He escaped, said Saphira.
“And … Nasuada? Did you rescue her?”
Eragon looked down and shook his head.
Sorrow passed over Arya’s face. She coughed and winced, then started to sit up. A thread of blood trickled from the corner of her mouth.
“Wait,” said Eragon. “Don’t move. I’ll fetch Blödhgarm.”
“There’s no need.” Grasping his shoulder, Arya pulled herself onto her feet, then gingerly rose to her full height. Her breath caught as her muscles stretched, and Eragon saw the pain she was trying to hide. “I’m only bruised, not broken. My wards protected me from the worst of Thorn’s blow.”
Eragon was doubtful, but he accepted her statement.
What now? asked Saphira, moving closer to them. The sharp, musky smell of her blood was thick in Eragon’s nostrils.
Eragon looked around at the flames and destruction in the camp. Again he thought of Roran and Katrina and wondered if they had survived the attack. What now indeed?
Circumstances answered his question. First, a pair of wounded soldiers ran out of a bank of smoke and attacked him and Arya. By the time Eragon dispatched them, eight of the elves had converged upon their location.
After Eragon convinced them he was unharmed, the elves turned their attention to Saphira and insisted on healing the bites and scratches Thorn had given her, even though Eragon would have preferred to do it himself.
Knowing that the healing was going to require several minutes, Eragon left Saphira with the elves and hurried back through the rows of tents to the area near Nasuada’s pavilion, where Blödhgarm and the two other elven spellcasters were still locked in mental combat with the last of the four enemy magicians.
The remaining magician was kneeling on the ground, his brow pressed against his knees and his arms wrapped around the nape of his neck. Instead of adding his thoughts to the invisible fray, Eragon strode over to the magician, tapped him on the shoulder, and shouted, “Ha!”
The magician quivered, startled, and the distraction allowed the elves to slip past his defenses. This Eragon knew because the man convulsed and then rolled over, the whites of his eyes showing, and a yellowish foam bubbled out of his mouth. Soon afterward, he ceased breathing.
With clipped sentences, Eragon explained to Blödhgarm and the two other elves what had happened to Arya and Nasuada. Blödhgarm’s fur bristled, and his yellow eyes burned with anger. But his only comment was to say in the ancient language, “Dark times are upon us, Shadeslayer.” Then he sent Yaela to find and retrieve the Dauthdaert from wherever it had fallen.
Together Eragon, Blödhgarm, and Uthinarë, the elf who had stayed with them, ranged through the camp, rounding up and killing the few soldiers who had escaped the teeth of the werecats and the blades of the men, dwarves, elves, and Urgals. They also used their magic to extinguish some of the larger blazes, snuffing them out as easily as the flame of a candle.
The whole while, an overwhelming sense of dread clutched at Eragon, pressing down on him like a pile of sodden fleeces and constricting his mind so that he found it difficult to think of anything other than death, defeat, and failure. He felt as if the world were crumbling around him—as if everything he and the Varden had striven to accomplish was unspooling rapidly, and there was nothing he could do to regain control. The sense of helplessness sapped his will to do anything other than sit in a corner and give in to misery. Still, he refused to satisfy the urge, for if he did, then he might as well be dead. So he kept moving, laboring alongside the elves in spite of his despair.
It did not improve his mood when Glaedr contacted him and said, If you had listened to me, we might have stopped Thorn and saved Nasuada.
And we might not have, said Eragon. He did not want to discuss the subject further but felt compelled to add: You let your anger cloud your sight. Killing Thorn wasn’t the only solution, nor should you have been so quick to destroy one of the only remaining members of your kind.
Do not think to lecture me, youngling! snapped Glaedr. You cannot begin to understand what I have lost.
I understand better than most, Eragon replied, but Glaedr had already withdrawn from his mind, and Eragon did not think the dragon heard him.
Eragon had just put out one fire and was moving to the next when Roran hurried to him and grasped his arm. “Are you hurt?”
Relief swept through Eragon as he saw his cousin alive and well.
“No,” he said.
“And Saphira?”
“The elves have already mended her wounds. What of Katrina? Is she safe?”
Roran nodded, and his posture relaxed slightly, but his expression remained troubled. “Eragon,” he said, drawing closer, “what’s happened? What is happening? I saw Jörmundur running around like a chicken with its head cut off, and Nasuada’s guards look grim as death, and I can’t get anyone to talk to me. Are we still in danger? Is Galbatorix about to attack?”
Eragon glanced around, then drew Roran to the side, where no one else could hear. “You can’t tell anyone. Not yet,” he cautioned.
“You have my word.”
With a few quick sentences, Eragon summarized the situation to Roran. By the time he finished, Roran’s expression had grown bleak. “We can’t let the Varden disband,” he said.
“Of course not. That won’t happen, but King Orrin may try to assume command, or—” Eragon fell silent as a group of warriors passed nearby. Then: “Stay with me, will you? I may need your help.”
“My help? For what would you need my help?”
“The whole army admires you, Roran, even the Urgals. You’re Stronghammer, the hero of Aroughs, and your opinion carries weight. That might prove important.”
Roran was silent for a moment, then nodded. “I’ll do what I can.”
“For now, just keep watch for soldiers,” said Eragon, and continued toward the fire that was his intended destination.
Half an hour later, as quiet and order had begun to settle over the camp again, a runner informed Eragon that Arya desired his immediate presence in King Orik’s pavilion.
Eragon and Roran exchanged glances, then set out toward the northwestern quadrant of the camp, where the majority of the dwarves had pitched their tents.
“There is no choice,” said Jörmundur. “Nasuada made her wishes perfectly clear. You, Eragon, must take her place and lead the Varden in her stead.”
The faces ringing the interior of the tent were stern and unyielding. Dark shadows clung to the hollows of their temples and to the deep frown lines of the assorted two-legs, as Eragon knew Saphira would have called them. The only one not frowning was Saphira—her head was pushed through the entrance to the pavilion so that she could participate in the conclave—but her lips were pulled back slightly, as if she was about to snarl.
Also present were King Orrin, a purple cloak wrapped over his night robes; Arya, looking shaken but determined; King Orik, who had found a mail shirt to cover himself; the werecat king, Grimrr Halfpaw, a white linen bandage wrapped around a sword cut on his right shoulder; Nar Garzhvog, the Kull, stooping to avoid brushing his horns against the ceiling; and Roran, who stood by the wall of the tent listening to the proceedings, so far without comment.
No one else had been allowed into the pavilion. Not guards, not advisers, not servants, not even Blödhgarm or the other elves. Outside, a block of men, dwarves, and Urgals stood twelve deep before the entrance—their task to prevent anyone, no matter how powerful or dangerous, from interfering with the meeting. And woven about the tent were a number of hastily cast spells intended to prevent eavesdropping both mundane and magical.