Humbling experiences
As he explained to Saphira why the 3D scrying did not work, he watched as some of the elves pack up the equipment and supplies and put it back on the Talita. For the little ship had been tethered to the river bank. Beside it was a small dock that was in the process of being created by the remaining elves in order to provide a shelter for small boats. After this had been finished, Eragon strode over to Blodhgarm who had been supervising the elves work, and told him "Blodhgarm, I wish for you and the Alfakyn to continue on down the river, Saphira and I will stay behind, we need to attend to something important, we will catch up later." Although he could see that Blodhgarm was practically bursting with questions he refrained from asking them, saying only "Shadeslayer" accompanied with a curt nod. He then loosened the rope holding the Talita to the shoreline, and then leaped over the ships railing, and landing with inhuman grace. Eragon could see the elves staring at him and then plying Blodhgarm with questions. Eragon hated being so secretive around the elves but he and the Eldunari were of the opinion that the less people who knew the word of the ancient language, and were even aware that there was one, was better.
As Eragon flied through the skies with his partner of heart and mind, Saphira, he reflected if he had actually covered everything that would allow everything in his self-sufficient settlement to stay the same. When the elves had passed out of elven earshot, which was no short distance, Eragon had immediately started preparing the sentences that he would need to ward the settlement from damage, keep people from committing wanton acts of destruction and protect the settlement from other forms of harm. He had then used the word of the ancient language and a wordless spell to ensure that no-one, not even Murtagh or Arya, could interfere with the enchantments as long as there was a source of energy. For this he had fashioned numerous other spells to draw energy from the trees, store them into gems which would then provide energy for the enchantments that he had fashioned. All this had been done with the help of Glaedr's and Umaroth's help. As he reflected on this he noticed that Glaedr and Umaroth were talking to the other Eldunari, but before he enquired Umaroth interrupted him and said something totally unexpected. "For the past half hour we have been discussing to do with your current state. We do not mean to be harsh but we have to speak our minds" here Umaroth paused for a little while as if expecting backlash, "you are not a strong enough rider to be considered a teacher" before he started to protest, Umaroth continued saying "You can voice your objections later, but for now listen to me. We, and this was no easy decision, have decided that you must embark on a new training program, 8 hours daily, covering the five aspects we have deemed most important, use of the ancient language and magic, strength, flexibility, intelligence and mental strength. You will continue with this until we disembark at our new destination.
"You will start off the day by doing the Dance of the snake and the crane, and then you will spar with Blodhgarm and the other elves for two hours. Then you will need to write, speak and go over the ancient language for an hour, followed by two hours of mental combat in which you will face off against me and some of the other Eldunari, until you can hold your own. As your body grows tired we will then teach you all that you have not been taught yet. Then finally, you will develop more muscle than other elves, in order to be stronger and faster, and while you are doing this we will devise spells to increase the strength of your body so that you can do things that nobody else will be able to do." It took Eragon a while to convince Umaroth to start the next day, but he eventually succeeded, then as the sun was setting over the river Edda, they all decided that they needed rest, and thus the Eldunari took watch over the uncharted landscapes.
Eragon awoke with a startle; somebody was interfering with his mind. "Rise and shine, little one" voiced Saphira in his mind, "Today you are starting your routine." With a groan, he got out of bed, and got dressed putting on some clothes that would be suitable for the day ahead. Walking up to the ships stern, which was the only reasonably large flat space on the ship, he passed by numerous elves who were still sleeping and recovering from yesterday's work. Not wanting to disturb them he tiptoed past them until he reached the place where he was to start his training. As Eragon slipped into a reverie as he slowly went through the Dance of the snake and crane, he heard a roar and saw that Saphira was constantly breathing fire while she flew. As he extended a tendril of mind to calm her down, he noticed that her mind was not full of anger but of concentration, realising that she was doing training as well; he quickly returned to his own mind and fell back into his own self-induced trance as he completed the Rimgar up to level three. It was then that Umaroth stopped him as he said "You have done it well up to this point, let us be content with that for the moment, now you must spar with the other elves, and not just with swords, but with hands, feet and other weapons such as maces. Even though I find that maces are abhorrent, they do make good weapons and it is almost certain that some of the Urgals will use them. You do not want them to be teaching you how to fight with a mace or a club. In addition, you will also need to wear your armour when fighting to become one with it.
As Eragon finished up his strength training, he looked back on his day. It had been one of the hardest days training yet, including the ones before the blood oath ceremony, when he had been beset with problems from his back. The hardest thing he thought wryly was not the pain and sore muscles that he had accumulate, but the fact that his mind had been bruised, battered, and otherwise thrown around like a plaything. Umaroth and the others had centuries of training their minds, enormous strength and wisdom to match, meant that he had simple been outclassed. But as he neared the end of his allotted two hours he started to notice that he was able to hold off Umaroth for more than a few seconds. After this he had had time for a quick break for lunch, and after that it was back to the training. The only positives that he could see so far of the second session were that Glaedr had started to teach him of all living things. As per his promise on the way to Vroengard, where he had said that he would teach them about many living things, including the many species of beetle of which there are multitudes. And secondly, the second session was a lot shorter than the first, but the negatives were too numerous to count for that matter though.
It was then, when he had finished clearing the stern up and the sun was setting, he noticed that the river was slowly becoming wider. Warning the other elves of what was happening; he leaped up into the air, then propelling himself with magic and Saphira's unspoken consent as she flew beneath him he landed on her back. As they circled around the ship and the sun wasted away, just before the land was cast into darkness he spotted a small ruined town made out of stone.
Orik glanced around the table, many of the dwarves had disappeared, probably sleeping or contacting others through scrying mirrors to hold counsels about what had happened. So far no news had been received about the Raz'ac or the unnamed shadow, but apparently there was going to be another shade on the loose soon. Arya, after flying out of Du Weldenvarden, and consulting with Nasuada about her vision which she had seen, had held a three way counsel with him on one end, and Nasuada and Arya on the other. It was there that they had learnt that about their newfound peril. From what information he had gleaned from her otherwise unreadable face, she did not care much for the Raz'ac, for she had said herself that they were too young to breed, and the fact that they could not control magic would make it easy to kill them once they found them. But the news of another shade was troubling, never before in recorded history had they had two shades around at the same time. Even a weak shade easily outclassed an elf in terms of strength and basically every attribute. But strong shades were even harder to deal with, some of them had the strength of numerous dragons, and even ones such as Oromis would have hesitated to take them on alone, from what he had gathered Oromis had been a very strong dragon rider. From what information he had gleamed from Arya's interpretation of her dream, it had sounded like this one could have matched Brom blow for blow when he was at his prime. Although Orik did not think much of this, and many of the other dwarves were perplexed by this comparison, as Brom did not appear to be strong, Arya reminded them that Brom had killed the most powerful Forsworn, Morzan, and his dragon as well.
It was this information that had put the whole of Alagaesia into lockdown, all the dwarven cities had closed their gates, the elves were not allowing anyone inside their realm for the time being while they had sorted out a plan for action and the humans were holing up in their stone cities, like a rabbit who cowers before a fox who is ripping its den open. After Arya had left, he and Nasuada had agreed that while elves may not think highly of Raz'ac, they were certainly strong enough to be a thorn in the side, to humans and dwarves alike. That is why Orik had dispatched a battalion, numbering 300 dwarves including 10 spell casters, from Dalgon to Orthiad, to deal with the problem. Nasuada had also sent a few hundred men from Petrovya to Orthiad to help the dwarves in their search. Although this had meant that he had had to dispatch another small group ahead of the main group to guide the humans through the dangerous ruins of Orthiad. This brought him back to the present as he nervously waited for news of success or failure from the corps of Dwarven magicians. He was expecting to be successful, as while they incapacitate men and dwarves with their foul breath, they did not have their steeds, the foul Lethrblaka, which were trouble on a whole new level. The Lethrblaka could only be killed by strong magicians, elves or dragons, none of which were present in any way, shape or form.
As the hours went by, many of the council members retired to mattresses which had been laid down on the floor at the edges of the cavern. From what he had gathered, it was just a few hours before dawn. He knew he really should get some sleep, or at least some rest, but his body was just too tense and it was expected that the results would be received within the next hour. After about half an hour, just as he was about to doze off a dwarven messenger came running in. Immediately, everyone, that is who were still awake, sprang up and a loud clatter echoed throughout the cavern. Out of breath, he started to gasp "A report has come in that one of the Raz'ac has been killed" with this news everyone in the chamber cheered with jubilation, waking the few dwarves who were still asleep. But he remembered that there had been two Raz'ac and was just about to ask what had happened to the second one but the messenger resumed speaking. "However the other managed to escape but not before we injured him. His escape is not what worries us but the fact that he grabbed one of our magicians who had passed out from the exhaustion" grimacing he looked around and saw that everyone else bore similar looks. Orik turned his head back to the speaker, as he said quietly, with all eyes fixed upon him, "For in their folly they forgot to guard him and now they are paying the price, despite this we did not lose any troops. Although 3 of the men from Nasuada's were foolish enough to stray off the beaten track, and they fell into a tunnel below. As of now, they say they are attempting to rescue them. The Raz'ac did not inflict any casualties on humans; however they did injure many in their attempt to escape. Our magicians are attending to them as well as our own injured." This had lightened the mood considerably but there was still a slight atmosphere of tension. The messenger summed up by saying "The raz'ac are being tracked but have not been found as they have the strength of many men. The commander is confident, that they can find the remaining raz'ac as long as the rest of magicians stay alive.
As he walked out to address the dwarves massed below him, he thought of all the times he had seen Eragon address the varden and how he feared it more than the battle. Now he was starting to understand, an enemy would quickly disembowel you if you did something stupid, but a crowd would slowly skin you alive for even the most innocent of remarks. Before he went out there, he quickly offered a prayer to Güntera and faced the masses. Thankfully, the generals did most of the speaking, he only had to speak at the end yet that was more terrifying than when Murtagh had first appeared on the battlefield. Nothing was as frightening as speaking to an expectant crowd and that he thought to himself, was both the biggest part of his job and the hardest.
A/N Hello, I am sorry I didn't get my story up by the end of the weekend but I had trouble updating. I know it's a bad title but I couldn't come up with any others, feel free to post some suggestions. I will try to get the next chapter up by Friday, but no guarantees. I think the next chapter will have POV's from Murtagh, Arya and Nasuada. I might also try and squeeze a bit of Saphira in there as well.
For those who are unclear about why the scrying did not work properly is that scrying in 3D can only be done with like mirrors. The first dragon egg will hatch after the two shades and the remaining Raz'ac have been killed. This however will be a while. Does anybody know what the unnamed shadow should be like; I have considered it could be something from Vroengard or from the land where Eragon is going, any suggestions? Anyway, thanks for reading and feel free to post a review, greatly appreciated!
Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Inheritance Cycle, those belong Christopher Paolini, and his publishers. I do however own the characters that I will come up with and the story (maybe stories) that are yet to follow.