He was, Eragon belatedly realized, standing in the great cathedral of Dras-Leona, on the other side of the altar he had once knelt before in reverence, long ago.
The handless woman dropped the chalice and stood, throwing her arms out wide as she shielded the High Priest with her body. Behind her, Eragon glimpsed the blue of Brisingr’s sheath lying near the leading edge of the bier, and he thought he saw Aren next to it.
Before he could chase after his sword, two guards rushed toward him from either side of the altar, slashing at him with engraved, red-tasseled pikes. He sidestepped the first guard and sliced the shaft of the man’s pike in half, sending the blade flying through the air. Then Eragon sliced the man himself in half; Tinkledeath passed through his flesh and bones with shocking ease.
Eragon dispatched the second guard just as quickly and turned to face a pair approaching from behind. The herbalist joined him, brandishing her poniard, and somewhere off to his left, Solembum growled. Arya hung back from the fighting, still carrying the young man.
The spilled blood from the chalice had coated the floor around the altar. The guards slipped in the puddle and the rear man fell and knocked his companion off his feet. Eragon shuffled toward them-never lifting his feet off the floor so as to avoid losing his balance-and before the guards could react, he slew them both, taking care to control the herbalist’s enchanted blade as it effortlessly cut through the two men.
As he did, Eragon was aware that the High Priest was screaming, as if at a great distance, “Kill the infidels! Kill them! Don’t let the blasphemers escape! They must be punished for their crimes against the Old Ones!”
The congregation of priests began to howl and stamp their feet, and Eragon felt their minds clawing at his, like a pack of wolves tearing at a weakened deer. He retreated deep within himself, warding off the attacks with techniques he had been practicing under Glaedr’s tutelage. It was difficult to defend himself from so many foes, however, and he feared that he would not be able to maintain his barriers for long. His one advantage was that the panicked, disorganized priests attacked him as individuals, not as a unit; their combined might would have overwhelmed him.
Then Arya’s consciousness was pressing against his-a familiar, comforting presence amid the clutch of enemies scrabbling against his inner self. Relieved, he opened himself to her, and they joined their minds, even as he and Saphira would do, and for a time their identities merged and he lost the ability to determine where many of their shared thoughts and feelings came from.
Together they stabbed with their minds at one of the priests. The man struggled to evade their grasp, like a fish wriggling through their fingers, but they tightened their grip and refused to let him escape. He was reciting a stilted, oddly worded phrase in an attempt to keep them out of his consciousness; Eragon assumed it was a scrap of scripture from the Book of Tosk.
The priest lacked discipline, however, and his concentration soon wavered as he thought, The infidels are too close to Master. We have to kill them before-Wait! No! No …!
Eragon and Arya seized upon the priest’s weakness and quickly subjugated the man’s thoughts to their will. Once they were certain he could not retaliate against them with mind or body, Arya cast a spell that, from examining the priest’s memories, she knew could slip past his wards.
In the third row of pews, a man screamed and burst into flame, green fire pouring from his ears, mouth, and eyes. The flames ignited the clothes of several priests close to him, and the burning men and women began to thrash and run about wildly, further disrupting the attacks against Eragon. The rippling flames sounded like branches snapping in a storm.
The herbalist ran down from the altar and moved among the priests, stabbing here and there. Solembum followed close at her heels, finishing off those she felled.
After that, it was easy for Eragon and Arya to invade and seize control of their enemies’ minds. Continuing to work together, they killed four more priests, at which point the rest of the congregation broke and scattered. Some fled through the vestibule that Eragon remembered led to the priory next to the cathedral, while others crouched behind the pews and wrapped their arms around their heads.
Six of the priests, however, neither fled nor hid, but rather charged Eragon, brandishing curved knives with what hands they still possessed. Eragon cut at the first priest before she could strike at him. To his annoyance, the woman was protected by a ward that stopped Tinkledeath half a foot from her neck, causing the sword to turn in his hand and a shock to run up his arm. With his left hand, Eragon swung at the woman. For whatever reason, the spell did not stop his fist, and he felt the bones in her chest give way as he knocked her sprawling into the people behind her.
The remaining priests extricated themselves and resumed their charge. Stepping forward, Eragon blocked a clumsy slash from the foremost priest; then-with a shout of “Ha!”-he drove his fist into the man’s gut and sent him flying into a pew, which the priest struck with a nasty crack.
Eragon killed the next man in a similar manner. A green and yellow dart buried itself in the throat of the priest to his right, and there was a tawny blur as Solembum leaped past him and tackled another of the group.
That left but one of Tosk’s followers standing before him. With her free hand, Arya grabbed the woman by the front of her leather robes and threw her screaming thirty feet over the pews.
Four novitiates had lifted up the High Priest’s bier and were carrying it at a quick trot along the east side of the cathedral as they headed toward the front entrance of the building.
Seeing them escaping, Eragon uttered a roar and bounded onto the altar, knocking a plate and goblet to the floor. From there, he jumped out over the bodies of the fallen priests. He landed lightly in the aisle and sprinted to the end of the cathedral, heading off the novitiates.
The four young men stopped when they saw Eragon arrive at the doors. “Turn around!” shrieked the High Priest. “Turn around!” Its servants obeyed, only to be confronted by Arya standing behind them, one of their own slung over her right shoulder.
The novitiates yelped and turned sideways, darting between two rows of pews. Before they had gone more than a few feet, Solembum stepped around the end of the pews and began to pad toward them. The werecat’s ears were pressed flat against his skull, and the constant low rumble of his growl made Eragon’s neck prickle. Close behind him came Angela, striding down the cathedral from the altar, her poniard in one hand and a green and yellow dart in the other.
Eragon wondered how many weapons she had about herself.
To their credit, the novitiates did not lose their courage or abandon their master. Instead, the four shouted and ran even faster at Solembum, presumably because the werecat was the smallest and the closest of their opponents, and because they believed he would be the easiest to overcome.
They were mistaken.
In a single lithe movement, Solembum crouched, jumped from the floor to the top of a pew. Then, without stopping, he leaped toward one of the two lead novitiates.
As the werecat sailed through the air, the High Priest shouted something in the ancient language-Eragon did not recognize the word, but the sound of it was unmistakably that of the elves’ native language. Whatever the spell was, it seemed to have no effect on Solembum, although Eragon saw Angela stumble as if she had been struck.
Solembum collided with the novitiate at whom he had flung himself, and the young man tumbled to the floor, screaming as Solembum mauled him. The rest of the novitiates tripped over their companion’s body, and the lot of them fell in a tangled heap, spilling the High Priest off its bier and onto one of the pews, where the creature lay squirming like a maggot.
Eragon caught up with them a second later, and with three swift strokes, he slew all of the novitiates, save the one whose neck Solembum held clamped between his jaws.
Once Eragon was sure the men were dead, he turned to strike down the High Priest once and for all. As he started toward the limbless figure, a
nother mind invaded his, probing and grasping at the most intimate parts of his self, seeking to control his thoughts. The vicious attack forced Eragon to stop and concentrate on defending himself from the intruder.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Arya and Solembum also appeared immobilized. The herbalist was the sole exception. She paused for a moment when the attack commenced, but then she continued to walk with slow, shuffling steps toward Eragon.
The High Priest stared at Eragon, its deep-set, dark-ringed eyes burning with hate and fury. If the creature had had arms and legs, Eragon was convinced that it would have tried to tear out his heart with its bare hands. As it was, the malevolence of its gaze was so intense, Eragon half expected the priest to wiggle off the pew and start biting at his ankles.
The assault on his mind intensified as Angela drew near. The High Priest-for it had to be the High Priest who was responsible-was far more skilled than any of its underlings. To engage in mental combat with four different people at once, and to present a credible threat to each of the four, was a remarkable feat, especially when the enemies were an elf, a Dragon Rider, a witch, and a werecat. The High Priest had one of the most formidable minds Eragon had ever encountered; if not for the help of his companions, Eragon suspected that he would have succumbed to the creature’s onslaughts. The priest did things the likes of which Eragon had never experienced before, such as binding Eragon’s stray thoughts to Arya’s and Solembum’s, wrapping them into a knot of such confusion that for brief moments Eragon lost track of his own identity.
At last Angela turned in to the space between the pews. She picked her way around Solembum-who crouched next to the novitiate he had killed, every hair on his body standing on end-and then carefully made her way over the corpses of the three novitiates Eragon had slain.
As she approached, the High Priest began to thrash like a hooked fish in an attempt to push itself farther up the pew. At the same time, the pressure on Eragon’s mind lessened, although not enough for him to risk moving.
The herbalist stopped when she reached the High Priest, and the High Priest surprised Eragon by giving up its struggle and lying panting on the seat of the bench. For a minute, the hollow-eyed creature and the short, stern-faced woman glared at each other, an invisible battle of wills taking place between them.
Then the High Priest flinched, and a smile appeared on Angela’s lips. She dropped her poniard and, from within her dress, drew forth a tiny dagger with a blade the color of a ruddy sunset. Leaning over the High Priest, she whispered, ever so faintly, “You ought to know my name, tongueless one. If you had, you never would have dared oppose us. Here, let me tell it to you.…”
Her voice dropped even lower then, too low for Eragon to hear, but as she spoke, the High Priest blanched, and its puckered mouth opened, forming a round black oval, and an unearthly howl emanated from its throat, and the whole of the cathedral rang with the creature’s baying.
“Oh, be quiet!” exclaimed the herbalist, and she buried her sunset-colored dagger in the center of the High Priest’s chest.
The blade flashed white-hot and vanished with a sound like a far-off thunderclap. The area around the wound glowed like burning wood; then skin and flesh began to disintegrate into a fine, dark soot that poured into the High Priest’s chest. With a choked gargle, the creature’s howl ceased as abruptly as it had begun.
The spell quickly devoured the rest of the High Priest, reducing its body to a pile of black powder, the shape of which matched the outline of the priest’s head and torso.
“And good riddance,” said Angela with a firm nod.
THE TOLLING OF THE BELL
Eragon shook himself as if waking from a bad dream.
Now that he no longer had to fight off the High Priest, he gradually became aware that the priory bell was tolling-a loud, insistent sound that reminded him of when the Ra’zac had chased him from the cathedral during his first visit to Dras-Leona, with Brom.
Murtagh and Thorn will be here soon, he thought. We have to leave before then.
He sheathed Tinkledeath and handed it to Angela. “Here,” he said, “I think you’ll want this.” Then he pulled the corpses of the novitiates aside until he uncovered Brisingr. As his hand closed around the hilt, a sense of relief swept through him. Though the herbalist’s sword was a good and dangerous blade, it was not his weapon. Without Brisingr, he felt exposed, vulnerable-the same as he did whenever he and Saphira were apart.
It took him another few moments of searching to find his ring, which had rolled under one of the pews, and his necklace, which was wrapped around one of the handles of the bier. Among the pile of bodies, he also discovered Arya’s sword, which she was pleased to recover. But of his belt, the belt of Beloth the Wise, there was no sign.
Eragon looked under all the nearby pews, and he even ran back to the altar and inspected the area around it.
“It’s not here,” he finally said, despairing. He turned toward the freestanding wall that hid the entrance to the underground chambers. “They must have left it in the tunnels.” He cast his gaze in the direction of the priory. “Or maybe …” He hesitated, torn between the two options.
Muttering the words under his breath, he cast a spell designed to find and lead him to the belt, but the only result he received was an image of smooth gray emptiness. As he had feared, there were wards around the belt that protected it from magical observation or interference, just as similar wards protected Brisingr.
Eragon scowled and took a half step toward the freestanding wall.
The bell tolled louder than ever.
“Eragon,” called Arya from the other end of the cathedral, shifting the unconscious novitiate from one shoulder to the other. “We have to go.”
“But-”
“Oromis would understand. It’s not your fault.”
“But-”
“Leave it! The belt has been lost before. We will find it again. But for now, we must fly. Hurry!”
Eragon cursed, spun around, and ran to join Arya, Angela, and Solembum at the front of the cathedral. Of all the things to lose … It seemed almost sacrilegious to abandon the belt when so many creatures had died to fill it with energy. Besides, he had a horrible feeling that he might have need of that energy before the day was out.
Even as he and the herbalist pushed open the heavy doors that led out of the cathedral, Eragon sent his mind questing for Saphira, who he knew would be circling high above the city, waiting for him to contact her. The time for discretion had long since passed, and Eragon no longer cared if Murtagh or some other magician sensed his presence.
He soon felt the familiar touch of Saphira’s consciousness. As their thoughts melded together once again, a certain tightness in Eragon’s chest vanished.
What took you so long? exclaimed Saphira. He could taste her worry, and he knew she had been considering descending upon Dras-Leona and tearing it to pieces in search of him.
He poured his memories into her, sharing everything that had happened to him since they parted. The process took a few seconds, by which time he, Arya, Angela, and the werecat had exited the cathedral and were running down the front steps.
Without pausing to give Saphira an opportunity to make sense of his jumbled recollections, Eragon said, We need a distraction-now!
She acknowledged his statement, and he could feel her tip into a steep dive.
Also, tell Nasuada to start her attack. We’ll be at the south gate in a few minutes. If the Varden aren’t there when we open it, I don’t know how we’re going to escape.
BLACK-SHRIKE-THORN-CAVE
The cool, moist, morning-air-off-water whistled past Saphira’s head as she dove toward the rat-nest-city half lit by the rising sun. The low rays of light made the smelly-wood-eggshell-buildings stand out in high relief, their western sides black with shadow.
The wolf-elf-in-Eragon’s-shape who was riding on her back shouted something at her, but the hungry wind tore at his words, and she could not make o
ut his meaning. He began to ask her questions with his song-filled-mind, but she did not wait to let him finish. Instead, she told him of Eragon’s plight and asked him to alert Nasuada that now was the time for action.
How the shadow-of-Eragon that Blodhgarm wore was supposed to fool anyone, Saphira could not understand. He did not smell like her partner-of-heart-and-mind, nor did his thoughts feel like Eragon’s. Still, the two-legs seemed impressed by the apparition, and it was two-legs they were trying to fool.
On the left side of the rat-nest-city, the glittering shape of Thorn lay stretched out along the battlements above the southern gate. He lifted his crimson head, and she could tell that he had spotted her hurtling toward the break-bone-ground, as she had expected. Her feelings toward Thorn were too complicated to sum up in a few brief impressions. Every time she thought of him, she became confused and uncertain, something she was unaccustomed to.
Nevertheless, she was not about to let the upstart whelp best her in battle.
As the dark chimneys and sharp-edged roofs grew larger, she spread her wings a bit more, feeling the increased strain in her chest, shoulders, and wing muscles as she began to slow their descent. When she was only a few hundred feet above the closely packed swell of buildings, she swooped upward and allowed her wings to snap out to their full extent. The effort required to stop her fall was immense; for a moment, it felt as if the wind might tear her wings free of their sockets.
She shifted her tail to maintain balance, then wheeled over the city until she located the black-shrike-thorn-cave where the blood-mad-priests worshipped. Tucking in her wings again, she dropped the last number of feet and, with a thunderous crash, landed on the middle of the cathedral’s roof.
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