The Burning Plains
"It's impressive," Nasuada said, looking out from the stone ramparts of the crude castle. "But I have some concerns. If we dig in and fortify too much, the Empire will not engage us. We may cut Aroughs off from the rest of the Empire, but we are the attackers. Sieging us accomplishes exactly what they want."
Harry scowled. "Strategically, we want to wait as long as possible to confront Galbatorix, but I will lose any shred of respect for him if he doesn't show and waits for us to conquer and kill our way to Uru'baen. Despite being unscryable, the Sniper Corps found Galbatorix's army probably three weeks out. Not exactly forever, but long enough that we can rest, fortify, and if we're ambitious, take Aroughs."
"I would prefer to have Eragon and Saphira here for any sieges," Nasuada said. She drummed her fingernails on the stone buttress. It was all uniform grey stone with no striations, an eerie effect that betrayed its conjured origins. "Aroughs is garrisoned of course, but it's a fishing and trade hub. If it were Gil'ead, Dras Leona, or even Feinster, we might benefit from removing a flanking enemy before engaging on a separate front, but as it stands, they cannot mount any meaningful attacks. Galbatorix knows we are coming, so there is no point in starting a siege before they have time to supply and try to wait us out – every city in the Empire is probably stocked in anticipation of a siege. Will Eragon get here before the Empire?"
While Harry wasn't exactly chatting with him every day through the mighty wards of Ellesmera, he knew that Eragon could scry out at any time and that Oromis could and did keep tabs on Alagaesia himself through scrying. They would know when Eragon had to depart to make it in time for the battle. The question was how much backup Eragon would bring. The dragons were all big enough for serious battle by now, and since Oromis and Glaedr's recoveries, they themselves might make an appearance to fight.
"Eragon and Saphira, definitely," Harry agreed. "How much help is with them remains to be seen. I still can't say much to preserve the surprise, but I am confident we can easily beat the Empire's army if Galbatorix doesn't show. If he does-" he sucked in a breath.
"It wouldn't be ideal, but I don't think we're totally fucked if he does. There's at least a chance."
Nasuada turned and looked him straight in the eyes, disbelieving. "You think Eragon can realistically fight Galbatorix on an even field?"
No, definitely not. But Eragon wasn't alone, was he? How could he put it that wouldn't give the game away?
Harry chose his words carefully. "He will have a lot more help than anyone was expecting. He'll still be outclassed for brute force, but not to the extent he'll be instantly helpless. If he's clever and Galbatorix makes even a moderate blunder, I think he can pull it off."
Nasuada was visibly relieved and a bit awed at the idea. "We can actually win this here," she whispered, more to herself than Harry. "Galbatorix could be gone in as little as a month." She was having a hard time believing it, like giving voice to the idea would make it come true.
Nasuada prepared for battle with a weightlessness in her chest she hoped didn't give anything away. The stage Harry set up stayed up during the day now that they had made camp, and though Harry was a bit more circumspect in his wording, the chat he had with the Varden that evening touched on the idea that the Empire's overwhelming numbers weren't quite so much of an obstacle as they'd thought. Six different people who had been dosed with the Draught after crippling, previously thought incurable wounds were revived and spoke briefly with the Varden about their injuries and recovery, a boost to morale that made even the unlimited, excellent food look tame. Relations between the Urgals and the humans were at a high, and Nasuada heard reports from Jormundur of the two races collaborating unprompted to make use of Urgals' superior strength and humans' dexterity in preparing fortifications.
Harry had wanted to go dig the ditches and set the mounds to stop cavalry charges with magic, but Nasuada actually stopped him. The men needed something productive to do, and the fruit of their own labor tended to form attachments and further boost morale. Time spent prepping the battlefield gave them a sense of ownership over it that made them even more confident in their abilities against the Empire. Nasuada was careful to keep that from them; she did not want the men to resent her for making them do unnecessary manual labor, but she needn't have worried when Harry created thousands of sharp metal spades out of nothing to make the job easier.
In the aftermath of the internal attack, their cavalry division had been severely weakened and preparing fortifications against charges was critical. Again, Harry provided the Varden with an unpredictable boon by producing enormous quantities of fresh lumber. The Burning Plains had no trees to make sharpened spikes against charges, but Harry, who apparently had an entire forest in his magical tent, labored under no such restrictions.
Miriam, a healer with the medical tent was invited up to the stage to give the Varden a briefing on the Draught of Living Death and basic triage and first aid, and squishy 'plastic' ampoules of the potion were distributed en masse among the army.
Du Vrangr Gata and the Sniper Corps worked to weed out the remaining Black Hand infiltrators. While they were not wholly successful, seven members had been ferreted out, and one had even been captured alive.
The stage saw more recreational use, too. Harry insisted to Nasuada that fun was important, and she had to agree that tightly-knit bonds of friendship and camaraderie among the Varden were worth a couple days of training at arms. Harry hosted cookouts where the kitchens were able to take a break and the meal prep was on the camp for the evening. Wood, lighters, and metal cookware was distributed among the Varden along with tables laden with ingredients and turned over to the people to prepare whatever they wanted and knew how to cook.
Irritation from sentries on assignment during such festivals prompted Du Vrangr Gata to prepare more pavilions and tents with lounges in them specifically for men coming off sentry duty. They featured hot pools, music from strange 'vinyl records' that spun and reproduced music recorded from music nights, stuffed furniture and cots for napping, food and alcohol, and board games redesigned to be friendly to the illiterate and mathematically challenged. Sentry duty quickly changed from a chore to a job people jockeyed to get assigned to so they could use the lounges.
Harry was seen much more often during the day than he had been on the march. Nasuada didn't know all the details of what he was doing with his time, but she and Orrin had both noticed how haggard he'd grown during the march. Just a couple days after arrival, he looked happy and rested again, and spent a lot of his time lending his magic to tasks around camp. He'd solicited a carpenter from her without giving her a reason, but Nasuada had learned damn well that enabling his odd requests usually ended up with ludicrous returns on her investment. She sent three to him.
The optimism in the Varden's camp was almost a palpable thing. Anticipation still hung over them, but it was colored with real belief that they could win, and their powerful sponsors cared about them individually. Nasuada would never have signed off on a cookout. The principle of rationing and the absurd wastefulness of turning over that much food without Harry's assurance he'd topped off their supplies and had plenty more personally stockpiled even in the case of successful sabotage, but it was such an amazing bonding experience, she was thrilled that the Varden could afford to do it and the Empire couldn't.
The Varden's war chests were all full to the brim with gold and jewels she had nothing to spend them on but wages for the men. She didn't really need to buy food, livestock, or medicine, everyone was armed with enchanted weapons, the carpenters, masons, blacksmiths, and craftsmen were all generally supplied, and the income she'd managed to wrangle out of magical lace and Orrin and Hrothgar's generosity far, far outstripped what meager expenses remained. It was odd to go into a meeting with the Council of Elders and King Orrin and his advisors and realize: they didn't need to do anything.
King Orrin spent his time on mad experiments with Harry in his ridiculous tent full of glassware or training at arms because there were no fires to put out. Nasuada compared the state of affairs to last year after her father's death, reading through expense reports and struggling to get the Varden out from Farthen Dur. The numbers were abysmal and the task ahead of her demanded all of her attention. Men in the camp fought and had disputes that had to be resolved, she had to figure out rationing and distribution of food she didn't quite trust to be unlimited yet, and the terrain of the Beors required circuitous and difficult routing.
Now, the men had little to fight over. Some disputes arose over women, sentry duty, accusations that this man or that hadn't taken their required shower or bath for the day, but they were petty and easily resolved. Everyone got the food they wanted, the weapons they needed, the training they ought to, and the entertainment to keep them complacent. She saw few petitioners when she publicly made herself available, and her underlings assured her they were not so overworked the rest of the time, either.
The novelty of having time to herself left Nasuada floundering for things to fill her time.
"Have you given thought to finding a hobby?" King Orrin pulled up a chair opposite her desk. Harry's relentless informality had leaked into both of their behaviors. Nasuada wasn't sure if it was a good thing or not yet. She spared a fleeting thought to wishing she wasn't forced to use an opaque command tent. Harry had made and enchanted dozens of big ones that were just roofs for pavilions. Beneath the edges of the pavilion, the air was cool and fresh, and mosquitoes could not get through. The Burning Plains weren't much to look at, but they were better than the inside of a canvas wall.
"Hobby? I am unfamiliar with the term."
Orrin nodded cheerily. "So was I. It's a term in the Ancient Language for anything you do for fun outside of your job. My own interest in the sciences counts, Angela the herbalist knits, Harry says his is messing with magic he really shouldn't be."
Nasuada instinctively rebelled against the thought of deliberately wasting her time. "You find you cannot fill your time with more duties?"
He shook his head. "Nay. I voiced this idea to you back in Aberon, albeit rather rudely. A person with authority may find any number of ways to spend their time micromanaging."
She raised a brow at the term. "Another word from Harry?"
"Just so. Trust in your subordinates tends to see them rise to the challenge. Micromanaging usually sees them fall to your expectations. If your conscience will not allow you to 'waste' time on activities not productive to overthrowing Galbatorix, practice archery," he suggested. "I think you will find that variety, physical exercise, and enjoying free time will see your productivity increased during those periods where you do work by enough to cover the deficit, and you shall be happier overall for it." Orrin glanced around in a manner Nasuada had come to realize was in search of liquor, and seemed to be disappointed he couldn't find it. "For the best," he murmured to himself.
"Drinking less?" Nasuada inquired.
Orrin sighed. "Aye, and you'd not drink, too, if you saw what I did. I can't prove Harry put her up to it, but it's exactly the sort of thing he'd do and find funny; Angela cornered me and showed me what the liver of an alcoholic looked like next to a healthy one." he shivered. "I do not think myself an alcoholic, but I drink perhaps more than I ought to. I also worry as to where she got two livers."
Nasuada privately thought Harry had done not just Orrin but everyone who had to deal with him a favor. "I'll consider it," she promised. "Archery sounds useful enough, and I have fewer obligations now than I'm used to; Harry and Du Vrangr Gata keep solving all the Varden's issues out from under me."
King Orrin laughed. "I'll not complain. If I know him, these roads will last forever, and I didn't have to pay a copper piece for the whole of it. I have a feeling soliciting something like this would be met with scorn, but we can hope spontaneity spurs him to do more ridiculously helpful things in the future."
She watched him leave happy and in good spirits and decided that she would try out his advice.
How, Nasuada had no idea, but the very next day Harry flagged her down with a pair of bows strung and slung over his arm. "I heard you're looking for a hobby!" he grinned. "We can learn archery together."
Nasuada, who had been present to see him land shot after shot from his bow during the Battle of Farthen Dur, objected. "You're already a master archer, Harry."
Arya appeared behind him. "No he's not," she told her.
Harry affected a wounded expression. "Betrayal!" he announced. "But she's right. I cheated outrageously with magic. There wasn't–and isn't–a point in me learning proper archery, and that's what makes it a good hobby. Figures you wouldn't go for something like painting. I'm pants at art without magic, but I really like creating things as a hobby because the result is cool stuff you get to keep."
"Not all of us have wizardry to carry entire cities in our tents," Nasuada said dryly.
"That's a good point," he agreed. "Tonight, I'm teaching Du Vrangr Gata how to make expanded, weightless bags. Can't believe it didn't come up after a bunch of horses got killed and everyone had to carry everything."
"I look forward to it."
The Nighthawks were cumbersome to bring with her everywhere she went, but Nasuada was smart enough to realize especially after Imladris's death that those guards were damn well necessary to keep her alive, and the Black Hand had not been weeded out yet. They cleared a lane at the archery range and set up. She tried not to feel too self conscious at the way everyone stopped shooting the bales to look at her, but apparently she didn't hide it well enough.
"This is good," Harry told her, low enough to be lost in the chatter of camp. "They'll like that you're 'one of them,' and everyone remembers making the mistakes you will. You're not leader of the Varden for your archery skills, you're in charge because you're a great politician and strategist, and they won't hold anything against you."
Reassured, Nasuada took one of the bows from Harry. The first time she attempted to draw it, she could barely get the string more than a few inches back. Harry caught on and tapped it with his wand, murmuring something under his breath. From then on, it was much easier to draw.
The first arrow went wide and missed the bale entirely. The quiver Harry had provided had beautiful, chicken-feathered arrows on perfectly straight oak shafts tipped with gleaming, blunted practice tips.
"I tried using phoenix feather fletching," Harry admitted, wincing. "Terrible idea. It tears right through magical protections and sets shit on fire. I almost burned down my practice range. And the damage resisted repair like a curse wound."
"That's what happened?" Arya wondered. "I thought the incendiary rounds were responsible for slagging all that concrete." She had her own bow out, a slim recurved piece of light yew chased in silver with a bowstring that looked like liquid glass.
Nasuada loosed her next arrow and watched it strike the outer edge. It would have missed a person, but it was serviceable for mass volleys. To her consolation, Harry was worse than her. It took conscious effort not to clutch onto the idea of assassinating Galbatorix with a phoenix feather arrow and focus on the bowstring beneath her fingers.
"Magic made this so easy," he lamented. "This whole 'effort' thing is a load of shite."
Arya sank her first arrow dead center, then split the previous arrow with her next shot, smirking at Harry.
Nasuada had not practiced in a year, and the calluses on her fingers had faded. Nevertheless, she took comfort in routinely scoring better than Harry. The arrows she shot vanished so there were never more than ten sticking out of the bale, and all three of them had different colored feathers. Hers were purple, Arya's green, and Harry's red. What she did not know was that Harry was quietly happy to be able to use Gryffindor colors again without being reminded of Durza. The quivers before them never exhausted of arrows, so they were never required to collectively stop shooting and go retrieve their shots.
Once they got into the flow of archery, Nasuada found that she was enjoying herself. Harry and Arya started chatting about nothing of consequence and made efforts to draw her into conversation. They were informal, but did not joke at her expense in front of her men.
"What do you think about a name change?" Harry proposed.
"I would be agreeable," Arya said. "It may have to go before Drottningu at present, but I am not opposed to it."
"Arya doesn't support the human institution of marriage," Harry confided. "Back home, people made a lot less of a deal of it than you guys do. Mostly, it was for merging assets between spouses. If a girl got pregnant and the father didn't marry her, he'd be liable for child support and ordered by law to pay a monthly amount to the woman, a sort of responsibility law. I don't know how all of it works if the mother doesn't go to a judge and apply for it, but it's usually easier for cohabitating parents to just sign the forms. It's been secularized so both spouses just have to fill out a form, get a couple of witnesses to sign off, and get it approved by a judge."
"That is much more reasonable than the current traditions," Arya said. "We elves can live for thousands of years, and relationships do not often last that long in the same way. The most binding agreement of a similar nature is to have a child, and there is no name or ceremony attached, simply expectation that both parents will uphold their duty to their children."
"No religion?" Nasuada asked. 'Secularized' was not a word in the common tongue, but it gave her the impression of having nothing to do with religion. Odd that one of the universal, sacred rites of matrimony had no religious significance to either of them. "When do you venerate your gods, if not in matrimony?"
They shared a glance. "Neither of us worship any gods," Harry said quietly. "Magic affords me the knowledge that they do exist in one form or another, but venerating them is entirely up to the individual, and no god can punish someone for not worshiping them. I've read enough 'stories' to believe they can support their followers in some minor ways and damage aggressors against their followers, but their influence over you requires channeling by another or invitation by yourself to affect you."
"You believe – nay, know they exist and yet you do not worship them?" The idea seemed alien to Nasuada. Most men assumed only their religion was correct and the evangelical among them tried to convince everyone that it was almost like gambling; believe in the wrong god and you'd go to the other's hell for choosing wrongly. To know they existed and be indifferent…Nasuada could not understand it. She was not particularly devout, but she believed in the gods of her people and the gods of humans, and believed that Angvard's hall awaited her at the end of her life, and venerated them in some private moments.
Harry loosed four arrows before answering, his expression contemplative. "All but the worst countries on Earth had it written into the foundational law of their government that all people were free to worship who and how they liked. Religious freedom is a foundational idea to the vast majority of people where I'm from. Magical communities were widely secular in part, I think, because we knew gods existed, how they were born, and how they faded away. Much more contended was if the afterlife existed and what form it took. Death has been the one thing magic could not conquer, the one mystery not laid bare. The general thought among muggles seemed to be that worship was unnecessary to salvation, but good for peace of mind. To speak to someone in the privacy of your own mind and believe that they are attentive and benevolent, well, that's something profound to many lonely people. For myself, learning exactly what waits for us after death took some of the mystery from life."
"You claim to know?" Nasuada asked, surprised. She filed away Harry's words for reflection later.
He smiled wanly. "I can tell you, if you'd like. I think it will not be the same for you; you have the choice of believing me. It's paradise in a way that defies words. You are never hungry, but you can eat the most delicious food imaginable whenever you like. You can look down on Earth and watch your descendants toil until their time comes, too, or look back on your ancestors. You can see your loved ones again, talk with them and know that they have seen what you've been through and offer advice. It's perfect. If you grow bored, you can choose to go on once again and live another life. That's what I did, and-" he spread his arms. "Look where I am now."
Nasuada allowed herself to dream for a moment. Ajihad waited for her, watching her struggles, thinking of advice he could not yet give her, but which he would tell her when she arrived and flung her arms around him and extracted a promise that he would never leave her again.
"What of the wicked?"
"They go to heaven, too," Harry said. "There are things magic can do to cause one's annihilation upon bodily death, but they are all self-inflicted, for the soul is inviolable. I struggle with the idea that Bellatrix Lestrange made it to heaven, but in the end all are made equal by salvation. It's not a place for punitive justice and petty vengeance, it's the restful place at the end of the long, tough road of life. I'm glad; vengeance for slights committed in life is not worth tarnishing the purity of eternal rest.
Nasuada found it odd that Arya did not seem entirely sold. She did not necessarily believe otherwise, but the subtle lines of doubt in her forehead told Nasuada she did not wholeheartedly believe it, either.
"If you died and came here, have others before? Will others come after you?"
Harry frowned. "I'd think it infinitely unlikely. My death had…special circumstances, and while dimensional travel is definitely possible, I assume the scope of creation is infinite. The likelihood of another traveler choosing this dimension is correspondingly infinitely unlikely over any other, without even factoring in what time they arrive at. If someone from my home chose to follow me specifically, maybe. But as far as I know, time stopped when I died," he mused. "I'm going to say no. It'd be a trillion times more likely for an asteroid to strike Galbatorix on the head and rid us all of a problem."
Nasuada laughed. The shift in tone was so abrupt, it set her mind at ease. Her guards usually did not listen to what she was saying in favor of vigilance, but the way all of them stood like their roles in the world had just been upturned, she knew they had been listening silently.
Her fingers burned in protest and while Nasuada had not improved over the time they'd been at the range, she had managed an appreciable grouping of ten at the end.
"I enjoyed this very much," she told Harry and Arya, surprised to hear the words come out of her mouth and ring true. "If my schedule and safety allows, I would like to do this again. Good fortune on your name changes."
Harry was poleaxed by the reminder of how their conversation started. "Thanks. It was fun to hang out, Lady Nasuada."
Harry used his newly free time to get back on top of projects he'd almost finished. It was odd how quickly he had most of the day free to himself. He'd built up a modest (read: extreme) stockpile of materials for future roads and the Sniper Corps had integrated into their roles enough that Harry didn't really need to be present during their training.
He finished scaling up artificial meat production in beef, chicken, and ham. It was an interesting challenge to balance striations of fat and muscle tissue for optimal taste and allow magic to accelerate the process. The Herbivicus charm was what he used for accelerating crop growth, but it only worked on plants. There were measurable differences between plant and animal cells, and the charm just wouldn't take to cells without cell walls. The spell he developed would almost certainly induce cancer in anyone it hit, but it worked perfectly fine for homogenous fat/muscle tissue samples. Arya found it acceptable to eat and Harry thought it was pretty convincing, himself.
Harry finally got around to making a concept sword he'd had rolling around in his head for almost a year, a longsword hidden by the fidelius charm. He made the blade purple since it seemed fitting. Arya, after sparring with him, assured him it was nearly impossible to fend him off even knowing what he was doing. She couldn't perceive the blade and the magic of the fidelius stopped her from deducing where it was, so she had to guess intentionally wrongly, but by a small margin. It forced her to combine expert swordwork with guesses that had to be close without being correct. Harry was without doubt the inferior swordsman between the two of them, and he found it easy to disarm her even after she'd gotten accustomed to the adjustment in fighting style.
The problem with both his rapier Zippy and the hidden sword was that sword fighting was not like knife fighting, archery, or marksmanship. Both parties knowing where the other's blades were was a core part of the exchange, and what Harry gained by being able to slice right through an opponent's sword, he lost by being nearly unable to block.
"This would be even more effective on a spear," Arya panted, picking up her blade again. "Enemies would just walk into it."
Harry shuddered. The idea of being impaled by something you still couldn't perceive…terrifying. "That sounds like it should be a war crime."
"Elves would not be happy to wield evil spears again," Arya agreed. "I am reminded of the Dauthdaertya."
"The dragon-killing lances?"
She nodded. "We might find them useful in killing Galbatorix, but I am glad they are likely lost to the world. Theirs was a bloody history. They were effective."
The wards on the tent pinged Harry. He extended his mind through the hodge-podge of non-euclidean space to reach out and see who it was. "Oh! Nasuada sent me carpenters. Have you got time to work on wandmaking with us?"
She wiped sweat off her brow and shook her black hair back. "No, Elva has been asking if she can use her foresight to guard Nasuada, and I've been fending her off by promising to do it myself. I can pretend to be there merely in my capacity as ambassador."
Harry nodded. "I'm going to take a shower really quick," he shot off a draconic patronus bearing a message to the carpenters to wait a few minutes. He wondered how the message would be received. A moment later, he felt surprised awe come from the three men outside.
Arya ended the guard on her sword and pried off her carbon fiber and kevlar armor. "I've got time to join you," she grinned.
"We're going to be making dowels with tiny little holes mostly down the middle," Harry started. Elva and Eppie had elected to join the three carpenters, all of whom had a hard time focusing on Harry. Their eyes kept sliding off his face and on to the huge workshop, fluorescent lights, and woodworking machines deep inside the tent they'd just entered.
Harry had tabletop lathes that ran off a rotation charm, a pile of chicken feathers and a bin full of oak branches. Once they all had some practice making crude sorts of wands with non-magical material, Harry had collections of interesting woods and reagents to try. He had branches from his own grove, but also loads of fallen branches from Du Weldenvarden, arguably the best forest in the world for a given definition of best. He had samples from the Menoa tree, samples from Eragon's and once Vrael's treehouse, samples from Tialdari Hall, and branches from a whole bunch of random ones he encountered.
Eppie, Hedwig, and the other unnamed phoenixes had left feathers he'd collected, enough that he didn't need to bother with cloning. Saliva samples from Firnen, Saphira, and Aupho all contributed to a grisly vat of heartstrings in nutrient slime. Harry hadn't the heart to break down Draco's hawthorne wand for a unicorn tail hair, and all those samples were probably too small and too old to extract a full genome.
The concept of safety glasses was a foreign one to the carpenters, but they appreciated the idea behind them. Only Elva had hair long enough to potentially get caught in her lathe, but she often wore a ponytail anyways.
Producing a straight stick out of a bit of wood was dead easy. Harry already had some practice turning steel for rifle barrels, and wood was much less effort for much the same results. He gave the carpenters some guidelines: try to keep the length between five and fifteen inches, give the piece a modest taper but never to a point and always with reasonable sturdiness in mind, and ensure the handle was somewhat comfortable to grip. Aesthetic touches were encouraged, but they shouldn't go over the top. Mostly, the appearance of the wand served to make it distinct among others and to its owner, and it wasn't worth compromising the strength of the wood to make some piece of art that might get broken.
The cores were the real challenge. Harry had turned it over to them to experiment. Some drilled holes and tried to feed the feathers in, others cut the whole thing in half and glued it back together around the chicken feather.
Harry picked up the first wand, a stick of oak whose handle was carved over a knot. Wood glue stained the seams on either side, and the chicken feather's magical presence was an errant whisper on a windy day. Elva stopped her lathe and looked up to watch him.
"Lumos," Harry murmured. The tip of the wand lit up.
It was a dim, flickering, and off-white light, but Harry could feel the wand draw on his magic as it ought to. He fed it a bit more power, commanded a bit more brightness out of it.
The wand popped, sending splinters and burnt fluff up in his face.
The carpenters watched him like they were waiting for condemnation. Tense silence hung in the air for several seconds.
Then, he started laughing. "It worked!" Harry exclaimed. "You're all wandmakers! This is huge. Come on, let's try some other woods, and real phoenix feathers."
Oddly enough, nearly every wand that even remotely resembled what Harry was used to worked in some capacity. They all responded, despite being entirely non-magical in their composition. It was faint, and Harry had to force the wand's compliance, but he could always get at least one tiny spell through them before they broke down or burnt out.
Drilled cores worked best, but only if they were drilled down from the tip and the feather, fed through from the top. If he tried to force the feather in the other way, it mashed all the hairs backwards and caused the wand to backfire. Cut and glued wands worked fine for a while, but even moderately powerful spells split it down the glued surface.
Phoenix feather wands worked like normal wands. They took all the power Harry fed them and performed exactly as he instructed them to. They were structurally weak, and pushing them hard made them split along glue seams and shoot out of glue/sawdust plugs, but they were, for all intents and purposes, real, working wands.
"Target designated. Incendiary only. No direct hits." His voice was muffled, echoing against plastic.
Niduen aimed for the designation. It was a covered wagon, supposedly hauling arrows. Virien had found the information in a footsoldier's mind. That a magician stood nearby guarding it was a good sign; it was valuable enough to guard.
"Focus fire," Virien murmured. "Three, two, one."
The wagon exploded into flames, splintering and sending gobs of sticky fire all around it. The magician snapped to attention. "Extinguish!" he cried. He sagged, the fire stopped for a mere moment before the pyrophoric mixture lit itself back on fire. Empire men ran for water, but it was already too late. The fire burned too hot to even approach the wagon and in under a minute, the wagon had been reduced to a puddle of fire on the road.
There was silence again for several minutes. Each team sifted through the wagons and the minds of the men for valuable targets. All throughout the forest below, the Empire's scouts searched the underbrush for enemy magicians. Niduen and her fellows were all out of reach, high above their heads. The rhythmic hissing of her oxygen gear on each exhale was a constant backdrop on the stiff breeze that blew high in the sky.
In the mind of a man who had no mental defenses, Niduen found a wagon with medicinal herbs, bandages, bonesaws, and so on. Wartime strategic wisdom suggested she destroy it, but Harry had said they were better than that.
"I found horse feed here," Illo reported. "Next to some salted meats. Designated." He gave them fifteen seconds to get their scopes on the cart in question. "Focus fire. Three, two, one."
The cart driver had been too close, and went down screaming. All twelve of them ignored him in stoic silence. Too far to hear him, they merely watched him writhe in helpless agony until he expired. The cart and its war materials were beyond salvage, too.
They had been at it for two hours now, locating and destroying wagons with incendiary ammo. Since mere minutes after the first attack, the Empire spread out like an anthill that had been stepped on. The convoy seemed to go on forever, stretching miles in both directions. Wards did not stop them, either. A few shots might ricochet and splash into the rest of the column, but under the focus of twelve high caliber rifles, nothing stood against their fire.
At first, it had been retaliation. The attack on the Varden left Nasuada grasping for a way to strike back. The Empire was too far away for her to send raiders and skirmishers, so Harry had asked the Sniper Corps to head out.
Now, as Niduen drew a bead on the next target, a wagon of barrels its driver believed to be beer, she recognized that it was more than that. They were not quite halting the Empire's advance, but they couldn't keep moving, even if they wanted to. The convoy had ground to a near standstill as its scouts rushed through the surrounding terrain, sending patrols ranging further and further in a futile effort to reach the snipers who coasted a mile overhead, wearing oxygen masks.
She was too high to search broadly with her mind, but with directed focus and given the complete absence of mental noise in the air, it was well within her relatively amateur skills to reach all the way down and skim the minds of the Empire's men.
It must feel to them as if they have been struck down by their gods, Niduen mused. Fire did rain from the sky, and not even their magicians could stop a dozen elves from holding the Empire in place.
The roads were impassible for ten or so minutes after a volley, a travel artery clogged by fire immune to the efforts of their magic. Each scrapped and flaming wagon wreck stopped every cart behind it until it could be cleared away. A round burned for ten minutes, Niduen could fire one every other second, and there were twelve of them at work. If they were so determined, they could hold the Empire's supplies long enough to force them to clear a wider area around the road to travel.
The Empire's convoy was too far for them to fly back and forth so easily, so they camped out several miles away in the enchanted tents. Doubled up in teams of two as they were, Illentha and Niduen both used Illentha's tent for the five hours they spent away from duty each day. Over the past week, the Empire had all but ground to a halt. Men bearing axes worked to clear thickets on the sides of the road and broaden their passage, but it was little more work to render the newly cleared space impassible with more incendiary ammo.
Illentha pulled on her bodysuit, peering out the enchanted window in the entry at the steel grey sky. "Do you think it will be any harder during rain?"
Niduen shrugged, arranging the tubing on her gas mask and wearing the mask around her neck. "We will be unable to use thermals, I imagine. Or optics. It shall be vitality only." She donned her headset, laying belly down on her carpet. Illentha laid hers out next to her. They both tugged up on the hems of their carpets and soared up into the sky.
None of them knew it, but all twelve elves were regularly smashing Earth's record for longest sniper kill. Using the homing bullets had become second nature to them, and the height from which they fired approached the definition of artillery.
Niduen set up deep in the grey clouds. They had all heard Harry's cautionary tale of hypoxia on the way to Vroengard. Flying over clouds was something they were to do only in an emergency. The low pressure was bad for them, and even breathing pure oxygen couldn't sustain them forever thirty, forty, fifty kilometers up in the sky. Clouds reached higher than they appeared.
"Niduen and Illentha reporting for duty," Illentha's voice crackled over the headsets.
"Acknowledged," Ealyi's voice replied. "Ealyi and Illo off duty."
"Acknowledged."
The uniform grey clouds were a comforting presence to Niduen. They could not be seen from below by humans on even partly cloudy days, but total obscurity still appealed to her. In the clouds, she was untouchable.
The convoy was a band of bright red ants in a winding path between dim maroon fog. While vitality filter was the easiest scope to spot with, it was Niduen's least favorite. Unless she pointed it straight up, the scope always looked cluttered with minute life. She preferred the simplicity of vision.
The clouds muffled everything. The wind was gone in the midst of the grey fog and despite Illentha drifting a few hundred meters west of her, Niduen felt alone.
"Designated weapon maintenance supplies," Virien's voice murmured tiredly. They didn't bother to count down anymore. What would be the point? The designated target was doomed, anyways. He just waited a few seconds and then fired with the rest of them.
It must have been raining down there, because the red, humanoid figures were stalled for only a few minutes by the fires before they moved over an area that should have been impassable.
The hairs on the back of Niduen's neck prickled. She scratched her neck and went back to searching. Not a single magician on the ground had sent so much as a guided arrow into the sky. They were safe, weren't they?
Illentha's scream was as unexpected as it was terrifying.
"Illentha!" Niduen shouted. Comms etiquette fled her mind. She groped for her with her mind.
"Something big and flying!" Illentha sent to Niduen. Agony leaked through the link, a horribly mangled kneecap and the cold absence of her left foot. Illentha soared in a wide circle, climbing hundreds of meters over Niduen's head. "It's off me."
"Watch mine and Illentha's positions," Niduen called out. "Flying attacker."
The grey fog pressed closer. Too close. "Copy. I see nothing through redscope."
Flapping like that of a flag reached Niduen's ears. "I can hear it. It's flapping," she insisted.
"I'm looking right at your prone, red figure through my scope," Virien said. "I'm telling you, I see nothing but you."
The flapping stopped. Niduen allowed her racing heart to slow.
A horrific maw leered from the fog, hurtling right at her. Niduen abandoned her scope, eyeballing where her muzzle was pointed. The rifle kicked her shoulder hard, firing off to the right of the monster. Claws raked her back, leaving lines of fire on her skin. Niduen shrieked in agony.
"It's a lethrblaka," she gasped.
The flapping receded for a few seconds before it began to grow louder. She could barely make out the shape of it. Abandoning hip firing, Niduen tugged her carpet around, veering under the insect/bat/dragon fiend.
"I have no sight," Virien reported.
"Just shoot near me," Niduen said. She hoped desperately that they would get lucky. It would only take one hit. Just one perfect shot.
"I hear flapping." Illentha's heavy breathing crackled across her headset.
"Don't try to shoot it, outfly it," Niduen commanded, rolling onto her back. She braced her elbows against the carpet and sighted Illentha's red form above. It was missing half a leg.
"Now!" Illentha cried. Niduen loosed a round a meter to the right of her red silhouette. It veered away, curving gracefully in the air.
"Is it hit?"
"No-" Illentha gritted out. "Shit."
"What?"
"I dropped my-"
Stars erupted in Niduen's vision. Something heavy had struck her skull. Niduen's grip slackened on her rifle for only a moment. She rolled on her side and suddenly, she was tumbling through space.
"NO!" someone screamed over the headset.
Niduen tumbled, wind and rain lashing at her clothing. Her skull throbbed and clutched to her chest, three indistinct shapes of the muzzle of her rifle bobbed in her vision. The flapping was back.
She saw the lethrblaka heading towards her far too late to do anything but try and point her rifle. Moments before its gaping jaw made contact, it flinched away, screeching.
"Hit it!" Filvendor announced. Hot liquid spattered her eyes and oxygen mask, mingling with the freezing rain. For a terror-stricken eternity, tumbling through the sky in freefall, Niduen waited for her end..
A blunt, heavy object struck her. Niduen closed her eyes in resignation.
"I've got you," Illentha gasped. She'd tackled Niduen into her carpet. By some miracle Niduen had managed to cling to her rifle. "We're headed to the tent."
"Everyone needs to land," Filvendor commanded. "Someone else needs to grab the carpet. It's still hanging in the air. We spot them until it's recovered, then touch down and pack up tents."
An hour later, it sank in that Illentha had never recovered her rifle.
"Sit up." A tube popped open. Illentha squirmed back in the reclining bed. Harry exposed the torn, mangled kneecap.
"Drink." She accepted the vial and drank it.
Harry said nothing for long seconds. He tapped her knee. "Can you feel this?" Illentha shook her head. "Here? Here?" he prodded higher up her thigh.
"No."
Wordlessly, Harry sliced clean through her leg just above the knee. Illentha watched it fall away with an odd sense of detachment. Already, he was dragging the slime-covered clone leg up across the bed, tracing his wand across the seam and allowing it to reintegrate. Ten minutes later, she was standing.
"It's uneven," she observed. Her gait was thrown off. Her left hip was just a little bit higher than her right when she stood flat-footed.
"Do you know how to sing flesh and bone?"
"Aye."
"Are you furious?"
Harry let out a long sigh. His eyes were flat. "I don't know. I'm disappointed. It wasn't really your fault. Nobody knew the lethrblaka wouldn't show up on your scopes, and I didn't think to give your weapons auto retrieval or something." Guilt gnawed at Illentha.
"Your life has value that cannot compare to a gun, but losing it is going to make all your jobs very dangerous from now on. Before, you were unopposed. Now, I suppose Galbatorix will see the weapon in the Ra'zac's hands before long. You cannot just float in the sky with impunity anymore."
"What should we do?"
He shrugged. "Go speak with Niduen and the rest of the squad. Don't fly during night or cloudy days. I'll set up some warding on the carpets and especially your armor. Oh, what was loaded in your rifle when you dropped it?"
"Purple tips," she whispered.
Harry said nothing. He pursed his lips and handed over his own rifle. Illentha left with it, feeling utterly unworthy.
Outside, Niduen was already healed. It was very rare for an elf to be visibly injured. They tended to be dead or healthy. Oromis had been a rare exception. Not anymore.
"You're healed," she breathed, smiling. "How was it?"
"Terrible," Illentha admitted. She might have preferred if Harry raged at her. Then at least she could tune him out. Apathetic disappointment hearkened back to her childhood and how her parents used to put her in line. "My gun had purple tips chambered. We're going to have to change how we fight, and we'll always be in danger of return fire."
Niduen's eyes widened. "You think they'll recover the rifle?"
She laughed bitterly. "After what we did to them this week? It'll be in the invisible hands of the Ra'zac already."
Her friend tried to come up with something optimistic. Her mouth opened, then shut. "We'll figure it out, Illentha. I promise."
"So that's where we're at," Harry finished. "Now, you really do need to be seriously fucking careful because you can be killed from miles away by a weapon you will never survive being shot by. The Sniper Corps and I are going to develop some countermeasures and try to hunt the rifle down, but I'm not optimistic."
Nasuada, Orrin, and Angela all took it in with stoic silence.
"This is what you were working on during training," Angela said.
No, that nasty surprise was still coming for Galbatorix. But letting that slip would be another grade-a disaster. "Mostly," he admitted in the common tongue, pinning Angela with a 'shut up and don't challenge me' look.
"What was it for-" Orrin started.
"The Empire's magicians," Nasuada realized. "You didn't want to risk Du Vrangr Gata fighting them."
"We still have eleven – thirteen if you count Arya and I," Harry said. "We can adapt. I don't think the Empire magicians will be a problem. I'm advising you to keep your routines extremely random, never go up to an exposed position, and stay out of sight when possible. Just until I figure out how to ward against the spatial collapse rounds."
Galbatorix had already taken a shot at Nasuada. Twice. That he would try again with his new toy was a foregone conclusion. The cloud cover showed no signs of abating, meaning the Ra'zac could already be watching over the Varden's encampment.
"Will this be a threat to the army itself?" King Orrin asked.
Harry shook his head. "They can pick and choose individuals or very tight groupings to kill with impunity, but it takes a couple seconds to shoot each round, and longer still to acquire targets and keep repositioning. If the Ra'zac choose to fire blindly as fast as they can, we will find them very quickly." He stretched in his seat in the command tent.
"There are a lot of advantages we have over Galbatorix that I wish I could tell you. I can say that the Sniper Corps is not the only advantage of its size we have. I hope you can understand now that one has been revealed, how terrible it would be to let these things be known."
Nasuada and Orrin both nodded. Orrin noticed that Angela had not. "She knows them?"
"Some," Harry admitted. "But she's a crazy magic user who would never let herself be caught by Galbatorix."
"Thanks," Angela chirped.
It was easier than Harry expected to stop the spatial collapse rounds, and the discovery made him glad Galbatorix didn't have access to his brand of magic. The generation of the black hole where the round struck was what caused the sucking force. The bullet created a region of expanding space that eventually encompassed a five meter radius, all of which was instantly collapsed into a point the round immediately vanished. In order to stop it, Harry vanished the black hole the instant it appeared and ended the expansion before it could grow much larger than an inch or two.
The string of spells needed extremely precise timing to work, which meant they had to go on an artifact that would sequence them without the possibility of human error. The alternative was to stop the projectile far enough from the body that the suck-expand-collapse sequence happened without touching whatever he was protecting, but that came with its own problems. Protecting against everything with Alagaesia's warding system had a high energy cost, and such a large area meant Harry would be stopping every projectile to stray remotely near a protected target.
Nasuada, King Orrin, Jormundur, the Council of Elders, all of Du Vrangr Gata, the Sniper Corps, Harry, Arya, Elva, and Firnen were all given trinkets that protected them with both layers of warding. Nar Garzvog was given fifteen to distribute among chieftains. They represented a massive hit to Harry's stockpiled energy, so they were still advised to try not to be hit. The Sniper Corps still flew sorties, but they were very careful to do so only in broad daylight, and they brought with them flocks of countermeasures. Literally. Twice, someone was hit and survived due to the wards. Though they never tracked the lost rifle down, the attempts stopped after that.
They released hundreds of conjured birds to clutter the vitality scope. They made dummies out of bales of grass crammed into the silhouette of an elf. They wore new pressure suits that let them hover at a ceiling of fifty thousand feet and fire straight down on the Empire. Each of them had their guns tethered to their bodies on straps and further enchanted to be recalled by summoning charm if they managed to lose them. They bore tracking charms both on their weapons, their carpets, and their persons.
During the day, they were perfectly able to stall the Empire and rain hellfire from the sky. During the night, they were forced to allow the army to advance unhindered. Enemy magicians devised better wards for protecting carts, but nothing could stand up to the relentless bombardment the Sniper Corps could dish out. And when the Empire's magicians were foolish enough to cast spells and reveal themselves on the vitality filter, the Sniper Corps no longer held any pretenses of hiding their weapons. They annihilated them.
Three weeks later, the Empire filtered out onto the Burning Plains. They were not the proud, perfectly ordered army anyone had expected. They were a tide of disorganized, harried, and terrified men flooding out onto the field.
The dwarves filtered in next.
Two days after that, Eragon and Saphira returned from Ellesmera.
Eragon was different. They all noticed it, and no one said anything. Saphira was the same as she ever was. Big, blue, badass, and she knew it. Eragon…wasn't a kid anymore.
He hadn't been for a while, but even a few weeks ago he'd been a young man. To Harry's eyes, Eragon was closer to Dumbledore than himself. He moved with understated certainty. Eragon did not rush or linger, he existed perfectly in the moment. His blue eyes examined the world much the same way Dumbledore's had. With wisdom won through centuries of experience. Except, Eragon wasn't yet twenty.
"I've been listening to them since you left," Eragon told Harry, leaning on a new sword he'd acquired since Harry had departed, a blue hand-and-a-half sword that fit him better than the glossy, black and white weapon he'd used in the interim. Brisingr, the sword was marked. "Those not fully with us are with me. The rest, our mentor is leading with the elfin army."
Harry nodded. He felt the Eldunari's presences blazing from a point behind Eragon's neck. Inside his tent, a further dozen minds observed, guarded, but elfin in nature. Orik had begged off to see and deliver his report to King Hrothgar immediately. He nodded towards Saphira's saddlebags. "Are they-?"
"Aye," Eragon agreed. "Islanzadi felt I needed spellcasters with me, both to aid me in my fights and watch my back when Saphira cannot. They are twelve of the best, she assures me."
Eragon gazed across no man's land at the Empire. They had marshaled themselves into some semblance of order, but even the inexperienced could tell at a glance that there were roles unfulfilled, equipment needed, and a general sense of fear among them. "The Empire are poorer organized than I expected," he remarked.
Harry raked his fingers through his hair. "We've been harassing them from two or three weeks ago to their arrival just a few days back. Which reminds me, you, Saphira, and your guards all need these wards." He gave them a very quick overview of the nature of the weapon and how the wards he'd devised foiled it. Saphira got a ring which fit on a talon, Eragon and his guards their own for their fingers. They all bore diamond strips hidden by the metal surface, crammed absolutely to the limit with power.
"This is a lot of power," Eragon observed, turning the simple silver loop around his finger.
He shrugged. "It's necessary. The spatial collapse rounds are more dangerous the closer to your body they are when they go off, so your wards have to stop them as far out as possible, which unfortunately means they'll end up stopping everything in a wide area and draining quickly. The ring will tell you when it's out of power if you aren't keeping track. You'll be under no threat from projectiles until it's empty, but you must refill it when it does. No magician has survived a shot from it."
By contrast, the Varden was in tip-top shape. Music nights and Fireside Chats had to stop, but the Varden knew they had the advantage. With the addition of the dwarves, their confidence grew. The Burning Plains were littered with spikes to stop cavalry charges, little islands of fortification for retreat, trenches and knee high mounds, and siege engines. Their backline was protected by a formidable stone keep and reinforced concrete walls. Archer's bulwarks and watchtowers protruded from the walls. Their soldiers were well fed, trained, armed and equipped, and devoted to their cause. The returned presence of Eragon and Saphira alongside Arya and Firnen further boosted their confidence. The Varden had the benefit of three powerful champions in their corner. The Empire had one monstrous one, a madman the Empire wasn't even sure would show up to defend them. When the Empire set out, they had the advantage of equipment, men, defending positions, and discipline. After weeks of bombardment, harassment, and assassination, they had naught but numbers to throw at the Varden, and the Varden was eager to chew through them for a better world.
The sky grew overcast again, something that had Harry and Nasuada worried. The Sniper Corps was forced to use the wall's battlements as vantage points for fear of being taken unawares, or else fly well over cloud cover. Harry spent much of his time training with Arya in the privacy of their tent, sparring with magic and blades both. Arya adjusted to the newest version of her sword Du Sundavar Freohr, fitting even after Durza for lifting the shadow Galbatorix cast over Alagaesia. Harry came to view his left-handed rapier as a last resort in favor of magic once more.
Eragon spent some time ingratiating himself with the Varden again, and Saphira vain thing that she was, displayed herself over the encampment often in some sort of pissing contest with Firnen. Firnen flirted like a horny teenager with her, but Harry felt nothing would come of it until the coming battle was resolved one way or another. It did not rain, but everyone felt the pressure.
It was only the calm before the storm.
Two days later, a single man bearing a white flag of truce crossed to the middle of the field, riding the recognizable form of the lethrblaka. Harry recognized his face.
"That's Galbatorix," Harry told Nasuada, an undercurrent of urgency. "If he is offering to negotiate in person, you, King Orrin, Hrothgar, Arya and Firnen, and Eragon and Saphira need to be there."
Nasuada paled. "Of course. Will we be safe?"
Harry considered. "If he chooses to blatantly attack you, I'll just kill him right there. I don't think I could stop it, but he'd not live."
"You can just kill him?" she breathed. The Name of the Ancient Language weighed on Harry's tongue.
"It would be underhanded and scummy," Harry admitted. "So I'll let him be the first to do so."
"What if he tries to kill you?"
"There's a window of time for retaliation," he assured her. "I just need the time to get one word out."
Nasuada gripped the knife hidden in her dress. Her ring of wards gleamed. "Let us hope it does not come to that."
The smells of sulfur and petrichor mingled together. The Varden camp didn't smell awful, but the fresh air was pleasant, nonetheless. When the wind changed and the Empire was upwind, everyone could tell. Sweat and desperation flowed over them for a fleeting moment, and then it was gone. Overhead, the sky remained a steely grey. The world was too quiet.
Galbatorix lounged upon a folding chair, looking to the world the impassive observer he often acted. Harry insisted Nasuada leave her Nighthawks back, something which she allowed. Having six non-magical guards wouldn't stop him. Having Eragon with her probably wouldn't stop him. It was a unique sort of thrilling, like riding Vol Turin all the way down from the dragonhold. There were no guardrails for talking face-to-face with Galbatorix. If she slipped into empty space, that was it.
"Lady Nasuada Ajihadsdottir, King Orrin of Langfeld, King Hrothgar," Galbatorix greeted. "Eragon, Saphira, Arya, Firnen, and Harry." He paused for a moment, gazing at a spot behind Eragon. "Umaroth, Valdr, and the rest of your number thought lost. Welcome, all of you. In the spirit of good negotiations, I hope you are all feeling well." Nar Garzhvog did not speak or demand retribution for the insult Galbatorix had given him with his oversight, but he was bothered, nonetheless.
The tendons of Eragon's neck tightened. Nasuada remembered that Galbatorix had taken his cousin recently. Saphira, Firnen, and Arya regarded the Black King with undisguised loathing. The rest of them viewed him as an enemy. Umaroth and Valdr were unfamiliar names to her, and she saw no others with her. Only Harry seemed at ease mere feet from the most dangerous man in Alagaesia.
"King Galbatorix," Harry acknowledged, drawing his wand. As non-threateningly as possible, he flicked it at the ground between them. Galbatorix's eyes tracked the wand, but he did not move to attack or defend. Just as well, as Harry did no more than conjure a table and several folding chairs. Nasuada selfishly wished for the proper furniture she knew he could produce to shift the power dynamic, but Harry seemed uninterested in mind games. He was approaching negotiations in good faith. Nasuada reminded herself that she was supposed to, too.
With the exception of Hrothgar's seat, they were equal in stature. Saphira and Firnen loomed over their side. Opposite them, Nasuada suppressed the discomfort of regarding Galbatorix's lethrblaka. Seeing it evoked a primal fear in her, a reaction born wholly from her physical body, for Nasuada knew the man was the true threat, and no beast would fool her otherwise.
"I am surprised by your presence, King Galbatorix," Nasuada started. The tiniest waver snuck into her voice. She banished it immediately. "We had expected you to wait for us to come to you."
Galbatorix inclined his head. "I hope I am not thought to be a wasteful man, Lady Nasuada. Mayhaps my interests closer to home have kept me engaged for long, but I am not so busy now, and it strikes me as a waste to let the Varden siege my cities and fortify against me, or cut through the army I raised, merely to delay an unavoidable confrontation. Nor, I must admit, does time favor me in this conflict. In the spirit of prudence, I thought to speak face to face with my opposition ere we bloody this field once more." His voice was smooth and assured, and Nasuada was reminded that giving him the opportunity to speak was to play to his strengths. Galbatorix was known to have a silver tongue.
"What do you hope to accomplish?" Nasuada asked. "Know that the Varden is no effort of solely my own. This force comes from all corners of Alagaesia, and our grievances are many."
"I would hear them," Galbatorix said. "Would you like to start, Lady Nasuada? After all, this war is for the land of humans."
Nasuada raced to collect herself. This was not something she had prepared a speech for, nor was it something she could afford to fail. "You have done grievous harm to all living peoples of Alagaesia-"
"Apologies," Galbatorix interrupted. "Humans only, please." He nodded at her fellows. "I'd like to hear it from the horse's mouth, as it were."
She hid her irritation and started over, determined to build her momentum again. "Though the Broddring Kings were not remarkably better than your rule, you still overthrew a lawful, sitting king for your Empire. You slew all the highest mediators in our conflicts and ushered in an age of barbarism where your apathy towards your own kingdom allowed your subordinates to abuse the populace. You forcefully conscript young men into your army, and those fortunate enough to avoid the draft may find themselves similarly bound in the practice of slavery which you have allowed. You track down and conscript all magicians unfortunate enough to be born in the Empire and catch the gimlet eye of your subordinates. You offer human-hunting monsters your sponsorship and use them as tools to terrorize subjects you find out of line. And because you will not die of old age, what problems we have with your authority will exist in perpetuity, or else-" Nasuada gestured to her half of the table. "-you must be ousted."
Nodding to King Orrin, she held her tongue for the far more grievous of Galbatorix's transgressions.
"You seize and destroy merchants who trade with Surda," King Orrin said. "You disrespect its borders in pursuit of men and women who manage to escape your Empire. You impose harsh sanctions on trade, and make no secret your ambitions to annex Surda again."
"Not so," Galbatorix refuted. Nasuada found it difficult to hold the intensity of his gaze. The sky was dim enough that she could no longer tell where his black irises ended and his pupils began. It gave him an eerie, wide-eyed look. "The Empire is markedly smaller than the Broddring kingdom since Surda's secession."
He indicated the massive army behind him. "And I have always had the ability to retake that land. Thanebrand Langfeld was polite about his intent to secede, and I was otherwise occupied. I allowed it. I have ordered merchants slain who were bound for Surda, conscripted young men and magicians, and I do employ unpleasant agents. Opposing a rebellious faction is not criminal; it is common sense. Would that a stable, unified Alagaesia allowed militias to be a relic of antiquity."
King Orrin's nostrils flared. Nasuada hoped he could keep it together. "You find the concept of sovereignty a joke. I have heard the harrowing tale of mine ancestor the Ring Giver. You have twice now attempted to exterminate the kingdoms of others-"
"No grievance of your own," Galbatorix inserted.
"-and I do not intend to wait for you to decide you want Surda for your own again." Orrin raised his voice. "How far does your ambition reach? You want the Spine from the Urgals, the Beors from the dwarves, Surda from my people, and Du Weldenvarden from the elves."
The Black King waited patiently for Orrin to finish. Nasuada noted that he looked, but for the eyes, a normal man. He wore a slim, thin circlet where Orrin had some level of architecture on his brow. It made King Orrin look the insecure pretender.
"I have once attempted to drive the monsters from the den of my lands, and once more sent forces to flush out or destroy my enemies," Galbatorix nodded to Nasuada. "But I have never annexed so much as a blade of grass into the Broddring Kingdom." Nar Garzhvog's fists curled and uncurled. His horned head stood higher than everyone seated.
"You have twice failed to extinguish my race," he growled. "We Urgralgra are not waiting for a third attempt."
Galbatorix ignored him. "King Hrothgar?"
Nasuada saw the fleeting look of disappointment in Harry's eyes when Hrothgar took the offer to cut Garzhvog off.
"I have not ruled so long as you," Hrothgar spoke. "But I have lived longer, and I feel the weariness of age on me. One day I shall feast in Morgothal's hall, and a younger, newer dwarf will breathe fresh ideas into the hearts of my nation. It takes the foolishness of youth and the arrogance of long held power for a man who has ruled ere his fiftieth winter to try and end two races at once." Cold fury gripped the weathered lines of the dwarf king's face.
"You have sent sentient people, enslaved at the hands of your pet Shade, into the land of mine ancestors and the home of mine people with evil in your blackened heart. You have forced us to do battle with perhaps no friends of ours, but certainly not our enemies. You hide behind the enslaved tools of your conquest like a coward, despite being mighty enough to do your grisly job alone." King Hrothgar's voice was low and steady, like the sound of far off thunder from the steel grey sky.
"Your lackeys have slain the whole of Durgrimst Az Swelden Rak Anhuin. You hunt and abduct any dwarves brave enough to show their faces beyond the Beors. You kill and spy and steal within my sovereign nation with impunity, and betray the ideals of the Riders who once counted you among their number. You have earned the enmity of the dwarves until the end of your life, and if that be forever, until the end of time."
Thunder rumbled, filling the space Hrothgar's voice had left. Nasuada felt the stillness end in a low breeze. Goosebumps raised on her dark skin, wicking away the warmth that rose from beneath her feet. She drew comfort from the presence of great people beside her. Even silent, Galbatorix's presence demanded respect. He looked like a man, but it was a rare man that could stare down two kings, two Riders, and two dragons without flinching. Nasuada thought she could feel it: something lurking below Galbatorix's skin, just behind his eyes. He turned away from King Hrothgar, and the sense vanished.
"The wizard. Harry. I am interested to hear your grievances." Galbatorix's black eyes glittered. "As I understand, your stake in this conflict is not personal. Tell me why an objective observer thinks I ought to be overthrown."
Harry took a moment to marshal his thoughts. "Your permission or apathy towards slavery in Dras Leona offends me. Though it reflects poorly on you to hunt and attempt to capture any elves, dwarves, werecats, or Urgals who leave the protection of their territory, the borders of the Empire are not so clearly drawn that someone couldn't make the excuse that you are rightly protecting your borders," he started.
"You levy taxes on your subjects as is your right, but my grievance is that you are not a particularly awful king, but you make very little effort to be a good one. You failed to protect Yazuac from an Urgal attack a couple years back, but you tax them anyways. I argue that any region you call yours and levy taxes upon, you have a responsibility to protect with your army."
Galbatorix hummed. "Your grievance is my failure to defend a small village in a far flung region of my territory?"
Harry rolled his eyes. Nasuada wished that he would treat just one ruler with the respect due their station. "No, that's just a symptom of the problem. A ruler shouldn't have their personal interests, their family's interests, or even always their nation's interests at heart. They should see the good of the people of their nation as their highest responsibility, and weigh their decisions against that. Of course you may have to act contrary to that to stay in power, but that's the gist of it. Taxes, where I'm from, are sometimes considered to be citizens' way of purchasing goods and services from their government. They are paying for roads to be paved, schools to be funded, utilities like running water and electricity, national defense, and so on and so forth. Taxes are never extorted for the benefit of the rulers. They're an investment citizens make in their nation, and they have a right to see their money used to improve their own lives.
"A good king should seek out ways to improve the quality of their subjects' lives. He should ensure his subjects don't go hungry, that they are defended and educated and productive. He should respect basic human rights to food, water, freedom, and the pursuit of happiness. He should allow public criticism of himself and take his subjects' complaints to heart. He should not impose laws any more restrictive than necessary to keep his subjects from harming each other, nor restrict information any more than is necessary to keep his kingdom safe."
Galbatorix frowned. "I have worked towards many of these goals, and you aired no grievances against me before launching a lethal attack at me after unlawful trespassing and robbery. I have made it no secret that my greatest goal is to reign in the abuses of magic in Alagaesia. I do not hoard gold or spend it frivolously on a particularly lavish lifestyle. Most of it goes to defending my Empire from the threat of the Varden. I invaded Farthen Dur only to defeat the threat of the Varden before it attacked my Empire. I have not invaded Du Weldenvarden, and I did not invade Farthen Dur on xenophobic grounds. I might argue that I have attempted to defend Yazuac; I'm sure you've heard of my 'humiliation' at the hands of the Urgals in the Spine."
Harry grumbled. "We both know if you were serious about exterminating the Urgals, you'd have gone with your army on Shruikan and they'd have had no chance." Nar Garzhvog shifted, bu did not speak against the assertion.
"Your actions betray your shallow commitment to your Empire. It feels to me like you were set against the Riders by a stupid mistake Durza convinced you to make in a moment of madness after losing Jarnunvosk, and after being required to end their order in fear of reprisal, you realized you might as well make yourself King because some idiot was currently wearing the crown, and you thought you might be able to do better. Is this accurate?"
The Black King shrugged. His eyes betrayed the sadness that lingered a century later at his first dragon's death. Nasuada thought Harry looked a little bit guilty, too. Did he regret slaying Shruikan? "Reasonably. I have always harbored some ambition to rule over at least the Broddring Kingdom. What enlightened person doesn't look at the human race and think they can do better?"
Harry couldn't help but laugh. Galbatorix smiled amusedly and continued. "The Riders were a very obvious example of magicians abusing their power over the rest of Alagaesia. Most all of them do it to some extent. I'm curious about how your magicians managed."
Nasuada tamped down the triumph she felt. She was too engrossed in watching everything unfold to properly examine it, but she instinctively knew Galbatorix had just revealed a core desire. The way he went from ugly hatred to amicable response was telling. Harry was speaking his language. She leaned forward despite herself. She was as curious as Galbatorix as to how Harry had lived before coming to Alagaesia.
"There were enough of us to form nations. A few centuries before my time, the muggles – our term for those without magic – committed some pretty egregious attacks on witches and wizards, so we cast the Statute of Secrecy, a piece of magic that covered the entire planet and erased magic from the minds of those without it. We formed nation states attached to the governments of the lands we inhabited. Earth had about eight billion humans on it when I left, and I'd estimate there were ten to fifty million magic users."
Nasuada and Orrin choked. Even Galbatorix's eyes went wide at the unfathomable number. Harry continued heedless.
"Everyone in wizarding society had magic, so everyone was on even ground. People still committed crimes, but the muggles committed crimes against muggles and were handled by muggle authorities oblivious to wizards, and the wizards typically committed crimes against other wizards, and were handled by the wizarding government."
"And those wizards who chose to transgress upon the oblivious, defenseless 'muggles?'"
"Wizard on muggle crimes do happen," Harry said, "but they were actually pretty harshly punished. The Statute of Secrecy does weakly prevent muggles from learning the truth, but something like getting attacked by magic will overcome that and threaten the whole world's magical communities. Breaches of the Statute are among the most serious crimes, and the ICW, the international body that oversees the Statute, is quick and capable."
Galbatorix nodded. "But surely wizards could be subtle."
Harry nodded with him. "They can be. The easiest way to put it is that muggles have nothing wizards want. The elves of Du Weldenvarden would have absolutely no trouble stealing from Carvahall, but why would they do that when Carvahall produces inferior goods? They don't need food, and gold doesn't really buy anything among the elves. On Earth, technology and magic have rendered starvation obsolete. 'Post-scarcity,' the term is. Everyone who wants to put some effort into working an easier job than most humans do in Alagaesia can easily feed themselves. We had classifications for the development of a nation. Third, second, and first world countries as determined by factors like how democratic a nation is, the average household income, the strength of their economy, and so on. Ellesmera and Wizarding Britain are zeroth-world countries where magic is ubiquitous, education is free, and that education grants everyone the capability to trivially provide for themselves and their families."
"Your solution is to take all the magicians and send them to their own state?" Galbatorix clarified. Nasuada hoped Harry didn't think so. Magicians were a source of many of her own headaches, but such a heavy-handed solution was the sort men like Galbatorix proposed.
Harry tilted his hand. "Not really. That gets messy with things like splitting up families, and forceful relocation is wrong. The real solution, I think, is to reduce the motivation to abuse magic. But grievances on how you've done as King were never the primary reasons for war."
Nasuada smothered another smile. She knew she would cherish the memory when the elves announced their declaration of war.
Arya sat straight backed, head high. Her expression was absent of any emotion, and Nasuada found it more terrible than any fury could be. She looked every bit as regal as Hrothgar, Orrin, and Galbatorix, yet spoke without accusation.
"You killed our King. You slew nearly every dragon in Alagaesia, our closest friends, our brothers and sisters in the Rider corps, and anyone who left Du Weldenvarden to lift a finger in their defense. Your pet slew my traveling companions. You have stolen all but seven of the greatest known works of Rhunon-elda. You defeated Vrael by treachery when he showed you wholly undeserved mercy, and you orchestrated the massacre on Lake Ardwen. You have personally killed more elves than anyone or anything else in history, and more died by your hand during the Fall than died by anything in the time since the Rider Pact was conceived."
"You ended the age of Riders through blood and treachery," Eragon picked up, angrily. "You stole the collected wisdom of millenia of dragon Riders when you sacked Doru Areba and left Vroengard nearly sterile. You corrupted promising Riders into the Forsworn with poisonous lies, and used them as tools to carve the institution of peacekeeping and stability that was the Riders out of Alagaesia, and installed yourself in their place, a cruel shadow of what they had been. You abducted my half-brother and my cousin and tortured them, and your servants killed my uncle and my father. You ordered my home razed and sent your servants to chase me and the partner of my soul across Alagaesia."
Saphira growled then, a marvelous, terrifying noise that drew a flinch from Nasuada. "You have killed so many of us, those remaining can be counted on one paw," Eragon relayed. "You committed the heinous crime of breaking a hatchling to your will in a mockery of the Rider bond, and our blood sings for vengeance. You have murdered and stolen our hearts, brought our race to the brink of extinction, enslaved us for your petty power.
"There shall be no escape for you."
AN: I'm really excited to finally get to bring all the pieces together, see what our heroes have been learning, and watch it be put into practice. I hope this next chapter is as fun for you to read as it was for me to write. I'll have more time to write now that my classes are over, and I'm excited to put everything I've learned into action in some of my newer stories. I know I've been promising them for a while, the ATLA one and this series' next installment. They are coming. I've been working on an HP/SW fic for a while, following this same Harry a long while down the line. I'm hoping that by splitting the series into two and working from both points on will help alleviate some of the staleness I feel sometimes when writing just this fic. The ATLA one hasn't seen much development but in some ways, that's a good thing. I can really take my time to craft something awesome for all of you amazing people who follow this story.
No rewrite update this time: I'm already pretty far along on the next chapter, and the rewrite is in a stable place (I think.)