Inheritance (11 page)

“Aye.” Orrin stooped over the map, hunching his shoulders like a vulture as he glared at the squiggles of faded ink that marked the triangle of Belatona, Dras-Leona, and Urû’baen.

And so he remained until Nasuada said, “Is there anything else we must attend to? Jörmundur is waiting for his orders, and the Council of Elders has requested an audience with me.”

“I worry.”

“What about?”

Orrin swept a hand over the map. “That this venture was ill conceived from the start.… That our forces, and those of our allies, are dangerously scattered, and that if Galbatorix should take it in his head to join in the fight himself, he could destroy us as easily as Saphira could a herd of goats. Our entire strategy depends upon contriving a meeting between Galbatorix, Eragon, Saphira, and as many spellcasters as we can muster. Only a small portion of those spellcasters are currently among our ranks, and we won’t be able to
gather the rest into a single place until we arrive at Urû’baen and meet with Queen Islanzadí and her army. Until that happens, we remain woefully vulnerable to attack. We are risking much on the assumption that Galbatorix’s arrogance will hold him in check until our trap has sprung shut around him.”

Nasuada shared his concerns. However, it was more important to shore up Orrin’s confidence than to commiserate with him, for if his resolve weakened, it would interfere with his duties and undermine the morale of his men. “We are not entirely defenseless,” she said. “Not anymore. We have the Dauthdaert now, and with it, I think we might actually be able to kill Galbatorix and Shruikan, should they emerge from within the confines of Urû’baen.”

“Perhaps.”

“Besides, it does no good to worry. We cannot hasten the dwarves here, nor speed our own progress toward Urû’baen, nor turn tail and flee. So I would not let our situation trouble you excessively. All we can do is strive to accept our fate with grace, whatever it might be. The alternative is to allow the thought of Galbatorix’s possible actions to unsettle our minds, and
that
I won’t do. I refuse to give him such power over me.”

scream rang out: high, jagged, and piercing, almost inhuman in pitch and volume.

Eragon tensed as if someone had stabbed him with a needle. He had spent the better part of the day watching men fight and die—killing scores himself—yet he could not help but feel concern as he heard Elain’s cries of anguish. The sounds she made were so terrible, he had begun to wonder if she would survive the birth.

Next to him, beside the barrel that served as his seat, Albriech and Baldor squatted on their hams, picking at the tattered blades of grass between their shoes. Their thick fingers shredded each scrap of leaf and stalk with methodical thoroughness before groping for the next. Sweat glistened on their foreheads, and their eyes were hard with anger and despair. Occasionally, they exchanged glances or looked across the lane at the tent where their mother was, but otherwise they stared at the ground and ignored their surroundings.

A few feet away, Roran sat on his own barrel, which lay on its side and wobbled whenever he moved. Clustered along the edge of the muddy lane were several dozen people from Carvahall, mostly men who were friends of Horst and his sons or whose wives were helping the healer Gertrude attend to Elain. And towering behind them was Saphira. Her neck was arched like a drawn bow, the tip of her tail twitched as if she were hunting, and she kept flicking her ruby-red tongue in and out of her mouth, tasting the air for any scents that might provide information about Elain or her unborn child.

Eragon rubbed a sore muscle in his left forearm. They had been waiting for several hours, and dusk was drawing near. Long black shadows stretched out from every object, reaching eastward as if
striving to touch the horizon. The air had turned cool, and mosquitoes and lace-winged damselflies from the nearby Jiet River darted to and fro around them.

Another scream rent the silence.

The men stirred with unease, then made gestures to ward off bad luck and murmured to one another in voices intended only for those closest to them but which Eragon could hear with perfect clarity. They whispered about the difficulty of Elain’s pregnancy; some solemnly stated that if she did not give birth soon, it would be too late for both her and the child. Others said things like “Hard for a man to lose a wife even in the best of times, but ’specially here, ’specially now,” or “It’s a shame, it is.…” Several blamed Elain’s troubles on the Ra’zac or on events that had occurred during the villagers’ journey to the Varden. And more than one muttered a distrustful remark about Arya being allowed to assist with the birth. “She’s an elf, not a human,” said the carpenter Fisk. “She ought to stick with her own kind, she should, and not go around meddling where she’s not wanted. Who knows what it is she really wants, eh?”

All that and more Eragon heard, but he hid his reactions and kept his peace, for he knew it would only make the villagers uncomfortable if they were aware of how sharp his hearing had become.

The barrel underneath Roran creaked as he leaned forward. “Do you think we should—”

“No,” said Albriech.

Eragon tugged his cloak closer around him. The chill was beginning to sink into his bones. He would not leave, though, not until Elain’s ordeal was over.

“Look,” said Roran with sudden excitement.

Albriech and Baldor swiveled their heads in unison.

Across the lane, Katrina exited the tent, carrying a bundle of soiled rags. Before the entrance flap fell shut again, Eragon caught a glimpse of Horst and one of the women from Carvahall—he was not sure who—standing at the foot of the cot where Elain was lying.

Without so much as a single sideways glance at those watching,
Katrina half ran and half walked toward the fire where Fisk’s wife, Isold, and Nolla were boiling rags for reuse.

The barrel creaked twice more as Roran shifted his position. Eragon half expected him to start after Katrina, but he remained where he was, as did Albriech and Baldor. They, and the rest of the villagers, followed Katrina’s movements with unblinking attentiveness.

Eragon grimaced as Elain’s latest scream pierced the air, the cry no less excruciating than those previous.

Then the entrance to the tent was swept aside for a second time, and Arya stormed out, bare-armed and disheveled. Her hair fluttered about her face as she trotted over to three of Eragon’s elven guards, who were standing in a pool of shadow behind a nearby pavilion. For a few moments, she spoke urgently with one of them, a thin-faced elf woman named Invidia, then hurried back the way she had come.

Eragon caught up with her before she had covered more than a few yards. “How goes it?” he asked.

“Badly.”

“Why is it taking so long? Can’t you help her give birth any faster?”

Arya’s expression, which was already strained, became even more severe. “I could. I could have sung the child out of her womb in the first half hour, but Gertrude and the other women will only let me use the simplest of spells.”

“That’s absurd! Why?”

“Because magic frightens them—and I frighten them.”

“Then tell them you mean no harm. Tell them in the ancient language, and they’ll have no choice but to believe you.”

She shook her head. “It would only make matters worse. They would think I was trying to charm them against their will, and they would send me away.”

“Surely Katrina—”

“She is the reason I was able to cast the spells I did.”

Again Elain screamed.

“Won’t they at least let you ease her pain?”

“No more than I already have.”

Eragon spun toward Horst’s tent. “Is that so,” he growled between clenched teeth.

A hand closed around his left arm and held him in place. Puzzled, he looked back at Arya for an explanation. She shook her head. “Don’t,” she said. “These are customs older than time itself. If you interfere, you will anger and embarrass Gertrude and turn many of the females from your village against you.”

“I don’t care about that!”

“I know, but trust me: right now the wisest thing you can do is to wait with the others.” As if to emphasize her point, she released his arm.

“I can’t just stand by and let her suffer!”

“
Listen
to me. It’s better if you stay. I will help Elain however I can, that I promise, but do not go in there. You will only cause strife and anger where none are needed.… Please.”

Eragon hesitated, then snarled with disgust and threw up his hands as Elain screamed yet again. “Fine,” he said, and leaned close to Arya, “but whatever happens, don’t let her or the child die. I don’t care what you have to do, but don’t let them die.”

Arya studied him with a serious gaze. “I would never allow a child to come to harm,” she said, and resumed walking.

As she disappeared inside Horst’s tent, Eragon returned to where Roran, Albriech, and Baldor were gathered and sank back down onto his barrel.

“Well?” Roran asked.

Eragon shrugged. “They’re doing all they can. We just have to be patient.… That’s all.”

“Seemed as if she had a fair bit more than that to say,” said Baldor. “The meaning was the same.”

The color of the sun shifted, becoming orange and crimson as it approached the terminating line of the earth. The few tattered
clouds that remained in the western sky, remnants of the storm that had blown past earlier, acquired similar hues. Flocks of swallows swooped overhead, making their supper out of the moths and flies and other insects flitting about.

Over time, Elain’s cries gradually decreased in strength, fading from her earlier, full-throated screams to low, broken moans that made Eragon’s hackles prickle. More than anything, he wanted to free her from her torments, but he could not bring himself to ignore Arya’s advice, so he stayed where he was and fidgeted and bit his bruised nails and engaged in short, stilted conversations with Saphira.

When the sun touched the earth, it spread out along the horizon, like a giant yolk oozing free of its skin. Bats began to mingle among the swallows, the flapping of their leathery wings faint and frantic, their high-pitched squeaks almost painfully sharp to Eragon.

Then Elain uttered a shriek that drowned out every other sound in the vicinity, a shriek the likes of which Eragon hoped he would never hear again.

A brief but profound silence followed.

It ended as the loud, hiccupping wail of a newborn child emanated from within the tent—the age-old fanfare that announced the arrival of a new person into the world. At the sound, Albriech and Baldor broke out grinning, as did Eragon and Roran, and several of the waiting men cheered.

Their jubilation was short-lived. Even as the last of the cheers died out, the women in the tent began to keen, a shrill, heartrending sound that made Eragon go cold with dread. He knew what their lamentations meant, what they had always meant: that tragedy of the worst kind had struck.

“No,” he said, disbelieving, as he hopped off the barrel.
She can’t be dead. She can’t be.… Arya promised
.

As if in response to his thought, Arya tore back the flap to the tent and ran toward him, bounding across the lane with impossibly long strides.

“What’s happened?” Baldor asked as she slowed to a halt.

Arya ignored him and said, “Eragon, come.”

“What’s happened?” Baldor exclaimed angrily, and reached for Arya’s shoulder. In a flash of seemingly instantaneous movement, she caught his wrist and twisted his arm behind his back, forcing him to stand hunched over, like a cripple. His face contorted with pain.

“If you want your baby sister to live, then stand aside and do not interfere!” She released him with a push, sending him sprawling into Albriech’s arms, then whirled about and strode back toward Horst’s tent.

“What
has
happened?” Eragon asked as he joined her.

Arya turned to face him, eyes burning. “The child is healthy, but she was born with a cat lip.”

Then Eragon understood the reason for the women’s outpouring of grief. Children cursed with a cat lip were rarely allowed to live; they were difficult to feed, and even if the parents could feed them, such children would suffer a miserable lot: shunned, ridiculed, and unable to make a suitable match for marriage. In most cases, it would have been better for all if the child had been stillborn.