The wolf-elf-in-Eragon’s-shape who was riding on her back shouted something at her, but the hungry wind tore at his words, and she could not make out his meaning. He began to ask her questions with his song-filled-mind, but she did not wait to let him finish. Instead, she told him of Eragon’s plight and asked him to alert Nasuada that now was the time for action.
How the shadow-of-Eragon that Blödhgarm wore was supposed to fool anyone, Saphira could not understand. He did not smell like her partner-of-heart-and-mind, nor did his thoughts feel like Eragon’s. Still, the two-legs seemed impressed by the apparition, and it was two-legs they were trying to fool.
On the left side of the rat-nest-city, the glittering shape of Thorn lay stretched out along the battlements above the southern gate. He lifted his crimson head, and she could tell that he had spotted her hurtling toward the break-bone-ground, as she had expected. Her feelings toward Thorn were too complicated to sum up in a few brief impressions. Every time she thought of him, she became confused and uncertain, something she was unaccustomed to.
Nevertheless, she was not about to let the upstart whelp best her in battle.
As the dark chimneys and sharp-edged roofs grew larger, she spread her wings a bit more, feeling the increased strain in her chest, shoulders, and wing muscles as she began to slow their descent. When she was only a few hundred feet above the closely packed swell of buildings, she swooped upward and allowed her wings to snap out to their full extent. The effort required to stop her fall was immense; for a moment, it felt as if the wind might tear her wings free of their sockets.
She shifted her tail to maintain balance, then wheeled over the city until she located the black-shrike-thorn-cave where the blood-mad-priests worshipped. Tucking in her wings again, she dropped the last number of feet and, with a thunderous crash, landed on the middle of the cathedral’s roof.
She dug her claws into the tiles of the roof to stop herself from sliding off into the street below. Then she threw back her head and roared as loudly as she could, challenging the world and everything in it.
There was a bell clanging in the tower of the building next to the black-shrike-thorn-cave. She found the noise irritating, so she twisted her neck and loosed a jet of blue and yellow flame at it. The tower did not catch fire, as it was stone, but the rope and beams supporting the bell ignited, and a few seconds later, the bell fell crashing into the interior of the tower.
That pleased her, as did the two-legs-round-ears who ran screaming from the area. She was a dragon, after all. It was only right that they should fear her.
One of the two-legs paused by the edge of the square in front of the black-shrike-thorn-cave, and she heard him shout a spell at her, his voice like the squeaking of a frightened mouse. Whatever the spell was, Eragon’s wards shielded her from it—at least she assumed they did, for she noticed no difference in how she felt or in the appearance of the world around her.
The wolf-elf-in-Eragon’s-shape killed the magician for her. She could feel how Blödhgarm grasped hold of the spellcaster’s mind and wrestled the two-legs-round-ears’ thoughts into submission, whereupon Blödhgarm uttered a single word in the ancient-elf-magic-language, and the two-legs-round-ears fell to the ground, blood seeping from his open mouth.
Then the wolf-elf tapped her on the shoulder and said, “Ready yourself, Brightscales. Here they come.”
She saw Thorn rising above the edge of the rooftops, Eragon-half-brother-Murtagh a small, dark figure on his back. In the light of the morning sun, Thorn shone and sparkled almost as brilliantly as she herself did. Her scales were cleaner than his, though, as she had taken special care when grooming earlier. She could not imagine going into battle looking anything but her best. Her enemies should not only fear her, but admire her.
She knew it was vanity on her part, but she did not care. No other race could match the grandeur of the dragons. Also, she was the last female of her kind, and she wanted those who saw her to marvel at her appearance and to remember her well, so if dragons were to vanish forevermore, two-legs would continue to speak of them with the proper respect, awe, and wonder.
As Thorn climbed a thousand or more feet above the rat-nest-city, Saphira spared a quick glance around to make sure that partner-of-her-heart-and-mind-Eragon was nowhere near the black-shrike-thorn-cave. She did not want to hurt him by accident in the fight that was about to take place. He was a fierce hunter, but he was small and easily squished.
She was still working to unravel the dark-echoing-painful-memories Eragon had shared with her, but she understood enough of them to know that events had once again proved what she had long believed: that whenever she and her partner-of-heart-and-mind were apart, he ended up in trouble of one form or another. Eragon, she knew, would disagree, but his latest misadventure had done nothing to convince her otherwise, and she felt a perverse satisfaction in having been right.
Once Thorn reached an appropriate height, he twisted round and dove toward her, flames shooting from his open maw.
The fire she did not fear—Eragon’s wards would shield her from it—but Thorn’s massive weight and strength would allow him to quickly exhaust any spells designed to shield her from physical danger. To protect herself, she ducked and pressed her body flat against the cathedral, even as she twisted her neck and snapped at Thorn’s pale underbelly.
A swirling wall of flames engulfed her, rumbling and roaring like a giant waterfall. The flames were so bright, she instinctively closed her inner eyelids, the same as she would when underwater, and then the light was no longer blinding.
The flames soon cleared, and as Thorn rushed past overhead, the tip of his thick, rib-bruising tail traced a line across the membrane of her right wing. The scratch bled, but not profusely, and she did not think it would cause her much difficulty while flying, painful though it was.
Thorn dove at her again and again, trying to bait her into taking to the air. She refused to budge, however, and after a few more passes, he tired of harrying her and landed on the other end of the black-shrike-thorn-cave, his huge wings outstretched for balance.
The entire building shook as Thorn dropped to all fours, and many of the gem-glass-picture-windows in the walls below shattered and fell tinkling to the ground. Thorn was bigger than her now, as a result of the egg-breaker-Galbatorix’s meddling, but she was not intimidated. She had more experience than Thorn, and besides, she had trained with Glaedr, who had been larger than both she and Thorn combined. Also, Thorn dared not kill her … nor did she think he wanted to.
The red dragon snarled and stepped forward, the tips of his claws scraping against the tiles on the roof. She snarled in return and retreated several feet, until she could feel her tail pressing against the base of the spires that rose up like a wall at the front of the black-shrike-thorn-cave.
The tip of Thorn’s tail twitched, and she knew he was about to pounce.
She drew in her breath and bathed him in a torrent of flickering flames. Her task now was to keep Thorn and Murtagh from realizing that it was not Eragon who was sitting on her. To that end, she could either stay far enough away from Thorn that Murtagh would be unable to read the thoughts of the wolf-elf-in-Eragon’s-shape, or she could attack often and ferociously enough that Murtagh would not have the opportunity—which would be difficult, as Murtagh was used to fighting from Thorn’s back even while Thorn turned and twisted through the air. Still, they were close to the ground, and that would help her, for she preferred to attack. Always to attack.
“Is that the best you can do?” Murtagh shouted with a magically enhanced voice from within the ever-shifting cocoon of fire.
Even as the last of the flames died in her mouth, Saphira leaped toward Thorn. She struck him full in the chest, and their necks intertwined, heads slapping against one another as they each tried to fix their teeth around the other’s throat. The force of the impact pushed Thorn backward off the black-shrike-thorn-cave, and he flailed his wings, buffeting Saphira as both he and she fell toward the ground.
They landed with a crash that split paving stones and jarred the nearby houses. Something cracked in Thorn’s left wing-shoulder, and his back arched unnaturally as Murtagh’s wards kept the dragon from crushing him flat.
Saphira could hear Murtagh cursing from underneath Thorn, and she decided that it would be best to move away before the angry two-legs-round-ears started casting spells.
She jumped up, kicking Thorn in the belly as she did so, and alit on the peak of the house behind the red dragon. The building was too weak to support her, so she took flight again and, just for good measure, set the row of buildings on fire.