Chapter 10

I just want to mention, I'm not exactly a writer. The most writing I usually did is numbers. I am good with numbers, and can retain a high idiolect, but am not a writer. If any of you see that I am missing the skill Christopher Paolini had, please remember this paragraph and instead of giving me private messages of how bad my stories are, tell me what I can do to improve it, or else take the story from me and write it yourself.

'Who is she? You still haven't told me about her,' his mate asked him.

'Arya this really isn't the time. An army is approaching the walls larger than anything we have ever seen, and you're inquiring about her? I know this is a silly time to answer, but I will still do so because you asked. She is my teacher for the rest of our war with Oathbreaker. Without her I will surely die… and without you,' he added.

'Remind me to kiss you senseless after this battle,' she said teasingly.

'They're within shooting range!' an elf called from one of the higher defence towers.

Immediately after the announcement, Du Dröttningu closed her eyes and whispered something under her breath: the warmth of which was visible in the cold night air.

A high pitched whistling sound was followed by a small sort of black hole in front of her. A few seconds later, a fireball twice the size of him was present in the space where the black hole had been. It grew in size slowly while she continuously whispered words, whether in the ancient language or in the human tongue, he could not tell. Eventually it was twice the size of Moonstone, but half of Saphira. She stopped muttering, and held the fireball for a few moments before throwing it at the centre of the mass that was heading towards them. The effect of the fireball was disastrous. A huge explosion emanated from the contact of the ball. The columns around that division were pushed from the shockwave, but were unharmed. She had wiped clean an entire unit.

He looked at her in amazement, but was shocked to see her panting from exhaustion. This was the first time he had seen her even breathe.

'Fire your arrows!' she managed to yell, before taking another deep breath.

The whipping sound of arrows piercing the air broke the silence that had dominated them for the last few minutes. A great number of urgals fell to their deaths from the arrows. The rest of them realised that they had come close enough for them to fight them back. They started running with ballistae and catapults along with siege crossbows. The army was sorted in squares of one hundred by one hundred, amounting to a thousand per square. There were approximately one hundred and fifty blocks of soldiers by one hundred and fifty which made a mind staggering twenty two and a half billion urgals. They had just taken out approximately two thousand altogether.

They continuously fired arrows until once again they ran out. Du Dröttningu started a fire and they melted brass on the flames, before pouring it over the walls. The floods of molten metal killed a few thousand soldiers, but the only way they would be able to kill enough would be to go and fight them with swords. He went down to the lower fortifications of the city to look for Du Dröttningu. He found her in front of the gates, resting against a brick wall whilst breathing laboriously.

'Dröttningu, I do not think we will be able to hold them off like this. We will run out of supplies. You are tired and I am not. All I have done so far is fire arrows. Give me a chance to go and fight them with my sword,' he pleaded.

'Fine, but I will accompany you along with your mate and niece if they want to go. Otherwise under no circumstances will I allow you to go and battle against several battalions on your own. We need Du Ebrithil to come back soon. He will be able to think of a strategy to end this. I'm not that experienced in battle. I only know what I have read in books and what has been revealed to me by the spell my father gave to me. Nothing more than that,' she said slowly while trying to control her breath. He answered her with a nod, and ran back to his post next to Rya and Arya.

He beckoned them to him. 'I'm going down there to fight them on my own. If you want, you can come with me. Du Dröttningu is going to assist me until we hear from Du Ebrithil. We cannot hold them off for long. The walls are damaged and soon enough they will bring in ladders. I can hold them back for a short while with your help, but ultimately they will either breach us or we will be saved by Du Ebrithil in whatever ways he plans to help us. So, are you going to come?' he asked them after his explanation.

They both responded in the affirmative. Eragon then went down to the northern gates where the most damage had been done.

Eragon had not yet seen his mistress in battle with a sword. He knew that she was exhausted, and she would eventually need to use a weapon. The three of them waited for her to arrive. She came after a few minutes.

'I told them to raise the gates, but only by a fraction and for a few seconds. As soon as they raise it, we slide under it. Keep your weapons drawn before we slide or else you will not be able to unsheathe them before they get to you.'

Eragon was confused. He had seen her a few moments ago panting like a horse that had been forced to cross the entire Hadarac desert in one night. Now however, she was perfectly fine.

'How are you not tired?' he asked her out of curiosity.

'I'll teach you that after we survive this hellhole,' she replied briskly.

The gate lifted as soon as she finished speaking. They rolled underneath the iron before it fell behind them. Eragon stood up and looked around. Several kull had seen them and were advancing on the group. He took a fighting stance and put his guard up. He counted seven kull coming towards them. When they were approximately ten feet away, they clutched their heads and fell on their knees. Their black armour reflected the moonlight off its polished metal. Three of them screamed in agony as the others suddenly stood up and turned around. The ones that had screamed fell on the floor faced down and lifeless, while the ones that had stood up ran back to their ranks and started fighting their own kind. It was quite amusing to watch one kull fight the other when it should have been his battle.

'Eragon duck!' He did so and felt the wind of a weapon pass over his head. He rolled to his right immediately after the blow missed him. Standing upright, he saw an urgal that was approximately his size standing with a club. Eragon was about to attack him when he fell to the ground.

'Nothing will lay a finger on my student and live while I breathe,' Du Dröttningu said before turning around towards a group that was approaching them again. Eragon felt like his mind had gone completely blank. He would have been dead at this very moment had she not warned him. Eragon shook his head and ran in the opposite direction to Du Dröttningu. He wanted to actually kill something with his sword. He couldn't do that if she always killed them off with magic. The first urgal that came to him was struck down by a blow to the neck between its armour after having its blow parried. He felt suddenly happy that Brisingr had made contact with flesh after so long. However his triumph was short lived. The southern gate of the city had somehow been breached and Eragon could hear the screams of dying urgals as they walked into the traps Du Dröttningu had placed just inside the city gates. The screams soon stopped and instead more high pitched yells synched with the deeper ones of the urgals. The elves were dying. The urgals were flooding in. Eragon was about to make towards that particular gate, but received a hard knock to the back of his head.

I'm sorry, but I have been downloading a movie and I am going to watch it now. I decided to end the chapter here because I know I won't have the time to finish it tomorrow.

I am also sorry if the battle seems like it doesn't a very bloody air to it. This is the first war I am going to write and I will try my best to make sure that it is up to standard in the next chapter which may be up tomorrow because I don't think I have school the day after.

Bye.

Shadeslayer786.