I do not own The Inheritance Cycle.
I really wanted to include this scene in the last chapter but it felt very out of place. Consider it an addition to chapter 41...
Enjoy,
Wall of Stones
As Eragon fitted Thorn with the saddle, he couldn't help but feel slightly proud. After tightening the straps around Thorn's chest, he stepped back and admired his work. It was not as well made as the one Brom made for Saphira, it was slightly crooked, but the leather was strong and it would endure long lengths of flying without a problem. It didn't help that Thorn looked far more pleased than Saphira ever had, his head held high and his chest puffed out.
"You should try it out," Eragon said, turning to Rose. She was standing away from him, with her arms crossed, looking at the red dragon with narrowed eyes. "Make sure that it will hold your weight."
She gave him a quick, but very acidy glare. "I'm certain it will hold. Those stitches are sturdier than they look, as is the leather," she said, looking solely at Thorn. "I've flown much farther with worse than an uneven saddle."
He frowned at the insult but he felt it was not directed at him. "You're certain?" he asked. "We will not be able to check in the morning and there's not much I can do if something happened while we were flying."
"I'm certain, Eragon," said Rose dismissively. She turned away from him and Thorn.
Eragon watched as she moved over the stew and poured herself another bowl. Earlier, after they had finished the saddle she had discovered that her previous bowl only half full and cold as stone. Though Eragon suggested that she merely warm it up by the fire, this received him a sharp look, she complained of insects and dumped it some ways off in the woods.
As she uncover the traveling pot, Eragon turned to Thorn and began to untie the straps of the saddle. "I'm sorry, Thorn," he told the dragon. "I tried, though I didn't seem to succeed. Do you ever manage to get her to do something other than what she pleases?"
The dragon snaked his around to wink at him, and then a low throaty laugh shook from inside him. Clearly that was a 'no.'
After the saddle was untied, Eragon folded it up and set it next to Rose's bags. Shaking his head, he got himself a bowl of stew and seated himself in front of Saphira, leaning into her belly. She hummed happily in her sleep. Saphira had slept as little, if not less, than he had over the last weeks. Now that his strange visions had stopped, they stopped after Eragon had left the encampment to travel two days before, she allowed herself a rest. He was happy to let her. She deserved it.
Chewing on the vegetables in the stew, he thought of where they might get more. He was not pleased that Rose had wasted all the greens in one meal, there should have enough to make it through the whole trip, but at least the stew was good. Better than he has had in some time, not that it meant very much. Ever since he had left Carvahall he ate little more than a thin meat stew or dried meat, and the greens were a refreshing change. He just wished that they had lasted a little longer.
He went to take another sip from the bowl, only to find it empty and set it aside. For a moment he considered getting more, but was left disappointed when Rose picked up the now empty pot and made her way over to him. She held her hand out to him, and after a moment he realized what she was offering, and handed her the bowl. Putting the copper bowl in the pot, she began to walk to a deer path before stopping, and putting the pot down, she made her way back over him.
Standing in front of him, Rose shifted nervously on feet. "I found something that you might like to see," she said. "I found it interesting, and so I know you likely will."
"What is it?" he asked.
It was then that he witnessed a smile unlike any he had seen from her. Then he shook her head, and it was gone. "You shan't find out if you continue to sit there."
Eragon stood up and after patting Saphira on the soft part of her belly, he picked up his bow. The reason for why Rose might be inviting him, rushed through his mind. It was, he realized, the first time, in the weeks that they've each other, that she had requested him to do anything with her. Now that she had, he was not going to turn her away. "Then, lead the way," he said.
Turning on her heel, she walked, past Thorn and ran her fingers over the scales on his sides, to the trail that led to the small river. Eragon followed for a moment of debate. He didn't want to wake Saphira to tell her where he was going, but he was worried that if she woke while he was gone she might not know where he was. In the end, he reasoned that Rose had likely told Thorn, as she had that morning when she went down to creek.
That was one thing Eragon noticed about his sister and her bond with Thorn, they always knew where the other one was and never were the two of them vary far away from the other. It seemed as if something had happened to them that he was not aware of, and he didn't ask about it; Rose hardly ever answered his question as it was. He had come to understand, through watching them, that though they had a different relationship than he had with Saphira, it didn't mean that weren't fond of each other, they just showed it differently. Knowing this eased some of his former thoughts towards the two of them, but this was only what he was able to observe.
Stepping carefully over a tangle of roots, he marveled over how clear his thoughts were. His mind no longer felt muddled from the visions, and he could think deeply for the first time in what felt like months. That morning he was able to think of things that had been unapproachable before; the slight anger he felt towards his mother; how at times he no longer felt that he knew himself; what the visions of the captured woman might mean and why they only seemed to cease when he left to find her; the remedying calm that Saphira had often blanketed him in these past weeks; the way Brom and Selena looked at each other, almost as if they shared a past he could only begin to imagine; the lost trail of the Ra'zac who lay hidden somewhere in Dras-Leona-
He forced himself to stop thinking then, more than anything he wanted to turn away and chase down the Ra'zac but he couldn't. There was something drawing him away from Dras-Leona, it was the very same thing that was pulling him north. The thought of turning away from it made him physically ill. There was a dim awareness that once he reached this place, wherever that was, he would the answers to his visions.
Rose stopped so suddenly that he ran into her, causing her to stumble forward and him to fall back, catching his balance on a widely trunked tree. The pot clinked to the ground and rolled down the hill. After correcting herself, Rose chased after it, down the incline and into the weedy undergrowth. As Eragon was dusting himself off, she returned with the pot resting against her hip. She gave him an annoyed glare, on that almost made him think that she wish to push him down the hill.
"I wouldn't have knocked you over if you had warned me," Eragon said. He picked at his hand where he scraped it. Finding, much to his delight, that there was no splitters and the small cuts were clean. He brushed his hand against his trousers.
"Forgive me," she said, not sounding apologetic in the least. "I had thought that the wall was further down the trail."
Eragon glanced around. He did not see the wall she was speaking about, until he asked and she pointed to a lining of jagged stones, no bigger than his hand, protruding from the ground. The wall twisted off of the path and went both ways into the undergrowth. He had noticed them when they first arrived, but was too tired to give them much thought. He looked up. "This is what you wanted to show me," he stated, tapping the stone with the underside of his boot.
Rose nodded, and tighten her grip on the pot. "I thought it might be a border of some sort," she said. "Or a marker in case someone loses their way, it could lead them home. Either way, someone had lay it here with a reason in mind."
"Do you think that there's someone living in the woods?" he asked to clarify what she was saying.
She nodded again, and set the pot into the ground. "I would rather know if some lived near our encampment. I do not wish to be caught unaware."
Now, Eragon understood why Rose had asked him to join him. She didn't want to be left to explore the woods alone, and if there were people she didn't wish for them to find only her with no one around. She couldn't ask Thorn to join her because his mass would not fit between the trees, and he would leave too big of tracks, anyone could easily follow them. That didn't mean that the dragon couldn't fly overhead, unless he didn't wish to come.
"We should take the pot with us," Eragon said, lifting it up. He wished that he had thought to grab Zar'roc, but he had left it behind with the rest of his bags. "A wild animal might do away with it."
Rose nodded, and then picking at the handle of her sword, began to follow the trail.
Much like before, neither one of them talked, choosing to go on in silence. Rose seemed lost in her own thoughts, but Eragon couldn't seem to return his. He watched the trees instead, looking for any wildlife that could do them harm. He didn't see anything, besides squirrels.
They walked at a quick pace, and often passed the pot between one another when their hands or arms had gotten sore, and by evening they found where the tiny wall led. It was once a small valley, now overran by plants and wildlife. Tiny blossoms peeked out of the occasional drift of snow, and thin, dwarfed tree grew randomly, poking through the long grass. A tiny cottage and shed sat near the back of the valley, and as Eragon looked closer he could see recent signs of human's hands. The open door had been recently repaired, it looked newer than the rest of the building, and a tiny trail of smoke drifted from its chimney. Still the tiny wall continued past the cottage and to the other side of the valley where it disappeared from sight.
Eragon pointed out what he saw things out to Rose, but she hadn't seemed to hear him.
She walked ahead slowly, peaking at the window inside. "There is no one here," she said.
"It's someone's home. We should leave," he argued, setting the pot onto the ground.
"Whose?" Rose said, peeking inside the home. "An evil witch who lives alone and feasts on the occasional child who happens to wonder inside? Honestly, Eragon, there is no one here. It looks as if there hasn't been a living soul in this valley for an age."
Eragon frowned at her jest, and crept closer. "Witch or not, they haven't been gone for long. There is smoke coming from the fireplace." He grabbed her arm gently, trying to pull her way, but she shook his grip away. "It's impolite to intrude on their home."
Rose turned to him, and nodded. "It's also dangerous not to see if there is someone could find us tonight," she said seriously. "The fire hasn't been tended to for a time, it's nothing but smothering charcoals now. Whoever lives here, they have been gone for a time." She sighed and stepped around him. "You're right. There's nothing here. Let's get back."
Eragon grumbled in annoyance, and rushed ahead of her, grabbing the pot on his way. He set a fast pace, and said nothing to her. He wished Saphira was awake so that he could talk to her, but he did not wake her. Rose trailed behind him, seemly unaffected by his anger, picking up firewood along the way.
When they returned to the deer-trail, it was dark and they wordlessly went to creek to wash out the bowls and pot. By the time everything was washed, Eragon had forgotten his anger and they returned to the encampment in harmony, though it was some time before they spoke to each other again.
