Eragon stopped.
Hundreds of soldiers stood gathered before the gate. The men milled about in seeming confusion as they donned weapons and armor, and their commanders bellowed orders at them. The golden thread stitched onto the soldiers’ crimson tunics glittered as they rushed to and fro.
The presence of the soldiers dismayed Eragon, but he was even more dismayed to see that the city’s defenders had piled a huge mound of rubble against the inside of the gates, to keep the Varden from battering them in.
Eragon swore. The mound was so large, it would take a team of fifty men several days to clear it away. Saphira could dig the gates free in a few minutes, but Murtagh and Thorn would never give her the opportunity.
We need another distraction, he thought. What that distraction should be, however, eluded him. Saphira! he cried, casting his thoughts out toward her. She heard him, of that he was sure, but he had no time to explain the situation to her, for at that very moment, one of the soldiers stopped and pointed at Eragon and his companions.
“Rebels!”
Eragon tore Brisingr from its scabbard and sprang forward before the rest of the soldiers could heed the man’s warning. He had no other choice. To retreat would be to abandon the Varden to the mercies of the Empire. Besides, he could not leave Saphira to deal with both the wall and the soldiers by herself.
He shouted as he leaped, as did Arya, who joined him in his mad charge. Together they cut their way into the midst of the surprised soldiers. For a few brief moments, the men were so bewildered, several did not seem to realize Eragon was their foe until he had stabbed them.
Flights of arrows arced down into the square from the bowmen stationed on the parapet. A handful of the shafts bounced off Eragon’s wards. The rest killed or injured the Empire’s own men.
Fast as he was, Eragon could not block all of the swords and spears and daggers poking at him. He could feel his strength ebbing at an alarming rate as his magic repelled the attacks. Unless he could win free of the press, the soldiers would end up exhausting him to the point where he could no longer fight.
With a ferocious war cry, he spun in a circle, holding Brisingr close to his waist as he scythed down all the soldiers standing within reach.
The iridescent blue blade cut through bone and flesh as if they were equally insubstantial. Blood trailed from the tip in long, twisting ribbons that slowly separated into glistening drops, like orbs of polished coral, while the men he cut doubled over, clutching at their bellies as they attempted to hold closed their wounds.
Every detail seemed bright and hard-edged, as if sculpted from glass. Eragon could make out individual hairs in the beard of the swordsman in front of him. He could count the drops of sweat that beaded the skin below the man’s eyes, and he could have pointed to every stain, scuff, and tear in and on the swordsman’s outfit.
The noise of combat was painfully loud to his sensitive ears, but Eragon felt a deep sense of calm. He was not immune to the fears that had troubled him before, but they did not waken quite so easily, and he fought better because of it.
He completed his spin and was just moving toward the swordsman when Saphira swooped past overhead. Her wings were pulled tight against her body, and they fluttered like leaves in a gale. As she passed by, a blast of wind tousled Eragon’s hair and pressed him toward the ground.
An instant later, Thorn followed Saphira, teeth bared, flames boiling in his open maw. The two dragons hurtled a half mile beyond Dras-Leona’s yellow mud wall; then they looped around and began to race back.
From outside the walls, Eragon heard a loud cheer. The Varden must be almost to the gates.
A patch of skin on his left forearm burned as if someone had poured hot fat on it. He hissed and shook his arm, but the feeling persisted. Then he saw a blotch of blood soaking through his tunic. He glanced back at Saphira. It had to be dragon blood, but he could not tell whose.
As the dragons approached, Eragon took advantage of the soldiers’ momentary daze to kill three more. Then the rest of the men regained their wits, and the battle resumed in earnest.
A soldier with a battle-ax stepped in front of Eragon and started to swing at him. Halfway through the stroke, Arya dispatched the man with a slash from behind, nearly cutting him in twain.
With a quick nod, Eragon acknowledged her help. By unspoken agreement, they stood back to back and faced the soldiers together.
He could feel Arya panting as hard as he was. Though they were stronger and faster than most humans, there was a limit to their endurance, a limit to their resources. They had already killed dozens, but hundreds remained, and Eragon knew that reinforcements would soon arrive from elsewhere in Dras-Leona.
“What now?” he shouted, parrying a spear jabbed at his thigh.
“Magic!” Arya replied.
As Eragon fended off the soldiers’ attacks, he began to recite every spell he could think of that might kill their enemies.
Another gust of wind ruffled his hair, and a cool shadow swept over him as Saphira circled above, dissipating her excess speed. She flared her wings and started to drop toward the battlements of the wall.
Before she could land, Thorn caught up with her. The red dragon dove, breathing a jet of flame over a hundred feet long. Saphira roared with frustration and veered away from the wall as she flapped quickly to gain altitude. The two dragons spiraled around each other as they climbed into the sky, biting and clawing with furious abandon.
Seeing Saphira in danger only reinforced Eragon’s determination. He increased the speed with which he spoke, chanting the words of the ancient language as quickly as he could without mispronunciation. But no matter what he tried, neither his spells nor Arya’s had any effect on the soldiers.
Then Murtagh’s voice boomed out of the sky, like the voice of a cloud-scraping giant: “Those men are under my protection, Brother!”
Eragon looked up and saw Thorn plummeting toward the square. The red dragon’s sudden change in direction had caught Saphira unawares. She still hung high above the city, a dark blue shape against the lighter blue of the sky.