Eragon whirled around to see five men dragging the herbalist through a doorway that had opened in the side of the corridor. “No!” yelled Eragon, but before he could stop it, the door swung shut as silently as it had opened, and the wall appeared perfectly solid once more.
“Brisingr!” he shouted, and his sword erupted in flame. He placed the tip against the wall and attempted to push it through the stone, intending to cut open the door. The stone was thick, though, and slow to melt, and he soon realized it would take far more energy than he was willing to sacrifice.
Then Arya appeared beside him, and she placed a hand where the door was and murmured, “Ládrin.” Open. The door remained stubbornly closed, but Eragon was embarrassed he had not thought to try that first.
Their pursuers were so close by now that he and Arya had no choice but to turn and face them. Eragon wanted to cast the spell he had invented, but the corridor was only wide enough for two men to approach at a time; he would not be able to kill the rest, as they were hidden from sight. Better to keep the spell a secret, he decided, and save it for when he could wipe out most of the warriors at once.
He and Arya beheaded the two lead men, then attacked the next pair of warriors as they stepped over the bodies. In quick succession, they killed six more men, but there seemed to be no end of them.
“Through here!” shouted Wyrden.
“Stenr slauta!” exclaimed Arya, and all along the corridor—up to a few yards from where she stood—the stones in the walls exploded into the passageway. The hail of sharp fragments caused the black-clad men to cower and falter, and more than one fell to the floor, crippled.
Together Eragon and Arya turned to follow Wyrden, who was running toward the opening at the end of the corridor. The elf was only thirty feet away from it.
Then ten …
Then five …
And then a thicket of amethyst spikes shot out of holes in the floor and the ceiling, catching Wyrden between them. The elf seemed to float in the middle of the corridor, the spikes less than an inch away from his skin as his wards repelled the crystal thorns. Then a crackling discharge of energy ran the length of each spike and the needle-sharp tips flared painfully bright, and with an unpleasant crunch, they slid home.
Wyrden screamed and thrashed, and then his werelight went out and he moved no more.
Eragon stared with disbelief as he stumbled to a stop before the spikes. For all his experience in battle, he had never before been present at the death of an elf. Wyrden and Blödhgarm and the rest of their cohort were so accomplished, Eragon had believed that the only way they were likely to die was while fighting either Galbatorix or Murtagh.
Arya appeared equally stunned. She rallied quickly, however. “Eragon,” she said in an urgent voice, “cut us a path with Brisingr.”
He understood. His sword, unlike hers, would be impervious to whatever evil magic the spikes contained.
He drew back his arm and swung as hard as he could. A half-dozen of the spikes shattered beneath Brisingr’s adamantine edge. The amethyst emitted a bell-like tone as it broke, and when the shards struck the ground, they tinkled like ice.
Eragon kept to the right of the corridor, making sure not to hit the blood-streaked spikes that held up Wyrden’s body. Again and again he swung, hacking his way through the glittering thicket. With every blow, he sent pieces of amethyst flying through the air. One sliced his left cheek, and he winced, surprised and concerned that his wards had failed.
The jagged remnants of the broken spikes forced him to move carefully. The stumps below could easily pierce his boots, while the ones above threatened to cut him about the head and neck. Still, he managed to navigate to the far side of the thicket with only a small gash on his right calf, which stung whenever he put his weight on the leg.
The black-clad warriors nearly caught up with them as he helped Arya past the last few rows of spikes. Once she was free, they rushed through the opening and into the purplish light, Eragon with every intention of then turning around and confronting their attackers head-on and killing every last one of them in retaliation for Wyrden’s death.
On the other side of the opening was a dark, heavily built chamber that reminded Eragon of the caves under Tronjheim. A huge circular pattern of inlaid stone—marble and chalcedony and polished hematite—occupied the center of the floor. Around the edge of the patterned disk stood rough, fist-sized chunks of amethyst set within silver collars. Each piece of the purple rock glowed softly—the source of the light they had seen from the corridor. Across the disk, against the far wall, was a large black altar draped with a gold and crimson cloth. Pillars and candelabra flanked the altar, with a closed door on each side.
All this Eragon saw as he barreled into the room, in the brief instant before he realized that his momentum was going to carry him through the ring of amethysts and onto the disk. He tried to stop himself, tried to turn aside, but he was moving too fast.
Desperate, he did the one thing he could: he jumped toward the altar, hoping he could clear the disk in a single bound.
As he sailed over the nearest of the amethyst stones, his last feeling was regret, and his last thought was of Saphira.
TO FEED A GOD
he first thing Eragon noticed was the difference in the colors. The stone blocks in the ceiling appeared richer than before. Details that had been obscure now seemed sharp and vivid, while others that had been prominent were subdued. Below him, the sumptuous nature of the patterned disk was even more apparent.
It took him a moment to understand the reason for the change: Arya’s red werelight no longer illuminated the chamber. Instead, what light there was came from the muted glow of the crystals and the lit candles in the candelabra.
Only then did he realize that something was crammed into his mouth, stretching his jaw painfully wide, and that he was hanging by his wrists from a chain mounted in the ceiling. He tried to move and found that his ankles were shackled and secured to a metal loop in the floor.
As he twisted in place, he saw Arya next to him, trussed and suspended in the same manner. Like him, she was gagged with a ball of cloth in her mouth and a rag tied around her head to hold it in place.
She was already awake and watching him, and he saw she was relieved at his return to consciousness.
Why hasn’t she escaped already? he wondered. Then: What happened? His thoughts felt thick and slow, as if he were drunk with exhaustion.