Authors Note: I'd just like to say right off the bat that I'm incredibly sorry I haven't updated in forever. First it was me being lazy, then me procrastinating, and finally, when I was ready to get right down to it, my mom's computer broke down. It was horrible. But for all of you my loyal readers, here is chapter 2 (or three, depending on how you look at it).
Chapter 2
The carnage we have seen on this day is a far cry worse than any which I have previously seen wrought. Death knows no fear and shows no mercy. As the men fell beside the women, so did the women fall beside their children. And lo, behold that not only one village was thus afflicted.
The province of Inzilbêth is no more, for the only survivor of this massacre is our young Rider Galbatorix, who was unfortunate enough to be one of those who volunteered to come with us and saw that which was wrought. Town after town after town perished, nay, was destroyed, and not only have we found no weapon, Urgal or otherwise, but we have found no tracks leading to or from the scenes of death. The cruelty we saw evidenced in the torture of unarmed or defeated captives, the things done to the dying in their last minutes, and the absence of tracks suggests to us other creatures of magic were involved, for surely even an Urgal would not be quite that cruel. They're just in it for a good fight.
Galbatorix has much promise and I held hope that he might rise above and beyond, coming to be the best rider we'd had since Eragon, but this development has caused me to harbor doubts, for I fear the young rider seeks revenge. It is possible—nay, probable—that he is not strong enough to survive this strife. I know had I discovered my parents and family and friends thus perished I would have been gone long before now.
Whenever I close my eyes I'm flying again, soaring in the clouds peacefully, longing to be only where I am and stay there in peace forevermore. But then ahead, a single plume of smoke begins to rise.
And another.
And another.
Again and again they rise and we chase, sometimes arriving before the screams of the dying fade out. I land in field after field, town square after town square, street after street, and run. I put out flames, I look for those still living and I try but never manage to succeed. For I am trying to save anyone—human, elven, dwarven, even plant or animal. And the horrible feeling of helplessness, the feeling of being able to do absolutely nothing washes over me again. I look around at the blood-streaked streets, and the burnt and twisted fingers that are all that is left of dead plants, and the knocked-in houses. I stand and stare and wonder as I did all day, why? Why, why, why? I pile bodies and burn them, I dig holes and bury them, I try to salvage them from buildings. Limbs lay separated—heads too. Babies were torn apart and the pieces of their bodies were thrown with disregard over the bodies of their mothers and fathers and friends.
The sheer enormity overwhelms me every single time I close eyes, and all I can do is stare at the scene of disaster and death, looking for any clues. Any clues at all! But they have all been hidden beyond our eyes and our magic.
The dead, the dying, the broken and the whole—they call to me, they scream to me, they haunt my every waking moment—and many of those sleeping—and will not leave. They cry for revenge. They cry for help. They call to be avenged, for the one who is responsible for this to be destroyed—and I want to help them. I want to do their bidding, and that is how I know they are not real. They are me. They are what I think and what I want and what could be. I cannot help but want action, violence, blood, death… anything to stop this from happening. To go back and save the innocent from their fate.
That poor child of Inzilbêth. I know that he will not survive this. I feel the solid stone on which we have stood for so long begin to crumble underneath, preparing to send us down to the chasm below. The fall of the Riders and the peace our way of life entails is coming.
I fear that none may survive.
—Excerpt from the Journal of Vrael
The waking of a creature is a glorious thing, the coming to from a sleep no matter how hard the creature was held by it, no matter how vice-like a grip that sleep had, and it falls away to allow them to rise and greet the day, along with all it entails. But there are times when it may have been better for the creature to stay asleep for eternity, no matter what the nightmares they might encounter there.
Galbatorix rose upon this day with no expression showing upon his face, as had happened every day since that moment two weeks ago when he had carelessly thrown aside the boulder that had lay inside of his house physically, not magically—a feat normally impossible—and found the bodies of his parents. If he had found that they died peacefully in their sleep, he may have only mourned their passing, but with their limbs torn off and thrown, with bones and organs showing through the deeps cuts and bruises in their skin, with the looks on their faces showing that they had died while experiencing unimaginable pain, as well as that their bodies had been desecrated by fire and boulder, he was forced to do more. He would have revenge.
His teachers suspected, Vrael most of all, but none knew, for the rage was well hidden. He knew that if his teachers found that Galbatorix, one of their prized pupils, was seeking revenge, he would have no freedom. Thus he hid it, and hid it well. But soon would come the time of retribution, soon his parents would be avenged. Tonight Vrael and Ilúdör left to search for the demons that had done that dirty deed. They would not succeed. He knew they wouldn't. For they felt the strange compulsion to prove that the Urgals had been the bastards who had killed his parents, and would attempt to find their trail first. He would succeed where they would fail. He would do it right. He would avenge his parents.
That night when Vrael and Ilúdör left, the teachers would be watching Galbatorix especially carefully. He would go to bed and sleep. They would sigh with relief and go on about their nights. But before the sun rose the next morning, he would be gone. Oh, he would take a friend with him, to be sure, but they were dragon riders, and no amount of Urgals could defeat them this far into their training. He and his friend would ride into the Urgals remaining territory and kill them all. First those rams that challenged them, then the ones that didn't. Then would come the deaths of the females and children, and surely that would bait all of the remaining live Urgals into an attack. They would all die.
And his parents would be avenged.
Galbatorix walked on to breakfast, confident in his belief that tales of what he and his riding partner did in the following days would be remembered for years.
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Okay, so now you've read chapter 2. I'm sorry if I disappointed any of you by leaving out Saphira, but it was necessary to do so this time. Sorry, she'll be in the next chapter. Oh, and if you weren't planning on it, it'd be really nice if you could use an extra 20 seconds to review. Thanks.
