Roran welcomed the elves and took the time to ask each their name. They answered politely enough, but he had a feeling they did not think very highly of him. That was all right. He did not care for them either. There was something about them he did not trust; they were too aloof, too well practiced, and above all, too different. The dwarves and Urgals, at least, he understood. But not the elves. He could not tell what they were thinking, and that bothered him.
“Greetings, Stronghammer!” said Nar Garzhvog in a whisper that could be heard at thirty paces. “Today we shall win much glory for our tribes!”
“Yes, today we will win much glory for our tribes,” Roran agreed, moving on. The men were nervous; some of the younger ones looked as if they might be sick—and some were, which was only to be expected—but even the older men seemed tense, short-tempered, and either overly talkative or overly withdrawn. The cause was obvious enough: Shruikan. There was little Roran could do to help them other than to hide his own fears and hope that the men did not lose courage entirely.
The sense of anticipation that clung to everyone there, himself included, was dreadful. They had sacrificed much in order to reach this point, and it was not just their lives that were at risk in the battle to come. It was the safety and well-being of their families and descendants, as well as the future of the land itself. All of their prior battles had been similarly fraught, but this was the final one. This was the end. One way or another, there would be no more battles with the Empire after this day.
The thought hardly felt real. Never again would they have the chance to kill Galbatorix. And while confronting Galbatorix had seemed fine enough in conversations late at night, now that the moment was almost upon them, the prospect was terrifying.
Roran sought out Horst and the other villagers from Carvahall, and the lot of them formed a knot within the battalion. Birgit was among the men, clutching an ax that looked freshly sharpened. He acknowledged her by lifting his shield, as he might a mug of ale. She returned the gesture, and he allowed himself a grim smile.
The warriors muffled their boots and feet with rags, then stood waiting for the order to depart.
It soon arrived, and they marched out of the camp, doing their best to keep their arms and armor from making noise. Roran led his warriors across the fields to their place before the front gate of Urû’baen, where they joined two other battalions, one led by his old commander Martland Redbeard and one led by Jörmundur.
The alarm went up in Urû’baen soon afterward, so they pulled the rags off their weapons and feet and prepared to attack. A few minutes later, the Varden’s horns sounded the advance and they set off at a run across the dark ground toward the immensity of the city wall.
Roran took a place at the forefront of the charge. It was the fastest way to get himself killed, but the men needed to see him braving the same dangers they faced. It would, he hoped, stiffen their spines and keep them from breaking rank at the first sign of serious opposition. For whatever happened, Urû’baen would not be easy to take. Of that, he was sure.
They ran past one of the siege towers, the wheels of which were over twenty feet high and creaked like a set of rusty hinges, and then they were on open ground. Arrows and javelins rained upon them from the soldiers atop the battlements.
The elves shouted in their strange tongue, and by the faint light of dawn, Roran saw many of the arrows and spears turn and bury themselves harmlessly in the dirt. But not all. A man behind him uttered a desperate cry, and Roran heard a clatter of armor as men and Urgals leaped aside to avoid stepping on the fallen warrior. Roran did not look back, nor did he or those with him slow their headlong dash toward the wall.
An arrow struck the shield he held over his head. He barely felt the impact.
When they arrived at the wall, he moved to the side, shouting, “Ladders! Make way for the ladders!”
The men parted to allow the Urgals carrying the ladders to move forward. The ladders’ great length meant that the Kull had to use poles made of trees lashed together to push them upright. Once the ladders touched the wall, they sagged inward under their own weight, so that the upper two-thirds lay flat against the dressed stone and slid from side to side, threatening to fall.
Roran elbowed his way back through the men and grabbed one of the elves, Othíara, by the arm. She gave him a look of anger, which he ignored. “Keep the ladders in place!” he shouted. “Don’t let the soldiers push them away!”
She nodded and began to chant in the ancient language, as did the other elves.
Turning, Roran hurried back to the wall. One of the men was already starting to climb the nearest ladder. Roran grabbed him by the belt and pulled him off. “I’ll go first,” he said.
“Stronghammer!”
Roran slung his shield over his back, then began to climb, hammer in hand. He had never been fond of heights, and as the men and Urgals grew smaller below him, he felt increasingly uneasy. The feeling just grew worse when he reached the section of the ladder that lay flat against the wall, for he could no longer wrap his hands all the way around the rungs, nor could he get a good foothold—only the first few inches of his boots would fit on the bark-covered branches, and he had to move carefully to ensure that they did not slip off.
A spear flew past him, close enough that he felt the wind on his cheek.
He swore and kept climbing.
He was less than a yard from the battlements when a soldier with blue eyes leaned over the edge and looked straight at him.
“Bah!” Roran shouted, and the soldier flinched and stepped back. Before the man had time to recover, Roran scrambled up the remaining rungs and hopped over the battlements to land on the walkway along the top of the wall.
The soldier he had scared stood several feet in front of him, holding a short archer’s sword. The man’s head was turned to the side as he shouted at a group of soldiers farther down the wall.
Roran’s shield was still on his back so he swung his hammer at the man’s wrist. Without the shield, Roran knew he would have difficulty fending off a trained swordsman; his safest course was to disarm his opponent as quickly as possible.
The soldier saw what he intended and parried the blow. Then he stabbed Roran in the belly.
Or rather, he tried to. Eragon’s spells stopped the tip of the blade a quarter inch from Roran’s gut. Roran grunted, surprised, then knocked aside the blade and brained the man with three rapid strikes.
He swore again. It was a bad beginning.
Up and down the wall, more of the Varden tried to climb over the battlements. Few made it. Clumps of soldiers waited at the top of most every ladder, and reinforcements were streaming onto the walkway from the stairs to the city.