Balance is gone, thought Eragon. Can’t trust my vision. Have to clear my mind. Have to—
A patch of motion caught his eye, and he ducked. Saphira’s tail swept over him, passing only inches above his head, then struck his tent and flattened it, breaking the wooden poles like so many dry twigs.
Saphira snarled, snapping at the empty air as she struggled to her feet. Then she paused, confused.
Little one, what—
A sound like a mighty wind interrupted her, and from out of the blackness of the sky, there emerged Thorn, red as blood and glittering like a million shifting stars. He landed close to Nasuada’s pavilion, and the earth shook from the impact of his weight.
Eragon heard Nasuada’s guards shouting; then Thorn swung his right forepaw across the ground, and half the shouts went silent.
From rigging strapped to the sides of the red dragon, several dozen soldiers leaped down and spread outward, stabbing into tents and cutting down the watchmen who ran at them.
Horns blared along the perimeter of the camp. At the same time, the sounds of combat erupted near their outer defenses, marking, Eragon thought, a secondary attack, from the north.
How many soldiers are there? he wondered. Are we surrounded? Panic blossomed within him so strongly that it almost overrode his sense of reason and sent him running blindly into the night. Only the knowledge that the faelnirv was responsible for his reaction held him in place.
He whispered a quick healing spell, hoping it might counteract the effects of the liqueur, but to no avail. Disappointed, he carefully stood, drew Brisingr, and joined Arya to stand shoulder to shoulder with her as five soldiers ran toward them. Eragon was not sure how he and Arya could fight them off. Not in their condition.
The men were less than twenty feet away when Saphira growled and slapped the ground with her tail, knocking the soldiers over. Eragon—who had sensed what Saphira was about to do—grabbed Arya, and she grabbed him, and by supporting each other, they were able to remain upright.
Then Blödhgarm and another elf, Laufin, sprinted out of the maze of tents and slew the five soldiers before they could regain their footing. The other elves followed close behind.
Another group of soldiers, this one over twenty strong, ran toward Eragon and Arya, almost as if the men knew where to find them.
The elves arranged themselves in a line in front of Eragon and Arya. But before the soldiers came within reach of the elves’ swords, one of the tents burst open and Angela charged howling into the midst of the soldiers, catching them by surprise.
The herbalist was wearing a red nightgown, her curly hair was in disarray, and in each hand she wielded a wool comb. The combs were three feet long and had two rows of steel tines mounted at an angle on the ends. The tines were longer than Eragon’s forearm and were sharpened to needle-like points—he knew that if you pricked yourself, you could catch blood poisoning from the unwashed wool they had been drawn through.
Two of the soldiers fell as Angela buried the wool combs in their sides, driving the tines right through their hauberks. The herbalist was more than a foot shorter than some of the men, but she showed no sign of fear as she bounded among them. To the contrary, she was the picture of ferocity, with her wild hair and her shouting and her dark-eyed expression.
The soldiers encircled Angela and closed in around her, hiding her from sight, and for a moment, Eragon feared they would overwhelm her.
Then, from elsewhere in the camp, he saw Solembum racing toward the knot of soldiers, the werecat’s ears pressed flat against his skull. More werecats trailed him: twenty, thirty, forty—a whole pack, and all in their animal forms.
A cacophony of hisses, yowls, and screams filled the night as the werecats sprang upon the soldiers and pulled them to the ground, tearing at them with claws and teeth. The soldiers fought back as best they could, but they were no match for the large, shaggy cats.
The whole sequence, from Angela’s appearance to the intervention of the werecats, transpired with such speed, Eragon barely had time to react. As the werecats swarmed the soldiers, he blinked and wet his parched mouth, feeling a sense of unreality about everything around him.
Then Saphira said, Quick, onto my back, and she crouched so he could climb onto her.
“Wait,” said Arya, and put a hand on his arm. She murmured a few phrases in the ancient language. An instant later, the distortion of Eragon’s senses vanished and he again found himself in full command of his body.
He gave Arya a grateful glance, then tossed Brisingr’s scabbard onto the remains of his tent, scrambled up Saphira’s right foreleg, and settled into his usual position at the base of her neck. Without a saddle, the sharp edges of her scales dug into the insides of his legs, a feeling he well remembered from their first flight together.
“We need the Dauthdaert,” he shouted down to Arya.
She nodded and ran toward her own tent, which was several hundred feet away, on the eastern side of the camp.
Another consciousness, not Saphira’s, pressed against Eragon’s mind, and he drew in his thoughts to protect himself. Then he realized the being was Glaedr, and he allowed the golden dragon past his guard.
I will help, said Glaedr. Behind his words, Eragon sensed a terrible, seething anger directed at Thorn and Murtagh, an anger that seemed powerful enough to burn the world to cinders. Join your minds with me, Eragon, Saphira. And you as well, Blödhgarm, and you, Laufin, and the rest of your kind. Let me see with your eyes, and let me listen with your ears, so that I can advise you as to what to do, and so that I can lend you my strength when needed.
Saphira leaped forward, half flying, half gliding over the rows of tents toward the huge ruby mass of Thorn. The elves followed below, killing what soldiers they encountered.
Saphira had the advantage of height, as Thorn was still on the ground. She angled toward him—intending, Eragon knew, to alight on Thorn’s back and fix her jaws upon his neck—but as he saw her coming, the red dragon snarled and twisted to face her, crouching like a smaller dog confronting a larger one.
Eragon just had time to notice that Thorn’s saddle was empty, and then the dragon reared and batted at Saphira with one of his thick, muscular forelegs. His heavy paw swung through the air with a loud rushing sound. In the gloom, his claws appeared startlingly white.