TW: Gore (seriously, skip the medical tent scene if you're squeamish)
Eragon's palms were sweaty against the new war bow resting across his lap. Saphira flew lazy circles over the dim underside of the mountain, watching and listening.
The waiting was agony. On that, Saphira agreed.
I feel as though I stand before a forest starving, yet I cannot take flight to hunt.
Eragon played with the taut bowstring and the arrows of his new eternal quiver. His armor cut out much of the pleasure of flying, the breeze in his hair and the unimpeded view. They agreed not to use the saddle's invisibility in front of the Varden. His helmet narrowed the world to only what was in front of him.
Soon, Eragon promised.
His guess was borne out. Twenty minutes later, the first breach was made. Seconds after he spotted it far out to the edge of the cavern, Eragon felt an uncanny presence touch his mind. He lowered his defenses enough to hear it speak.
The Urgals have breached by the edge of the cavern on the north-northeast side, a Twin sent.
Eragon replied. I saw. We're headed over.
Breach was a kind word. Some Urgals had managed to chisel themselves a hole through about a foot of stone. They clawed their way up into the twilight of the cavern without their armor, presumably discarded to fit through the small hole.
As Saphira coasted over, Eragon drew his bow and launched a couple arrows. One struck a glancing blow that nevertheless drew a pained gasp from the Urgal he'd shot. Saphira landed on one and tore his head off, chewing his skull with an utterly gruesome crunching, snapping noise. Eragon had not known any part of the body to be so crunchy.
How was he? He asked queasily.
The horns and skull are unpleasant, but the brain is exquisite. Saphira snarled and ripped another one in two with her talons. Eragon dismounted and drew his sword, but there wasn't much to do but wait. He cut down a couple disoriented and desperate Urgals with Zar'roc, then stood over the hole and poked his sword at anyone who tried to reach up through it.
It was not minutes later that a squad of some hundred cavalrymen arrived, and Eragon passed the job of guarding the hole over to a dismounted man with a spear.
Despite the futility of trying to emerge through the hole, Eragon was not blind to the abject terror on the beasts' faces. Fear shone on their dark eyes below; they seemed to be jockeying for a spot close enough to see the light.
Just what had Harry done down below?
Saphira took to the air again and the two of them circled until the Twins contacted them again with news of another spot they should plug until reinforcements got there.
The next one was a bit bigger, and not just Urgals but Kull had spilled from the breach. Eragon wasn't alone in the fighting, either. Some of the Varden's men had gotten there before Saphira, a couple were beheaded and a few more looked in imminent danger of sharing that fate.
Roaring, Saphira engaged a nine-foot Kull with a long spear and the skill to keep her off him. Eragon tried kverst on the Kull, but the spell did not work and Saphira sent him her annoyance.
Fight the little ones, little one. This one's mine.
Zar'roc flashed red in the dim light, claiming life after life. Harry's armor boosted his abilities tenfold. A Kull wandered over with a massive sword and a leer. He reared back and struck a vicious downward blow that should have crushed sword, bone, and body alike.
Eragon met the blow with Zar'roc, the clash of metal ringing over the stone cavern floor. Feeling no jarring force in his arms, he grinned and struck back as hard as he could.
Zar'roc cleaved through the Kull's armor and cut nearly halfway through his chest. He wrenched the blade free, whirling to stop a backstab from an Urgal behind.
A demented laugh slipped free from his throat. Eragon set out to put the rest of the Urgals to the sword. He hardly felt the impacts of blows on his armor, barely enough leaked through to notify him he'd been struck.
He whirled and sliced while Saphira ripped and tore, leaving the breach cleared long enough for a larger detachment to reinforce the breach.
So the battle went for hours. Eragon and Saphira were first responders. When somebody broke through, they stemmed the flow until Ajihad sent men to hold the breach for them, whereupon they went back to circling high around Tronjheim. The Star Sapphire glittered low on Saphira's left wing.
Desperation was the theme of the 'invasion.' The Urgals were not coordinated or deliberate; they all breached the surface like drowning men gasping for air. Whatever lay beneath, they were so desperate to get out, they'd rather die in a thousand little groups than be lost.
Some time later, a larger, more coordinated breach saw a larger response. A whole battalion mobilized to surround the cave-in. Sheets of stone had sunken into the tunnels, revealing a disoriented few hundred Urgals all at once. They got their bearings quickly and pushed out.
Eragon hacked and slashed there for several minutes. Long enough for him to catch glimpses of his friends fighting alongside him. He spotted Arya from Saphira's back, dancing through the enemy with brutal strikes and zero subtlety, slashing through steel and armor without hesitation. She was like a tiny Kull, unstoppable and immensely powerful.
Brom passed by as well, giving commands and fighting in his own set of Harry-made plate armor. He had an honor guard surrounding him that closed ranks whenever Brom encountered an Urgal shaman to kill, protecting him while he fought his mental battles.
Another time, Eragon caught sight of Angela fighting with a dual-edged blade staff and odd flanged armor. She gave him a wink before the tides of battle split them apart.
Saphira stomped and bit and batted at the Urgals with her talons, breaking them like big toys and snarling when they managed to hit her in return. Though the dragon armor covered her body well, it was not enchanted like his armor, and her wings were left exposed.
Eragon never felt like the Varden was in any real danger of losing ground. The Twins began giving him warning before breaches even happened, informed by the dwarves watching Harry's map. When the Urgals broke through, they were met with Saphira looking down on them, Eragon on her back brandishing Zar'roc.
Yet as easy as each individual skirmish was, Eragon was tiring. He'd been at it for hours. He told the Twins he needed a moment and spent the reprieve eating a stasis meal in the saddle while Saphira circled.
It was impossible to tell time beneath the mountain. Eragon did not know if it had been two hours, ten hours, or two days. When he finished his food, he went back to plug up a couple of holes and help the Varden set up fortifications.
Harry spent the time pacing. He did not need to watch the map; the dwarves knew the tunnels and Farthen Dûr better than he ever would. They relayed information to the twin stuck with them, who closed his eyes and spread the intel.
He felt useless. What could he possibly do from this command post in the middle of nowhere?
Arya had given him back the wand, yet advised him against using it. Harry was sick of the fickle stick. He wanted his wand back, the holly and phoenix feather wand he'd bought at Ollivanders eight years ago. He wanted the wand that had saved him from Voldemort more times than he could count, the one that had brought echoes of his parents back in the graveyard for just a moment. He wanted the wand he'd learned magic with, not some stupid twig Death gave three foolish wizards some thousands of years ago. He wanted his partner back.
Maybe she was right. Maybe he needed to earn its respect. He was coming to understand he did not really need a wand for magic. Certainly he'd done fine transfiguration and charms work without one. But going into battle empty-handed felt different.
He had Durza's sword on his hip, but he did not consider himself a swordsman. He was a wizard, and that would not change, even if his magic sucked at fighting compared to the local flavor.
Jarsha came sprinting into the tent. "Annika is asking for you," he said breathlessly. Harry perked up, seizing on something, anything he could do to help after hours standing by uselessly.
"You got this?" Harry asked the twin.
He nodded. "The names are secure?" he asked.
"Yeah," Harry told him. "Look, I'm sorry about everything. I get you're just doing your jobs–"
"Go," the twin said, turning away to look back at the map. "You are needed, wizard."
Harry threw up his hands and followed Jarsha out, jogging alongside his sprint as they headed to the medical tent.
It was behind the lines of the Varden's major infantry force, tens of thousands of men wearing those enchanted gambesons, sitting around fiddling with their weapons, waiting to be deployed. Riders came in and trotted off with a few hundred men regularly, directed by a magician Harry recognized as Sorrel, a balding man with grey hair and a wrinkly, stubbly chin.
Harry worked his way through the ranks of nervous men, fiddling with their bows, leaning against the poles of their spears, snacking or drinking water as other men came through with food for the waiting troops. Some of them were younger than he was, maybe even younger than Eragon was. It reminded him unpleasantly of the Battle of Hogwarts. Who of these kids was going to die?
And for what reason? Harry still struggled to connect instinctually with the conflict between Galbatorix and the Varden. The men standing around reminded him of Gil'ead and the Imperial soldiers he'd seen there. So similar, separated by circumstance and a banner.
When he reached the medical tent, Harry found that there were a lot more beds than people. That was good. What was not good was the shape of the patients.
Annika and the other healers bustled between beds, feeding doses of weak Wiggenweld, wrapping bandages, feeding the wounded soup and water. Annika's wrinkled face sagged in relief when she spotted him.
"Harry. We can barely do anything for these wounds. The only help we have is the Wiggenweld."
Harry stopped at the cot of a man with an arrow through his eye. He was moaning in pain, shifting in his cot. He had no idea how he was still alive. His was hardly the worst injury in the tent. Everywhere he looked, Harry saw similarly gruesome wounds. Nobody was here for a cut or stitches. The people in the tent were already crippled or dying. Some, Harry spotted as healers pulled sheets over their faces, were dead.
"It's through his brain," Annika winced. "The arrow is barbed. We can't pull it out, the only other way would be to push it through and break his skull in the back. If he survives, he'll have to live with an arrow in his eye."
Harry placed a hand on the man's forehead and vanished the arrow.
Annika breathed. "You're a miracle worker."
He cast ferula on the man's head, wrapping his empty eye socket in tight bandages. Harry had no idea how to fix a stabbed out eye. Moody had had a prosthetic one, maybe it was beyond magic? Or maybe, knowing Moody, it had gotten cursed out such that healing magic couldn't fix it.
"Can't do anything about the eye," he apologized. He cursed himself for not brewing painkiller potions. Of course the Varden's medics wouldn't have any anesthesia.
"Of course," Annika said gently. She led him to the next man, two stumps for wrists, his hands in a cloth bag next to him. "Can you…?"
Harry shrugged and levitated the hands back into place. Episkey seemed to fix the tendons and bones, vulnera sanentur repaired the severed muscles and skin, but the patient reported still being unable to move his hands. "Wiggenweld and crossed fingers," Harry apologized. "That's the best I've got. I never trained as a healer, I just know a few really good spells."
Those really good spells were showing their limitations. Nobody came into the tent with great big slashes. The wounds were peculiar. Concussions, burns on the hands and face, severed or wounded hands and feet, and head injuries.
All the places not covered by a gambeson.
At least he saved those lives, Harry thought.
The next patient Annika showed him nearly made him sick. His jaw had not been broken; it was gone. It had been cut off. A stitched slash through his upper cheek marked where the edge of the blow had landed. His upper teeth and the roof of his mouth were exposed to the air, his soft palate dry and coarse. His throat was just a wet hole in his too-long neck, the line where the jaw had been severed carefully bandaged around it.
Harry threw up on the ground. He vanished his sick, wiped his mouth, and forced himself to assess the injury. "Does he have the detached piece?" he asked.
Annika shook her head. "Somebody else dragged him out of the fight. It probably got lost in the battle."
Harry hated feeling helpless. "Most of what he's missing is bone, right?"
She nodded.
"I can't make bone from nothing. Maybe if I'd brewed skele-gro, but we focused on Wiggenweld."
Annika nodded again, resolute. "Then we move on."
The man's eyes were desperate. He made an agonized moan when he heard that. Harry helped him as best he could. He ran through his pitiful (3 spell) healing repertoire. Vulnera sanentur put flesh over the areas beneath the bandages, but it couldn't bring back his jaw. The man broke down sobbing when they left.
Harry must have attached a hundred hands and feet. If the enchanted gambesons really made the Varden's fighters invincible, the Urgals had clearly figured out that the only way to defeat them was to hit the spots that weren't covered.
"How many were beheaded?" Harry guessed grimly.
"A lot," Annika admitted. "They don't bring the dead in here, but we have some idea. Either way, this is miraculous. So few injured, so few dead. None of the healers have done something like this. We're used to bandages and work accidents. Not– this."
Feeble consolation, when Harry had seen nothing but maimings and gruesome cripplings for the past hour.
He needed more. He needed spells he didn't have. He needed magic he didn't know.
Harry glanced at Annika. "You wouldn't think I'm crazy if I started talking to invisible people, right?"
Annika laughed hollowly, covering her mouth with the back of her bloody hand. "What madness is greater than this?" she gestured at the cots.
Harry made a decision and twisted his ring. Help. Morgan, Fred, I need help.
Fred and Morgan emerged from beyond the veil. Annika had already turned back to speak with another healer. They went to help with new arrivals.
"Either of you tell me you know another good spell," Harry hissed under his breath.
Fred winced. "I should remind you that George and I dropped out before you. You're better educated than I am. With potions, I could help, but–" he waved his hands through each other, their ghostly shapes overlapping. "And of course you only have one weak active ingredient."
And if Harry was called to fight, he didn't want to be lightheaded from giving even more blood.
Morgan floated close to the jawless man, sticking her finger into the wound. The man moaned and nodded his head away from her.
"I was not in the business of fixing people," Morgan murmured. "So many centuries and you never forget the wounds muggles give each other. The muggles of your day are much kinder, Harry. One might mistake bullet holes for puncture curses."
She straightened up. "I preferred an older sort of spell." Morgan drifted over to the man who'd been shot in the head. She cupped the side of his head and let her fingers pass through his skull. Turning back to Harry, she smiled sharply. "Súil ar shúil. An eye for an eye."
Harry sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Neither of you know any St. Mungo's healers or anything?"
"Dad was in the Dai Llewellyn ward," Fred remembered. "They wouldn't name it after some random joker; he must've been decent."
Harry shook his head. "Nah. Dai Llewellyn was a Quidditch player; he got eaten by a chimera. Must've been why they named it after him." That was a bit of trivia in Quidditch Through the Ages. Famous people, places, and things named after Quidditch players.
Fred blew out a breath. "Hippocrates Smethwyck was Dad's healer, and Augustus Pye was the nutter who wanted to sew dad up like an old sock. Don't think either of them are dead, though."
"Saint Mungo had to be a real healer, right?" Harry assumed.
Fred shrugged. "George and I never paid any attention to Binns. If he was, we never heard."
Harry twisted his ring again. "Saint Mungo."
An intense man with an afro and dark hair joined them. He took hardly a moment to glance around himself before assuming the role of a healer.
"That one will die without your help. He is at great risk of hypotension, and may stroke out. What experience do you have with healing?" He spoke in quick bursts with an old, refined accent.
"Very little," Harry said, chagrined. "I know a spell for healing muscle and skin, one for bones, and one for minor injuries that I've been using to bridge the gaps. I'm decent at using them though." He scourgified his hands and wiggled his fingers, ready to cast some healing spells.
Mungo sighed. "Better than nothing. First, you must know what you are working with. Use aspectum corpus."
That spell alone was immediately worth calling him. The moment the words left his lips, his vision shifted. Like a filter had been laid over his eyes, Harry saw a new layer of reality. The man on the cot in front of him was no longer a man of middling age with pale skin and dirty brown hair, he was a man with a blood pressure of 82/56, the nerves in his ear severed and the jugular vein nicked and hemorrhaging blood.
He saw the whole body's many systems overlaid in colors like a diagram in a textbook. The nerves were purple, veins were blue, arteries red, tendons orange. He saw the man's muscles overlaid in hues of pinks with dark outlines where one muscle ended and another began. He watched the man's heart beat in his chest behind his ribs, watched his lungs fill and empty as he breathed in and out.
In the most vivid way possible, Harry watched a human body live, and saw all the points that might threaten to make it stop.
"The muggles staunch the bleeding, but you arrived after they bandaged it, so you never saw the wound. Use your flesh knitting spell," Mungo instructed.
Harry did so, hovering his palm over the man's bandaged neck. Even once healed, the grey malaise of hypotension didn't subsist.
"Why hasn't he gotten better?"
"He lost blood," Mungo explained. "You need a blood replenisher or a vasoconstrictor. Muggles use epinephrine. You may use vena obstringere. For what you can do: give him fluids. Make him drink a lot of water. No sitting or standing quickly, and if he has slurred speech or half of his face sags, have the healers get you immediately; those are the signs of a stroke. Use reficite sanguis and get more water into him."
Harry worked with the man until Mungo was satisfied. When he looked up, he was a bit startled to see Annika standing next to him watching. For a moment, he saw her own body in vivid technical detail through her clothes.
He blinked away the spell.
"I won't ask questions," Annika warned, "but I won't be the only one to notice. Your pupils turned solid green."
Harry made a face. "Can you at least keep them away from me? I can do the rest. And if you stand there, they'll think I'm talking to you."
Annika nodded and took him to the next patient.
"Muffliato," he said under his breath. Annika kept the other healers at a few meters' distance. Fred and Morgan were watching from a step back. "You two are still around?"
Fred shrugged. "Why not?"
"Morgan usually leaves as soon as she gets bored," Harry said.
The spirit in question smiled sharply. "It's never boring around an invasion."
"You want to scout for me?"
Fred seemed to like the sound of that. Morgan's smile sharpened. "Down in the dark, lost miles beneath sunlight, shall we see the hell you have wrought on earth for these creatures?"
Annoyed, Harry waved her off. "Go. Watch for Durza, the Shade. He's the only real threat."
Fred gave a very stiff, mocking salute and raced away through the wall of the tent. Morgan followed him with a bit more dignity, leaving Harry alone with Annika and Mungo. Harry scourgified his hands again and saw to the next patient.
"Cast the spell again," Mungo commanded. "Tell me what you see."
Harry obeyed him. "His blood pressure is…high. There's a bit of red around the back of his skull, along with some burst blood vessels in his– skull?"
"Good. Concussion from trauma to the head, leading to hypertension. Now, look at his lungs."
"Dark," Harry noted. "It looks like…gunk?"
"I doubt smoking is as prevalent here as it was back in our world, but this man clearly smokes something. Long term, it has weakened the blood vessels in his brain. Combined with the high blood pressure, he is at risk of having an aneurysm."
Mungo gave him the incantation for a vasodilator spell (vena discoperiet) and they moved on.
With aspectum corpus active, Harry had a much easier time working with the wounded. It wasn't so horrifying to see gore when it was reduced to colorful diagrams pulsing in front of him. Then it was just like fixing a broken machine. Addressing the broken bits and fixing them.
He learned a new spell for knitting nerves back together, which let him put hands and feet back on seamlessly and heal them up to good as new.
True to her word, Annika asked no questions. She just brought him from bed to bed, taking him to the most urgent cases, keeping away watchers and questions. Nearly every single patient had been given Wiggenweld by the time he got there. Without a more comprehensive source of ingredients to make healing potions, Harry had to see every urgent case personally.
After a couple hours toiling, Harry realized Annika was showing him to less and less wounded people. The healing went consequently faster, and not long after that, Harry was done.
He sat with Mungo and scourgified his hands, wiping his forehead. He dispelled the muffliato. The tent was quiet.
It was the sort of quiet after a legendary storm had swept through, the silence of having witnessed something that needed no more words.
Harry endured the looks of awe from the men and healers alike with practiced indifference. He cast muffliato again and glanced at Mungo.
"Thank you," he said. He meant it from the bottom of his heart. "You saved so many lives."
Mungo shook his head, smiling. "You just needed some information. I spent my life doing this. I am happy to spend a few tiny pieces of infinity doing it again."
Harry flopped backwards over his chair, slouching further into the seat. He unbuckled Durza's sword and propped it against his chair. Annika brought him a bag of skin full of water. He surreptitiously cleaned it with a spell before drinking the water. It still tasted like stale old shoe.
"Fred," he muttered under his breath. "I've got a moment, can you come back and tell me what you saw?" He touched the cold resurrection stone and thought about sending his message to him through the ether.
A minute later, Fred reappeared.
He was looking uncharacteristically grim. Harry hadn't seen him like this since George had his ear cut off.
"What did you see?" Harry asked, dreading the answer.
Fred shook his head. Harry didn't know ghosts could pale, but Fred had done it. His skin was milky white, whiter than usual. "It's not pleasant down there, Harry. They are trying very hard to get out. I didn't see Durza. If he's with them, he's as lost as everyone else."
"Did Morgan stay under?"
Fred nodded, unsettled. "I think she thinks you don't really understand what you've done to the Urgals down there. If it wouldn't keep your friends in the Varden safe, it would have been better to let them come and be killed. It would be over quicker."
A cold shiver went up Harry's spine. Just what was it like down there? He knew how cramped and terrifying the hedge maze had been for the third task. And that was with the sky overhead, witches and wizards flying over the hedges waiting for him to send up sparks for a rescue. He could have escaped at any moment with a raised wand and a vermillious.
For the first time, Harry really allowed himself to truly imagine what it was like to be an Urgal down below. He had plunged thousands of intelligent people into a hellish maze. He imagined a Room of Requirements that transformed into what the user wanted least, a Room of Nightmares. He imagined miles and miles of tunnels filled with Peruvian instant darkness powder, intelligent and hell-bent on isolating every last Urgal.
Harry had done it for the Varden and for the dwarves. He was on their side, the Urgals were invading the dwarves' home, it would save thousands of lives. He couldn't let people die on his side because he was a bit squeamish. He wasn't even killing anyone.
He had to do it, right?
…right?
Harry wiped the sweat from his forehead. His skin felt clammy and cold.
"It would be for the best if you could have your moral crisis later," Fred smiled weakly. "Durza's still out there somewhere, if that Ajihad guy is right. I'll get back to you when we find him." With a wink, he floated away.
Ajihad cleaned the blood from his blade. The twin at his side rode a pace behind. Urgals were strewn about around them.
"Next?"
The Twin marked a few spots on a map of Farthen Dûr's cavern floor and handed it to Ajihad. The fortieth or so thus far. "The next gatherings."
Ajihad crossed the marked spots with his mental map of his troop deployment. "Jormundur can have the far one in the east. We'll take the western south one. Brom can have southeast, Dunnick can take the close east one."
The twin's expression went blank for a moment as he relayed orders. When he reanimated again, he said again, "It would be wise for you to fight more reservedly."
"So you keep saying," Ajihad acknowledged. He had no intention of doing any such thing. A leader who did not fight with their men was no leader at all. He could fight, and so he would. Pragmatically, he wore armor that was likely to make this the safest battle he could take part in, let alone the compromised state of the Urgals emerging from the ground. A good time to reestablish his commitment.
The twin inclined his head and Ajihad's guard rode with him to their site.
Unusually, they reached the site before there was a breach. Usually there was either a disorganized vanguard trying to establish battle lines, or Eragon and Saphira were there to suppress them until the rest of their forces reached the spot.
When Ajihad got to the marked spot, nobody had broken through. Nobody had broken through, and nobody sounded like they were trying to, either.
"This is the spot?"
"The dwarves are certain," the twin said. "To my best judgement, we are on that spot."
"I concur," Ajihad agreed.
The men set up around the area, forming defensive lines and organizing their cavalry. The infantry were on their way to take over as soon as they reached them, twenty or so minutes.
Yet despite the twin's repeated confirmation that the dwarves were literally looking at the map and watching the names of about two hundred Urgals directly beneath them, all was silent.
"The other sites?"
"Same thing," the twin reported. "Beowulf reports no sound, but can feel the minds beneath his feet. As can I. They are there. They have simply stopped moving."
"All across Farthen Dûr, despite being unable to speak with each other?" Ajihad's hunch was something else was going on.
"They can communicate," the twin pointed out. "Their minds are unhindered by the maze. I suspect their magicians are doing what navigating any of them have managed. If I guessed further, I would suspect the larger groups have magicians, while the smaller, fragmented and lost ones do not."
"The smaller ones pose a negligible threat."
The twin inclined his head.
"Do they guard their minds?" Ajihad asked. "Can you glean anything from them?"
"Nothing," the twin reported. "Their minds are empty. They stand listless in the darkness."
All across the whole mountain? That sounded like magic. "They received new orders," Ajihad announced. "They know they can't win this way. Benson, Marchand, ride to meet the infantry. Cavalry are to disperse and mark all sites. Infantry are to deploy in force across all sites, numbered proportional to the Urgals beneath. Have the dwarves update the marching orders every hour to reflect the troop locations below."
His men rode off. His twin relayed the orders to the mass of troops in waiting. "The men can sleep in shifts, though no more than half at a time, and they must wake the moment tunneling is heard."
What do you think?
They had just gotten the update from one of the twins. The Urgals were waiting for something, and none of the magicians were sure what.
I think Ajihad is reasonable. His assessment is reasonable.
I meant about the news.
Saphira ate lazily. They were taking a break after a day of non-stop fighting. It wore on him like nothing else. Land, slaughter, leave, repeat. Over and over, they touched the ground only briefly, and only to kill any Urgal who poked their head up from the tunnels.
Eragon never noticed the fatigue when he was fighting. When Zar'roc glinted in the dim light beneath the mountain, when Saphira's red fangs and talons flashed and words of death rolled off his lips, he was awake like he had never been.
He was alive, like he had never been. When he fought, the world was a thousand times more real. Colors were brighter, sounds were louder, and the danger before him was crystal clear. He knew Zar'roc's hilt like an extension of his arm, his armor like a second skin.
When he rested, most of it was a blur. He remembered a handful of grey, horned faces and yellow eyes, a whirlwind of fighting, and a few moments of clarity.
I'm going to nap, Eragon yawned. Wake me if we're needed.
Rest well.
Harry checked the time. Misha should be back soon with the elves. It had been twelve hours, sixteen was the (very) generous estimate for the round trip time, including a nap.
It did not appear they would need them, but the Urgals' behavior made him uneasy. Durza was somewhere, the wild card of the invasion.
With the pause in the action came a pause in incoming wounded. The medical tent gradually grew quieter as dwindling patients were seen to. The only thing that lingered was pain, and that was something Harry could not help with. Whimpers and moans floated across the quiet. Once the last of the wounded had been put back together again, Harry found an empty cot and took a nap.
He was startled awake by a deathly chill, like his face had brushed the veil.
Harry's eyes snapped open. Morgan was inches from him, her hand touching his face. "Wake up," she said urgently.
Harry yawned and pulled himself upright. "What? Where's Fred."
Morgan paled. She looked unnaturally ghostly, like the extra vitality she usually had had been drained from her, leaving her almost too transparent to see. Nor did Harry often see her afraid. He could not remember a time he had.
"I–"
Harry reached for his ring. "I can call him–"
"DON'T!" Morgan shouted.
He pulled his hand back as if stung. "What happened?"
"We found Durza," she whispered. "And Durza took your friend."