Chapter 30: Brom is Justifiably Angry
The crowd parted like the red sea. Durza stalked towards Harry and Eragon menacingly. He wore black armor and a crimson cape that matched his hair and eyes. One of the guards gasped, then slumped down dead at a harsh word.
"My, my, my. Galbatorix will be pleased. Brom, the courier, the rider, and the wizard, all in one place." He grinned with sharpened teeth, showing a blackened tongue. In a smooth motion, Durza withdrew his own sword, some sort of steel with a long scratch down the center.
Brom cursed and dove into the doorway, narrowly dodging a crimson bolt of energy flung from the shade's palm. Durza scowled but did not pursue, instead stalking towards the pair of swordsmen. Harry dispelled the dulling magic on his blade surreptitiously, noticing Eragon do the same.
"Live steel?" Durza pouted. "Didn't Brom teach you not to play with sharp things? You'll get hurt." At the word, he leapt forward with his sword closing an impossible distance.
Harry quickly fended off the first strike. Eragon tried to slash at the shade's unprotected back, but Durza got his sword in between him and the blade with impossible speed. The moment the first swords clashed, he began a devastating mental attack upon both Harry and Eragon.
It was like fighting a pair of Aryas who were without mercy and used every cruel trick available to him. Durza pushed them up against the crowd at swordpoint, every slashing strike like a charging kull with a mace. When their swords connected, the sound of steel on steel rang like a bell. Twice, soldiers approached to intervene, but Durza dispatched them without looking.
Cramped as they were, Some of Harry's deflected strikes slid off the shade's sword and maimed or killed an onlooker. Durza's eyes glittered with dark humor at Harry's expression. There was nearly a stampede as the residents scrambled over each other to get away. Harry growled angrily, defiant even under the immense pressure of the shade's mental attack. He drew back and let Eragon guard him while he began an enormous looping overhead strike. The point glinted in the sunset light as it crossed past vertical and began descending upon the shade.
Durza laughed darkly and made a seizing motion with his hand. "Kausta," he said malevolently. A small girl in a sundress flew from the fleeing crowd and floated above Durza's head. Harry could not adjust the course of his sword fast enough and bisected the girl, only to be stopped by the shade's unyielding guard. The wizard screamed in frustration and rage.
Eragon looked horrified, but seemed out of the fight. His legs bowed under the unrelenting force of Durza's mental attack. The shade pressed twice as hard now on Harry, weaving a glittering net of steel with his sword as he pushed him harder and harder, sneaking forwards. He snuck within the wizard's guard and drew back his swordpoint to thrust.
Out of options, Harry grabbed the blade with his bare right hand. The enchanted silver stopped the blade, though the force of the strike shook his very bones. Durza curled his lips into a snarl, renewing his attacks, both physical and mental. Such was the force of his frenzied offense, the shade did not notice Harry extend a tendril of thought into his mind.
Even with the advantage of a metal arm and longer reach, Harry was losing. He needed to offset the shade and get in a definitive strike. He wished he had thought to slot basilisk venom into the blade; he'd gotten a couple nicks in.
Arya sprinted out the door with a familiar black cylinder under her arm, Du Sundavar Freohr drawn in her hand. Gone was the glamor which hid her elvish features from Teirm in general, her angular face etched in fury. When she joined the assault, Harry had a moment to breathe and rooted around in Durza's mind for something that would offset him-
"Foolish Carsaib," Harry taunted hopefully. Durza's eyes widened and it was his turn to scream in rage. An arrow narrowly missed the shade's sternum, sinking into his shoulder. He missed a step and Arya capitalized, stabbing with her blade towards his heart, but he managed to twist out of the way. Overextended, Durza gripped her hair with a gauntleted hand and ripped. She yelled in anger and pain.
Eragon stood proudly upright, wielding his drawn bow with another arrow already on the string. He fired another arrow and Durza was forced to discard Arya, throwing her by her head down onto the ground and into the street covered in the viscera of the young girl he'd made Harry split in twain. Another arrow zipped towards him, but Durza caught it in a fist and crushed it without adjusting his grip at all. "Kausta, Kausta!" he shouted. More children flew around him, making Eragon hesitate.
Arya rose from the ground, the back of her head bald and bloodied. Her eyes were unfocused from a concussion. "Where's Brom!?" Harry shouted at her. Arya shook the tent roll in her hand.
"Unavailable," she snarled. "Brisingr!" The sword lit with emerald flames and she began to stalk forwards. In an unbelievable display of swordplay, Arya managed to apply pressure to the shade without hitting his body shields, a crying baby and a wide-eyed little boy. Harry joined in and it looked like they would win. Inside Durza's mind as he was, the man's unreal speed and strength were lessened by the foresight Harry gleaned from his mind. He brought his sword up between the shade's legs…
He saw the thought a moment too late. Both children flew down to intercept. Harry couldn't look away. His innocent body count rose by two as blood showered him and Arya. Screaming in rage and pain, Harry poured every iota of hate he had for the shade into a single spell. "CRUCIO!"
The spell flew under his guard and struck true, sinking into Durza's thigh. A high-pitched unnatural shriek emanated from the shade who collapsed onto the cobbles. Arya's hair fanned out behind her as she stabbed downwards at his heart. Durza was twitching on the ground desperately. Harry hung on to the greasy and evil feeling magic as best he could, determined to give Arya the time she needed to finish the thing.
Just before she could finish him, Durza flew off the cobbles unnaturally still. His crimson eyes turned black and an unfamiliar voice issued from him, smooth and alluring. "Run, little elf."
Durza's body glowed black before tearing itself apart gruesomely, showing blackened veins and dripping blood and viscera. Arya sighed in relief for a moment before her eyes widened. "Run, little elf, Run, little elf, Run, little elf." The voices echoed throughout all of the city. Everywhere they looked, guards had the same black eyes. The same voice issued from their mouths like puppets. They approached. Guards drew their weapons, readying swords and bows. Even more horrifyingly, women and children armed themselves, prying bricks from walls or scooping up sharp objects and approaching like zombies, murder in their eyes.
A shadow passed over the square as Saphira flew overhead, but she could not land to pick them up; archers were already firing at her distant shape. Jeod approached menacingly with an extended rapier. "Run, little elf."
Suddenly, they heard a shout. "Audr!" Angela called over the creepy chanting. Abruptly, wind tore at their faces as they shot aloft at incredible speeds. The herbalist also flew skywards, but Harry noticed she had fallen unconscious and was foaming at the mouth slightly. She must have overextended for us, Harry realized. They passed above Saphira who maneuvered to catch them. There were four bodies to carry though, and Saphira was not an old dragon.
He spammed out featherlight charms at everything in sight, hoping to miraculously tag the freefalling figures. Saphira's flying was laborious, but she managed to snatch the last body from the sky before they were scattered across the stone below in a million bloody pieces. "The spell doesn't work on the caster," he apologized to her. "Who is heavy still?"
Saphira indicated Angela whom he quickly tagged. The dragon's flight leveled out and steadied with the weight reduction. "Make for south, then land when you're out of sight." Harry ordered. She sent her agreement, flying too labored for words. Five minutes later, they hit the ground hard. Harry threw up the tent and Saphira crawled inside gratefully. Arya looked concerned.
"Get inside," Harry said urgently. She carried the unconscious herbalist in her arms. "Do what you can to keep her alive, I need to get some distance." He pulled out his broom and mounted it. "Go!" he shooed her. Arya grudgingly entered the tent.
"What's going on-" Brom's voice sounded urgently from inside.
"Deconvenire!" Harry called, sweeping the canvas up and stashing it in his pack. The wizard kicked off and bent low over his broom, headed towards their best destination; Dras-Leona.
Harry never thought he'd grow bored of flying on a broom at supersonic speeds. Once he passed the threshold on the windspeed enchantments, it cut all the wind out of flying, leaving the experience unnaturally silent. Naturally, he didn't feel like having his skin flayed off his bones by the tremendous drag his speed generated, but it felt kind of lame. The air visibly warped behind the broom in a sonic boom. The wind wards were shaped with aerodynamics in mind to cut through the air best and once he crossed the speed barrier, flight became much less turbulent.
When he caught sight of Dras-Leona, he immediately went subsonic. Whatever happened at Teirm forced them to leave immediately. If they wanted to slay the Ra'zac before that hellish zombie attack happened again, he couldn't blatantly announce his location by shattering the sound barrier above the city.
Harry touched down several miles from the city and dismounted stiffly. Even at speed, the journey took several hours of crouching low to the broom. He tossed out the tent and called "Eructo!" while stretching in various ways to work out the kinks. Brom stormed out of the tent.
"Fool boy!" he growled. "That was Galbatorix back there. Now he has seen our faces."
"I know we screwed up, but how's that bad?" he asked, bending back and twisting his head back and forth.
"Because, idiot! Now he can scry us!"
"Oh shit."
"Indeed. What possessed you to challenge the guards to a swordfight with blatantly magical swords!?"
Harry scratched his head sheepishly. "Uh, that one guard started it?"
Brom sighed. "Where are we?"
"Dras-Leona's thataway," Harry pointed an outstretched arm. "About three miles or so."
"What?" Brom asked flatly. "I thought you had to have been somewhere to apparate there?"
"I flew?"
He whistled lowly. "Damn. How fast?"
"Uh, at least seven hundred miles per hour," Harry guessed.
Brom's mouth hung open. "Not even on dragonback…" he trailed off in awe. "Why Dras-Leona?"
"I'll show you."
Harry led the old man down to the lab and magicked the enormous sheet of parchment up to an empty wall with a sticking charm. He indicated the red lines of Seithr oil. "One merchant handled three shipments of this apparently absurdly expensive stuff, at taxes well below legal while still unchallenged. Each one had more than one flask, and they all ended up here in Dras-Leona."
Arya came over to see what they were talking about. Her hair was back to its original length and she looked relatively uninjured aside from a couple shallow wounds which she had bound with Harry's medical supplies.
"As good a reason as any, I suppose. Well done," Brom reluctantly admitted.
They elected to camp in the tent outside Dras-Leona rather than press their luck and enter the city. It was agreed that they would brave the gates tomorrow, well before Galbatorix could warn his cities to be wary or circulate their faces. Brom had taught them each how to stop someone from scrying them, a spell he insisted they all maintain at all times no matter what.
The tent provided more luxury than they would get even in the nicest inns of the city, so they were in no hurry to push onwards and tip their hand about the rate of their travel to the king. The ability to be hundreds of miles away in seconds or days–depending on if they'd been already–was an absurd advantage that they wanted to keep to themselves until an absurdly valuable maneuver could be pulled off, like a surprise siege or something.
Harry spent the night treating injuries, surprising his companions while doing so. In preparation for singing himself a better body and hopefully a replacement arm, the wizard had poured intently over biology and anatomy texts, generating reams of notes all the while. As a result, his healing skills had improved drastically. The underlying understanding of cell division and tissue construction enabled him to heal nearly any wound which did not puncture a vital organ.
There was not much he could do for Angela, unfortunately. Overuse of magic was one of the few maladies where the only discovered remedy was time. Harry fed her a bit of stockpiled power from his bedside gem–already filled with a ludicrous amount of power–and saw minor improvements, but nothing definitive.
The herbalist's magical exhaustion was actually a subtle boon in a way. Harry had not possessed the understanding of biology he had now when he'd tended to Eragon for his use of fire against the kull attack in Yazuac. Now, he had a live specimen recovering from the very ailment he so wished to study. Harry's goal was to discover how energy was stored biologically. He hadn't a clue even with examples how gems stored energy, but the body was a different thing.
He had a few theories. One was that magic drained chemical energy from the body by breaking adenosine triphosphate–or ATP–into diphosphate, utilizing the body's cellular energy storage medium as a fuel. Unfortunately, biology was a messy and inexact science in many respects. To confirm the theory, he'd have to measure chemical levels in muscle tissue before and after spellcasting, something he'd certainly put on his to do list, but not something he could get an unconscious patient to do.
Other ideas revolved around concepts like increased melatonin production or simply harsh stress upon the body and all of its processes. The common consensus Harry had reached after interviewing his fellow magic users was that heavy magic use caused fatigue and hunger. He found that they did not report needing to use the restroom urgently afterwards, so it wasn't speeding up digestion, likely simply burning calories incredibly quickly.
Taken together, the evidence was pointing towards magic draining chemical energy rapidly, something which hits the body with intense hunger to replenish diminished fat stores. The real question was: How to cheat it.
Consultations with dead doctors yielded some information. Coma patients were fed by tubes which went from the nose directly to the stomach–after all, unconscious people couldn't eat. Harry perused his family's Potions texts for some sort of nutrient solution to feed Angela and had some luck. Though the brew actually leaned towards alchemy, he found a recipe he had all the ingredients on hand for (thanks Angela) and brewed it.
Upon reduction of the mixture, Harry was left with a white powder which was meant to be mixed into water. Originally designed for feeding marching armies without needing supplies beyond water, the tasteless powder, when added to water, would feed men marching in armor for seven days and nights without sleep, food, or additional water. In other words, exactly what he was looking for.
Thankfully, Harry was a wizard and did not need to stuff plastic tubes down Angela's nose, instead using a handy spell he found in a medical primer for apprentice healers and nurses which transported solids or fluids directly into a patient's stomach. With consideration Harry had previously doubted wizards actually possessed, the spell noted that potions which were activated by saliva or otherwise needed to travel through the oral route would not work when used with the spell.
He cast the spell and waited.
It did not take long. No sooner had the white powder vanished than Angela's face regained its color. His monitoring spells showed her heart rate rose with her temperature, blood pressure, and general healthiness. He crossed his fingers hopefully. "Ennervate."
Angela gasped as if someone inflated her lungs with a bellows. Harry idly noted that the spell caused her heart rate to jump. She sat up on the operating table in bewilderment. "How long has it been?" she asked curiously.
"About eight, hours," Harry feigned nonchalance.
"What?" she asked incredulously.
He couldn't hold it in anymore. "I KNOW!" he grinned madly. "I figured out how magic exacts its toll on the human body!"
The herbalist looked very interested. Arya had just emerged from the grazing room and made her way over, also curious. "It's all in the chemical energy," he explained. "Common symptoms of overuse of magic are extreme hunger, thirst, and fatigue–to the point where people pass out in extreme cases. I thought initially that perhaps spells would force digestion or directly burn food in the stomach or whatever, but urgent need to shit is apparently not a symptom. Instead, magic burns stored energy in the form of calories and body fat–the body's storage medium for nutrition and energy." He indicated the cauldron of white powder.
"I found the recipe for this stuff in an old Potions book. It was designed by some medieval alchemist who wanted to feed his troops for basically nothing so they could march day and night. Supposedly one tablespoon mixed with a cup of water is all an armored man needs to march for seven straight days and nights." Angela looked very curious at the mention of such a substance.
"Anyways, I figured the stuff had to impart a lot of calories since walking with armor would burn an estimated six hundred calories an hour, times twenty four times seven comes to about 101k calories. One Joule is the energy required to lift a kilogram a meter, Angela' spell threw about five hundred pounds one thousand meters, that's 500k Joules. One Joule converts to 4.2 calories, and the human body converts 25% of consumed calories to mechanical energy. Thus, you needed about five doses of the stuff to recoup your loss, which is how much I gave you. So, how do you feel?" He rattled off breathlessly.
Angela looked a bit jittery. "Quite a bit more energized than breaking even, that's for certain!" she exclaimed. "25% efficiency, you say?" she asked. Harry nodded. "Well why would this alchemist design a substance only to waste 75% of it? Surely someone with such knowledge would design their brew to be more efficiently absorbed and used by the body?"
Harry understood. "Well, here's hoping it's not too efficient. People still need to stay alive for the duration of their march, doing things like breathing and blinking. That's probably why the ratio looks so poor. Though in this case, your energy expenditure was so rapid you didn't have time to dilute it with biological functions. I'd say in this case we can confidently assume 90% efficiency, which means you'd better get around to firing some extremely powerful spells–snappish." He looked nervous.
Angela just rolled her eyes. "Did you manage to retrieve my pack?"
Harry summoned it and felt his magic grasp the item. He mentally followed it many many miles. "Oops," he rubbed the back of his head. "One sec." He made to exit the tent, but poked his head back. "I don't suppose your bag has ablative shielding?"
A thunderous crack and an invisible shockwave heralded the arrival of Angela's pack. The leading surface was blackened, but only superficially. The material had to be enchanted since supersonic summoning would surely have destroyed simple leather.
Angela smiled when he brought it back and reached in, extracting her new huthvir. She placed a hand on one of the diamonds and dumped the excess power into it. "That's a true bounty of energy," she remarked. "Was the brew costly? If not, I imagine one could amass quite a bit of power by consuming it and instantly offloading the power. Especially if you have access to seemingly unlimited gems, seeing as you parted with two diamonds greater than the fabled gems of the belt of twelve stars." She cast pointed glances at the multiple diamonds present in the room; one in the pommel of Harry's greatsword–the hilt protruded over his shoulder–one in Arya's sword, the two in her huthvir, and two more for the brooms in the open vault. The dead giveaway was the huge bucket full of them next to the forge.
"Aren't you worried about Solembum?"
She dismissed the thought. "Werecats go and do as they please. If he wishes to find me, he shall. Where are we headed, by the way? I did not know of such a construction so near to Teirm."
"Dras-Leona. We're hunting the Ra'zac," Harry admitted.
"Do you make it a habit of telling every stranger who asks your entire travel itinerary and your obvious status as an enemy of the state?" Brom grouched from the stairs.
"No," he retorted. "Only extremely mysterious and also inexplicably immortal humans who saved my life not hours ago, and know Eragon's future."
"Fool, I can gaze into a crystal ball and spew bullshit too, but I don't call myself a fortune teller, do I?"
"Nay, but she does have a bag of dragon knucklebones and the ability to use magic."
"Ah, forgive me. An ever more dangerous potential enemy you've invited into our sanctuary."
"My sanctuary. Get your own dimensionally folded space pocket tent, Brom." Harry stuck his tongue out maturely.
Arya and Angela watched the byplay with amusement. "Dimensionally folded tent?" Brom exclaimed. "Why don't you tell her the rest of your earth-shattering secrets? She shouldn't even know our names!"
"Dimensionally folded tent?" Angela murmured to Arya in faint surprise. The elf confirmed it with a nod and gestured for quiet.
"Okay, Brom. Angela, I'm one, from another planet, two actually immortal, three use an entirely different base of magic which Alagaesian magicians are capable of learning and vice versa, and four have definitive proof of life after death."
Angela whistled, impressed. "That's a very interesting resume. Can you back it up?"
Brom looked about to have an aneurysm. "What the hell did you say that for?"
Harry rolled his eyes. "She made Arya for an elf and Eragon for a rider the moment they entered her shop.
Steam was practically shooting out the old rider's ears. "Why would you not tell me!" he exclaimed in aggravation.
Harry pointed at Arya. "She didn't tell you, either!"
"Leave me out of this," Arya crossed her arms. "Angela is known to the elves as trustworthy."
"I wasn't the one to bring a shade down on Teirm! Harry this is not your world! People can and will kill you, and people who can't keep their mouths shut die!"
Things were strained between Harry and Brom for the rest of the night. Angela clearly wanted to know more about Harry's discovery, but held her tongue. The herbalist was very intrigued with the lab and could often be found examining bits of machinery or completed projects. The family vault was closed and she did not try to enter, but Angela did enter the greenhouse and was clearly impressed.
She watched Harry plant the seeds and clippings he'd gotten in trade for the huthvir, even going so far as to offer advice as to the conditions each plant liked best. Afterwards, she followed him into the pasture. He was rather eager. The growth and fertility elixirs he'd mixed into their food was finally yielding extreme results. His livestock had bred and grown far faster than natural, several generations passing in under a year. The point was fast approaching where exponential growth would give him ludicrous amounts of produce.
One in every ten hen houses was dedicated to fertilized eggs which went to a magical hatchery. Unlike the mundane kind, Harry managed to use animal husbandry magics to reduce the mortality rate to 2%. With how fast he could force the hens to lay eggs using magic, it meant he had quickly amassed literally millions of the birds, all of whom were ready to be slaughtered for meat. Out of deference to Arya, he'd not enacted any cullings yet, but the runaway population growth would cause even his massive space expansion charms to strain, and unfortunately, one of the primary purposes for raising chickens was the meat.
Harry enchanted a gate with an age line to only let mature chickens through, and enticed them to the other fenced area with heaps of feed. He felt faintly like a child lurer for the tactic, but needs must. Angela watched silently as the mature chickens gathered. He held up his hand and mentally targeted every bird in the pen. "Die."
He threw up. It was necessary, but it didn't make it any easier to see thousands of adorable little birds collapsing as a result of his actions. It reminded him of a little girl, floating high above, about to be split in half for no other crime than being innocent- Harry heaved again. Angela looked concerned as he wiped his mouth with a sleeve. "Exviscera." A mountain of guts formed. Nausea threatened to break Harry's hold on the levitation spell. He dumped it into the pig feed mixer and put it out of his mind.
"Why are you producing so much food?" Angela asked curiously.
"The Varden. I was told that the Varden's shipping fronts were being raided and they were desperate for goods. Specifically food, weapons, and medicine."
"Ah," she remarked. "Well, I daresay you've managed to produce enough food for ten Vardens. Have you given any thought to weapons and medicine?"
He nodded. "I wanted to learn blacksmithing for my own purposes, but when Arya told me about the weapon shortages, that's when I got in a lot of practice. Here, I'll show you."
Angela followed him out of the pasture and over to his personal vault. He gestured his arm along the right wall. "I made all these last year." She whistled lowly. There were hundreds of gleaming steel swords hanging from pegs on the wall–and of good quality, too. They started very well made and gradually transitioned to nearly flawless. "There's about eight hundred up there, and they all have a few convenient enchantments. I put unbreakability, eversharp, and rust repellant spells on them. They were put on with my peoples' spells which were considered permanent, but I've seen Durza blast the entire second storey of my house off in a single spell, and nearly all of it was enchanted 'unbreakable.'
The herbalist got a sour look. "If your standard for enchanting is shade-proof, you will find yourself disappointed more often than not."
Harry sighed. "I know, I just don't want these weapons to fail in battle and get the Varden's men killed. I don't know what their limitations are–you know what? Let's test that right now." He seized a sword off the wall at random.
He banged it on an anvil and clamped it perpendicular, blade edge straight up. He withdrew his own new greatsword and propped its edge against the generic sword. Carefully balancing the greatsword, Harry measured force by magically applying a measured amount, the force of which climbed ever higher. Angela watched impassively. There was no sign of anything happening except the swords wobbling a bit. The anvil creaked slightly and deformed. It was a spare, so Harry did not mind crushing the thing if they turned out to be actually unbreakable.
With a tortured shriek, the anvil deformed and squashed like a chubby thick iron pancake. Both of the swords were perfectly intact.
"Well, I'd say your fears are unfounded!" Angela beamed.
"Epic." Harry tossed the tested sword into the scrap heap–no sense giving out a sword which he'd already put under more wear than any mundane sword would receive in a lifetime. Angela examined his suits of plate armor and bundles of arrows with interest, but otherwise did not remark. Neither was anything to write home about.
"Dare I even ask about medicine?" Angela asked amused.
"It's nothing crazy and now that I got my hands on some proper ingredients, I can start brewing the few healing potions I can manage."
"You're very welcome," she laughed.