Chapter 4: Moments
Eragon savored the cool morning air that blew through his hair as he sat on the edge of a window in one of Ilirea's gleaming towers, his legs dangling outside. Beyond the walls, he could see the beginnings of earthworks and the glitter of swords and spears as the invaders prepared themselves for a siege. The army had arrived late the previous evening, only three days after the elves had wearily marched through the gates. The journey had been hard on the elvish soldiers, strong though they were. Eragon had healed their many wounds, expending massive amounts of energy to do so, but did little to re-invigorate them, saving his power to ward off any pursuit.
Such caution proved to be necessary, as several times they were overtaken by the flying lizards and Eragon and Saphira were forced to drive them off before they could reach the elves, who would have little hope of fending off the aerial attack. However, as they moved farther north, the attacks began to become infrequent, and eventually stop completely as the swift pace of the elves pushed them beyond the range of the flying lizards.
As the invaders had reached the city, the lizards and tried to fly over and drop torches and jars of oil, but Saphira and Fírnen had intercepted them, driving them off before any major damage could be done. Since then the army had begun to dig in and build siege weapons while the Empire's soldiers had watched from the walls, never far from their catapults and ballista. As much as he hated the waiting of a siege, Eragon knew that this was in their favor.
The sheer size of the army that confronted them would be its undoing, as they would be hard-pressed to feed themselves for any great period of time, and would be forced to attack or retreat, much like the Varden had been. While quarters were tight in the city due to the influx of soldiers who had arrived to defend it, they had more than enough supplies to last for many months. The invaders had the numbers to potentially storm the city, but to do so would incur horrific losses, and he doubted that they had the construction skill that the dwarves had, which would be required to build siege towers large enough to crest the three hundred foot high wall.
Even if they managed to build siege towers or ladders sufficiently massive enough to scale the walls, the elves would be more than capable of pushing the attackers back. In such a situation, where so few of the enemy could fight at once, the elves superior strength, speed and skill would be truly devastating. In addition, Eragon was reasonably certain that he could replicate the feat he performed on the plains to the south to stop any advance before it came close to the city, or trap attackers within range of the war machines on the walls.
Eragon let out a sigh, and looked away from the signs of war, staring off into the sky. He was troubled by the conflict, but the needless slaughter. Before, there had been a justification for the bloodshed. Both sides knew what the other was fighting for. There was a clear purpose. This conflict though, seemed…meaningless to him. He could understand fighting for something, but the invaders had not attempted to parley, nor had they given any demands or announced their intentions. They simply swept across Alagaësia, letting nothing stop them from whatever their inscrutable goals were. Whatever they fought for, they kept it to themselves. More than anything, this troubled Eragon.
If an enemy did not give demands, then it was likely that what they desired could only be obtained through brutality and conflict, which meant that this war could not have a peaceful resolution, which is what Eragon, as a Rider, desired. Dragon Riders were supposed to uphold the peace, not through military prowess, but through diplomatic ability, and yet, here he faced an enemy which had not yet allowed for diplomacy to be considered. As a Rider, he had only ever fought to create peace, never worked to uphold it.
As he gazed out over the city, the sound of soft footsteps on the stairs behind him pulled him from his ruminations. He smiled as he guessed the owner by the quietness of her movements, but remained silent as she approached. Arya padded quietly across the room to the window, gracefully vaulted over the edge and joined him on the window sill. She stared out over the city with him and for a few moments they sat in companionable silence, enjoying the crisp morning air.
"I'm surprised you found me up here," Eragon eventually remarked, "unless our meeting here is just coincidence."
"Nay, Nasuada asked me to find you so we can determine the next course of action," she responded with a small smile. "Saphira pointed me in your direction when I asked after you," she said, indicating the sapphire dragon who was currently curled up with Fírnen in the main square of the city. They lapsed back into a comfortable silence for several minutes, and Eragon felt some of his earlier worries slip away as he enjoyed her company.
"What troubles you Eragon?" She asked suddenly, breaking the quiet. Startled, Eragon looked at her, a puzzled look on his face. She returned his glance with a smile. "Do not forget that I too am a Rider. It is something that comes from our dragons. We find peace more easily the father we are from the ground," she explained. He could only chuckle, realizing the truth in her words, knowing that he was rarely more at ease than when he was with Saphira, soaring above the clouds. "And," she added, "you've not changed enough that I can't see that something is bothering you."
Shaking his head, he gestured out toward the encamped invaders. "They are troubling me," he sighed. "What do they want? Is there a way to resolve this conflict peacefully? As a Rider it is my duty to guard the peace, and yet here I am, again, reacting instead of acting. I keep thinking that I've failed to do my duty to protect the people of Alagaësia, that maybe if I hadn't left, I would've been able to stop this somehow."
Arya reached out and put her hand on his shoulder reassuringly. "None of this is your fault Eragon. You know that. I understand how you feel though, how powerless we were to stop this before it began. But no one person, not even someone as strong as you, would have been able to hold back this enemy. And now...so many dead or driven from their homes." She placed her hands in her lap and stared at them for a moment, before looking back up at the horde of enemies spread around the city. "I don't know if we can stop them," she whispered. "We are strong, but they are many. Perhaps too many."
"No," Eragon said vehemently, placing his hand on her arm and turning her towards him. "We have the advantage here. We have supplies and a good position, and their numbers will only make it harder for them to outlast us. Here, we can win, if we have the patience to out wait them," he spoke with conviction. "Together we were able to kill two Shades, win a war and defeat Galbatorix, despite his power. How can an army, even one such as this, stop us?" he said with a chuckle, and he was gratified to see a small smile appear on her face.
"You seem very optimistic, despite your earlier words," she remarked after a few moments, glancing sidelong at him.
He shook his head at her words. "You misunderstand me. I never doubted our ability to defeat this enemy. They may be ferocious, cunning and implacable, but we have faced far worse. No, what I doubt is whether my duty has been done. Did I protect the people as well as I could have? Could I have done more for them? These are the questions that haunt me as I think of the lives lost and forever changed by this conflict. I'm torn between the duty I owe to my order and the dragons, and the duty I owe to the other peoples of Alagaësia."
"Eragon–," she began, but he quickly cut her off.
"I know that against an army, even with the Eldunarí, I would've been outmatched. But maybe I could have helped people escape. I neglected my duties to watch over Alagaësia, because I was selfish. It was painful for me to look back to my home, to everything I left behind and know that I might never see anyone that I cared for again," he said, his voicing dying to a whisper. "I couldn't just watch them age and die without doing anything, but I needed to stay and help the Riders. So I did my best to put my home, my family, my friends, everything, from my mind." Tears stung in Eragon's eyes, but he quickly blinked them away.
"Eragon," Arya said firmly, "you did what you believed you needed to. You gave up nearly everything that was important to you, in order to do your duty as a Rider. You saw beyond your own needs, or even the needs of an entire race. You looked to the future of the entire land, and all who inhabit it." She looked at him sadly and reached out and touched his cheek. "I have never forgotten what you gave and what you were willing to give to ensure the good of everyone. This land and everyone in it owes you a debt of gratitude that cannot be expressed in words."
As she withdrew her hand from his face, Eragon reached out and caught it. "I…thank you Arya. I've missed you terribly. I don't know how I've managed all these years without you to steer me straight." She looked at him for a moment as a small smile crept across her face. She nodded in understanding, before gently squeezing his and withdrawing her own. They both turned their attention out to the city again and lapsed back into silence, each lost in their own thoughts.
After a few minutes Arya sighed and stood up on the precarious ledge, bracing herself on the side on the window. "Come, we shouldn't keep Nasuada waiting and it's a long way down," she said softly. Eragon nodded absently and gracefully rose next to her, eyes still staring over Ilirea. She turned and made to hop off the ledge, but Eragon stopped her with hand on her arm, a grin slowly spreading across his face. "Do you trust me Arya?" he asked innocently.
She turned and raised an eyebrow, but replied easily. "More than anyone, save Fírnen. You should know that after…," she trailed off, but Eragon understood.
He held out his hand to her, and she hesitantly took it. He pulled her into a tight embrace and leaped off the edge of the window. Arya gasped and clutched him tightly as they plummeted headfirst toward the ground. As they neared the ground, Eragon murmured a word, and their descent slowed and they inverted, allowing their feet to touch lightly on the cobbled street. "Now Nasuada won't have to wait so long," he said as they separated, winking at Arya, whose face was flushed from the fall. To his surprise she broke into laughter, her clear voice ringing through the air, and after a moment he joined her. She shook her head at him, but said nothing, taking his arm and steering him towards the center of the city, ignoring the stares of the people who had watched the odd display of the pair.
They strolled toward the main square, their worries forgotten for the moment. All through the city, people gave them odd looks, elves being a rather uncommon sight. Even more perplexing was the gaiety displayed by the couple as they walked, smiling and chatting. As they neared the center of the city, the traffic around them began to thin, and as they stepped into the square they saw the reason. Filling up the large space with their combined bulk, Saphira and Fírnen lay together, apparently asleep, though both Arya and Eragon could sense the alertness of their dragons. As they walked by the pair, Saphira flicked questioning thought to Eragon, and he replied with a memory of what they were doing. He still marveled at how close they had become, talking through feelings and sensations as often as they did with words. Glancing over at Arya, he saw the slight unfocused cast to her eyes, telling him that she was engaged in a similar communion with Fírnen.
Turning from the dragons, Eragon and Arya made their way to the royal manor, and were admitted by the door guards. Strolling down the now familiar hallways, they made their way to the study. Pushing the door open, Eragon was surprised to see that much of the furniture had been moved around since he had last been in here, the day after he brought the elves back safely. Everything had been pushed aside to accommodate a long table, which was covered with maps and papers. Arrayed around the tabled were a number of people, including the queen, King Orrin, their son Markin, a tall man with hazelnut colored skin and shoulder length black hair who was the heir to both of his parents thrones, several nobles whom Eragon didn't know, and a woman with black hair, whom he remembered seeing when he scryed Nasuada for the first time.
As if feeling his gaze on her, she looked at him with her violet eyes, and with a shock he recognized Elva, though the star on her brow was covered by her bangs. He managed to suppress his surprise at seeing the witch again, though he realized that he should've expected her to still be by Nasuada's side. She favored him with a small smile, before turning back to one of the nobles, who was finishing a report on the status of their troops and the position of the enemy. Nasuada looked up from the paper she held in her hands and acknowledged the Riders. "Apologies Queen Arya and Lord Eragon," she greeted them formally, "but we felt it would be best to begin as soon as possible, and we did not know how long you would take." Her words were serious, but there was a gleam in her eye, and Eragon knew what she was alluding to.
"Nay, it is I who should apologize," Arya replied, equally serious as they both took their places at the table. "Eragon hid himself well and it returning with him took longer than I intended." He couldn't be sure, but Eragon thought he detected a smile ghost across the elf's lips for a moment.
"It is of no consequence. We were merely discussing the state of our own soldiers, as well as the positions of the enemy, of which I am sure you are both familiar with, due to your unique positions," she said, and Eragon nodded, having spent yesterday afternoon soaring above the city on Saphira's back, watching the enemy slowly entrench themselves and build their engines of war. "So now we come to the question of how to proceed. Lord Eragon, have you anything to say on the matter? You and I have been through this before, and I would hear your opinion," she said, surprising him
"In the last war, we were on the other side of this situation, and I remember well that our largest problem was our lack of supplies," he stated, drawing nods from several of the people around the table. "We were forced to assault the city because of our position. The army that confronts us now is several times larger than ours had been, and will require that much more to maintain cohesion. I do not believe they will ever be able to orchestrate an assault on the walls as we did. They do not have dwarf engineers, Urgal warriors, elf spellcasters or dragon Riders, all of which were crucial to our victory. I believe that if we wait, they will be forced to either parley with us, or risk their army falling apart as they become unable to feed themselves." Orrin nodded to him, and Eragon knew that he had come to a similar conclusion, having participated in the Siege of Urû'baen.
"I think your appraisal overly optimistic Lord Eragon," a rather fat noble said disdainfully using the noble title. "They may not have Riders, but we only have two ourselves, and they have scores of those smaller flying creatures. How can you be so certain of being able to stop them? Our archers reported that during the first attack, their arrows simply stopped before reaching the beasts. They had some sort of wards protecting them. How will you solve that problem?"
Eragon smiled patiently. "Saphira and Fírnen have both engaged the flying lizards already, and are more than a match for them. Together they are able to negate any advantage in numbers that the enemy has. When we encountered the army on the plains to the south, I noticed that the creatures were warded, but dragons are stronger than arrows, and their protection did little to aid them. If the archers and ballistae focus on a single enemy, they should be able to bring it down in a short time."
The man fidgeted, clearly unhappy that Eragon had a rational answer to his questions. "Be that as it may, how can you be certain that the enemy won't be able to erect towers and ladders great enough to scale the walls? What will we do then? We have not the manpower to withstand such an army."
"If they manage that, then I personally will destroy them," he replied succinctly.
The man hesitated before replying. "Strong though I'm sure you are, if they are warded I doubt that even you would have the power to destroy such large constructs."
Before Eragon could answer, Arya spoke up. "Lord Chayle, Eragon is the single strongest person in Alagaësia, and you severely underestimate his abilities," she said simply. "When he came to our aid on the plains earlier this week, he tore the ground itself apart, reshaping the land to allow my people to escape. I may not be as strong as him, but I will bolster him however I may, as will all of the elves who journeyed with me. Combined, our power is…significant."
Nasuada smiled at the elf queen's words. "Yes, Eragon's presence here does wonders for my peace of mind. I think that we should–"
Her words died away as a horn sounded from the south wall, and more horns around the perimeter of the city took up the call, signaling that the enemy was attacking. Eragon locked eyes with Arya, and they both dashed out of the study, running to their respective rooms to attire themselves for battle.
4/7/15: Sorry for the super long delay between chapters. This one took so many tries to start, until I was even remotely satisfied with what I wrong. Many of these interactions are difficult for me, trying to keep the characters in, well, character, as well as have them react to situations that they might not have been in during the books. Let me know what you guys think, and I'll do my best to get another chapter done in a week or two. -SW