Roran rubbed the back of his neck as he continued to examine Aroughs. What Brigman had told him intrigued him, but he was not sure how it could help. “Is there anything else of significance in the surrounding countryside?” he asked.
“Only a slate mine farther south along the coast.”
He grunted, still thinking. “I want to visit the mills,” he said. “But first I want to hear a full account of your time here, and I want to know how well provisioned we are with everything from arrows to biscuits.”
“If you’ll follow me … Stronghammer.”
The next hour Roran spent in conference with Brigman and two of his lieutenants, listening and asking questions as they recounted each of the assaults they had launched against the city walls, as well as cataloging the stocks of supplies left to the warriors under his command.
At least we’re not short of weapons, Roran thought as he counted the number of dead. Yet even if Nasuada had not set a time limit upon his mission, the men and horses did not have enough food to stay camped before Aroughs for more than another week.
Many of the facts and figures that Brigman and his lackeys related came from writing on scrolls of parchment. Roran strove to conceal the fact that he could not decipher the rows of angular black marks by insisting that the men read everything to him, but it irritated him that he was at the mercy of others. Nasuada was right, he realized. I have to learn to read, else I cannot tell if someone is lying to me when they say that a piece of parchment says one thing or another.… Maybe Carn can teach me on our return to the Varden.
The more Roran learned about Aroughs, the more he began to sympathize with Brigman’s plight; capturing the city was a daunting task with no obvious solution. Despite his dislike for the man, Roran thought that the captain had done as well as could be expected under the circumstances. He had failed, Roran believed, not because he was an incompetent commander, but because he lacked the two qualities that had granted Roran victory time and time again: daring and imagination.
Upon finishing his review, Roran and his five companions rode with Brigman to inspect Aroughs’s walls and gates from a closer, but still safe, distance. Sitting in a saddle again was incredibly painful for Roran, but he bore it without complaint.
As their steeds clattered onto the stone-paved road next to the camp and began to trot toward the city, Roran noticed that, on occasion, the horses’ hooves produced a peculiar noise when they struck the ground. He remembered hearing a similar sound, and being bothered by it, during their final day of traveling.
Looking down, he saw that the flat stones that formed the surface of the road seemed to be set within tarnished silver, the veins of which formed an irregular, cobweb-like pattern.
Roran called out to Brigman and asked him about it, whereupon Brigman shouted, “The dirt here makes for poor mortar, so instead they use lead to hold the stones in place!”
Roran’s initial reaction was disbelief, but Brigman appeared serious. He found it astonishing that any metal could be so common that people would squander it on building a road.
So they trotted down the lane of stone and lead toward the gleaming city beyond.
They studied Aroughs’s defenses with great attentiveness. But their increased proximity revealed nothing new and only served to reinforce Roran’s impression that the city was nigh on impregnable.
He guided his horse over to Carn’s. The magician was staring at Aroughs with a glazed expression, his lips moving silently, as if he were talking to himself. Roran waited until he stopped, then quietly asked, “Are there any spells on the gates?”
“I think so,” Carn replied, equally subdued, “but I’m not sure how many or what their intended purpose is. I’ll need more time to tease out the answers.”
“Why is it so difficult?”
“It’s not, really. Most spells are easy to detect, unless someone has made an effort to hide them, and even then, the magic usually leaves certain telltale traces if you know what to look for. My concern is that one or more of the spells might be traps set to prevent people from meddling with the gates’ enchantments. If that’s so, and I approach them directly, I’ll be sure to trigger them, and then who knows what will happen? I might dissolve into a puddle before your very eyes, which is a fate I would rather avoid, if I have my way.”
“Do you want to stay here while we continue on?”
Carn shook his head. “I don’t think it would be wise to leave you unguarded while we’re away from camp. I’ll return after sundown and see what I can do then. Besides, it would help if I were closer to the gates, and I don’t dare go any nearer now, when I’m in plain sight of the sentinels.”
“As you wish.”
When Roran was satisfied they had learned everything they could by looking at the city, he had Brigman lead them to the nearest set of mills.
They were much as Brigman had described. The water in the canal flowed over three consecutive twenty-foot falls. At the base of each fall was a waterwheel, edged with buckets. The water splashed into the buckets, driving the machine round and round. The wheels were connected by thick axles to three identical buildings that stood stacked one above the other along the terraced bank and which contained the massive grindstones needed to produce the flour for Aroughs’s population. Though the wheels were moving, Roran could tell they were disengaged from the complex arrangement of gears hidden inside the buildings, for he did not hear the rumble of the grindstones turning in their places.
He dismounted by the lowest mill and walked up the path between the buildings, eyeing the sluice gates that were above the falls and that controlled the amount of water released into them. The gates were open, but a deep pool of water still lay beneath each of the three slowly spinning wheels.
He stopped halfway up the hill and planted his feet on the edge of the soft, grassy bank, crossed his arms, and tucked his chin against his chest while he pondered how he could possibly capture Aroughs. That there was a trick or a strategy that would allow him to crack open the city like a ripe gourd, he was confident, but the solution eluded him.
He thought until he was tired of thinking, and then he gave himself over to the creaking of the turning axles and the splashing of the falling water.
Soothing as those sounds were, a thorn of unease still rankled him, for the place reminded him of Dempton’s mill in Therinsford, where he had gone to work the day the Ra’zac had burned down his home and tortured his father, mortally wounding him.
Roran tried to ignore the memory, but it stayed with him, twisting in his gut.
If only I had waited another few hours to leave, I could have saved him. Then the more practical part of Roran replied: Yes, and the Ra’zac would have killed me before I could have even raised a hand. Without Eragon to protect me, I would have been as helpless as a newborn babe.