The woman sniffed disdainfully, then said, “Lord Halstead is in the east wing of the palace. Take the corridor over there, go through the Yellow Room and Lady Galiana’s flower garden, and you’ll find him sure as rain.”
Roran listened with suspicion. Her capitulation seemed too quick and too easy given her earlier resistance. Also, while she spoke, he noticed that the other two women reacted with surprise and some other emotion he could not identify. Confusion? he wondered. In any event, they did not react the way he would have expected if the silver-haired woman had just delivered their lord into the arms of their enemies. They were too quiet, too subdued, as if they were hiding something.
Of the two, the girl was the less skilled at masking her feelings, so Roran turned on her with all the savagery he could muster. “You there, she’s lying, isn’t she? Where is Halstead? Tell me!”
The girl opened her mouth and shook her head, speechless. She tried to back away from him, but one of the warriors held her in place.
Roran stomped over to her, jammed his shield flat against her chest, knocking the air out of her, and leaned his weight against it, pinning her between him and the man behind her. Lifting his hammer, Roran touched it to the side of her cheek. “You’re rather pretty, but you’ll have a hard time finding anyone but old men to court you if I knock out your front teeth. I lost a tooth myself today, but I managed to put it back in. See?” And he spread his lips in what he was sure was a gruesome approximation of a smile. “I’ll keep your teeth, though, so you won’t be able to do the same. They’ll make a fine trophy, eh?” And he made a threatening motion with the hammer.
The girl cringed and cried, “No! Please, sir, I don’t know. Please! He was in his quarters, meeting with his captains, but then he and Lady Galiana were going to go to the tunnel to the docks, and—”
“Thara, you fool!” exclaimed the matron.
“There’s a ship waiting for them, there is, and I don’t know where he is now, but please don’t hit me, I don’t know anything else, sir, and—”
“His quarters,” barked Roran. “Where are they?”
Sobbing, the girl told him.
“Let them go,” he said when she finished, and the three women darted out of the entryway, the hard heels of their shoes clattering against the polished floor.
Roran led the Varden through the enormous building in accordance with the girl’s instructions. Scores of half-dressed men and women crossed their paths, but none paused to fight. The palace rang with shouts and screams to the point where he wanted to plug his ears with his fingers.
Partway to their destination, they came upon an atrium with a statue of a huge black dragon in the middle. Roran wondered if it was supposed to be Galbatorix’s dragon, Shruikan. As they trooped past the statue, Roran heard a twang, and then something struck him in the back.
He fell against a stone bench next to the path and clutched at it.
Pain.
Agonizing, thought-destroying pain, the likes of which he had never experienced before. Pain so intense, he would have cut off his own hand to make it stop. It felt as if a red-hot poker were being pressed into his back.
He could not move.…
He could not breathe.…
Even the smallest shift in position caused him unbearable torment.
Shadows fell across him, and he heard Baldor and Delwin shouting, then Brigman, of all people, was saying something as well, although Roran could not make sense of it.
The pain suddenly increased tenfold, and he bellowed, which only made it worse. With a supreme effort of will, he forced himself to remain absolutely still. Tears ran from the corners of his clenched eyes.
Then Brigman was talking to him. “Roran, you have an arrow in your back. We tried to catch the archer, but he escaped.”
“Hurts …,” Roran gasped.
“That’s because the arrow hit one of your ribs. It would have gone right through you, otherwise. You’re lucky it wasn’t an inch higher or lower and that it missed your spine and your shoulder blade.”
“Pull it out,” he said between gritted teeth.
“We can’t; the arrow has a barbed head. And we can’t push it through to the other side. It has to be cut out. I have some experience with this, Roran. If you trust me to wield the knife, I can do it here and now. Or, if you prefer, we can wait until we find you a healer. There must be one or two somewhere in the palace.”
Though he hated to put himself in Brigman’s power, Roran could bear the pain no longer, so he said, “Do it here.… Baldor …”
“Yes, Roran?”
“Take fifty men and find Halstead. Whatever happens, he can’t escape. Delwin … stay with me.”
A brief discussion ensued between Baldor, Delwin, and Brigman, of which Roran heard but a few scattered words. Then a large portion of the Varden departed the atrium, which was noticeably quieter afterward.
At Brigman’s insistence, a team of warriors fetched chairs from a nearby room, broke them into pieces, and built a fire on the gravel-lined path next to the statue. Into the fire was placed the tip of a dagger, which Roran knew Brigman would use to cauterize the wound in his back after removing the arrow, lest he bleed to death.
As he lay on the bench, stiff and trembling, Roran focused on controlling his breathing, taking slow, shallow breaths to minimize the pain. Difficult as it was, he purged his mind of all other thoughts. What had been and what might be did not matter, only the steady inflow and outflow of air through his nostrils.
He almost passed out when four men lifted him from the bench and lowered him facedown to the ground. Someone stuffed a leather glove into his mouth, aggravating the ache from his torn lips, while at the same time, rough hands grasped each of his legs and arms, stretching them out to their fullest extent and pinning them in place.
Roran glanced backward to see Brigman kneeling over him, holding a curved hunting knife in one hand. The knife began to descend, and Roran closed his eyes again and bit down hard on the glove.
He breathed in.
He breathed out.
And then time and memory ceased for him.
INTERREGNUM
oran sat hunched over the edge of the table, toying with a jewel-encrusted goblet that he stared at without interest.
Night had fallen, and the only light in the lavish bedchamber came from the two candles on the desk and the small fire glowing on the hearth by the empty four-poster bed. All was quiet, save for an occasional crackle of burning wood.
A faint salty breeze wafted through the windows, parting the thin white curtains. He turned his face to catch the draft, welcoming the touch of cool air against his fevered skin.
Through the windows, he could see Aroughs laid out before him. Watchfires dotted the streets at intersections here and there, but otherwise the city was dark and motionless—unusually so, for everyone who could was hiding in their homes.
When the breeze ceased, he took another sip from the goblet, pouring the wine directly down his throat to avoid having to swallow. A drop fell onto the split in his lower lip, and he tensed and sucked in his breath while he waited for the spike of pain to vanish.
He set the goblet on the desk, next to the plate of bread and lamb and the half-empty bottle of wine, then glanced at the mirror propped upright between the two candles. It still reflected nothing but his own haggard face, bruised, bloodied, and missing a goodly portion of his beard on the right-hand side.