-BRISINGR-
THE DARK SON held Vrael's sword with fingers armored by claw-like gauntlets the color of blood. Spell darkening skies didn't bother him.
Nay, he thought.
He welcomed it. The Sealed Elves will no doubt dully surmise it will give them an advantage. But Murtagh wasn't the same boy found fighting in the pits of Surda.
Vrael's sword fought him, and he gritted teeth in pain as the blade overloaded his nerves with shock. He emptied his mind, escaping into the same place he would during Morzan's beatings.
The sword was a Rider's blade, but it had hidden strengths that even Morzan hadn't known. Murtagh urged his empty will into the sword as it began to calm.
It still didn't fully accept the stillness of void, but it didn't instantly reject Murtagh's hand as he reached into the mysterious magics that hid away behind cold steel.
His eyes scanned the scene before him. Murtagh couldn't see Glaedr, but he could hear the dragon's bellowing cries as they shook the earth. He narrowed his pupils into slits as his collar flipped about his neck, face streaked with rainwater.
Thorn? Where are you?
Nothing. Murtagh furrowed his brows, sighing as a slight husk of dread rolled over his skin between cold and yipping winds.
He was atop a high hill, overlooking a valley of graves that set the scene for the horrific bloodshed unfolding as far as the eye could see.
Glaedr howled in desperate, pleading agony, shaking the earth and causing Murtagh to slide downward. He righted himself as he graced into a swooping run, conserving his magic skillfully as they fueled his legs.
Galbatorix.
Murtagh couldn't stop thinking about him.
Before Nasuada, before Nasuadon.. before
My son?
Galbatorix.
The scion of Morzan hardened his eyes. He bounded between the dead and dying, staying his blade as his mind churned.
Alauinel tempted him. Used him. And now...
Murtagh saw Galbatorix in his mind's eye. He saw the man, kind hearted and young faced, smiling down at him as he tried to cheer up Murtagh, while wiping blood away from the toddler's face.
He saw Galbatorix teaching him how to knit, how to whistle. He gave advice to Murtagh on how to talk to the other nobility among Uru'baen, and didn't scold the youth when he never reached out to his peers.
Galbatorix, Emperor of Men. Galbatorix, the cursed King, Galbatorix of the Forsworn.
Murtagh increased his speed as anger pushed him forward, ducking lower as his sword flashed.
He would succeed here. He had often asked himself what made him side with Morzan so readily.
It was his love for Galbatorix, and his lust for revenge. Alauinel wouldn't get away with what she took from him.
Murtagh's senses twanged.
Glaedr was close. The battlefield seemed to be getting darker, and Murtagh could feel curses as they tightened the air.
He leapt up a steep hill, turning into a golden mass of flesh barreling towards him. He heard raceous, thundering caws as an obscured beak clacked spearlike teeth from behind Glaedr. Murtagh ran forward as Glaedr's body fell behind him. The dragon slithered upwards, sending fouled water onto Murtagh's back, already slick with rain as he turned, spinning on the wet ground.
The Letherbalka crashed into Glaedr as the dragon screamed in agony. The demon dug front leg talons into the elder-dragon's exposed flesh, sending rivets of blood onto swarming Sealed below.
But suddenly his senses were awash. He didn't feel Glaedr at all strangely, but there was a connection that broke through whatever evils this dark brought.
Murtaghen.
Murtagh couldn't help but smile at the hawking roar of his namesake. While the boy had never been around the dragon much, he had small, chance talks with him one summer. Murtagh had only been eight years old or so, but the Dragon, so fearsome and large, dark as night, treated and spoke to the boy as a human.
It was only an interaction that lasted a few minutes at a time, but that womb was an endless respite for a child growing numb to his father's beatings.
The behemoth slashed a bladed tail around
Glaedr, felling approaching Sealed. Taking the Letherbalka by the neck with his jaws, Murtaghen peeled the beast from golden behemoth. The older dragon, to his worth, reacted immediately.
Glaedr's maw opened as ancient spells curled from yellow fangs.
A metal stake shot from the dragon's gaping mouth, plunging itself into the Letherbalka. As Murtaghen disengaged, the Letherbalka began to collapse until it shambled into a plume of muttering ash.
Murtaghen-
The ruined boy blinked.
The dragons were gone.
"Ceryani"
Murtagh's eyes followed the voice he heard that cracked his ears like a whip.
A Sealed elf stood, foot resting on the heaving chest of Oromis. The Laen Elf's face was half submerged in muck, blue eyes dim, and growing dimmer.
"Ceryani?" Murtagh parroted as he readied his sword. If he was going to save the elf, he needed to be quick.
He stepped with his foot, but summoned magic with his mind. He rushed forward, wooshing over wavering puddles of rain and blood with a silent zip.
His blade outstretched, he swung at the Sealed as he flew by.
The Dark Elf raised a finger, and a snake-like bramble of thorns rose to meet Murtagh's blade from the bowels of bloodied earth. The dark Rider instantly halted his spell, feinting, and spun to the Elf's left with his sword.
The shaman grunted in surprise, but it was skilled. The dark Elf jumped, freeing Oromis chest as Murtagh stepped over the crippled Elf. With a well-timed swipe of his blade that was only seconds off course, He locked gaze with his enemy as it landed a few meters ahead.
The shaman had deeply bisque eyes that brimmed with intellect. Hair fell over splotched skin in matted strands. Bones poked from the Elf's cheeks, while cruel and painful tattoos were carved amongst the Sealed's naked body.
While the elf was nude, Murtagh noticed in dim revulsion that the Elf's genitals had been crudely cut and burned away. But despite the madness of the creature's appearance, Murtagh was wary.
Magic clung to this enemy quite fondly.
"Another..." The Sealed Elf spoke. The voice was soft, and it was then Murtagh could tell he couldn't quite discern the gender of the Shaman, as its body had been mutilated beyond repair. Despite this, the elf had a soft, woman-like intonation that unnerved him.
Murtagh didn't understand.
I can sense this, but not Glaedr or Thorn?
He swallowed deeply, spitting out his last pitiful kernels of resistance-
Murtagh expelled magic from his mind in a desperate stream.
MORZAN!
He bit on his tongue to keep from screaming at the sound of that voice emerging from the private confines of his mind, a sacred place that only Galbatorix and Thorn knew-
The Sealed Elf opened a black hand. Within it, a pale head, heavy with flesh, gripped greedily, and the head's long, sloping tongue lolled about the elf's legs in doglike, gasping shouts.
The woman-like voice susurrated.
"Another..."
Murtagh backed away. This wasn't an archemage. In fact, this is nothing like what they saw. Glaedr had been fighting two Letherbalka, and Ra'zac besides.
Oromis had been rallying and fighting. Wounded, but standing.
And there were two archemages.
Had Morzan been outplayed?
Morzan was admittedly much stronger than Galbatorix. He...
Genuine horror crept up Murtagh's spine, rattling down his throat as he gathered brambles of courage.
The elf dropped the head, letting the yelping blob's black hair run through open fingers, before a cruel fist yanked up the strands.
Chillingly pale teeth, sharp and blooded, CHOMPED down on the head's fleshly and long tongue. The tongue wriggled to the ground, flopping about in a squiggling dance.
It burrowed into the ground in unnatural seconds.
Murtagh had been so entranced, he hadn't noticed that there were no Sealed elves around him. It was only this... thing.. and a sea of corpses.
Oromis breathed jaggedly behind him as Murtagh's head ripped away from the Elf in green surprise.
The head's tongue slurped into Oromis' mouth as his sword arm went rigid, stiff palms releasing his rider's blade. The sword floated upwards, and then went flying, blade-over-hilt, behind Murtagh.
He ducked purely on instinct, his ears only hearing the slight slap of flesh grip steel. The elf leaped over him, closing the distance between them and catching Oromis' sword in one fell stroke. The Elf now bore Oromis arm on itself, while Oromis' own arm was replaced by stone.
The elf was upon him.
Murtagh spelled.
A novice would've perhaps casted an air spell, gasping in fear as the saw a blade falling down directly at their chest as Murtagh did now.
An air spell could get them away in time, but more than likely the spell would be used to propel yourself forewords.
A being at this speed would easily fell you at this distance. It would simply move with you, and you'd die.
And if you didn't die, propelling yourself with magic with air, while also using magic to strengthen your senses, your defenses...
You'd find yourself exhausted.
"Mageteñsa" Murtagh hissed as he jerked sharply to the right, pulled towards a huddled throng of corpses. Using magic to simply magnetize a portion of his body, he directed it towards the closest and most powerful source of kinetic weight he could manipulate.
Nature then moved his body for him.
The Sealed's stolen blade dug into the earth as a huddled ring of armored corpses behind fell back to their bloodied bed.
Murtagh somersaulted sideways away from the Elf as it stabbed into the earth where he was dragged from, and flipped his blade into the air.
His eyes gleamed venomously as he twitched lean fingers, using Mageteñsa to pull Oromis' absconded sword deeper into the ground. The Elf laughed in delight, sticking out its tongue in surprise. Before it could release the Laen's weapon...
Murtagh again cast Mageteñsa, but this time using it to glue the shaman's hand to its stolen relic.
Murtagh, a perfectionist, tsk'd, annoyed as he accidentally used a little too much magic tapping into Vrael.
But now wasn't the time. He narrowed green eyes, goading Vrael's sword to reject him.
That very same blade bent to Murtagh's voidless will.
He thought of his father for a moment.
Morzan's absurd delusions and visions were untrue.
Of that, Murtagh was sure, and also that his strength may have lead his father to believe his own folly.
It tormented Murtagh endlessly that his youth had been destroyed by foolishness, arrogant and righteous terror, baseless suffering over imaginary things.
But it did grant him one thing-
The ability to empty his mind, enter an emotionless solace. Perhaps it was irony that Morzan gave Murtagh this sword, because it was his father that made him the only one able to wield it.
His fingers flexed as his magic flicked upon Vrael's ethereal strings, controlling the sword like one would a puppet.
It swayed beautifully in Murtagh's twirling grip, tangents of wispy veins visible only to adept eyes blessed by magic. Within instant seconds, Vrael's sword was whipping towards the shaman.
The shaman deftly cocked its head to the side, Murtagh's blade hurtling past a pierced grin.
"Good! Good!" The sing-song voice cried joyfully. The head's eyes glowed as Oromis' arm flexed. The shaman's stolen sword zipped forth, breaking from the ground as lighting cracked against Murtagh's valor.
Focus.
Vrael's sword allowed another ability. If he focused all of the blade's invisible veins on one nearby object..
To Murtagh's chagrin, he couldn't control what the veins touched. He had discovered that out embarrassingly quickly when he unearthed this ability. The ability he learned was neigh useless, but it did have its simple advantages.
The Shaman's sword flipped, instantly flinging towards Murtagh. He used his magnetism once more, hissing magic seals as Murtagh shot his sword upwards.
He weaved as Oromis' blade stabbed at him.
Murtagh closed his eyes, forcing the magic circuits within his arms to strengthen his muscles. Pulling his pauldron free, Murtagh sent the deadly frisbee spinning towards his chilling foe.
The Elf easily dodged, again, and Murtagh's projectile hung in the air, apparent in its failure. Oromis sword jumped upwards savagely, before flipping point first, aimed for Murtagh's head.
In the same second that Murtagh threw his armor,
Just as the killstrike began to descend on him,
Murtagh attached his veins to the wayward pauldron.
There was a h'oo in the air, a clap of sound that popped eardrums. Murtagh zipped into reality, taking up the same physical space that Vrael's vines had touched.
The sword was quiet now, as the spell rendered it magically useless. Murtagh grabbed it as it fell in the air, turning into the Elf's back as he spun. The sword erupted through the Elf's chest, and as Murtagh pulled the sword away, he kicked the creature down.
Words of killing danced on a quick tongue-
His eyes fell to the Dark Elf's stomach.
There was no wound.
"It's curious isn't it?" The woman's voice began.
"T-the jokes of those..molested...by..playful whispers...I want you, too.."
the Sealed squinted in joy as it grinned, almost encouraging beauty.
Murtagh leapt backwards as the shaman rose.
He turned to look at Oromis, and saw that the crippled elf's chest was red with blood. A long tongue slithered from the dying rider's mouth, followed by a red stream that pooled beside a pale head, staining beautiful hair slickened by the rain.
Murtagh no longer felt Oromis.
He didn't feel anyone.
"What are you.." The boy cowered as his blade wavered.
The head began yelping again, bouncing as it swung from its hair within the elf's grip. Oromis' arm sloughed off of the Elf's shoulder in a snail-like trail of black blood.
The shaman looked almost lovingly at its wound.
It then doed at Murtagh. It spoke haltingly, randomly gnashing teeth between soft chords.
"A quiet thing..kind...something.. familiar to you.." it whispered.
ORRIN RODE past his prize, that great city.
The trebuchets they had built months prior hung over his army like guardian titans. The Langfeld flag danced over his amassed forces as violently winds threatened the accuracy of his men's arrows.
And now, his ambition was here, for the world to witness.
Orrin's blue eyes lined the sharp point of Feinster's spires. His ambition gave way to something else then-
He saw the thousands and horrors and more, he saw demons and fire, dragons and blood. He was a mere man, and yet he was king. He envied that boy, that Dragon fool..
If I had his strength I wouldn't be afraid.
Orrin shook his head. He lowered the visor on his mask while the warhorse underneath him sniffed and stamped, ready for blood.
It's because of my humanity that I'm here. It's because I am a man that I can be king.
He looked out to his army behind him.
It's because I am a man that I can lead.
Orrin detested himself. He detested the man that lusted after Nasuada, detested the weakling that scourged an innocent boy for no reason other than jealousy.
I change, or I die.
Orrin did allow himself a small boast before he blew the warhorn that would signal the start of the battle.
They may be expecting them outside, but Orrin was confident that the Imperials weren't expecting what was waiting for them within their own black walls.
The king grinned as he mused, wetting his lips before loosing heavy stones, gifts for Feinster's sturdy walls.
NEXT CHAPTER: MORZAN'S TEARS, THORN'S HUNT
-BRISINGR-
A/N; MURTAGH's skill with magic is borne from not only is innate prowess, but also due to his ingenuity in battle. As showcased by years fighting in the sands of Surda, Murtagh is a witty fighter and and quick on his feet.
It's only natural such such would be heightened by the magical adaption becoming a rider brings.
Eragon, while strong, hasn't trained nearly as much, nor has he fought in as many battles.