Chapter Three

Lost

Rain fell over the Beor Mountains. It lashed at the peaks and poured into hollows and crevasses in waterfalls, like a miniature army trying to take the land for its own. If it was an army then its battle-cry was thunder, and its banners were the lightning. And its voice was the wind. The storm had returned, and it was back with a vengeance.

The sun had gone by now, and night claimed Alagaësia once again – a night without stars. And still the rain fell.

It fell on the dead city of Orthíad. And it fell into the deep pit below the palace of the dwarven queen, drenching what lay down there among the broken stone. A black dragon with white wings was by the base of the cliff, the arrow that had killed it still sticking out of its chest, and its limbs lying brokenly over the ground beneath it.

Not far away from the dragon was a man. He lay on his back, his left arm twisted underneath him, his long hair matted with blood.

The rain, drumming on his face, woke him up. He opened his eyes. But he saw nothing. Only darkness. He blinked vacantly and tried to sit up, then slumped back. The motion disturbed his left arm, which burnt with horrible, white-hot pain. He let out a little cry and lay very still, frightened to move again. Eventually he tried moving his other arm. This one seemed to be uninjured, and he pushed on the ground with it, levering himself upright. Once he was sitting up, he rested his back against a rock and gingerly eased his left arm out from beneath him, gritting his teeth as he did so. Once it was lying uselessly across his lap, he felt it carefully. His fingers seemed to know what to do, and they located at least two broken bones. Without even thinking, he began checking the rest of his body. His right thighbone was completely shattered, with a piece of bone actually sticking through the skin. The other leg, however, appeared to be fine, though badly cut and bruised. He tried feeling for broken ribs, but his chest was strangely… hard. He undid his robe, and found a sheet of metal underneath. Black steel. It was a… a breastplate, that was it. With an odd symbol on it that looked like a twisted flame.

There was a piece of broken wood sticking out of it, just above his heart. There was blood on it. When he touched it, it hurt.

Once again, his fingers knew what to do. They wrapped themselves around the piece of wood, and pulled, hard. It took several attempts to remove it, but he persevered. He paused, winced, and pulled again, and eventually it came out. It was much longer than he'd thought, tipped with metal and covered in gore. He examined it for a moment, and then threw it aside. There was a second piece of wood stuck in his good arm, but he had no way of removing it, so he left it alone. Once this was done, he sat back to rest and try and take stock. So… he was alone and hurt. Would someone come to help him?

No. The answer arrived in his head almost immediately. No-one would come. He didn't know how he knew this, but a certainty came over him as soon as he thought of it. He was on his own, and would have to find some way out of this place himself.

Nevertheless, he waited. He wouldn't get far with a broken leg, much less in the dark.

Hours dragged by, and the rain continued to fall. He did his best to keep warm, but his clothes were soaked, and before long he started to tremble violently. He knew what that meant. He was going into shock, and getting dangerously chilled as well. The way to deal with that was to start moving. He groped around for something he could get a grip on, and found the remains of a bag, its contents littered all over the ground. Leaning forward as far as he dared, he started gathering whatever he could reach, depositing it in a neat little heap beside him. He found a length of rope, a dented metal flask, a soggy loaf of bread, some torn paper, a bag of coins and something wrapped in oiled leather and tied up with string. He unwrapped it and found it contained nothing more exciting than a length of wood with a clump of tar-soaked rags at one end. He examined it, waiting patiently for the ongoing flashes of lightning overhead to provide some light, and wondered what he was supposed to do with it.

Fire. That was it. The end should be burning. It would give light. Without thinking, he held the piece of wood with the rag-covered end upright, and said; 'Brisingr.'

The word sounded strange, but the instant he said it the rags caught alight, burning steadily in spite of the rain. He stared at it, and then chuckled a little in wonder and delight. Amazing. He lifted the torch – yes, that was what it was called, a torch – over his head, and looked around. He was in a place with high stone walls in front and behind him. The walls stretched off into the distance, and between them was barren ground peppered with boulders and shards of broken stone. And in front of him, half propped up against the opposite wall, was something huge and dark.

His heart seemed to pause in its beating. Forgetting his broken leg, he lurched upright and then fell forward, crying out as his left arm hit the ground. Ignoring the pain, he began to drag himself toward the thing, clamping the torch between his teeth to free his good arm. It was a long way to go. It felt much longer.

He reached the thing, and pulled himself around to its other end to see what it was. It was a dragon. A dead dragon, lying on its back with its white wings beneath it and its legs splayed out from its belly, the talons curving up toward the thunder-stricken sky. Its head was on the ground, turned sideways at an unnatural angle, the mouth hanging open to reveal bloody, broken teeth. He crawled laboriously toward it, the strange, peaceful state that he had been in before crumbling away and leaving terror behind. He reached the dragon's head, and put his one good hand on its snout. Its black scales were cold and lifeless beneath his fingers, with no pulse of life moving beneath them.

The man slumped to the ground by the dragon's head, suddenly overwhelmed by a feeling of grief so strong it almost paralysed him. He did not know why. He lay still, shaken with sobs, the torch lying forgotten in a puddle, where it spluttered and went out.

He never knew how long he was there for, mourning for a dead dragon he didn't recognise, in a place he had no memory of reaching. But in time the storm died down, and the sun began to rise once more, its sickly light coming into the canyon and turning everything silvery-yellow. He raised his head with a great deal of effort, and saw the fading stars just visible through the clouds before the reborn sun outshone them. The night was over, and he knew he had to move.

Moving was much more painful than it had been before. Now his injured limbs had stiffened, and bruised joints had seized up and didn't want to work any more. His head ached, and his extremities had gone numb from the cold. If he was going to recover, he would have to find somewhere to shelter and tend to his wounds. Pulling himself upright by holding onto the dragon's neck, he spotted a doorway carved into the rock wall behind it. In the dark it had been invisible; now it was clear as day. Perfect.

Slowly – agonisingly slowly – he climbed over the dead dragon and into the cave. It was dry and sheltered inside, and he knew he would be able to stay there for some time if he had to. But he wasn't out of trouble yet. He rested in the entrance for a while, rubbing his shoulders to warm them up, and the weary knowledge settled over him that he would have to gather the loose objects he'd found in the canyon and keep them in the cave with him. But first things first. He took hold of the hem of his robe, and tore a strip off it, using his teeth to break the fabric. Once he'd made two of these crude bandages, he stuffed them into his pocket and made the slow, dragging journey back to the dragon's head. There he picked up the discarded torch and broke the burnt end off it by bashing it on a rock. Once he was satisfied, he used the strips of robe to bind it to his broken leg, tying the knots one-handed and pulling them tight with his teeth. With this crude splint in place, he tried putting weight on the leg. It was still extremely painful, but he managed to stand up, and found he was now able to walk, albeit very slowly and with a hopping sort of motion. It would do. This done, he set about collecting everything he could find lying among the stones. Now that the sun was up, he found several items he'd missed before. One of them was a sword. It had a long white blade and a silver hilt, and was stuck between two stones. He had a go at pulling it out, but it didn't want to come so he left it where it was. Everything else was stuffed into his pockets, and once he was done he limped back to the cave. There he did his best to make himself comfortable, settling down with his back against the wall, and had a look around at his new home. The cave walls were all straight and smooth, and the sandy floor was the same. The roof was arched, and not far from the entrance there was a flight of stairs carved into the rock. He took all this in with interest, wondering who had made it. Did it mean there were people here somewhere? The cave's interior was dusty and cobwebbed, and there were no footprints on the floor. Clearly, no-one had been there in a long time. He suddenly decided that he was glad about that. He didn't want anyone coming across him while he was in this state. He'd be defenceless.

He turned his attention back to something more immediately important. One of the things he'd found and brought into the cave was a small jar of ointment. He took the lid off and sniffed, and the instant the strong herbal scent hit him he knew that it was a healing substance. Once again, he didn't now how he knew it. He just did. The knowledge just appeared in his head without his intervention. He started to dip his fingers into the jar, and suddenly stopped. He withdrew his hand and turned it over. The palm was torn and reddened with dried blood, and dozens of wooden shards were embedded in it. He'd been so distracted that he simply hadn't noticed it before. A quick look at his other hand revealed that it was in a similar condition. Better deal with it before it got infected.

He set to work. Once he'd splinted the broken arm using the hastily-adapted shafts of a couple of arrows he'd found, along with some more bits of torn robe, he extracted the shards of wood from his hands as best as he could with his fingernails. He finally managed to remove the broken arrow that was still sticking out of his good arm, though he had to do that with his teeth. He applied the herbal ointment liberally to every spot where the skin was broken, knowing that he had to avoid an infection at all costs. Then he sat back to rest and investigate the contents of the metal flask he'd found the previous night. It turned out to have some kind of alcohol in it, and he drank a generous measure of it and sighed with pleasure as warmth spread through his body.

There were several packets of dried food amongst the items he'd gathered, and he opened one of them and ate the contents, chewing slowly to make it last longer. It was important to eat plenty, if he was going to heal. He felt much better now. To be sure, he was still lost and cold, but now he was sheltered and he had food, and his wounds had been attended to, after a fashion. He could stay here for as long as his food lasted, and after that… well, he'd decide what to do then.

In the old dwarven palace high above, the fourteen rebel riders had gathered in the huge hall that had once been used for feasting. Saphira stood on the high plinth where the queen of Orthíad had had her throne, Eragon standing in front of her as if she were his personal bodyguard. The others stood in a semi-circle below them, every rider backed by his or her dragon in the traditional fashion. Most of the new riders were elves, and they were of both sexes, but all were young. And they looked to Eragon as their leader.

He looked proudly on his followers, while Vervada watched from the shadows, a silent, twisted presence in this gloomy hall of a dead queen.

Eragon was holding a scrap of paper. 'There's news from Urû'baen,' he announced. 'The assassin failed. Galbatorix's whore is still alive.'

The other riders shook their heads, some muttering swear-words. 'Did they capture the assassin?' Murtagh asked.

'No,' said Eragon. 'He killed himself before they learned anything, according to my sources. Although he did tell her what happened to Galbatorix, which is all to the good.'

'Is it?' said one of the other riders.

'Of course,' said Eragon. 'She'll come rushing here to look for him, because she won't believe he's really dead, and she'll fall right into our hands. And if she brings the Imperial army with her, even better. We'll wipe them out.'

'And if she doesn't come here?' said Murtagh.

'If she doesn't,' said Eragon, 'Then we'll attack Urû'baen. No half-measures. We'll raze that cursed city to the ground. No-one will be able to stop us.'

'What about the dragons?' asked one of his followers, a female elf with a green dragon.

'Vervada can deal with them,' said Eragon. 'Once they're disabled, we'll kill them easily.'

'You're sure she can work on that many at once?' the elf persisted.

'I've seen her stun a hundred people at once without blinking,' said Eragon. 'She even managed to stop the Night Dragon dead in his tracks. The only person her power didn't work on was Galbatorix. And now he's dead.'

'Out of pure curiosity, do you know why he was able to resist?' asked one of the human riders.

Eragon shook his head.

'I know,' said Murtagh.

'What is it, Murtagh?' said Eragon, curiously.

'He admitted it to me,' said Murtagh. 'He was half dark elf.'

'What's a dark elf?' said Eragon. 'I've never heard of them.'

'I have,' said the female elf. 'My people wiped them out long ago. They were a cursed race.'

'There's more,' said Murtagh. 'He was a bastard as well. His father, you see… his father was just a child when the dark elves were massacred. He was sold into slavery. And later on he was bought by a noblewoman in Teirm. She took him as her lover. And the day after Galbatorix was born they were both executed.'

Eragon was astonished. 'He admitted all that to you?'

'Yes. He trusted me. It was his best-kept secret for a hundred years.'

'I knew it already,' Saphira suddenly put in. 'Skade… told me while we had her imprisoned in Farthen Dûr.'

'Why didn't you tell me?' said Eragon.

'It… I didn't think it was important,' said Saphira. 'But how did his being a half-breed give him the power to resist Vervada?'

'The dark elves had psychic abilities above and beyond those of any other race,' said the female elf, whose name was Eivah. 'He must have inherited them from his father. You are blessed for killing him, Eragon. Not only is Alagaësia rid of a tyrant, but now the last remaining dark elvish blood is gone.'

'And the riders have been avenged,' said Eragon, basking in a warm, smug glow. But in reality he felt a little sad. He'd spent all his young adult life striving for one thing – the death of Galbatorix and the destruction of the Empire. And now Galbatorix was dead and the Empire was at his mercy. It would probably all be over by the end of the month. He couldn't help but feel that, afterwards, he would never find anything half as meaningful to do with his life. Still, it was more than most people would ever manage to do.

Either way, his own feelings were… somehow rendered unimportant. He was barely aware of it himself, but a layer of cold numbness overlaid his thoughts and emotions, linking him to a mind that was not Saphira's. A mind stronger than his. One that would never be out of his head. It had been there for so long that he never noticed it any more. Neither did his followers. Only Murtagh was aware of some vague feelings of uncertainty, as if he'd forgotten something important. But these too were being slowly smothered by that chilly, calculating presence.

Hidden in the shadows, Vervada shifted slightly and hissed. True to what Eragon had said, her empty eyes never blinked at all. They stayed fixed on the fourteen riders and their dragons. This was what she had been made for, what she had been born to do. To watch and to wait. And to bring destruction upon the one she hated above all others, even if it took her a thousand years.

And now it was two days later. The wounded man had spent those days in his cave, resting and eating as much as he could. His injuries had begun to heal, albeit very slowly, and he did his best to move around at least once every two hours, so that his arms and legs wouldn't seize up. Paradoxically, his hands were the worst of all. They had scabbed fairly quickly, and whenever he moved his fingers they cracked and bled. And he was beginning to realise that his leg would never be the same again. The bone sticking through the skin just below his knee was a very bad sign. It meant that his shin-bone wasn't just broken but out of place, and even if it healed he would probably be crippled for life. His arm was a little better. He could still move it a little, and the hand still worked, though it was clumsy. He'd made a crude sling for it out of a piece of canvas from the torn pack. But by the end of the second day he began to realise that he couldn't stay much longer. His food was running out, and there was little water available – so far he'd made do with a few puddles which the rainstorm had left behind, and those were drying up. He would have to get out of this place somehow, and find a healer to deal with his injuries properly. Otherwise, he would die.

He delayed his departure for a while, not liking the prospect of a long walk one little bit. But there was something stubborn and determined inside of him that made him face up to reality, and he resignedly started to prepare himself for what he had to do. He took off his robe and put it aside, then unstrapped his breast and backplates and put them aside. They would only weigh him down. He'd already removed the leather vambraces from his forearms, and he was tempted to tear the sleeves off his robe to make it lighter, but decided against it – he would need it to keep warm. He sighed and picked up the now ragged and filthy garment in order to put it back on. But before he did so, he noticed that there was a tattoo on his right shoulder. It was black and depicted an odd triple-spiral design. He touched it, wondering what it signified. Was it some kind of magical symbol? He shrugged and pulled the robe back on.

So far he hadn't really considered the question of how he had ended up where he was and why. He'd been running more-or-less on automatic, dealing with the problem at hand without thinking much beyond that. Now that he did think about it, he realised that he didn't know anything at all. There was plenty of knowledge in his head; he'd known how to tend to his injuries, how to avoid hypothermia, how to make fire appear out of nowhere, and he knew the names of everything he saw. But where there should have been other knowledge – knowledge of where he had come from – there was nothing but blank space. He didn't know how old he was, where he came from, whether he had a family… anything. He didn't even know his own name.

He tried to remember, delving into his own mind for the knowledge that should be there. When that didn't work, he tried talking to himself, hoping that the sound of his own voice would bring his self back. 'I am,' he said. 'I am… someone. Who am I? What's my name? My name is…' he tried saying 'my name is' several times, hoping that his name would emerge, but it didn't. He tried concentrating on the idea of a name, his name, as hard as he could, and, suddenly, terrible fear swept over him, and he knew that he did know who he was, deep down. But was keeping the knowledge from himself. For some reason, he didn't want to know the truth just now. He shuddered and stopped thinking about it. There were other things to do. He had to leave.

He stood up, gathered his belongings, and half-walked, half-hopped outside. There he checked for anything else he might have missed, and found a small dagger, which he tucked into his robe. The white-bladed sword was still there, but he only made a cusory attempt to pull it free of the rocks before he gave up. He dumped the armour beside it, and went to have one last look at the dead dragon. Nature was already beginning to take its toll, and the dragon's scales were flaking away from the skin. He took one from its flank and examined it. It was very tough and hard, and still shiny. He put it in his pocket. He wasn't sure why he wanted to keep the scale. Perhaps because it would be a link between him and this dragon, who he had mourned for without knowing why.

He hobbled over to the dragon's head and touched it one last time, murmuring; 'I don't know who you were. But I'll remember you. I swear.'

Then, feeling a lump in his throat, he turned and left the dead dragon behind.

It took him an entire day to get out of the mountains; a slow, painful day. He kept close to the wall of the canyon, supporting himself with a hand on it, his broken leg dragging. Some dogged perverse spirit drove him on, overriding his exhaustion and pain. By noon most of his mental functions had simply shut down altogether, and he entered a strange dreamlike state where there was no past or future, or indeed any time at all. There was only an endless now, and in it there was only him and the stone, and the only sound was that of his own heavy, dragging steps. He felt nothing at all then. Not even pain.

At long last he saw open country ahead, and he sped up a little. He was nearly there.

But before he had reached his goal he was disturbed by a strange sound. It was a sound of wind… but he didn't feel any wind. No, it wasn't wind. It was a sort of slapping noise, and he was puzzled by what it might be. But again information arrived in his head without his bidding. The noise meant that someone was coming. And they might not be friendly. Instinctively he moved back a little way to where there was a heap of stones, and sat down awkwardly in their shadow where he wouldn't be spotted. He was just in time. Less than two minutes later, an enormous shadow moved over the ground where he hid. He looked up in time to see a dragon fly overhead. He gaped at it, astonished. He'd never seen anything so amazing in his life. Or, at least, he didn't remember it if he had. The dragon was much smaller than the dead one in the canyon, but it too was black. Its wings were blood-red. The dragon was gone as suddenly as it had appeared, but the surprises for that day weren't over. Right behind it came four other dragons of about the same size, and they too were black. One had black wings, the second had blue, the third was grey and the fourth had gold. They were all so beautiful and majestic, and he watched them go with admiration, wondering where they were all going.

Once he was sure they'd gone, he came out of his hiding-place and resumed his journey. On and on, out of the mountains and onto a plain. He would have stopped there for the night, but it was too exposed. He rested briefly and then, hurried on by the sight of the sun reaching the horizon, continued. This time he moved more slowly, having nothing to support himself on, but by a stroke of luck he found a piece of tree-branch not far from the foot of the last mountain, and was able to use it as a makeshift crutch by jamming it under his arm. It was fortunate, he thought, that he'd broken his right leg and left arm rather than having two broken limbs on the same side of his body. The crutch would have been extremely unpleasant if he'd had to use it with a broken arm.

He laughed at that, the sound more of a dry, cold snicker than one of true amusement. But the idea that he was counting a broken arm as 'lucky' struck him as more than faintly comical.

He forged on as the sun went down, and kept on going into the night, crossing the plain by the light of the half-moon. There was a stand of trees up ahead, and he was bent on reaching them before he stopped.

It was a fine ambition, but in the end it turned out to be a little beyond him. He kept walking, pushing himself beyond exhaustion in order to reach his goal. By the time the plain ran out and dead leaves and twigs crunched under his boots, he could hardly see. He moved into the shelter of the trees, and then collapsed in a heap, barely even noticing the agony of his broken arm when he landed on it. For what felt like hours he lay still, too worn out to feel anything or hear anything but the pounding of his heart in his ears. Eventually he was recalled to his senses by a distant rumbling. He rolled over onto his side and looked back over the plain, which looked like a snowfield with the moonlight shining on it. He saw that a storm had blown up over the mountains. There was a patch of darkness there, with lightning flashing at its heart, and he could just hear the thunder. He was doubly glad to be out of there now. Rain would only have made things worse.

He watched the storm for a while, and then pulled himself into a sitting position and tried to make himself comfortable at the base of the tree. It was warmer here than in the mountains and, better still, there was wood here. He gathered as much of it as was within reach and heaped it on a bare patch of earth, being careful to clear away the leaf-litter from around it. Once he was satisfied, he held his hand over it and said; 'Brisingr.'

It worked. The wood caught alight and began to burn steadily. He huddled by it, savouring the warmth, and used his crutch as a poker.

After a while he started to feel much better. He took the last of his food-packets out of his pocket and ate the contents, washing it down with the last dregs from his flask. That was it. He was out of rations. Tomorrow he would have to find some other source of food, though just how he would do that he didn't know. But he knew what he really had to do. The less time he spent in the wilderness like this, the better. Like it or not, he would have to seek out other people. He needed help. And if the other people he found were friendly or not… well, he had no choice but to take that risk. It was that or death.