Relief swept through Eragon.
The werecat was in his human form, and he was naked except for a ragged loincloth that looked as if it had been torn from the clothes of their attackers. His spiky black hair stood nearly on end, and a feral snarl disfigured his lips. Several cuts covered his forearms, his left ear hung drooping from the side of his head, and a strip of skin was missing from his scalp. He carried a blood-smeared knife.
And following a few paces behind the werecat was the herbalist, Angela.
INFIDELS ON THE LOOSE
hat an idiot,” proclaimed Angela as she hurried to the edge of the patterned disk on the floor. She was bleeding from a number of cuts and scratches, and her clothes were stained with even more blood, which Eragon suspected was not her own. Otherwise, she appeared unharmed. “All he had to do was—this!”
And she swung her sword with its transparent blade up and over her head, and brought the pommel down against one of the amethysts that ringed the disk. The crystal shattered with an odd snap, like a shock of static, and the light it emitted flickered and went out. The other crystals maintained their radiance.
Without pause, Angela stepped to the next piece of amethyst and broke it as well, then the one after it, and so on.
Never in his life had Eragon been so grateful to see anyone.
He alternated between watching the herbalist and watching the cracks widening at the top of the first egg. The Ra’zac had almost pecked its way out, a fact it seemed to be aware of, for it was squeaking and tapping with increased vigor. Between the pieces of shell, Eragon saw a thick white membrane and the beaked head of the Ra’zac pushing blindly against it, horrible and monstrous.
Hurry, hurry, Eragon thought as a fragment as large as his hand fell from the egg and clattered against the floor, like a plate made of fired clay.
The membrane tore, and the young Ra’zac stuck its head out of the egg, revealing its barbed purple tongue as it uttered a triumphant screech. Slime dripped from its carapace, and a fungus-like smell pervaded the chamber.
Eragon tugged at his bonds once more, futile as it was.
The Ra’zac screeched again, then struggled to extricate itself from the remainder of the egg. It pulled one clawed arm free, but in the process it unbalanced the egg, which tipped to one side, spilling a thick, yellowish fluid across the patterned disk. The grotesque hatchling lay on its side for a moment, stunned. Then it stirred and got to its feet, where it stood, swaying and uncertain, clicking to itself like an agitated insect.
Eragon stared, appalled and terrified, but also fascinated.
The Ra’zac had a deep, ridged chest that made it look as if its ribs were on the outside of its body, not the inside. The creature’s limbs were thin and knobby, like sticks, and its waist was narrower than any human’s. Each leg had an extra backward-bending joint, something that Eragon had never seen before, but which accounted for the Ra’zac’s unsettling gait. Its carapace appeared soft and malleable, unlike those of the more mature Ra’zac Eragon had encountered. No doubt it would harden in time.
The Ra’zac tilted its head—its huge, protruding, pupil-less eyes catching the light—and it chittered as if it had just discovered something exciting. Then it took a tentative step toward Arya … and another … and then another, its beak parting as it strained toward the pool of blood by her feet.
Eragon shouted into his gag, hoping to distract the creature, but other than a quick glance, it ignored him.
“Now!” exclaimed Angela, and she broke the last of the crystals.
Even as the shards of amethyst skittered across the floor, Solembum leaped toward the Ra’zac. The werecat’s form blurred in midair—head shrinking, legs shortening, fur sprouting—and he landed on all fours, his body once more that of an animal.
The Ra’zac hissed and clawed at Solembum, but the werecat dodged the blow and, faster than the eye could follow, slapped the Ra’zac’s head with one of his large, heavy paws.
The Ra’zac’s neck broke with a crack, and the creature flew across the room and landed in a twisted heap, where it lay twitching for several seconds.
Solembum hissed, his one uninjured ear pressed flat against his skull; then he wriggled out of the loincloth that was still tied around his hips and went over to sit and wait by the other egg.
“What have you done to yourself?” said Angela as she hurried over to Arya. Arya wearily lifted her head, but she made no attempt to answer.
With three swift strokes of her colorless blade, the herbalist sliced through Arya’s remaining cuffs, as if the tempered metal were no harder than cheese.
Arya fell to her knees and doubled over, pressing her injured hand against her stomach. With her other hand, she tore at her gag.
The burning in Eragon’s shoulders eased when Angela cut him free and he was finally able to lower his arms. He pulled the cloth out of his mouth and, in a hoarse voice, said, “We thought you were dead.”
“They’ll have to try harder than that if they want to kill me. Bunglers, the lot of them.”
Still doubled over, Arya began to chant spells of binding and healing. Her words were soft and strained, but she never faltered or misspoke.
While she worked to repair the damage to her hand, Eragon healed the cut on his ribs as well as the sores on his wrists. Then he motioned at Solembum and said, “Move.”
The werecat flicked his tail but did as Eragon asked.
Lifting his right hand, Eragon said, “Brisingr!”
A pillar of blue flame erupted around the second egg. The creature inside screamed: a terrible, unearthly sound, more like the screech of tearing metal than the cry of person or beast.
Narrowing his eyes against the heat, Eragon watched with satisfaction as the egg burned. And let that be the last of them, he thought. When the screaming ceased, he extinguished the flame, and it went out from the bottom up. The silence afterward was unexpectedly complete, for Arya had finished her incantations and all was still.
Angela was the first to stir. She went to Solembum and stood over him, murmuring in the ancient language as she mended his ear and other wounds.
Eragon knelt by Arya and put a hand on her shoulder. She looked up at him, then uncurled her body enough to show him her hand. The skin along the lower third of her thumb, as well as along the outer edge of her palm and across the back of her hand, was shiny and bright red. However, the muscles underneath appeared sound.
“Why didn’t you finish healing it?” he asked. “If you’re too tired, I can—”
She shook her head. “I damaged several nerves … and I can’t seem to repair them. I need Blödhgarm’s help; he is more skilled than I at manipulating flesh.”
“Can you fight?”
“If I’m careful.”
He tightened his grip on her shoulder for a moment. “What you did—”
“I only did what was logical.”
“Most people wouldn’t have had the strength.… I tried, but my hand was too big. See?” And he held up his hand against hers.
She nodded, then grasped his arm and slowly got to her feet. Eragon rose with her, providing her with a steady support.
“We have to find our weapons,” he said, “as well as my ring, my belt, and the necklace the dwarves gave me.”
Angela frowned. “Why your belt? Is it enchanted?”