I’m sorry for scaring you. The boar caught me by surprise.
A deep huff emanated from Thorn as he climbed over the flank of a mountain, heading back toward Nal Gorgoth. You should be more
careful.
I should…. I might need to rework my wards. I think I’ve been too lax with what they allow.
Thorn executed a slow turn over Nal Gorgoth. Seeing the village once more from above, Murtagh noticed that the buildings were laid out in intersecting circles, like rings on a rain-pelted pond.
Thorn said, Do you still wish to stay through the night?
I don’t know. An image flashed through Murtagh’s mind of the black sun over a barren land, and he again felt the bitter touch of a northern wind. He hugged himself, and for the first time, he wondered if Bachel’s answers were the sort he actually wanted to hear. There’s something very wrong here.
Very, very wrong.
As they landed in the courtyard, Alín approached from within the temple, bearing a pitcher of water with a cloth and basin. It was a welcome sight. Murtagh could feel the filth on his skin, blood and dirt and the dried juice of crushed mushrooms all intermixed.
Accompanying Alín was the temple cook—a surly, heavyset woman with a stained apron and forearms as large as a baker’s—and a half-dozen scullions.
Together, cook and scullions braved Thorn’s close inspection to fetch Murtagh’s boar and carry it away to be butchered.
Murtagh was glad to see the beast gone. He’d had his fill of boar hunting for the rest of time.
Alín placed the pitcher, cloth, and basin on the flagstones, bowed, and retreated to a safe distance.
“My thanks,” said Murtagh. She averted her eyes as he pulled off his torn, bloodstained jerkin and the woolen shirt beneath. He cursed. Both garments were ruined. He would have to wear his linen shirt until he could acquire replacements.
“How went the hunt, my Lord?” Alín asked in a soft voice.
Murtagh wet the cloth and scrubbed at the blood on his skin. It clung to him with stubborn persistence. “If your only measure of success is the number of animals killed, well enough. Otherwise, I would say badly. Very badly. The beasts took three of your men.”
Alín bowed her head. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
Murtagh grunted. “Are you, now? Bachel stuck a dagger into one of the men. Rauden was his name. Is that how things are done among your kind?”
Pale blue eyes met his gaze and held it. “Was Rauden wounded?” Reluctantly, Murtagh said, “He was. But I could have helped him. Or
Bachel could have.”
Alín’s resolve and conviction never seemed to falter. “Perhaps that is true, my Lord, but I trust our Speaker’s judgment. She knows what is best for us, and if it was Rauden’s time to leave this life and rejoin the greater dream, then it is good that Bachel was there to ease his journey. None of us could ask for more.”
“Because she is your mehtra.”
A flash of disapproval crossed Alín’s face. “We do not call her that lightly, Kingkiller.”
“I’m not sure why you call her that at all. She doesn’t seem like much of a mother.”
She lifted her chin. “You must understand, my Lord, that Bachel is the Speaker. Her concerns transcend those of normal mortals. You cannot
expect to know or understand her. If what she did seems wrong to you, the fault lies not with her. She can do no wrong.”
Murtagh chewed on that. There was a possibility, a very, very slight possibility, that Alín was right. If Bachel could see the future, then every choice she made might be the correct one. And yet surely killing Rauden couldn’t be justified.
His lip curled. “So says everyone who wishes to hold power and not be challenged.”
“You are unfair, my Lord. No king or queen has ever had as much right to rule as does Bachel, nor as much responsibility.”
Abandoning the cloth, Murtagh bent and poured the contents of the pitcher over his head and shoulders. The water was shockingly cold, even more so in the unseasonable warmth that pervaded Nal Gorgoth, and yet it was a relief and a pleasure to feel himself at least partially clean.
“Is that so?”
Alín nodded, earnest. “Her burdens are immense, my Lord. The life of any one man—of any one of us here in Nal Gorgoth—is as a speck of dust when weighed against the importance of the Speaker’s duties.”
Murtagh didn’t feel like forcing the issue. He shook his hair dry and turned to retrieve his linen shirt from the saddlebags.
As he did, he heard Alín let out a small gasp, and he knew she had noticed the scar on his back. Grim curiosity drove him to look at her, expecting to see either pity or disgust distorting her face.
He saw neither. Her face was soft with what he could only interpret as compassion. Understanding, even. The anger that had been building within him drained away, leaving him hollow and off-guard.
“Oh,” she said. “In what battle were you wounded? Was it Eragon who
—”
“No.”
“Then was it Galbatorix or—” “It was my father.”
Her eyes grew very wide, and then Murtagh did see pity in her gaze, and
he couldn’t bear it, so he turned away and busied himself retrieving his linen
shirt. Alín was silent the whole while.
Thorn gave Murtagh a comforting nudge on the shoulder, and Murtagh patted him without looking. Then Thorn started to lick the scales along his forelegs, and the claws too, cleaning them of the dirt and boar’s blood that darkened them. His barbed tongue rasped with each stroke.
“Ah! Wait, please! I can help,” said Alín. She gave a quick bow and scurried back into the temple.
Thorn paused and watched with curiosity.
“What do you think—” Murtagh stopped as he saw her returning with another basin, this one full of water, and several more cloths draped over the crooks of her arms.
Alín placed the basin on the stones in front of Thorn’s forefeet and bowed again. “Please, Dragon, will you let me wash you?”
Murtagh felt Thorn consider, and then Thorn opened his mind to her and said, You may.
The reverberation of his words caused Alín to blink and step back, but then she bobbed her head and wet a cloth and—with as much care as if she were cleaning the jewels on a king’s crown, fragile with age—began to wipe the blood and dirt from Thorn’s scales.
Murtagh watched, unsure of what to make of it, but touched by her consideration. In all his time with Thorn, he had never bothered to help clean the dragon. Thorn was fastidious with his grooming, and Murtagh had seen no reason to offer aid.
He said, “So your vows allow you to touch Thorn but not me? He is as much a he as I am.”
Alín pursed her lips as she worked the cloth under the tip of a scale. “You know better than that, my Lord. Thorn is neither human nor elf nor dwarf nor Urgal. It is different with him. Besides, my faith would never forbid me the touch of a dragon. That would be…Why, that would be like locking a person underground and refusing to let them feel the touch of the sun upon their face.”
“Are dragons really so essential to you and the rest of the Draumar?” “They are. More than I can explain to an outlander.”
“Mmh.” Murtagh looked toward the side valley. Bachel and her retinue had yet to arrive back at Nal Gorgoth. “I had a vision during the hunt.”
Startlement flitted across Alín’s face, but she hid it quickly. “We have many visions in Nal Gorgoth, my Lord.”
“Yes, but this one was different, I think.”
Murtagh described it to her as she continued to work on Thorn’s feet and legs. The acolyte appeared increasingly uncomfortable, until—as he mentioned the dragon—she said, “Stop! No more, my Lord. This is for the Speaker to hear and interpret, not I.”
“And yet I would hear your thoughts,” Murtagh said, and forged onward with his account.
Alín let out a cry, dropped the cloth, and clapped her hands over her ears. “This…No, no! I cannot hear any more!” And with her hands still about her head, she fled the courtyard.
Murtagh watched her go, frustrated. No matter how else he tried to gather information about the Draumar, all paths seemed to lead back to Bachel.
Beside him, Thorn lifted a foot and inspected his now-glittering scales.
He licked at a remaining smear of grime. Alín is not a bad person. “No, but her loyalty is firmly fixed on Bachel.”
Then Murtagh took the last two dried apples from Thorn’s saddlebags, sat upon Thorn’s right foreleg, and set to eating while they waited. His mind was a muddle of indecision. He kept seeing flashes of the boar trampling him, and also Bachel shoving the dagger into Rauden, and the black sun hanging in a dead sky…. And he kept asking himself: What could be so important that the people of Nal Gorgoth were willing to die without hesitation?
He had to talk with Bachel again. Had to try to find out why she had acted the way she did. If there was a reasonable explanation, perhaps then… But no. How could there be?
What do you make of all this? he asked Thorn.
Before the dragon could answer, Bachel and what remained of the hunting party clattered into the courtyard. The shaggy mountain horses were
lathered and steaming. They dragged behind them makeshift litters of branches lashed together, upon which rested the corpses of the slain boars and fallen warriors.
Murtagh stood and started toward Bachel, determined to push past her evasions.
He hadn’t taken more than a couple of steps when a heartrending wail filled the courtyard as a barefooted woman ran forth from among the houses. Her hair was undone and flew free behind her like a pennant of flame. She went straight to the litters and fell upon Rauden’s body, wailing all the while, deep, agonizing cries that hurt to hear.
Murtagh stopped in his tracks. A crowd of villagers gathered about the edge of the courtyard, watching.
Bachel went to the woman and placed a hand upon her head. “My daughter,” she said in a sorrowful tone. And then she spoke to the woman in a voice intended only for her.
The grieving woman nodded, and though her tears did not cease, Murtagh heard her say, “Thank you, Mehtra.” And what surprised him was that she seemed to mean it.
Then Bachel turned her attention to the assembled villagers. “My children! Our dead need burying, that they may sleep, and dream, in peace. Come with me, that we may see it done and done rightly, and after we may celebrate their lives with this bounty the Dreamer has given us. Come! Let us—”
A clatter of iron and a bark of harsh orders—“Move! Forward!”—among the streets of the village interrupted her.
Bachel seemed unsurprised. “Make way!” she commanded, and the people did.
Murtagh and Thorn turned to look. What now? wondered Murtagh.
Four spear-carrying warriors drove a line of shackled prisoners into the courtyard. Murtagh counted quickly; there were twenty-one men and women bound in irons, disheveled, dirty-faced, and dull and listless as if they had already given up all hope of freedom. They were a mix of young and old, though none were children. By their clothes, Murtagh guessed the
prisoners were commoners from somewhere near Ceunon. Taken off a ship, perhaps, or captured in a raid along the Bay of Fundor.
Thorn hissed and bared his teeth slightly. I know, Murtagh said.
With his heavy, lurching stride, Grieve went to the warriors guarding the prisoners. He spoke with them and then returned to his mistress’s side. “Your latest thralls, Speaker.”
“Thralls?” Murtagh said loudly, making no attempt to hide his outrage. He was not fond of serfdom or slavery or any sort of enforced bondage. One of the first changes Nasuada had made upon assuming the throne in Ilirea was outlawing such practices throughout her realm, a change Murtagh thoroughly approved of. Though he felt she had somewhat undercut the decree by requiring magicians to join Du Vrangr Gata or else have their abilities suppressed through herbs and potions.
Bachel gave the prisoners an appraising look. “Thralls soon to join us in our high and terrible cause.”
“You expect these sorry folk to swear loyalty to you?” said Murtagh.
Bachel arched an eyebrow. In her blood-spattered clothes, she had a fantastic aspect, as if she were a spirit of the forest given life and as dangerous as any wild beast. “All who serve our cause here in Nal Gorgoth serve willingly, my son. Even as you shall.”
“That…is difficult to believe.”
“And yet, so it is, my son. You must have faith.”
“How can I if I do not even know what your cause is?”
Inscrutable as ever, Bachel turned away. “Soon all shall be revealed, Kingkiller, but I warn you, you may find understanding more difficult than ignorance.” To the warriors guarding the prisoners, she said, “Take them away. I shall grant them audience later.” And then she returned to her fallen warriors and walked beside them as the cultists carried the bodies into the temple. With them went Rauden’s widow, clutching at her breast.
Murtagh watched them go, feeling helpless. He could not bring himself to intrude upon a funeral procession. So he stayed by Thorn and twisted Zar’roc’s hilt until the skin on his palm nearly tore.
 |
Murtagh knew that he might have learned more about the Draumar from the rites attending the burial of their men, but for the present, he could no longer tolerate Bachel or the rest of the villagers. Instead, he said to Thorn, I need to move.
They left the courtyard, and Murtagh wandered with brisk steps through Nal Gorgoth. The village was eerily empty; all of the cultists were in the temple, and the only sounds of life came from the crows in the Tower of Flint and the livestock penned along the periphery of the village. As for the prisoners—the thralls—the warriors had marched them away from the temple and out of sight. Murtagh nearly used his mind to search for them but then decided to hold.
There would be time enough for that later.
Thorn trailed him, being careful not to scrape his scales against the sides of the buildings and destroy the aged carvings or knock loose one of the dragon-like sculptures.
Murtagh stopped and studied the sculptures. That they resembled dragons was undeniable, but it was equally certain that the creatures depicted differed in subtle ways that made them feel like a separate race. The spines along the heads were shorter than those of Thorn or Shruikan or Saphira, and the heads themselves were longer, bonier, and thinner across the beam of the brow. Perhaps the differences were a result of creative choices on the part of the artisans, but Murtagh doubted that; the sculptures were too carefully crafted—too closely observed—for such liberties or inaccuracies to make sense.
They look more like Fanghur, he said, naming the wind-serpents, the small, dragon-like creatures known to live in the Beor Mountains.
The little worms never flew so far north, said Thorn. Not if Yngmar’s memories are to be trusted.
Are they, though? The world is old; even dragons do not know everything of note that has happened.
It is strange, said Thorn, lifting his head above the rooftops to sniff the air.
Murtagh moved on.
The longer he walked, the more agitated he became. Between the pummeling he’d taken during the hunt and the subsequent vision, he had been in no way prepared for Rauden’s killing. No matter what Bachel or Alín or anyone else says, that was wrong. He snorted. Eragon had said much the same to him after Murtagh had killed the defenseless slaver, Torkenbrand. But that had been different. Torkenbrand had been a threat. Rauden was no threat at all. Certainly not to Bachel.
The memory of the slaver turned his thoughts back to the cultists’ prisoners. Their thralls.
A hard certainty began to form within Murtagh.
He stopped again and looked at Thorn. The dragon lowered his head until they were staring eye to eye. Murtagh could feel the same hard certainty within Thorn.
I don’t care about whatever future Bachel sees for us, said Murtagh. Nor I.
I just want to know what she and the Draumar are trying to do. It can’t be good.
Thorn’s hot breath washed over him, a comforting sensation. You mean to press the point with Bachel?
He nodded. When we sup this evening. Either she’ll answer us and answer well or—
We fight?
If it comes to that. Only…Murtagh shivered. The children. We have to protect the children.
Thorn licked his teeth. It is hard to fight in a nest without crushing eggs.
Then we’ll have to find a way to empty the nest first. It’s a big enough valley.
There’s plenty of room to run and hide.
What if the younglings refuse to run? Thorn cocked his head. They might stand and fight, same as their elders, and then what?
Murtagh shook his head. I don’t know. We do our best. He put his hands on either side of Thorn’s head. We are decided?
We are.
And yet doubt gnawed at Murtagh. Confronting the witch seemed an increasingly chancy prospect, even if he couldn’t reasonably explain why. But he was determined, as was Thorn. There was no turning aside now.
