Chapter 18: We're so Screwed
Eragon had followed the wizard's advice, filling his lungs to bursting, yet he was sure he would run out of air. Blackness pressed on every side, crushing him like he was swimming in deep water, pressing all around him threatening to crush his body like a beetle underfoot. He was hurtling through the dark at speeds which made him feel like his face would peel off. The terrible sensations sent fresh agony through his torn open legs.
Just when he was sure he would die in this black crushing hell, they emerged. The loudest sound Eragon had ever heard blasted outwards. They arrived two feet off the ground over the stone patio of the cabin near the strange warm pool. The blast was so loud it sent ripples in the snow on the mountains, like a rock dropped into a pond. The deafening crack echoed over the Spine for miles, playing back the sound of their arrival repeatedly, as if mocking them and signaling the Empire simultaneously.
The sound of a scream shook him from his introspection. The black haired wizard was rolling on the ground, clutching where his right arm should be. Blood emerged from between his fingers as he held on tight. Eragon felt a horrible sense of satisfaction at seeing the man who incinerated Uncle Garrow's body, and maybe killed him besides, writhing in pain. All of a sudden a gorgeous song, more melodious than any music Eragon had ever heard floated over them.
The harsh rush of adrenaline and the pounding of his heart calmed. The music seemed to soothe and heal. The grief and rage he felt towards Harry lessened as he listened and he realized, Harry would never kill Garrow.
"That's all right little one," Saphira's voice said in his head. "He forced them to flee. I saw Garrow's body." Her head snaked around over his shoulder and she indicated Harry with her nose. "He looked worse than the little wizard. Harry only tried to preserve your image of him."
His dragon's thoughts helped dull the edge of grief. "He was my uncle."
"We will get his vengeance," Saphira promised ferally. "There will be no place for those two vile things to hide."
The elf- and wasn't that strange- Arya knelt down to help the wizard, but the silver and white bird swooped down and cried mournfully on Harry's stump. The man grimaced but stayed silent. Skin grew over the weeping wound, sealing it with a finality that confirmed Harry's crippled status.
Arya instead approached Saphira, asking permission to heal her wounds through her expression. The proud blue dragon hesitated, but cautiously extended her injured wing, growling in pain. The elf looked heartbroken at the wound. She carefully schooled her face and reached out a delicate hand. "Waise hiell," she said. Green light glowed from her palm and the blue scaly flesh of Saphira's wing muscles flowed together slowly, skin and scales closing the wound.
She sagged in exhaustion. Brom helped the elf to her feet and slid a large panel of glass aside, beckoning the group in. The old man carried Harry himself, wincing with each step aggravating his stab wound. Saphira carefully tucked her wings and ducked under the doorway, following them down a long staircase.
The dragon and rider looked amazed at the underground facility. So much space! Eragon marveled. The bright white lighting turned night into noon. Saphira looked guiltily back at the staircase where the railings and walls were scraped and gouged by her scales. She had to squeeze her girth down the stairwell and took with her gashes of wood and paint.
They proceeded deeper into the room, stopping before a row of columns of tables, surrounded by enormous machines and forges. Eragon was awed by the huge devices. The wizard was helped by Brom over to a strange black table and laid out. The storyteller crossed to a basin which shot out water like a fountain, cleansing his hands thoroughly with soaps and then rinsing them. He discarded his tunic, exposing a large stab wound and a long gash with serrated edges already blackening. Brom regarded the less serious yet infected wound with disgust. He said an unfamiliar word and shocked the rider by displaying proficiency with magic. Can everyone here use magic but me? He wondered.
Black slime floated out of the man's shoulder. Brom crossed to a cabinet and took out a strange white bottle with a colored paper label written in a tongue Eragon did not understand. He unscrewed a light blue cap from the thing, sniffed it briefly, then steeled himself and upended it over his shoulder.
The storyteller groaned in pain. Clear liquid like water poured out of the bottle and smoked on contact with his wound. Rivulets of the liquid spilled out of the gash and traveled down his bare chest, some of it seeping into the stab wound. The gorgeous white bird sang another uplifting song and glided over to the man, spilling a single tear onto the wound.
The tension in Brom's frame eased as the blackened edges of the gash receded, leaving healthy if still wounded skin in its place. Arya had dropped heavily into a wooden chair, heaving for breath in such a way that Eragon blushed, his attention drawn inappropriately. The elf ignored him. The rider sniffed. That liquid Brom had poured on his wound smelled strange. The scent was powerful, smelling clean in a harsh sort of way.
"Disinfectant," the storyteller grunted. "Keeps the wound clean and stops infections." The old man opened a cabinet with a glass door and withdrew a papery package, biting one edge and tearing it with his good hand. It contained a needle and black thread, along with the whitest gauze Eragon had ever seen. He watched in a sort of morbid fascination as Brom began to sew the bite wound shut with thread, wincing every time the needle punctured his skin.
"Why do you not use magic like them to heal it?" Eragon queried. Brom growled.
"Arya's an elf, and Harry's just crazy strong. I'm the weakest magic user among us," he said distastefully. "Harry's not doing any magic for a while without killing himself, and Arya taxed her own magic healing your dragon," he explained. "The fool boy just teleported four people and a dragon a hundred miles!"
He began the process anew on the wound in his side, hissing as the alcohol streamed over the open flesh. "Either of them would be able to heal me in a couple days, but I'd not last that long with these kinds of injuries left untreated." Brom got up from the table, heading towards the staircase. Eragon followed on tender legs.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"Someone's got to keep a lookout. Anyone who heard our arrival is going to come looking, and we can't afford someone unfriendly finding us right now while none of us are in fighting shape." Brom scowled and limped up the stairs. He took the next flight of stairs right past ground level, emerging in a hallway that definitely would not have fit the size of the house's exterior.
"It's bigger on the inside," Eragon marveled. He could feel Saphira looking through his eyes and her own awe at the magical feat.
"Harry's doing," Brom said. "That basement is supposedly only ten feet deep and the same size as the house around." Eragon gaped. "There's a lot more than just that room to the basement, too," Brom helpfully added. The rider felt woozy.
The storyteller came upon a sliding glass door at the end of the hall, which opened out onto a balcony. He noticed that the harsh wind and frigid temperature so characteristic of the Spine was nowhere to be found on the balcony. It was as if he was peering through infinitely clear glass, except the air smelled just as fresh and crisp as if he were outside.
Brom glanced down and saw something. "We're fu-"
"-UCK!" Harry shouted at Arya. Her raven hair fanned out such was the speed she hit the deck. Saphira's wing flew through the space her head had previously occupied. They were trying to fit her with an enchanted saddle for Eragon, so he might spend time in the skies with his dragon without flaying himself.
Saphira was currently entangled in numerous knotted and snarled leather straps, struggling with the unbreakable material in a way rather hazardous to those close to her. "I refuse to wear such a stupid snare trap as this pathetic attempt at a saddle," she projected.
"It's just until we know your size, we're only trying to measu- whoa!" Harry leapt back as a tangled paw snapped out.
"I said no."
"Fine, be that way," Harry stuck out his tongue. With a left handed gesture, he vanished the leather straps. Saphira stretched out on her back, extending her limbs, tongue, and wings lazily.
"That's better." she announced. Arya stifled a grin. "You're terrible at this," she informed Harry.
He grinned mischievously. "What can I say," he waved his remaining left arm. "I'm left with few options." A blue scaly wing shot out and knocked him on the head.
"Oops."
Eragon followed Brom's gaze off the balcony and paled. A column of urgals marched across the terrain wielding standards with an unfamiliar symbol on them. Their heading was unmistakable. They were marching straight towards the cabin.
"Blast it! They must have heard our arrival," Brom growled. "Harry knows more than I do about urgals. I need to ask if he recognizes the standard."
They hurried downstairs.
Harry nursed a bruise on his head as Eragon and Brom trotted down the staircase. Brom retrieved a bowl from one of his projects and filled it with tapwater. "Dream stare," he intoned. The water rippled and wavered before displaying a column of marching urgals, lofting standards emblazoned with two horns sprouting from a human torso as if rammed from behind. In the front of the column a horribly familiar figure sat atop a pale horse, malevolent crimson eyes burning in hatred.
"We're f-"
Saphira sneezed. "Sorry."
Harry explained. "That's the banner of an urgal tribe notorious among urgals. They're like urgal nazis. The tribe lives close to the coast, something which you all should thank God for, since that particular tribe's schtick is human meat. Garzhvog told me they select their leaders based on whoever they think humans would least want to lead an urgal tribe. Their current one, Jehov, is prone to violent bouts of insanity, endorses slavery, and has this practice he wants the tribe to adopt where they farm and gather nothing, exclusively hunting humans and raiding settlements. They hate all non-urgals and all urgals who don't hate non-urgals. If they catch us, it will be short and bloody. If they win, then things turn extremely long and still bloody. It's a thousand times better to die than be captured. The things Garzhvog said about them," Harry shivered. "They're a good reason for humans to hate urgals. That they are mobilizing is remarkably terrible. Without knowing how powerful I am, they would never have brought the whole tribe. Once they kill us they are headed in the general direction of the Empire."
"So what's the plan, then? Saphira can't carry us all, you're literally crippled, Neither you nor I can outrun them on foot and we have only one mount who can carry only one person. We can't run, do you mean to fight?" Eragon raised valid points.
Arya scowled. "I have no love for urgals myself, yet I cannot bring myself to simply wipe out an entire tribe so casually. Have you no magics to avoid this conflict?" she asked Harry.
He scratched his chin awkwardly with his left hand. "Offhandedly?" he grinned. They all groaned at his terrible puns. "It seems like we've got some choices on our hands," he snickered. "On one hand-" Brom reached over and thumped Harry with his ringed hand, a heavy amethyst gem set on a silver band.
Harry shook his head sadly. "Some people just don't appreciate my disarming sense of humor," he lamented. Arya smacked him. "My jokes just don't seem to go right," he snickered. Brom visibly restrained himself from drawing his sword.
"This is serious!" The old man bellowed. "A host of urgals is about to descend upon us! There's no time for stupid jokes. We need a plan."
Harry prepared himself to run. "I don't know, guys. Im… Stumped."
He cackled wildly, sprinting away from his murderous companions. When their towering rage blew off, Harry cautiously returned to the plotting and planning pow-wow. "There was no need to throw hands. I hardly know why you're all up in arms!" Through supreme effort of will, Brom managed to refrain from throttling the infuriating wizard.
"Right. Apparently we're ditching my lovely house- this makes me unhappy, by the way- when we could totally defend the place. I'm not totally 'armless just yet," he snickered. "I'm not sacrificing any more limbs to apparating a dragon and four people, so we'll have to travel the old fashioned way. Brom, you retrieved the tent, did you not?"
The old man nodded, withdrawing the black tube. "Chuck it here, would you?" Brom obliged. "Eructo!" Harry called. The tube sprang into action, assembling the tent instantly. "I have an idea. I may need to learn how to do an obscenely difficult magical task in hours, but let it not be said that I lack fortitude. No, I've left such a weakness back in Carvahall."
Harry summoned a tanned shrrg pelt from the leatherworking station along with some wooden dowels, constructing a mini tent and enchanting it quickly. He did this twice more, lining up his three little tents. Conjuring a tennis ball with a smiley face, Harry tossed the ball into the second tent. His audience watched curiously, but did not interrupt. On a whim, Harry used color change charms to turn the first tent red, the second blue, and the last red.
Carefully framing his desire, Harry began the chant he had composed. It was seven verses in bastardized latin, a number and language he deemed appropriate. A sort of magical headiness began to build, emanating from the little row of tents, crescendoing at the end of the chant. With a flash, the blue tent vanished. A sort of ghostly image of itself floated in its place, the mirage carefully conducted by Harry's wand. Carefully, delicately, he superimposed the image over the red tentlet. It glided smoothly over, the edges blurring before the sides turned purple.
It exploded. The expanded spaces did not play nice with each other and both failed, both simultaneously and violently. He spat out little bits of smouldering fabric and tried again. It took eight tries, but he managed to preserve both tents and the resulting one contained the conjured smiley ball. Harry continued to escalate the difficulty and complexity, adding enchanted items, more nested enchanted space expansions, living rats, and eventually turning the interior of one tent into the interior of another tent, one which the new interior was already inside.
Nobody interrupted, and obliged when he requested help constructing larger tents. Eragon watched like an eager puppy, thrilled to witness such impressive magic. With larger tents in front of him, Harry began the seven verses again. The heady feel of billowing magic was palpable. The air thickened into jello, sound echoed oddly, and light seemed to bleed together. With a thunderclap of displaced air, The cabin disappeared entirely.
An inhuman scream of rage echoed off the mountains. By the time Durza reached the ridgeline the house had sat upon, nothing was left but a pair of single footprints and a square in the snow where a tent was pitched.