I do not own The Inheritance Cycle.
This is something different.
Enjoy,


Killing Stones

He watched as the long-tailed turkey treaded behind a log, and with a swear he struggled to notch his arrow. The turkey's small head bobbed out from behind the wood and disappeared teasingly, almost as if it knew what it was doing. He pressed his lips firmly together, he still couldn't get the arrow notched. Without warning the turkey guzzled and shot out from behind the log. He swore again, this time louder, his words sharp with the harshness of frustration, and he struggled with his bow. The bow didn't give and he tossed it aside, picking up instead a small round stone which he looked at doubtfully.

"Stenr llydn flauga uninad fethrblaka!" he said loudly, reaching deep inside his mind for that strange place, scaring the turkey into a scampering dash away from him, its head bobbling. For a moment he felt as if were about to be ill, and then the stone shot out of his hand, faster than any arrow, and dug into thin boney skull of the long-feathered bird. The turkey wobbled, and fell to the ground mid-step.

Standing up slowly, his jaw gaping in amazement, Eragon stumbled forward as his head wavered and spun, and he caught himself on the trunk of a tree. As soon as his head stilled, he crept towards it, pulling a cord of rope from his waist band. For a moment Eragon studied the turkey with a gray sort of satisfaction, poked it with his bow, and then, deciding that it was as dead as it would ever get, he tied the rope around both of its roughly skinned legs and pulled it through the snow back to the camp. He looked behind him every few moments, seeing if blood trail behind him, and found that very little did.

When he reached the encampment, Brom looked up, sliver flacks of snow spotting his beard. "Figured it out did you, boy?" the old man said. It seemed to Eragon almost as if he were laughing at him.

He nodded. "Yes."

"You took your time," Brom grumbled, setting aside the bowl in his hand. He took one last look as the contents inside it, and passed his hand over it with a cough. "Are you going to continue standing there or are you going to help fix supper?"

Eragon opened his mouth to answer and Snowfire snorted from somewhere behind him, his breath churning white in the air. "Isn't that what's in the bowl?"

"No," said Brom his tone curt, his eyes flashing warningly. "Now, hang that bird up or it will take even longer to cook."

"What were you doing with the bowl, then?" He came forward, the snow crunching under his boots, and he could feel its cold though the fur lining. He needed thicker boots soon or his toes might fall off from the cold.

"Must you question everything?" Brom retorted with a question of his own, his lips disappearing into the bush of his beard. He paused for a moment, as Eragon tossed the rope over a low branch of a nearby tree. "If you must know," he said, "I was melting the snow, its too cold for the streams to flow and we haven't come close to a river yet."

Eragon looked humoredly at Saphira, who was resting on the ground jadedly watching the rainbows of blue reflect off her scales and into the sparkling snow. Melting snow with his gaze? he said to her. For some strange reason I have a hard time believing that.

You shouldn't. She looked up, her big purple-blue head shifting, throwing patches of blue over the wooded lands. She blinked. You just killed a bird with a flying stone. He might have been melting snow with his gaze. You just don't know.

You're very funny.

Saphira laughed in her way, and turned to look over the rise, the talons of her claws twitching.

Eragon shook his head at her, and heaved on the rope until the bird was hanging upside down. He then roped the cord around the trunk of the tree and tied it off. Pulling his hunting knife out its sleeve, he slashed deeply into the swaying bird's neck near its beak, allowing its crimson blood to drip on the snow below. Where the blood dripped, it steamed and sizzled, burrowing its way to the dead grassy ground below, melting the snow around it as it went.

Eragon yanked a little on the head of the bird, and then grabbed a hand full of snow and scrubbed at his hands to clean them before walking away. He sat down, very near the fire and extended his hands out, rubbed them together, willing them to warm. He pulled at his hair, it was getting too long from all the traveling they've done. Then he shook himself and closed his eyes and rested for a time in the peaceful silence.

The black caped man stood tall upon the pile of rubble, overlooking the horrible scene before them. He laughed, it was an abysmal sound that made the boy laying nearby look away as shivers ran down his spine. He took a painful breath, the cut near his belly moved painfully, feeling as if he were not getting any air.

Casually and contemptuously, the man lifted his hand and spoke, and boy gasped; if felt as serpents were biting his innards. He clenched himself in sudden agony, and screamed. Then the man came towards him, and looked down., toeing him with his crimsoned stained boot The boy met his black eyes, like soulless pits they were, and the man nudged him again this time harder. "Such a pity," the man said, shaking his head. "I had such hopes for you, Conon." The man grasped the boy's arm painfully, and lifted him over the edge of the cliff. "Such hopes," the man said again, and then the man dropped the boy. The boy fell, tumbling through the air, and the man's laugh resounded in his head, the last thing he heard, before he fell onto a pile of spiraled rocks.

He hadn't even had the time to scream.

Something wet brushed up against her hand and she startled, looking down at the fat nosed dog. It licked her hand again and she yanked it away from him, before bending down and rubbing the gristly fur on its head. The dog snorted happily at her and pulled its head away. Then as it walked away Selena rolled her eyes and dripped her feet into water, tucking the skirts of her dress in a leather waist-band. The water was very cool, and it was more than relieving after the long walk it took her to get there.

The water spread out before Selena like jade-green silk, she saw once when the traders were in town, and its waters felt just as soft. The rocks were slick with slime beneath her toes, and she nearly slipped as she waded in. Behind her she heard her brother's laughter, and she turned unsure of what he was laughing at.

Garrow and his friend were talking, and as far as she could tell something humorous had been said. Her brother's friend caught her looking and he looked over her roguishly. His gaze made feel quite suddenly very ill and she looking focusing, instead on slowly working her way into the water; its coolness against the damp heat of her skin, the light breeze that played into her loose hair, the smoothness of the rocks beneath her toes.

"Selena!" Garrow called.

She turned and looked at him with wide eyes, his brown hair was a mess filled with small sticks and broken leaves from the low trail through the forest that they took, and there was asmall cut on his cheek. "Yes, brother?"

"Be careful," he said, in a warning tone, "of the drop off. I don't want to carry you all the way home again, especially when you shouldn't be here with us."

She huffed at him in annoyance. "I know how to swim now, Garrow," Selena said flicking her hair from her face. "That was two years ago. I'll be alright this time."

He huffed. "If you say so," Garrow said sounding very unhappy.

The dog barked at something, startling Selena nearly out of her wits, and ran off into the woods. Garrow and his friend turned and stared at it dumbly for a quick second. "No!" Elis shouted at the dog, chasing after it. "Nosewise, you get back here, you dumb thing!" A round of barking sounded again, and after a moment Elis returned, dragging the dog behind him. "No, Nosewise," he scolded it. "No! Stay! Stay! There, stay, there. Stupid dog."

Selena heard Garrow laugh. "I told you we should have left him at your farm."

"Yeh, Yeh," Elis said. "Say what you will. But I'm telling you if that bear comes again, Nosewise will let us know."

Selena turned around, and looked at them. "What bear?" she said, her voice high. "You said nothing about a bear."

"Don't tell Father," growled Garrow. "It's nothing."

"If its nothing, then why don't you want me to tell Father?" She raised her eyebrows questioningly at him.

He glowered at her. "I said it's nothing."

"Come on, Garrow," she pleaded. "Please tell me."

Elis looked between them annoyed. "I should have left the dog," he said lowly, "and you should have left your sister."

Selena huffed at them. "I was only asking," she said feeling left out, she turned away. She could feel the bottom of her dress, which had fallen from its home in her waist band, dance around her ankles. "Please, do forgive me."

"Honestly, Selena?" Garrow said sounding annoyed, his voice was beginning to crack with his coming age. "We only think that it was a bear, we heard a growl but we didn't see it. There now you know. Don't be such a brat."

"I'm not a brat!" She dove under the water, not wanting to listen to him anymore. She swam around for a moment, fighting the tangle of her skirt, feeling her hair swish around her head, and then wet up for air. She wiped the water from her eyes and looked up at the stone overhang above her, Garrow looked down at her. "Are you two going to swim or not?"

"I'm coming," her brother said. "You're so impatient."

She swam away from him in answer. "You're not in yet!"

There was a splash that washed over her, and Garrow's head bobbed out of the water and smiled smugly at her, there were still leaves stuck in his hair. He blew a mouthful of water into the lake, and she splashed at him. He laughed at her, and kicked water into her face as he swam away. "I'm in," he laughed. "Now you need to stop complaining."

Selena looked at him unhappily.

"Aye, Garrow," called out Elis backing away from bed of stone towards the forest, "watch this." He came back at a fast run, and jumped off the rock but something was wrong with the way he did so.

Selena watched, in horror, as he slipped back and his head bounced off the stone. There was a horrible cracking sound and his face went blink, and slowly, like a strange and horrible nightmare, he tumbled into the soft waters below. The green enveloped him as he sunk and then rose, his head dangling in a strange way. Selena screamed then, a horrible scream that ripped through the air and scared her, and made the dog on the shore began to howl, as a blooming of red mixed into the lovely green of the lake.

The girl snuggled in closer to her bosom, and for a moment the woman wrapped her arms around her. Fine hairs rubbed against the skin of her neck, as the child looked up at her. "What den?" she asked, still with the lisp of young childhood.

"Then the man turned towards the giant, and the giant roared a horrible sound-"

"And he runned away?" she squealed, wrapping her arms around the woman's arm and by doing so, blocking the view of the book.

The woman sighed and pulled the girl back. "You won't know unless you stay still, Muirgheal," she said.

"I be still!" Muirgheal said shrilly, freezing herself in place. "You finish it all now!"

Cordelia tutted chidingly. "I am being still," she corrected, "and you may finish."

Muirgheal merely looked up at her and blinked, her slate grey eyes widening. She wiped at her hair and nodded before pointing to the book. "I am still," she said.

"The man did not run," Cordelia continued, not reading at the book filled with poems, thinking instead of a tale her mother once told her. "No, he looked at the giant and was not afraid for he had prayed the night the before and his prayers were of the honorable sort, he knew the gods would bless. And the gods did, as the man rose up his lobber and tucked in a small almost unnoticeable stone and swung the stone at the great man of a giant, it flew. And-" She paused dramatically, and Muirgheal looked up her, demanding that tale be finished. "And the giant fell to the ground as the stone hit, powered and driven solely by the hands of the gods, and was no more. Soon the giants who fought for their slain king lay down their weapons for they no longer had a ruler to fight for. Then the man declared peace in the land, and was crowned as King, and he decided for the sake of integrity that the giants and their offspring were to be outlawed to their ancestor's mountain of bones and spines where they would live for the rest of their days, never to leave. And there was once again peace in the kingdom."

Cordelia looked down, having finished her tale and saw that the child was fast asleep. She smiled and gently moved her from her lap and into her arms, setting aside the book. Slowly she stood and lifted the small child, placing her onto her bed and left the room, blowing out the candle and surrounding the room in darkness.