A/N: It's still Sunday (somewhere :P), and here's the second part – action ahead.
There's a scene coming up, when Eragon fights the last Lethrblaka, that might be a bit explicitly violent. I'm never good with rating stuff, but I think it's still covered by the T rating. At least from my understanding of it. The definition I looked up wasn't really all that helpful, sadly.
Thanks to JWH, who helped with again in tweaking the chapter.
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CJ: The scenes at the beginning of the chapters take place in the past. We're going through Arya's past, and that's why Fäolin is there – but in the present, he is dead, of course. So nothing to fear in that regard, and thanks for your reviews :)
5. Choices: Blind
The first opening was a mere gap in the wall, with no actual landing. Cautiously, but without hesitating, Eragon stuck his head through it. The way out was the way ahead. After their decision to continue, he now felt a certain sense of finality. His misgivings discarded, and his thoughts firmly fixated on their goal, it remained in his wake, like a landmark that passed by and then was gone; slowly dwindling away in his back, a point of no return from which there was only one direction to take.
The gap, he saw, lead to a small ledge; the gallery, as Mark has said. Certainly people could tread there, but it did not seem as though intended as an actual way, more a decorative element. It was just wide enough for one person to walk on it, and apart from piers in regular intervals, had no railing to prevent the careless' fall to the floor of the cathedral, deep below, where Eragon spotted monks as well as a few soldiers in the flickering torchlight. He craned his head to look up and saw that they were nearly underneath the ceiling.
High above the gathering priests, hidden in the roof's shadow, they balanced across the cathedral. In the aisle, in front of the main portal directly beneath them, someone shouted. They had discovered the monk. Then another voice barked orders to systematically search the hall. Distantly, through the open portal, sounded an ominous rumble. The storm, which had abided the night before, returned.
The priests moved into a semi-circle around the stone altar, on the far side of the hall, all in the same black habits and various states of mutilation. They remained there, standing motionless, as though waiting for some sort of signal. As Eragon and Arya nearly had completed their path, the soldiers closest to them spread out from the nave into the side aisles, out of sight. Only their heavy boots betrayed their presence.
They reached the other side without problems, but when Eragon bent down to enter a gap mirroring the one on the other side, he heard the boots echoing inside the stairwell. The soldiers were already there.
Cursing softly, he scooted back onto the ledge. One look to Arya behind him conveyed the problem. Simultaneously, both their looks came to rest on the continuation of the gallery, leading alongside the entire nave, up to the crossing holding the altar, where the transept intersected the main aisle, and Mark had said the stairs to the crypt were. Eragon looked at the little door, far away down the gallery, and shrugged.
Might as well try and walk all the way up here.
Arya frowned, following his look, then inspecting the gallery again. As opposed to the one across the hall, it wasn't shrouded in shadows. The ceiling went up even higher here, and the wall was punctuated with the high paladin windows, which they would have to pass as well.
We will be entirely open.
She was right, Eragon knew; the only kind of cover were the piers that continued to rise up to the roof, carrying it. The moment someone looked up, they had to see them. But it was the only way that came to his mind.
The sound of boots from the hole in the wall was now accompanied by voices.
Arya said nothing further, and stepped back out onto the ledge.
– * –
They slowly crept along the length of the gallery. A drawn out moan sounded from without; the wind, caught in the spines, in the turrets and merlons. Thunder rumbled again, this time joined by a flash of lightning; showing the heavy rain on the other side of the stained glass of the windows for a heartbeat. In between, he suddenly realised that the priests had started to chant. It was a low sound; rising, then ebbing away again, vast and heavy like the tide of the ocean, sounding alluring and at the same time sinister and alien.
While he moved along behind Arya, Eragon made attempts at understanding what was said, but he could not make out single words. Perhaps there even were not any. The meaning, however, carried across the distance clearly. Without using any language he knew or understood, it spoke of blood and madness, of destructive forces, of annihilation and death; and suddenly Eragon realised that the chant fitted. It seemed to cloak itself in the sounds of the thunderstorm, at the same time drawing on it and driving it. Was that even possible? Was this some kind of magic? He shivered and moved faster.
They reached one of the windows. Eragon watched Arya timing her movements, so as not to be exposed to the light whilst standing directly in front of window and revealing their presence by her silhouette. He screwed up his eyes as the lightning bathed the gallery in a harsh glare once again. Then she moved.
They almost made it.
Arya was already waiting on the other side, when a sudden, unpredictable flash of lightning streaked through the night outside at the most inconvenient of moments, showing Eragon's tall form against the lit window clearly.
And one soldier was looking up.
Eragon knew at once they were spotted. He cursed as the soldiers shouted and pointed. A blink of an eye later, an arrow was already whizzing by. He whirled his body around, slamming it hard against the pillar, seeing Arya doing the same from the corner of his eye. Not two inches to his left, at the opposing wall, an arrow quivered in a masonry joint. Hastily, he dug into the place deep within, where he could touch the flow of magic, and uttered the words: "Skölir iet fra orya thorna!"
The next arrow simply glanced off his back. The shouts increased, however, and then he heard what he'd feared. The dull sound of the boots was now behind them, the soldiers had discovered the small gap leading out onto the gallery.
Run!
Eragon jumped up at Arya's call.
The air was filled with arrows. Boom! The gigantic building shook in a thunderclap. Flashes bathed the hall in a glaring light, shining inside through the large paladin windows. Larger than life shadows moved in front of them, roaming around the church. Strange noises resounded all around; eerily sounding like human screams. Was it but the wind, whistling in the meares and spines?
Eragon ran.
The heavy boots of running soldiers behind them mixed with the sinister chanting and the storm howling in the masonry; filling the large, gloomy hall, echoing from the walls and sounding from everywhere. None of the priests reacted to the soldiers that were now hieing down the aisles, shouting orders. They had fallen into some kind of rapture, ecstatically following the chant.
It appeared strangely surreal to him, like two pictures out of two different dreams overlaid; the soldiers here and the priests there, behaving as if they didn't even notice one another. Together, however, it made for a nightmare.
A hail of arrows impacted on his shield, sucking up surprisingly much energy. He felt it like small twinges in his body. The steps were close behind them, too close. The chant rose, louder and louder.
Whoooooii-
That was the wind … or was it? There seemed to be almost something like a palpable presence here now.
The door was just another twenty steps away.
The air felt thick and heavy. Lightning and thunder … now simultaneously, continuously, relentlessly; the storm had gathered directly above the church, as though building up for the great crescendo, leading to a finale.
Whoooooo-
Another sudden gale whipped over the Dras-Leona, howling, rocking the cathedral.
And then, the wind organ started to play.
– * –
It was a gradually rising sound, void of any melody. Inharmonious, its notes wavered in the air, seemingly filling up the entire hall. It caused the very building to vibrate, went into his body and shook him from the inside. The world was a deafening cacophony of noises that made it impossible to speak. And above all, the chant flittered.
The priests were now dancing wildly and without any sort of coordination. A shaking of limbs, hands and heads thrown into the air, the habits discarded, displaying the horrifying mutilations for everyone to see. A deep note from the organ vibrated in Eragon's body. It was overwhelming, staggering, it sent him to his knees. The thunder roared, lightning flashed, one of the priests started to scream. He tried to ward his ears, but his magic felt sluggish and heavy.
Down below, a blade blinked into existence, cutting through air, then a hand, gushing a fountain of red. An oppressing, terrifying presence seemed to build in the cathedral – suddenly, a solitary beam of glaring sunlight speared the darkness from the circular window above the altar – the priests howled in ecstasy – pushing, shoving – he stared, enraptured – he could not move, had to watch –
A stinging slap on his left cheek shook him out of his stupor.
Arya was next to him.
"We cannot stay!" she yelled. He saw her lips move and heard her in his head. Her voice was drowned in the deafening finale of noises and sounds that could not possibly be that loud and not tear asunder his eardrums. The building shook to the very foundations …
"Eyddr eyreya onr, Eragon!"
He shook his head, confused. Suddenly, there was only silence. He felt it like a physical blow.
"What – what?"
I warded your ears. We must leave, this instant!
He jumped up, sprinting the last steps to end of the gallery.
And as if time suddenly stretched, like rubber, he saw it happen, right before they reached the small door: – the single beam of light, breaking through the darkness and falling onto the altar – the terribly warbling scream, as they cut off another limb – the swirling blood drops, not falling down, but creating a vortex, around the solitary beam of light – the chanting reaching a climax – and then the presence he had felt the entire time broke through, droplets re-arranging into a unspeakable, grotesque, face-like –
Arya slammed the door shut behind them, panting harshly. A few, quick words he did not hear, and the door glowed blue.
– * –
"By all the gods! What – what –"
Eragon sunk to his knees, shaking. He stared at Arya, whose lips moved, but no sound reached his ears. He undid her spell, and stared at the wall apathetically. The silence was almost eerie.
"I know not, Eragon. Nor do I wish to."
His look returned to her, and he realised she was shaken as well.
"Let us get away from here," she said. "Hopefully, this is the tower the boy spoke of, and we need not do anything but walk down these stairs."
Still feeling strangely weak, Eragon hoisted himself up, looking around. Indeed they stood in a tower chamber, with glassless windows on three sides and stairs in the middle. The fourth side held the door, on which Arya busied herself again. He slowly walked across the small, bare room, to the windowcase facing east, where Helgrind was.
It wasn't completely dark anymore.
Above the city, over whose wet, blinking roofs his eyes gazed, a cloud had broken and a solitary beam of light, almost blindingly bright against the deep black sky, fell directly onto the eastern front of the church. The city seemed to glow in the light, as did the cathedral. Wisps of cloud rotated around the hole at a dizzying pace. Further away, rain was still pouring down. Only here, as in the eye of a storm, there was utter silence.
"This door is now closed as much as I know how." She had joined him at the window. "But we ought to leave. Now."
"Right," he mumbled, almost unwilling to tear his gaze from the spectacular sight, and the first rays of real, bright sunlight in nearly a week.
"Eragon?"
He gave himself a jerk and regretfully turned his back on the window, joining Arya on the way down.
They ran down the stairs, their light steps barely making any sound, without encountering any soldiers. The base of the tower was a small, square-laid out chamber, with a wooden door on one side that Arya warded as well. Not one second later, it shook under the impact of someone trying to enter. She eyed her work, nodding in satisfaction when it would not budge.
"We are safe for the moment. Nevertheless, we do not have much time. Even if the soldiers will not manage to break through this door if they beat at it for a hundred years, there might be others who can. Is that the entrance to the crypt?"
The small room was cornered by four stony-grey buttresses. They carried the low, cross vaulted ceiling, and on the far side left room for a doorway, flanked by two wax candles whose light spilled onto the first step. The opening looked like a gaping mouth. Cold air drifted up, making the flames dance with the shadows.
"I would assume so."
The doorway was even lower than the ceiling; and Eragon and Arya had to duck to avoid bumping their heads, as they stepped down into the earth.
– * –
After only a few steps, the noise of the soldiers died away, and all that was left was the sound of their cautious steps echoing softly from the uneven walls, and their breathing in the cold, stale air; conveying the impression of being alone in the dark cathedral. It wasn't a very comforting feel.
Still, he preferred it to what he had just experienced.
The staircase opened up into a surprisingly wide hall that was only sparsely lit. Quickly, he muttered: "Brisingr", intent on shaping it into a ball of light and illuming the crypt. The werelight winked into existence and floated over his head, showing many grey sarcophagi, lined up against the walls of the cavern that stretched out to his left, underneath the cathedral. Above the first one, which looked ancient, a plate was set into the wall.
Here lieth Illú, first of Those Who Have Seen The Light, wayfarer to Kuthiá, and founder of this Church.
Arya had stepped further into the underground hall, examining piers that carried the vault, and apparently counting steps. Eragon joined her with the pale blue ball of light, gazing at the spot she now stood on. It was roughly equidistant from the far, northern wall, and the southern wall where the stairs were. And it looked terribly similar to any other place.
"Here?"
His words sounded hollowly back to him.
Arya nodded.
Eragon's first reaction was bitter disappointment. It simply was a free space; the floor dirty, rough grey stone; with no visible difference that would somehow point toward a secret it might hold, elevating this spot above any other. Nothing was there. They had risked everything, and came up empty-handed. In the end, Mark had lied …
"It is a secret passageway, Eragon. Did you think you could spot it by merely staring at it?"
He saw her eyes dancing in mirth, and felt his cheeks tinge red.
"Of course not."
He felt annoyed at her teasing, but soon couldn't suppress the smile that crept upon his face.
"Alright, perhaps a little. I was expecting something … well, grand. Not an utterly unremarkable floor that hasn't seen a broom since Vrael was alive."
He heard her laugh quietly next to him, tinkling through the silence.
"You shall find, Eragon, that many an important thing in life looks utterly unremarkable at first sight."
He shook his head ruefully.
"Well, where is that mechanism Mark spoke of, then?"
They started a quick search for anything that looked out of the ordinary, and it took Arya only a few minutes to spot one candleholder that looked not quite like the others. It was just a tiny bit askew, where the others were perfectly perpendicular. She extinguished the candle, and, gripping it tightly, tried to turn it.
It yielded.
Slowly, with quite some effort, she turned it until she had completed a quadrant and it would move no further. Suddenly, from the place where they had started their search, a couple of feet away, a stony scraping sounded. With hasty strides, Eragon walked over, watching breathlessly as a part of the floor simply receded – so seamlessly joined to the surrounding stone that it was impossible to spot. After about a man's length, it swung sideways, leaving behind a gaping maw of blackness. And yet he felt no fear, only exhilaration at what he thought for certain was finally, finally, their way to Katrina.
"I knew we would find it!"
"So you did."
Arya had joined him, staring into the darkness herself for a while, then at him.
"Well done, Eragon. I had doubts."
From below, a low rumble sounded up to them.
"Make haste, it is closing again already."
Eragon took a last look at her, her praise still glowing in him like an entire flask of Faelnirv.
And then the hole swallowed them.
– * –
In the pale sapphire light, the tunnel walls were gradually changing. Surrounded by dark grey, almost black basalt, the foundation of the cathedral, Eragon and Arya had begun their chthonic journey: leading down, below the building, in a narrow tunnel that had them walking stooped, as the height was not nearly enough to walk upright. The basalt had given way to fine sand, once they had been out from under the church and walking below the city, only interrupted for a short time by red bricks when they had passed the city walls underground. It was the sand that further outcropped openly, making up the Grey Heath.
Yet the tunnel went deeper still, and the sandy walls had turned into solid rock, forcing the previously straight passage to wind itself through it, following natural gaps in the stone with small twists and turns; and finally, it had expanded enough to walk normally.
It had been like that for the last half hour.
But now, black veins started to spread through the yellow limestone. They came from ahead, criss-crossing, but steadily increasing in thickness and number. Like a disease, they crept through the natural stone, running over the ceiling, the ground and the walls; repressing the limestone, poisoning it with their venom, turning it into their likeness.
Eragon tensed. He didn't need to inspect the walls more closely to know what this meant. His fingers slid over the rock, and he felt the coldness, inside him, as though something vital was missing. The sparkling blue ball of light, trailing along over their heads, seemed dimmer. The stone no longer glistened wetly, but swallowed the light straight away.
A glance to Arya, and he saw the same look on her face.
"We are here."
His words sounded hollowly from the walls, strangely distorted and stifled, as they continued onwards. Soon, no trace of the previous stone was left. There was a last valiant fleck of yellow, and then they were enclosed in the unnatural black.
– * –
The passage started to swerve wildly. Despite the earlier turns, it had always led into the same general direction; not so now, and soon he lost his sense of direction completely. Added to that, the stone seemed vesicular. Small blisters formed openings, which widened to tunnels, as thick as his finger or his arm, branching off their passage and vanishing in the dark. So far, none of them were big enough to even consider entering them, but it seemed only like a matter of time until they would be forced to choose.
Not five minutes later, they had stopped, facing a fork.
Eragon stared worriedly at the two tunnels. There was no way they would remember this particular fork over any other that might come, and he no longer trusted his sense of direction not to lead him astray. If they simply continued onwards, they risked running in endless circles.
Next to him, Arya pulled a small lump of porous stone from the pocket of her trousers and rubbed it on the wall at the entrance to the left-hand tunnel. It left a white mark that shone brightly in the light.
"There were a few inclusions of white chalk earlier," she explained softly. "I took with me as much as I could."
Eragon looked at the spot of friendly white on the wall, pleased.
"That was a great idea, Arya."
She curved her lips into a small smile. "I thought."
And so they moved on, marking their path with the soft chalkstone on the way, wherever that was necessary. Helgrind seemed permeated by tunnels and passages winding themselves through the mountain, up and down, smaller now, larger the next moment. It struck him that the tunnels were not unlike the earlier veins of black in the stone, running every which way without any visible order, deeper and deeper into the bowels of Helgrind; and further and further from the surface.
It was an unsettling thought.
After another bend, a speck of white gleamed ahead in the light. Without hesitating, Arya turned right, into the mouth of the tunnel that was not yet marked; but he was sure that she felt the same nagging worry that he did.
They had just walked in a big loop.
Would they ever find the Ra'zac and Katrina in an entire mountain that seemed veined with tunnels?
– * –
He had long since lost his feel for time. It seemed to stand still, here, inside the mountain. They had passed a few more of their own chalk marks, but Eragon dared not extending his mind to simply search the tunnels for signs of life, Katrina's or others', as he usually would have done; not after the experience when he first tried it days ago.
It left him and Arya stumbling around with no further knowledge of things to come than what their eyes could see, which was about ten feet. After that, the wan light was greedily swallowed by the ever-present darkness. And as much as the light prevented them from stumbling, it would do nothing to warn them of a possible attack in any kind of sensible advance. A Ra'zac could cross that distance with a skip, and the Lethrblaka would probably not even be illuminated in their entire expanse, or so Oromis' scrolls had suggested.
Their tunnel widened into a hall. The ceiling moved up rapidly and vanished into the dark. The walls retreated. It was impossible to tell how much space surrounded them, beyond the edge of the light – the next wall could have been a few steps away or a hundred, the roof of the underground cave directly over their heads or miles high.
Somehow, though, Eragon felt that this was a giant space. The atmosphere felt different – wide, large, not confined. Not knowing where the walls were was a disquieting thought, however. There was no corner they could back into, it left them wide open for an attack from any side. For anyone watching them walking through the cave from within the dark, they had to look light a beacon. The hairs on the back of his neck rose.
Drip…drop…drip…
Somewhere ran water. The muffled sounds from their boots echoed in the cave. He heard Arya's breathing, and his own, suddenly seeming overly loud; felt his heart beating nervously in his chest. He started to feel distinctly uneasy. Cautiously he drew the sword from his sheath and moved ahead. Arya had had hers out for a while already. The ground to his right suddenly sloped up, a hill in the cave, the crest lost somewhere in the dark. Eragon frowned, looking at it. There was a certain smell here that hadn't been there before –
Something scraped over the rocky ground, click-click-click-
Eragon yanked his elfin blade up, whirling around as it already slammed into him from above. It hit him with the force of a rampant dragon, burying him under it. He had no room to move. He struggled to breath, slowly running out of air. Pinchers or claws attacked his sides, as yet still hold at bay by his wards. Desperately, he tried to push it off of him, but he was trapped. He could not speak. He tried using magic with purely thinking the words in the Ancient Language for banish. Nothing happened. The world shrunk into a narrow tunnel, the dark was closing in.
Suddenly, it let out a shrill shriek and kicked out. Eragon felt himself ripped out from under it in the same instant and thrown against the foot of the sloping hill, where whatever it was had descended from.
Arya was standing in front of him, now fighting two of the creatures at once. In the light of his magic, Eragon saw two gigantic forms, with huge, bulging black eyes, a beak seven feet long and bat-like wings. Feet spiked with sharp claws scratched over the rock, carrying a reptile-like body. They looked like a mockery of a dragon, twisted and hideous where a dragon was beautiful and elegant, but much more dangerous.
They had to be Lethrblaka.
Arya was in no position to attack, being unable to reach even their heads behind the beaks that hacked at her with enough force to spear her, should they ever get past her defences. Her blade moved in a blur, spinning a web of steel in front of her, holding off the beaks, yet unable to stop the claws that tried piercing her wards. She had to do her utmost to not get pushed back.
On the bright side, one of the creatures had gash at its side that leaked a green fluid.
In his state, it took him an excruciatingly long second to realise that she was defending him. She had also inflicted the wound upon the beast and pulled him out from under it afterwards.
He rose at once, still feeling light-headed, but finding himself unharmed otherwise. His wards and Arya had saved his life. Realising that it was indeed impossible to fight the Lethrblaka frontally, he quickly darted out to the side, attacking the flank of the already wounded beast.
His sword slid through its grey hide up to the hilt. The Lethrblaka shrieked again, in its high-pitched, inhuman sounding voice that rang in his ears, but it appeared to be handicapped in no particular way. Eragon wished bitterly that Saphira were here – the Lethrblaka were taller than him and Arya and about five times that long; much rather Saphira's order of magnitude.
The wounded beast suddenly abandoned Arya, and like a bludgeon, the beak came racing at him from the side. He jumped back, feeling the air rush past him, so close.
He was now facing the same quandary Arya did, a couple feet away from him. The giant beak hacked at him, assisted by the wickedly sharp claws. He ducked and sidestepped, fending of the claws with his sword. Instead of attacking it further, he concentrated on defending for a time, but with the minuscule amount of concentration he could spare from his own moves to avoid the beak, he began to string a spell together, including all of the twelve words of death he had learned.
It took surprisingly much effort. He released the spell.
It had no effect whatsoever. He cursed angrily, realising that somehow, the Lethrblaka were immune to magic.
"Magic does not work against those blasted beasts!" he shouted over to Arya and viciously thrust at the approaching beak. The sword quivered in his hands at the impact. The beast seemed to feel nothing at all.
She didn't answer, but broke away to the right and, in a daring move, ducked below the beak of her Lethrblaka, dashing towards his. Eragon held his breath as the claw shot towards her unprotected back and grazed her neck, drawing blood. Her wards had either dropped already or she had had none in the fist place.
The Lethrblaka seemed to have realised that the sword could do nothing to its beak. It immediately took advantage of that fact, simply moving forwards with the beak as a shield. The claws slashed at him, impacting on his wards again and again. He felt the strain it put upon his magic, and could do nothing but retreat if he didn't want to feel that beak in his abdomen sometime soon on one hand, yet not alert it of Arya either, by circling it and so prompting it to turn.
Arya plunged her sword into the lower belly of the distracted Lethrblaka that was greedily attacking Eragon, smelling a near victory. More of the strange blue-green blood spurted out. The Lethrblaka trashed wildly. Its tail flung back and crashed into her back, hard. Like a whip wielded by giant, it went straight through Arya's thin shirt and tore chunks of flesh out of her back.
Arya screamed. She was flung to the side by the force, losing her sword. It clattered on the ground, too far away from her to reach it. She rose unsteadily, defenceless, coming face to face with the second, unwounded Lethrblaka that had turned ponderously. At the last moment, she rolled to the side. The beak hit rock where moment before her chest had been.
"Distract it, Eragon!" she cried. "Somehow!"
Eragon's brain seemed to have frozen. He could think of nothing else but trying to attack it. He threw himself to the ground, rolling sideways under the beak of his Lethrblaka. Arya was desperately scrambling away from the second beast, up the slope, but at the same time, the distance between her and her sword became greater and greater.
The Lethrblaka was deliberately placing itself between her and her weapon. Its insectoid facet eyes glittered in the light with a malicious intelligence.
Eragon started attacking its flank wildly. Luckily, his wild attacks seemed to have been enough, and the beast shrieked and stayed from Arya. She sprinted off to her sword, past Eragon, picking it up on the run and leaped.
Eragon, however, now found himself in the very uncomfortable situation of being wedged between two beaks, one in front of him, and one at his back. The second, wounded Lethrblaka was moving slower, but nevertheless only ready enough to bite his head off. It simply wouldn't die.
Will a dull thud, Arya landed on the back of the already injured Lethrblaka behind him. Eragon looked over his shoulder and realised at once that while its tail could not reach her there, the other Lethrblaka could. He ran down the side of it, feeling another attack impact on his ward. Now away from Arya, he engaged it in a fight once more to keep its attention on him, using his speed to his advantage to stay at its flank and away from the beak, causing them to slowly circle around each other.
Over his shoulder, he saw Arya on the back of the other Lethrblaka starting to strike it with her sword. Just below its monstrous head, she hacked at it again and again. The beast bucked mightily, trying to throw her off, but she balanced on the shaking back easily. It looked like she was dancing.
Arya was coated in the greenish substance. It mingled with the red that oozed from her own back. The Lethrblaka let out an ear-splitting screech, and then uttered a series of strange clicking-sounds.
Eragon finally managed to wound the second Lethrblaka as well, rending open a long gash above its legs. For a second, his eyes went up.
His heart seemed to skip a beat.
Falling down noiselessly, directly above Arya, was one of the Ra'zac. It carried a strange, leaf-bladed sword, which was pointed down, directly at her neck. Her unprotected neck. Arya, still trying to sever the head of the Lethrblaka, hadn't noticed and wouldn't, he saw it clearly. She was mere seconds away from getting the ugly sword plunged deeply into her pale, delicate neck … sinking to her knees … dead …
Time seemed to stretch in the most peculiar way; all the while his world narrowed all around him to a pinpoint, only encompassing the glittering sword, its glittering tip, like a shard of a broken crystal.
He felt himself propelled forwards, flying through the air – between her and the blade, but it seemed to late – he could never hope to raise his own sword in time –
The blow hit him with terrible force. The magic rushed out of him, protecting him, yet robbing much, too much of his strength. He felt it like a hammer to his chest, squeezing the breath out of him painfully, and his ward dropped. Flung against Arya, both tumbled off the Lethrblaka, missing the second blow of the Ra'zac, which screeched in anger.
Dizzied, he tried to rise from the ground.
Arya groaned painfully, having landed on her wounded back.
"What –"
The Ra'zac thudded on the ground next to them.
"Diesssss! Meddling foolsssss!"
Still on the ground, Eragon weakly parried its next attack.
The Lethrblaka, blind in pain from the wound Arya had inflicted in its neck, charged and trashed around, tossing Arya away through the air like a mere doll, against a rock thirty feet away from their fight. Again, she cried out in pain at the impact against her injured back. With difficulty, she tried to pull herself up, using the rock as a crutch.
She was successful, but her sword was far away, useless on the ground where she first had landed. The Lethrblaka charged again, with every intention to squash her against the rock. Eragon watched in helpless despair, realising that Arya was unable to move away. She just barely held herself up against the rock.
And then, it was as though a dark, shadowy veil descended over her face. An ugly grimace settled on her beautiful features. She started to chant under her breath, using words he could not make out. A crackling emerald bolt of energy built in her palm and sprang forth.
As if paralysed, he watched it smote the Lethrblaka at its back, directly into the gaping wound, even throwing the monstrous beast back.
The dark green, portentous light flickered on the surface of the rocks, bathing the surroundings in its glaring shine for what seemed like an eternity and was less than a second. Arya swayed on her feet dangerously, panting, with a myriad of emotions on her hitherto unmoving face, and none of them pleasant. Her lips curved into a cold, almost cruel smile, disturbing him.
This was the same spell Murtagh had used. The spell that had killed Hrothgar. Dark Magic.
And the Lethrblaka shrieked in agony.
– * –
It was over as quickly as it had started.
The so alien expression that had marred her features was gone as though it never was. Her hand slipped from the rock, and she sunk to her knees, gasping for air and staring blankly at the twitching beast.
He wanted to say something, ask her, perhaps, demand to know what she had been thinking, shocked that she would even attempt to use it, more so that she did to this effect, yet grateful at the same time that she was still alive and the Lethrblaka dying, and not the other way round; but the pitiful wails became so loud that Eragon thought he'd felt the ground vibrate, rendering any attempt at communication impossible. It was unbearable, a shrill, bloodcurdling noise, until finally the chitinous body of the Lethrblaka twitched for the last time, until the head thudded to the ground, no longer held up, accomplishing that which she had failed to achieve with her sword alone.
Eragon hadn't noticed the second Ra'zac arrive, but it was there, now; both cloaked forms shaking off the stupefying surprise that had rooted them to the spot, just like him; shrieking in fury at the death of their parent and starting to rush towards her with inhuman swiftness. He moved to intercept them, and the last thing he saw before he had to focus on the furious hump-backed beasts was her burying her head in her hands, shoulders shaking silently.
– * –
The remaining Lethrblaka was trying to reach him, but the Ra'zac, lacking the overview to see that their parent was the greater threat or even the advantages in attacking together, were blocking the way with their bodies – fortunately for Eragon, as he was at a severe disadvantage already against the two wickedly curved blades alone.
His thin elfin sword swished through the air, blocking the attacks of their combined onslaught trustily, whenever the blades met; but it was the wrong weapon for this sort of fight. At the moment, he would have preferred something with more surface, like a staff, perhaps even a simple club – either would have been better for a pure defence against two foes at once. A little wistfully, he thought of Zar'roc – it was the ideal combination of size and weight.
The Ra'zac pressed forward, but anything other than holding his ground was no option, for he was the only thing between them and a completely exhausted Arya. Finally, she pulled herself up again, shakily, and in no shape to help him, he saw, from the corner of his eyes.
"Use indirect attacks," she gasped out. "It is impervious … only to magic that affects it directly … not spells that deal out – physical harm due to their nature."
Did she expect him to delve into the dark magics as well, he wondered, and whether she truly would use any means as long as it met the desired ends and not feel anything. But no, she had been affected, clearly, and done it despite herself. – And then he had to banish those thoughts racing through his mind, having his hands full with the Ra'zac and even that small moment of inattention cost him as dearly, for the smaller Ra'zac struck him with the flat side of its sword and cleanly snapped the bone of his left leg. With a pained grunt, his felt his leg give out from under him; no longer able to stand and a position to defend himself or Arya.
Desperately, he fought on his knees, but he knew he was slipping. In a moment's time, they would overrun him. In his state of despair, he cried the first words that came to his mind.
"Iet skölir!"
Shield me.
The gedwëy ignasia on his right palm blazed brightly in silver light. Suddenly, a wall of fire sprang up in front of him, burning bright and deep sapphire blue. He gazed in amazement at the way his magic had interpreted his command. The flickering wall shielded him, and the Ra'zac instinctively shrunk from the light and the heat.
Gratefully, he concentrated and willed the flames to move ahead. High up into the dark of the cave they leapt, three times his height and higher, and expanding in width as well. Vision through the flickering wall was poor, so he registered surprise when it became clear that the remaining Lethrblaka could not retreat as fast as he advanced the burning wall: its head became trapped within the dancing flames, as they caught up with it. Panic-stricken, it moved his head up and down, but everywhere was fire.
Seizing his chance, Eragon placed his left hand on the twelve diamonds concealed inside the belt of Beloth the Wise that was strapped around his waist, drawing upon the power he had stored within the gems; and thrust his right palm forward.
The head of the Lethrblaka exploded in a fireball. It shrieked and started to bash its head against the rocky ground, desperately trying to extinguish the flames; then tried again to flee them, yet already it was no longer Eragon's fire. Its own grey hide was burning.
Oily smoke rose up as he spurred the burning, had it greedily burn away skin, flesh and bones with unnatural heat. The beak opened in a despairing cry, and flames shot out of it, it was burning from the inside. The large facet eyes cracked, looking like a broken mirror; with a blazing light behind them, eyes of yellow-blue fire, staring at him, and he stared back, horrified, yet unable to look away.
The sickly-sweet stench of burned flesh mixed with the rancid one of the Lethrblaka, whose inner fluids spilled onto the rock, making him gag. His concentration slipped, and the fire died down; however, the Lethrblaka laid still and unmoving.
It was dead, the head nothing more than a skull, staring at him with empty eye sockets. He warily looked around for the Ra'zac, but upon seeing their second parent dead, they uttered a last hiss and retreated into the dark.
– * –
The cave laid draped in the heavy silence that succeeds and is peculiar to all battles, regardless of whether they are fought on the battlefield or in dark mountains; the point in time when the world rests and mourns the cost of a victory. Thus it was that Eragon sighed and turned around. Unable to use his broken leg, he started to crawl over to Arya. The werelight's shine painted her face in pale tones, even more so than usual. She cowered there, the knees pulled to her chest with her arms wrapped around them, shivering and staring ahead into nothingness.
He made to speak, and almost missed the faint twang of a released bowstring. He threw himself to the ground, cursing as arrows whizzed overhead, then dragged her unwilling form back between the two massive bodies of the Lethrblaka to offer them a small amount of protection against the deadly projectiles.
"Are you alright?" he asked.
Arya nodded.
She didn't meet his eyes.
He wanted to confront her, still upset over seeing her use the same spell that killed Hrothgar, and yet, he hesitated. Perhaps it was seeing her affected like this, but the words didn't pass his lips. In truth, he knew next to nothing about Dark Magic. It hadn't been described in any of the scrolls he had read. He couldn't fathom what she was experiencing, and shied away from directly asking her.
The cuts in his waist burned and his broken leg throbbed painfully.
"Your back … let me see to it, then."
She turned wordlessly, offering him her back. Her shirt was dyed red. The blood had begun to dry, and made the cloth stiff and glued to her flesh. He peeled the garment away, ripping the wounds open again.
She showed no reaction.
Eragon inhaled sharply. Her back was in bad state. Entire strips of flesh had been torn out where the tail had hit her, leaving the bare bones of her spine to shimmer ghostly white. It was a miracle it wasn't broken. Even if she hadn't foregone wearing her leather armour, to avoid attracting attention in the city, against this horrid blow it would not have protected her either.
Again, he placed his left palm over the belt and drew up on the energy he had stored within the gems over the course of their travel to Helgrind. His right hand began to move over her mutilated back, reminding him of their first journey to Farthen Dûr. His fingers softly travelled up her spine, mending three cracked rips he made out, restoring flesh and muscles and leaving only perfect, unblemished skin where wounds had been.
Diligently, he spelled her clothes clean of any blood, and pulled her shirt back down.
"Anything else?"
She only shook her head. Apart from the short advice, she hadn't said a single word since the attack of the Lethrblaka. Now she turned back around. For the first time, he was able to get a clear look at her eyes. The green looked matt and haunted. And suddenly, magic, able to mend and heal even the most grievous bodily wounds, felt wholly inadequate.
"Eragon …"
Her voice was dull.
"Yes?"
"I –" she appeared on the brink of saying something that seemed hard, yet important to her, but faltered. She licked her dry lips.
"Is there still some Faelnirv left?"
He stared at her, then nodded, pulling the flask from his belt. He shook it. Nothing more than one swig was left.
He handed it to her.
"Take it all. I can use the energy from the belt if I have to."
She drank it down, visibly relaxing.
"Do you require help with your leg?" she asked, sounding almost as usual.
"If you could straighten it, it would be appreciated."
She nodded.
There was an ugly grinding sound, and he suppressed a scream as the broken bones grated against each other. Taking a deep breath, he set out to mend the bones, as Oromis had had him read in his scrolls.
He moved on to the cuts at his waist, then rose; placing a weak ward around them both, to be at least a little forearmed against arrows hissing out of the dark.
When they were already moving away from the place of the fight and resumed their journey, he felt her thoughts brush against his.
Once again, you saved my life. It shall not be forgotten.
He shrugged.
As did you mine. And neither will I forget.
– * –
The glowing light showed a bizarre forest of stalagmites that suddenly rose from the ground, sometimes joining their hanging counterparts, forming massive pillars. The path wound around them, deeper and deeper into the heart of the cave. Eragon was reminded of the forest of stone he had encountered on top of Helgrind, and felt a sudden nervous tension settle in his stomach. It might have been an elevating sight, a subterranean cathedral hall, pervaded by solemn silence, but in his mind, the gloomy memories transformed the solemnity into sinisterness, and the silence into a burden weighing everything down.
Additionally, they had yet to encounter the Ra'zac again. Eragon felt certain that this was the way they had fled. They could be lurking behind every stone, waiting and watching. Tensely, he took the first step into the thousands and thousands of stony piers.
His light winked out of existence.
They stood in perfect darkness. Eragon could not see the hand in front his face. Desperately, he tried to call upon his magic to bring back the werelight, but to no avail. It was as though his magic was running through his fingers, he was unable to hold onto it and shape it into a spell using the Ancient Language.
He took another step and felt his wards fail as well.
Eragon felt panic begin to grip him. He could not see his next step, it was simply pitch-black wherever he looked, and then came the irrational fear of being blinded, because he could not see anymore, and from within the dark sounded noises, horrible hissing laughter –
"No magickssss to help you here, Rider. No one to ssssave you and the elvessss, no one to hear you ssssscream and diessssss …"
He tried frantically to create a new ward, but he could not perform even the simplest of spells. From ahead, it felt as though an icy wind was blowing in his face, and finally, finally, his mind drew the conclusion of every oddity that had happened to them around Helgrind during the last days. The inability to shatter the rock, back in the forest of stone. The problems to reach Arya with his mind. The cold, empty feeling inside him …
Somehow, someway, Helgrind was draining him of his magic. Using it had become progressively harder, he realised as his mind retraced their steps, and here, in its very centre, the black rock was finally able to nullify it altogether. It all made sense, why the Ra'zac, whose only real weakness was magic and light would dwell here, why Galbatorix had wanted them to travel through Helgrind bowels to reach Katrina.
He saw it, but now it was too late.
He was completely defenceless.
SsssssSssss …
The voice seemed to come from ahead, from the side, from all around. They came from the blackness, and they were the blackness. It swirled in front of his eyes, impermeable and thick, until he thought he saw shadows moving in the corner of his eyes, but whenever he turned his head, there was nothing. Forcing down his rising panic, he tried to reach out to Arya with his thoughts, but found that he could not. Was she even there anymore? Or was he totally alone, now?
Saphira?
There was no answer.
"Arya!"
Something brushed over his shoulder.
He jumped, and blindly extended his arm, grasping in the darkness. He felt something warm, clutching it.
It was Arya's shoulder.
For a moment he was sure she was shaking like a leaf. Then she stiffened under his touch.
"Eragon. Take my hand, so we do not get separated."
Her hand moved atop his, cool and smooth.
"My magic has failed me. I should presume yours is in much the same state."
Her voice was detached, cold. Emotionless.
"Aye," he answered and wondered what she might have been feeling, or did not wish to feel. Perhaps that was closer to the truth. "We cannot communicate through our minds either. Not even to Saphira."
"You have to use – down!"
Her hand yanked at his, and he tumbled to his knees.
Sssssssst.
He felt the feathered end of the arrow brush over his hair.
"How –"
"Use your ears, Eragon. They are the best tool you have now. Listen."
He focused intently, like he had done when he first had meditated back at the clearing with the ants. Suddenly, an entire cosmos bloomed.
Next to him, Arya breathed softly, regularly. Far to his right, water trickled over a wavy surface. Ahead, a pebble bounced over the ground. Something scraped on the rocky surface.
Click-click-click…
Every sound seemed overly loud in the darkness.
There was a faint hissing of air and he turned sideways instinctively. Another arrow passed between them, hitting a rock behind them. It was close enough to his face for him to smell a cloying scent he recognised at once. The arrows were coated in Seithr oil. For a short moment he rued leaving his own bow behind, with Saphira, but then shook his head. It would be useless now, and it would have been too conspicuous in the city.
Louder hissing sounded through the dark, sibilant, annoyed, the source no arrow.
"Foolissssh elvesss, trying to sssstop their fate. You cannot esssscape. You cannot even sssssee. Your magicssss can do us no harm, here. Foolissssh rider, coming here. Thissss place isss not like your world. Older. Better, yessss. We knowsssss."
More laughter, metallic, insectoid.
They clicked to each other through the cave.
And then, the Ra'zac descended upon them.
A/N: Well, I hope I did the Lethrblaka justice – I thought the fight was a little too easy for Eragon in Brisingr, myself. And we discovered one of the secrets of Helgrind. If you read carefully, this might not have been that much of a surprise, I hinted at it back in Chapter 3. But it does make for a rather nice cliffhanger, doesn't it? The big finale is coming closer …
Thanks for the reviews, all! The third part next week, leave me your thoughts regarding this one?