt ice in his veins as he realized how mad they all were to attempt this siege.

The soldiers came at him now, realizing he was a greater threat than the forces outside their city. Many had been startled by his appearance, and he did his best to have them draw back in fear by growling at them. It certainly worked, one of the more fearful ones letting out a yelp before he remembered himself and came at him with his spear. Eragon evaded the weapon's sharp point. Inside the man's vulnerable space, he skewered the soldier on Brisingr's blade like the man had tried to do with him. The soldier coughed up some blood before Eragon ripped the sword back out and the body sank to the ground.

He fought until this part of the battlements was completely bereft of soldiers and he could make his way inside the gate house. Once inside he used the mechanism to open the south gate. A spell later, the chain used to open and close the gates lay broken at his feet. It would need extensive repair before the gates could be closed again.

He ran outside right on time to see their second plan at work.

"Even with our plan to get into the city, there's still another stone in our path," Eragon had said, after everyone had left the tent. Jeod was busy sorting his books, sharing them not even a glance while he was working at reducing the chaos.

Nasuada drummed her fingers on the table, the clack-clack of her nails the only other sound over the rustling of parchment papers. Eragon waited for her to speak.

"I know," she said. "It's hard to forget about the dragon rider when his dragon is half the size of a mountain. Don't think I haven't made some contingency plans for that, Eragon. I'm not incompetent."

"Mylady, I never expressed that I found you unfit for your position. You've done everything you could, more even! Without you, the Varden would have never left the mountains. This is all possible because you are a good leader. I apologize if you found my actions to be an expression of my doubt, they certainly weren't meant as such!"

She snorted inelegantly, her whole stance loosening slightly. "I am the one who should apologize. The last days have been stressful. I never had any doubt in your loyalty. As for the dragon problem we're facing right now…" She sighed. "After a look at the treasury in Belatona, we found a weapon there. A dauthdaert. I'm sure you have heard of it."

"A dauthdaert?" he asked, unfamiliar with the name but recognizing it as belonging to the old language.

"It's an elven spear, whose only purpose, so the elves told me, was to kill dragons. I'm actually not surprised you haven't heard of it. The elves certainly regarded it with disgust when we found it."

"So you, what. One ancient dragon killing weapon against a dragon? Who is going to wield such a spear? How would they wield this weapon?" he asked. She shook her head with a grim smile.

"As a girl, I loved to listen to my nanny's stories of the old dragon riders and their dragons," she murmured, seemingly caught for a moment in nostalgia. Her expression turned back to the seriousness from before. "No, one person is too high a risk. The enchantments on the spear were not easy to replicate. It took us weeks. And I had to argue with Bloedgharm for him to agree to work with us. They hadn't wanted to, but slowly saw my reasons for this. At the moment, the Varden are in the possession of the only type of ballista who holds bolts that can harm a dragon severely, with enchantments that had been lost for centuries."

Nasuada's plan was to station the ballistae at a distance, enough to evade dragon fire and enemy spellcasters, and still in range of the circling dragon to deal harm to him. At the ground, the ballistae fired at Thorn now, bolts sinking into scale and the flesh beneath, their metallic head sporting wicked prongs which Thorn couldn't simply remove without tearing out a good chunk of the muscle and worsening the wounds. From where he stood, Eragon could hear his agonized cries as he was struck with several of the bolts.

The archers next to the manned ballistae held heavy war bows, shooting at the dragon's underbelly and sides. They were less successful than the ballistae, but some arrows were successful in piercing the dragon's wings and with their combined efforts, Thorn wavered under the onslaught. Eragon watched it when one of the dragon killing bolts struck the dragon's right wing and shattered the joint. He knew this because Thorn let out a shattering roar, the wing no longer supporting him as he plummeted. He could catch himself for a moment, long enough to swerve back towards Dras Leona where he crash landed and flattened several buildings under his weight.

Without Thorn to hold them back, the rebel forces poured in through the opened gates. Eragon jumped and glided down from the battlements, to join his elven guards there. He spied Roran for a moment, in control of his own men. Vanir's mind brushed against his own, and he looked to where his senses led him to meet golden eyes briefly.

They allowed themselves this moment to make sure the other was alright, before separating their thoughts again to concentrate on the battle that was yet far from over. Inside the city, he could hear Thorn rage, now earth bound until Murtagh managed to heal him. Eragon turned towards the cathedral, a dark looming shape in the light of dawn illuminating the tall spires. He opened his wings again and took flight, driven by the urge to find his brother and settle the open score between them.