Chapter 2

Wow, that was surprisingly fast. Here you go, and it's a lot longer, too. By the way, the structure of Uru'baen was wildskysong's idea. His/Her stories are really good, especially Eldunari and Edoc'sil. Some other stories I'd recommend are Overcome, by LOTRanger, and An Enemy's Heart, by . If you haven't read any of these, they are great, and you probably should. The beginning may be a bit confusing if you have not read the last line of the first chapter after I updated it soon after I published it. It only says the boots were brown.

What? I thought. Galbatorix's boots were black, and his jailer wore shoes, not boots (no thing going up calves).

"Don't worry," said a voice. "I'm here to help."

"Yeah right," I croaked, my voice hoarse from not being used. "I'll believe that when you set me free."

"That's what I'm doing," he replied, undoing the clasp on my left wrist. Once he had freed me, I stumbled towards him.

"How do I know you're not an illusion created by Galbatorix?" I challenged. I inspected my rescuer. He wore a brown leather tunic, brown leather leggings, brown leather boots, and a brown leather cape. He also had a brown leather belt with several pouches, a dagger, and a sword. In his hand was a halberd, presumably taken from the guard outside.

"I can touch your mind and prove it, if you will allow me."

"What!" I gasped. People could examine my mind! The thought was terrifying. It meant Galbatorix knew everything about me, although there wasn't much to know. It explained his meddling with my senses, though.

"If you don't want me to, I don't have to," reassured the stranger.

"I'd rather not," I said. "This 'touch mind' thing is new to me."

"Okay."

"Why are you here? And why did you talk with the guard outside?"

"No time for a proper explanation. I'm a spy for the Varden, and I heard that you were getting special treatment. I came to investigate. This will ruin my cover, so I hope you're worth it. So let's go."

Doubtfully, I followed him out the door and into the dark, smelly corridor, where the guard was lying unconscious. At least I wouldn't be in a worse position if it was an illusion. We ran—or, in my case, stumbled—towards the exit. Miraculously, we met no guards on the way. Some prisoners moaned as we raced by, but we ignored them. We finally reached a door.

"On the other side of this door is a group of guards," whispered my rescuer. "I'll hold them off while you open a window. Jump as soon as you can. I'll use magic to prevent you from dying." He handed me his dagger and kicked the door open.

"Escaping prisoners!" yelled a guard with faster reactions than the others, who were standing shocked. He charged forward at the stranger, who impaled the guard with the tip of his halberd, which passed through the guard's armor easily.

I ducked a slash from a nearby soldier's sword and managed a clumsy roll towards a window. The stranger followed me, effortlessly holding back the enemies with his long weapon. Springing to my feet, I jumped out of the window.

"Ahh!" I screamed as I plummeted so quickly I had to shut my eyes. What if the stranger had been part of an elaborate plot to kill me? But no, it would have been much easier to just poison my food. Even Galbatorix wouldn't have had his own men get killed just so I would die. The last of my doubts faded away as my speed suddenly decreased, and I was able to examine my surroundings about a hundred feet above the ground.

The castle itself was very large, made of stone and obviously built for defense, although it had a strange dark beauty as well. I could almost sense evil emanating from it. Around the castle were many large houses with even bigger gardens, most likely the houses of nobles. So this was the Upper City. Further out was a tall, circular wall, beyond which I could not see, although from what I knew of Uru'baen, past the wall was probably the homes of merchants, the barracks, the middle class homes, and the marketplace, together known as the Middle City. Then, another wall, the homes of the poor, called the Lower City, and the enormous outer wall.

As I was now nearer to the ground, I had to focus more on the matter at hand than the structure of the city. A few soldiers were rushing towards where we would land. Suddenly, the stranger shot past me and halted right above the floor, drifting slowly for a few seconds until his feet touched the cobblestones of a road. My descent also slowed when I got closer, and when I landed I gripped my dagger, prepared to fight.

"No. We run," said the stranger, who dropped his halberd. "If we fight, more will come and we will both be killed."

I sprinted between the mansions of the rich, tiring quickly because of a long time with no exercise. The stranger quickly caught up, and he slowed his pace to match mine. A robed man with much jewelry stood in our path, but when he saw us he yelped and dodged out of the way.

"You go ahead," I wheezed. "I can't keep up. Save…save yourself."

"No," he replied. "I lost my position to save you. I'm not going back to the Varden with nothing to show for my efforts."

I nodded, and tried to increase my speed, but I was just too tired. I didn't think I could make it.

Then, I felt my energy rise, as if somehow, someone was sending me a small thread of it. Sadly, it didn't decrease my hunger.

"Is that you?" I asked the stranger.

"If you mean the energy, yes. Now focus on running."

My speed had increased by a bit now, but the enemy was still catching up, since we were two people using the strength of about one and a third, while each of them had his own energy. I had no doubt I could have escaped if this was before my imprisonment, but I had been starved and spent my time shackled to a rock.

We were now approaching the wall. Four soldiers with spears rushed from the gate, forming a barrier to block us. The stranger drew his sword in a fluid motion, and when we were about two yards from the spears, he jumped—higher than I'd ever seen anyone jump, almost ten feet straight up. The soldiers appeared just as startled as I was, because they lowered their spears slightly, and their jaws dropped in shock. The distraction gave me a chance to stab one of them, and by the time the others turned to face me, the stranger had landed. He killed two men with one stroke of his sword, which ripped through the armor as if it was not there, and the remaining soldier turned to flee. Apparently something prevented him, though, and he turned to kill us, a terrified expression on his face.

"Deyja!" shouted the stranger. The soldier fell to the ground, dead.

"There they are!" we heard. The men from the castle had caught up to us.

"Brisingir!" commanded the stranger. A wall of fire appeared before the soldiers, who yelled and backed up. It would not detain them for long, though; it was already beginning to fade. We continued away from the castle at a steady jog, passing through the gate and meeting another group of four on the other side.

The stranger simply said something, in that strange language he had used before, and they all dropped dead. It was quite a bit longer than the previous ones, though, and I was unable to remember it.

"Halt!" someone yelled. Not even pausing to look, I sprinted through the streets, reaching the marketplace. I jumped over a barrel of fruit, shoved aside a man who got in my way, dove underneath a table, scrambled out the other side, and finally reached a relatively open area in the middle. Unfortunately, I was now surrounded by soldiers, and the stranger was nowhere in sight.

"Drop the weapon and hold your hands high!" demanded an older man with a large moustache. Instead, I leapt at one of the younger soldiers to my right, who looked like he had never seen a battle. As I expected, he was too surprised to stop me as I kicked him into a bin of fish and took his spear. Spinning around, I let out a ferocious shout that came out as more of a strangled cough and rolled under a flap of canvas. The soldiers gave chase, but in this maze of obstacles and hiding places I was able to escape and reach the streets once more, headed towards the next gate.

As I arrived, I saw a squad of men on horseback. I swore silently. I would never be able to outrun them, and they would no doubt notice I was being chased. The first to see me spurred his horse forward. The others soon followed, and I had no doubt I would have soon died if a spear had not flown out of nowhere, impaled two horses, and suddenly start blazing, scaring the others away. The riders of the two remaining mounts were not very lucky, however, and one fell as his horse bolted, while the other was killed by my knife, which I had thrown. The stranger appeared, as if out of nowhere, and managed to calm the fleeing horse, while I quickly mounted the other.

"Quick!" he yelled. "There are many more guards at the outer gate!"

I managed to spur my mount into a gallop, slowly gaining on the stranger. We zoomed through the gate, but it became harder to navigate as we reached the demented back streets of the Lower layer of the city. Many thin, obviously starving men lay around in the streets, begging for money. Luckily, the horse seemed accustomed to this, and navigated the streets reasonably well. We soon reached the outer gate, and in front of us was an entire battalion of soldiers, accompanied by a robed stranger who I could only assume was a mage.

The stranger shouted in that weird language again, but nothing happened this time besides a visible decrease in the mage's strength, as well as the stranger's. This bothered me, because I was not yet used to the whole magic thing.

The soldier nearest to me was rapidly getting closer. He had a long spear and large shield, and was part of the first rank. The second had short swords, the third were mainly archers, who were already preparing to fire.

"Surrender, and you may have a chance to live!" someone said.

"I'd rather die!" shouted the stranger.

When my horse neared the spears, it sped up. I leveled my spear at the enemy's head. However, his was longer by two or three feet, and I was forced to stop. He lunged, but my mount pranced backwards, avoiding the deadly point of the spear. I took advantage of my opponent's vulnerability (since he was now off balance) and jumped forward, leaping from my horse's back, but I had forgotten the others, and would have been shot full of arrows if they had not been stopped in midair by the strangers magic. Once I landed, I quickly stabbed the soldier's unprotected throat, and killed the swordsman behind him, the same way, then taking his sword. Because this was a close-quarters fight, I dropped my spear and hacked away at the enemy, but I did not have strength to break their armor. Because of the chaos and confusion, I could did not have time to find a slit in their armor. Gradually, I was pushed back, losing because of their numbers and my exhaustion. But when one swordsman ventured past the spears, my good horse trampled him with his hooves.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the stranger having some sort of mental struggle with the mage, while holding off a few soldiers. I turned my attention back to the matter at hand, but I soon received a nasty cut on my right arm, my sword arm, that bled profusely (he doesn't have wards; the stranger only cast a spell to stop the arrows.). Thankfully, it didn't hurt yet, and amazingly all the soldiers around me suddenly died. I looked for the stranger, and found him. His clothing was a bit bloody now, but not with his own blood. He had apparently been victorious in his mental duel.

Becoming aware of our situation again, we both leapt on our horses and sped out of the gate. Arrows fell around us, but none found their mark, and after about twenty miles we let our horses slow down, since they seemed on the point of collapse.

I very suddenly realized I was free, and my exhilaration was indescribable. I won't even try. Free! Finally, after months of imprisonment and torture, I was FREE!

I might not update for a week or two. Sorry. Please Review! If I feel that no one is reading this, I will discontinue the story.