Inheritance (21 page)

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
.

With a quiet step, Baldor joined him by the edge of the canal. “The others are wondering: have you decided on a plan?” he asked.

“I have ideas, but no plan. What of you?”

Baldor crossed his arms as well. “We could wait for Nasuada to send Eragon and Saphira to our aid.”

“Bah.”

For a while, they watched the never-ending motion of the water below them. Then Baldor said, “What if you just asked them to surrender? Maybe they’ll be so frightened when they hear your name, they’ll throw open the gates, fall at your feet, and beg for mercy.”

Roran chuckled briefly. “I doubt word of me has reached all the way to Aroughs. Still …” He ran his fingers through his beard. “It might be worth a try, to put them off balance if nothing else.”

“Even if we gain entrance to the city, can we hold it with so few men?”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

A pause grew between them; then Baldor said, “How far we have come.”

“Aye.”

Again, the only sound was that of the water and of the turning wheels. Finally, Baldor said, “The snowmelt must not be as great
here as it is at home. Otherwise, the wheels would be half underwater come springtime.”

Roran shook his head. “It doesn’t matter how much snow or rain they get. The sluice gates can be used to limit the amount of water that runs over the wheels, so they don’t turn too fast.”

“But once the water rises to the top of the gates?”

“Hopefully, the day’s grinding is finished by then, but in any case, you uncouple the gears, raise the gates, and …” Roran trailed off as a series of images flashed through his mind, and his whole body flushed with warmth, as if he had drunk an entire tankard of mead in a single gulp.

Could I?
he thought wildly.
Would it really work, or … It doesn’t matter; we have to try. What else can we do?

He strode out to the center of the berm that held back the middlemost pond and grasped the spokes that stuck out from the tall wooden screw used to raise and lower the sluice gate. The screw was stiff and hard to move, even though he set his shoulder against it and pushed with all his weight.

“Help me,” he said to Baldor, who had remained on the bank, watching with puzzled interest.

Baldor carefully made his way to where Roran stood. Together they managed to close the sluice gate. Then, refusing to answer any questions, Roran insisted that they do the same with both the uppermost and the lowermost gates.

When all three were firmly shut, Roran walked back to Carn, Brigman, and the others and motioned for them to climb off their horses and gather around him. He tapped the head of his hammer while he waited, suddenly feeling unreasonably impatient.

“Well?” Brigman demanded once they were in place.

Roran looked each of them in the eyes, to make sure that he had their undivided attention, then he said, “Right, this is what we’re going to do—” And he began to talk, quickly and intensely, for a full half hour, explaining everything that had occurred to him in that one, revelatory instant. As he spoke, Mandel began
to grin, and though they remained more serious, Baldor, Delwin, and Hamund also appeared excited by the audacious nature of the scheme he outlined.

Their response gratified Roran. He had done much to earn their trust, and he was pleased to know that he could still count on their support. His only fear was that he might let them down; of all the fates he could imagine, only losing Katrina seemed worse.

Carn, on the other hand, appeared somewhat doubtful. This Roran had expected, but the magician’s doubt was slight compared with Brigman’s incredulity.

“You’re mad!” he exclaimed once Roran had finished. “It’ll never succeed.”

“You take that back!” said Mandel, and jumped forward, his fists clenched. “Why, Roran’s won more battles than you’ve ever fought in, and he did it without all the warriors you’ve had to order around!”

Brigman snarled, his bare upper lip curling like a snake. “You little whelp! I’ll teach you a lesson in respect you’ll never forget.”

Roran pushed Mandel back before the younger man could attack Brigman. “Oi!” growled Roran. “Behave yourself.” With a surly look, Mandel ceased resisting, but he continued to glower at Brigman, who sneered at him in return.

“It’s an outlandish plan, to be sure,” said Delwin, “but then, your outlandish plans have served us well in the past.” The other men from Carvahall made sounds of agreement.

Carn nodded and said, “Maybe it will work and maybe it won’t. I don’t know. In any event, it’s certain to catch our enemies by surprise, and I have to admit, I’m rather curious to see what will happen. Nothing like this has ever been tried before.”

Roran smiled slightly. Addressing Brigman, he said, “To continue as before, now
that
would be mad. We have only two and a half days to seize Aroughs. Ordinary methods won’t suffice, so we must hazard the
extra
ordinary.”

“That may be,” muttered Brigman, “but this is a ridiculous
venture that will kill many a good man, and for no reason other than to demonstrate your supposed cleverness.”

His smile widening, Roran moved toward Brigman until only a few inches separated them. “You don’t have to agree with me, Brigman; you only have to do what you’re told. Now, will you follow my orders or not?”

The air between them grew warm from their breath and from the heat radiating off their skin. Brigman gritted his teeth and twisted his spear even more vigorously than before, but then his gaze wavered and he backed away. “Blast you,” he said. “I’ll be your dog for the while, Stronghammer, but there’ll be a reckoning on this soon enough, just you watch, and then you’ll have to answer for your decisions.”

As long as we capture Aroughs
, thought Roran,
I don’t care
. “Mount up!” he shouted. “We have work to do, and little time to do it in! Hurry, hurry, hurry!”

he sun was climbing into the sky, as was Saphira, when from his place on her back, Eragon spotted Helgrind on the edge of the northern horizon. He felt a surge of loathing as he beheld the distant spike of rock, which rose from the surrounding landscape like a single jagged tooth. So many of his most unpleasant memories were associated with Helgrind, he wished he could destroy it and see its bare gray spires fall crashing to the ground. Saphira was more indifferent to the dark tower of stone, but he could tell that she too disliked being near it.

By the time evening arrived, Helgrind lay behind them, while Dras-Leona lay before them, next to Leona Lake, where dozens of ships and boats bobbed at anchor. The low, broad city was as densely built and inhospitable as Eragon remembered, with its narrow, crooked streets, the filthy hovels packed close together against the yellow mud wall that ringed the center of the city, and behind the wall, the towering shape of Dras-Leona’s immense cathedral, black and barbed, where the priests of Helgrind conducted their gruesome rituals.

A stream of refugees trailed along the road to the north—people fleeing the soon-to-be-besieged city for Teirm or Urû’baen, where they might find at least temporary safety from the Varden’s inexorable advance.

Dras-Leona seemed as foul and evil to Eragon as when he had first visited it, and it aroused in him a lust for destruction such as he had not felt at either Feinster or Belatona. Here he wanted to lay waste with fire and sword; to lash out with all of the terrible, unnatural energies that were at his disposal; and to indulge in every savage urge
and leave behind him nothing but a pit of smoking, blood-soaked ashes. For the poor and the crippled and the enslaved who lived within the confines of Dras-Leona, he had some sympathy. But he was wholly convinced of the city’s corruption and believed that the best thing would be to raze it and rebuild it without the taint of perversity the religion of Helgrind had infected it with.

As he fantasized about tearing down the cathedral with Saphira’s help, it occurred to him to wonder if the religion of the priests who practiced self-mutilation had a name. His study of the ancient language had taught him to appreciate the importance of names—names were power, names were
understanding
—and until he knew the name of the religion, he would not be able to fully apprehend its true nature.

In the waning light, the Varden settled on a series of cultivated fields just southeast of Dras-Leona, where the land rose up to a slight plateau, which would provide them with a modicum of protection should the enemy charge their position. The men were weary from marching, but Nasuada put them to work fortifying the camp, as well as assembling the mighty engines of war they had brought with them all the long way from Surda.

Eragon threw himself into the work with a will. First, he joined a team of men who were flattening the fields of wheat and barley, using planks with long loops of rope attached. It would have been faster to scythe the grain, either with steel or magic, but the stubble that remained would be dangerous and uncomfortable to walk over, much less to sleep upon. As it was, the compacted stalks formed a soft, springy surface as fine as any mattress, and one far preferable to the bare ground they were accustomed to.

Eragon labored alongside the other men for almost an hour, at which point they had cleared enough space for the tents of the Varden.

Then he helped in the construction of a siege tower. His greater-than-normal strength allowed him to shift beams that otherwise would have taken several warriors to move; thus, he was able to
speed the process. A few of the dwarves who were still with the Varden oversaw the raising of the tower, for the engines were of their design.

Saphira helped as well. With her teeth and claws, she gouged deep trenches in the ground and piled the removed earth into embankments around the camp, accomplishing more in a few minutes than a hundred men could have in a whole day. And, with the fire from her maw and mighty sweeps of her tail, she leveled trees, fences, walls, houses, and everything else around the Varden that might give their foes cover. In all, she presented a picture of fearsome devastation sufficient to inspire trepidation in even the bravest of souls.

It was late at night when the Varden finally finished their preparations and Nasuada ordered the men, dwarves, and Urgals to bed.

Retiring to his tent, Eragon meditated until his mind was clear, as had become his habit. Instead of practicing his penmanship afterward, he spent the next few hours reviewing the spells he thought he might need the following day, as well as inventing new ones to address the specific challenges Dras-Leona presented.

When he felt ready for the battle to come, he abandoned himself to his waking dreams, which were more varied and energetic than usual, for despite his meditation, the prospect of the approaching action stirred his blood and would not allow him to relax. As always, the waiting and the uncertainty were the most difficult parts for him to bear, and he wished he were already in the midst of the fray, where he would have no time to worry about what might happen.

Saphira was equally restless. From her, he caught snatches of dreams that involved biting and tearing, and he could tell that she was looking forward to the fierce pleasure of battle. Her mood influenced his to a certain degree, but not enough to make him entirely forget his apprehension.