I'm working long hours in a foreign country. Updates should be slow but I have another chapter in the pipeline so we'll see how that goes.
Fast a dragon could fly, Saphira carried herself even higher and faster upon what the Dragon Riders had long ago deemed wind roads, the swift currents of air that surged across the land at heights only dragons could reach. Glaedr had long ago instructed them of their paths and how they shifted during the seasons. Fortune smiled upon them, for at this time of year the one that could carry Saphira northwest to Vroengard had not yet swung away from the Beor Mountains.
As dawn broke and day again descended into darkness without a single rest, Eragon urged Saphira to land. She did not. Instead he tried to remain awake wit her, but crashed into sleep late into the night. The high of the full moon had long since faded and his body could not weather a second night without rest, not with how the past few weeks had strained his spirit.
His dreams offered no respite. When he shouted across the shore that he and Saphira were finally coming, the light and the tantalizing voice drifted further away to the north, beyond Vroengard, until they faded away and and left him in darkness. Eragon awoke screaming after her, his desperation bleeding across their bond. Saphira, drawing upon the energy reserves of the Belt of Beloth the Wise, pushed herself even faster. They prayed they were not too late.
They reached Vroengard by noon, its rocky shore the very image of his visions. Eragon fearlessly opened his mind far and wide. Small creatures fled from his presence. He and Saphira were the only conscious minds within reach.
Maybe she's shielding her mind from us, Saphira suggested. She is in hiding, little one.
Then why had she called out to him in his dreams? A dark part of him, the little voice Murtagh's revelation had kindled, whispered he was slowly going mad. Perhaps he had wanted the subconscious excuse to temporarily abandon his duties. Saphira's trust in him was not so rightfully deserved. His foolhardy tendencies had resulted in her near death or capture several times. It was a small mercy his madness hadn't been a trap after all.
"No," Eragon intoned with bone-deep certainty. "She's not here. She never was."
With the sun still bright overhead, he refused to waste the daylight. He might still have been able to salvage something from this fool's venture. Vroengard had once been the home of his Order. In his wildest fancies he hoped for one last trove of eggs stashed remained stashed away to relieve the burden of rebuilding her race from Saphira's shoulders. He merely hoped for one overlooked Rider's sword to help ease the ache Zar'roc's theft and Murtagh's revelations had left upon his heart.
Like scavengers, Galbatorix and his forces had picked the island clean. Nothing remained of the Order but sun-bleached bones, scorched remnants of ruins, and a century's worth of growth.
Saphira had stubbornly refused to rest until did. She flew low to the earth, her claws almost scraping treetops at times as they scanned the island for any telltale glints of metal. Rhunon's enchantments rendered her blades impervious to rust. They steered clear of Doru Araeba. There the apprentices and their young dragons had been massacred. Eragon had no wish to wade through the bones of children.
By sunset they had flown far north than Eragon had ever thought to venture. He could scarcely keep his eyes open. Saphira's exhaustion resonated strongly with his. Unable to stand the terrible silence of Vroengard, they now kept their minds closed to all but the other. They were alone, but for the beasts and-
Saphira's nostrils twitched. Ash.
Eragon's inhaled deeply and smelled nothing. Only peering into a dragon's sharp senses did he scent the remnants of a day-old fire.
His eyes scoured the landscape. There was no burned trees to suggest a wildfire had raged just the day before. The grass and leaves looked relatively wet, nowhere near dry enough to have ignited in the first place.
Saphira followed the scent. From a distance the ruin looked like any other, its roof long caved in or burned away and its high stone walls choked by ivy. Only when they flew directly overhead reveal the camp.
The undergrowth had been seared away long enough for patches green grass to take root in the open patch of sunlight. Three black rings for camp fires marred the greenery. Eragon's gaze riveted to the prints in the exposed soil.
"Impossible," he breathed.
Careful not to disturb the site, Saphira landed at the very edge. Up close the evidence grew only more compelling. Dragon prints, even six indentations in the grass where they had hunkered down the night. The bones of their kills, cracked for meat, lay carelessly discarded in a corner of the hideout.
The dragons had not been alone. Human (or elf?) shaped footprints, just as fresh, mixed freely with the dragon paws.
"More survivors of the Fall?" he ventured.
No. Even at their youngest those dragons should be a century old. Look how small these tracks are. And their shape is... off. Saphira placed a paw in a print for comparison. While it was still twice her size, a dragon decades older than her should have been many times larger. Together they cocked their heads and squinted at the other oddity.
Saphira had four front-facing toes and a hawk-like talon on the back of each paw, well-suited for clutching stony cliff sides or grasping prey. Instead these dragon prints all bore thumbs.
Once more Eragon surveyed the camp. Concealed as the site looked from the air, the group had done nothing to disguise their presence, leaving all evidence exposed to a roving eye. Even if this next generation was more lax than their elders, surely they had still been sworn to some form of secrecy, more defensible areas to shelter in? There were gaps in the stone walls, where enemies might lie in ambush...
From the undergrowth, a pair of red eyes glinted in the glowing gloom.
"Sitiche!" a voice snarled.
Saphira's head snapped around, fire blooming in her throat. Eragon reached inward for his magic.
No longer needing secrecy, a blazing force burned down his defenses ward by ward. Somewhere he dimly heard his dragon snarl as he grit his teeth and pushed back. Straining against the blackness edging out his vision, he glared at the first of the figures emerging from the forest. With the indomitable might of the ocean, the force bore down, and dragged him into darkness.
"Elf!" Aed snarled, spittle flying from the force of his curse.
"Human, I think," old Agnar said dispassionately as he surveyed the unconscious bodies. "Downed a few curious brats back in my youth. Only men have hair that muddy a color."
"He can't be more than sixteen," Etain murmured. "As does his dragon. Do all Riders fight so young?"
Agnar snorted. "The beasts grow like weeds and breed like them. She's likely a yearling. Old enough to have laid her first clutch."
No longer requiring stealth, Aed's flesh prickled with scales as he puffed himself up in his rage. "Then why aren't they dead already? We should ki-"
Brede whipped her head around with a snarl, not quite pleased to see the boy properly shrink and submit beneath her. Not quite thirty, he was still quite the adolescent himself. Aed could use a few more scars to learn he shouldn't go mouthing off to his superiors unless he meant to back it up with a proper challenge. Ciar carefully waited for her lead. Beneath their iron stares the rest of their team fell obediently silent.
Dragon Riders should have been killed on sight. To hesitate was to give them time to kill with their foul sorcery.
Brede had very well intended to do her grandfather proud... until she had locked eyes with a ghost.
Ignoring the she-dragon entirely she padded to the Rider's side to inspect him close up. Once the Standa clan had been plentiful, their family tree full of rogues and outcasts and stupid boys that risked flying beneath the Riders' noses to romp with human women. Bastard children left amongst the ignorant villages must not have been unheard of. Yet those days were decades gone. Any of her clan's blood should have been long diluted. Especially when the boy's pointed ears and inhuman angles obscured even his human blood. Cocking her head and peering past the traces of elf magic, she still did not recognize any familiarity in his features. Eyes closed, the boy was a total stranger.
Kneeling at the boy's side, she thumbed one eyelid open. Even clouded with unconsciousness and lacking fire, that shade of fierce blue-gray was unmistakable.
Only years of rigid training kept Brede from swearing her head off. Ciar's mind bristled faintly at her distress but he betrayed no sign of it to their troop. Those were not that the eyes of a Standa, but the eyes of the Righ's consort, the very same she had passed down the Righ's only daughter.
Shoving aside her disgust, Brede once more dipped into the Rider's mind, reaching for his oldest memories. The poor bastard knew little of his bloodline, but one ancestor he knew only by same made Brede's heart shudder.
Her gaze flicked to Etain and her three other casters. "Fetch the chains we meant for the rogues. We have prisoners for the Beast."
Agnar and her other two elders rumbled in discontent. All three had felled Riders in their prime. None defied her now.
The chains had been intended for a rogue in arachtide, to keep him dull and compliant if they had needed to shepherd him somewhere alive, or else to help bear the dead home. It did not take Brede and her casters long to rework their purpose for carrying an unconscious dragon.
"Even for a little thing she'll be a bitch to carry so far over the water," Agnar muttered. "Wake her up and Bjorn and I can handle her alone."
"And have her risk throwing off our Will and killing us all through that wild magic of hers?" grizzled Gerlinde snorted. "I'll help carry her, you lazy old bastard."
"No," Brede said curtly. "Aed and Etain will. Three fliers and a caster should be more than enough to watch over her."
Etain was the youngest and most inexperienced of her casters. Though Brede bore the symbol of royal authority they were still about to fly over troubled territory with prisoners that should have been killed on sight. She needed Gerlinde, Tyr, and their fliers ready for a fight.
An iron collar was snapped around the she-dragon's neck and wings bound to her sides for safety's sake. Only then were the chains strapped to her middle so that Agnar and the others could support her in the air. Bjorn's deft fingers bound them all together. They were not gentle. There was a pause as they all stopped to examine one of the last true dragons. Aye, her snout was somewhat longer and her features sharper than average, but aside from her strange paws she looked disturbingly like one of their own. Only with age would she grow to a slow and lumbering size.
Brede bound the boy on her own, stripping him of his blade and anything he might have used to free himself. Always she made sure to leave cloth between ruthless steel and his naked skin. She balked at the thought of his flesh being rubbed raw and bleeding. If the boy was blood she could not bear let any harm befall him.
...Not unless the Righ willed it. Beline had been irrevocably banished. Perhaps any humanborn descendants were just as dead in the eyes of her father. She needed his judgement. Immediately.
See the boy to the Beast, Ciar murmured privately. I'll handle the Righ.
He'll smite you on the spot for daring to show him such a memory. I made the call. It's my hide to risk. Brede glanced at their team. All wore the royal colors only for the need to present a united front against Roderick Lunde and the Knoth contingent. At the mission's end all would eagerly shed the Righ's banners for their individual clans. Yet I also need to make sure the boy and the she-dragon both make it to the Beast alive. I think the death of one kills the other.
Brede, gods know I'll see them there in one piece just as I'd weather the Righ and all his wrath. I'd swear all three of my hearts on it. Just say where you need me.
Brede delivered her orders. The rogues were Roderick Lunde's problem now. Giving his search party a wide berth, Ciar would lead their patrol directly to the Beast. The Rider and his dragon were to be guarded with the utmost care and kept in the same cell. Ciar had full authority to discipline in her name. She looked each of her subordinates in the eye as she made her orders, hunting for the slightest trace of defiance. Ciar, a stoic black wall, stood faithfully at her side.
Carefully she placed the boy in Bjorn's lap. Could he die if pulled too far apart from his bonded? Her grandfather's lessons about Riders were a jumbled mess in her head. Brede decided to take no chances. Until their final fate was decided, the pair would remain close as physically possible.
Ciar and their fliers immediately departed for the northwest. On her own wings she set her course for the north.
Brede prayed she had made the right decision. Whatever her oaths demanded, she had no wish to be stricken down by the Righ's hand like some foul Serpent.
Ah, yes, some answers and some even more questions!