For Alagaesia: 84. A friend in need

Saphira and Indra flew on ahead of the marching army behind them. The news that Nasuada had been subjugated by Galbatorix and made to lead his army only served to anger the two dragons. Eragon had mostly come to the conclusion that it was entirely Nasuada’s fault that this had to happen. Living under the protection of Galbatorix’s sworn slave was bound to land her in trouble. If only he knew that it was because Glaedr tried to protect him that Nasuada was caught in this unwitting position!

The company led by Blodhgarm that consisted of strong Kull and graceful elven archers had taken a position of advantage against the Empire - at least as much advantage as can be taken by three hundred men against ten thousand. The west gate of the city was in a low lying point when compared to the terrain around it. Blodhgarm and his men had positioned themselves on top of a hillish projection from where the empire’s soldiers were in range of their bows.

Blodhgarm had grown suspicious of the commander of the empire army because it was pretty clear that the commander, whoever it was, wasn’t utilising the full potential of the empire army. They could have employed magicians to find the number of Varden hiding in their blind spot - the downward slope of the hillish projection and once they knew that there were hardly five hundred men, they could have sent down their infantry without caring for the losses for how many could the five hundred slay before being slain themselves?

It seemed that that the commander did not want to harm the Varden and also was actually caring for the lives of the men who fought under them. It was odd for a general of Galbatorix to care for the lives of their soldiers. Generally, it was known in the Varden that all they wanted was decisive victory against their enemies.

This behaviour had led Blodhgarm to discover the greatest victory Galbatorix had ever gained in this war: the subjugation of Nasuada. When the elf finished his explanation, Eragon was grateful to him for not reading too much into the matter in terms of politics for Roran had burnt the dead body of Nasuada in front of everyone’s eyes at Dras-Leona.

By the time the elf had explained his stunning discovery, the eight thousand men who were led by Garzhvog had reached the battlefield.

“What are you planning, Shadeslayer?” Blodhgarm asked sounding cautious.

“I mean to get our leader back.” Eragon said.

“There are more than twenty thousand men under her command and I estimate we have about a third of that force.” The elf observed.

“We were always going to be outnumbered three to one, Blodhgarm-elda.”

“Yes, but that was to happen once we  broke into the city and not on the plains outside it.”

“The whole Varden can’t know of this.”

“But they will if and when a few of these men return.”

“We will see to it when it comes to such a pass.”

The elf, with his wolf-like yellow eyes peered at him for a while. When Eragon began to think that the elf would revolt, he dipped his head and said, “So be it. My orders, Shadeslayer?”

Eragon nodded his gratitude and asked the elf to collect archers and back the infantry and cavalry from strategic positions. Arya assumed responsibility to lead four thousand foot and mounted soldiers while Garzhvog was to lead the other four thousand men. Eragon and Saphira were to provide support from the air while Indra was tasked to perform surveillance activity from high above the ground. Eragon insisted on it being so fearing for Indra’s life.

Fortunately, neither Arya nor Indra revolted. For good measure, the green dragon touched Eragon on his brow and apologised for his quarrel with Eragon, ‘I am sorry, Eragon-vor, for being mean to you these past weeks. But you must understand. I know you understand me. You are my best friend.’

Eragon smiled and patted Vanendra on his face. Then he responded thus: ‘I can’t be angry with my younger brother, now can I?’

Having gained the trust of the leaders, Eragon now wanted to fire-up the foot soldiers who would actually win or lose this battle. And to that effect he made up a story that fit the scenario.

“Warriors of the Varden!,” he called, “The evil king who sits on the occupied throne of Illirea has resorted to his final trick! He means to demoralise us by creating a likeness of your dead leader; of Lady Nasuada to lead his forces against us. But we will not fall to appearances, will we? After all, Galbatorix has created an appearance of peace in this empire while in fact he has built it upon the graves of our fathers and sisters!”

There was silence except for a few bobbing heads.

“Well, will we?!” Eragon repeated.

“No!” The soldiers went up in unison.

“Then let us capture the imposter and get the truth from her!” He thundered.

The Varden hailed. Having misled the men thoroughly, Eragon turned to look at the generals of his army: Arya and Garzhvog. The princess looked him with a hard eye while Garzhvog seemed to appreciate his effort. He nodded at the two of them and went to climb into Saphira’s saddle.

‘You did well, little one. There is nothing to be ashamed of in what you said.’ Saphira consoled his guilty mind as she took to the air.

Eragon watched from his position atop Saphira, the speed at which the Varden descended on the empire’s army. True to her style, Nasuada did not press forward but rather stayed back holding a strong line of defense. When the armies met, the clang of metal meeting metal rang all across the fields.

When the first blood was spilled and the war cries suppressed the metal-clang, the songbirds vacated their places and vultures occupied them on the trees. Garzhvog pushed his brigade forward and into range of the empire’s wall mounted archers while Arya held back out of range of the Empire’s archers.

Saphira swooped down to ground level and crushed the empire soldiers with her sheer weight, every time she did so. The soldiers of the empire could not decide on how to attack her because she would on the ground crushing and scorching men one second and more than twenty metres up in the air the next. Even the most resourceful warriors who could throw their spears and let loose arrows at her could not succeed for her wards protected her thoroughly.

The battle went on for an hour before Nasuada actually was seen on the battlefield. She rode on a majestic black horse and had a hard and set expression on her face. There seemed to be no remorse at all in what she was doing. She looked, to Eragon, like any other ruthless generals of Galbatorix’s army.

“Push them towards the walls!,” she cried sounding almost enthusiastic about what she was doing. Eragon noticed that she was motioning towards the soldiers that Garzhvog had led deep within the empire’s lines. Indra contacted him and said that there indeed was great danger for those men if they neared the wall for he saw oil being poured down from the walls. One spark and the men would be burnt to ashes.

“Saphira, can we break her plan?” Eragon asked angry that Nasuada would so willingly try to demolish a whole regiment of four thousand of her own men; the men who had raised her.

“We can challenge her directly,” Saphira replied in a morose tone.

“Let us finish this then,” Eragon agreed. He then contacted Arya and Garzhvog with his mind and told them to work on converging upon Nasuada while also alerting them not to go anywhere near the walls of the city.

Arya had taken care not to let many enemies to get behind her brigade’s backs. It helped her to push forward without restraint while Garzhvog had to contend with a large chunk of the empire’s army that still remained behind him and his men.

Consequently, Garzhvog’s men were put at an disadvantage as they turned their back on the empire’s army abruptly. But the Kull pressed forward ruthlessly caring nary for the lives of all the soldiers that would be lost.

“Saphira, there! The men need our help!” Eragon cried seeing the men of the Varden being decimated.

Sensing the urgency, Saphira folded her wings and dove down head first towards the region where Garzhvog’s men were being hammered. When she was just about a hundred metres from ground level, she unfurled her wings and steadied herself as the wind was caught in her long wings.

Her sudden arrival at the scene shocked both empire’s and Varden’s soldiers alike and they all stopped dead for a moment before the Varden began cheering. Saphira landed among the empire’s men trampling dozens beneath her foot. The soldiers who had been attacking the Varden had to run away or face the wrath of a dragon. Most chose the former option while a few tried poking their spears in Saphira’s armour. They could not so much as scratch even the armour seeing as her wards shielded her.

She hopped on the ground, every time landing on a dozen or so empire soldiers. It was an amazing experience: holding against a whole line of offensive single handedly. To add to the woes of the empire, Indra appeared all of a sudden from the skies and assisted Saphira in keeping the empire’s attention focussed on them and not on the retreating Varden army. Eragon did not like Indra risking his safety but he had to admit that Saphira’s surprise attack was not enough to hold off the empire’s offensive for long enough.

Nasuada seemed to notice that the Varden was coming for her. And to Eragon’s discernment, she did nothing to stop them from advancing towards her, the first indication from the former leader of the Varden of being forced to lead.

It was at this juncture that something so peculiar transpired in the sky near the west gate of Uru’baen. A stone slab started to create itself out of thin air. It rapidly grew in size and before Eragon could so much as consider what it possibly might be, it had reached astonishing size. Odd as it was, neither Eragon nor the dragons had any chance to attack it for they were entirely occupied with holding off nearly one fifth of the empire’s army from attacking the Varden from behind.

When Eragon finally decided that it was too much of a threat to ignore and decided to use magic against it, he found out a most astounding thing. He could reach his magic and he could spell the ancient language but nothing happened. He tried again and again - using different sets of spells each time - but the results were the same. He was, for lack of a better word, robbed of his biggest strength: the use of magic.

He looked around him to see the elves use magic like they always did - like it was their birthright. But even as he looked, he noticed a marked drop in the number of elves relying on magic to accomplish their tasks. He frowned in annoyance as he could find no reason as to why they should all lose use of magic in unison. He was alerted to graver dangers than usage of magic shortly after as Indra’s wards had given way and a spear had found its way to his armour.

Worry like no other filled his mind and he ordered Indra to take off to the skies immediately. Fortunately, Indra did not argue as he had expected him to, but he could not revel in that small comfort for long because an arrow plunged itself into his calf sending searing pain to his head.

As soon as he was recovered enough from the pain to think anything, he contacted Arya and begged her to be careful. They had no time though to understand what was happening. All they could think of was that Galbatorix had somehow managed to upstage himself in so much a theatrical style as blocking their magic, but they could find no explanation as to how he did it.

Saphira scorched many soldiers of the empire as well as a few of the varden in a bid to protect her and Eragon from the empire’s soldiers who had struggled against two dragons in vain for so long and found suddenly that there was now only one dragon to contend with and that there wasn’t any magic preventing them from overwhelming the dragon with their sheer numbers.

As Saphira tried to lift off into the sky, a voice so coolly observed, “Intriguing isn’t it? What the lack of magic can do even to majestic-looking creatures as dragons?”

Eragon dreaded and hated the voice so much that unbeknownst to him, a scowl made its way to his face. A shimmering was seen on the fully formed floating platform, which reminded Eragon so much about a similar one in Dras-Leona. Even though all these theatricals prompted the fighting to be momentarily forgotten by all, Arya herself was so near Nasuada that she quietly made her way forward towards the former leader of the Varden, taking a few elves with her.

“Welcome, at last, Eragon Shadeslayer and I suppose Arya Shadeslayer as well, I suppose to my humble abode,” Galbatorix said in his customary style having somehow appeared out of the shimmering space above the floating platform. “As you might well have discovered, magic simply does not work anymore. You see, I found the key; the key to lock magic away from all but me and my loyal slave Murtagh.”

The agitation Eragon felt at hearing this was so great that he tried casting a spell yet again and failed miserably.

“So little faith!” Galbatorix admonished. “Anyway, you can’t have, surely you can’t have anymore inspiration to defy me. Come, bow down to me so that your deaths shall be as painless as it can be!”

Eragon looked at Arya with rising dismay. If magic could not be used by them then it was certain that they were going to be defeated in mere seconds. The evil king would be so powerful that even the most valiant of their efforts would be swatted away by him like a fly. They would be a mere inconvenience to him.

But Arya was not looking at him. She was in the middle of an animated talk with Nasuada. What the two ladies had to talk at this time, he knew not. But from the earnestness in Nasuada’s pose and the surprise in Arya’s, he deduced that something of import was being exchanged between them.

He did not know though that the two women were also being watched by Galbatorix. He got to know of this only when the king so imperiously enquired after the purpose of the chatter between the two ladies. When his question was finished and the ladies were alerted to their being discovered, something was passed from Nasuada’s hands into Arya’s hastily.

He could not make out anything of it, but Galbatorix apparently did for a look of pure rage crossed his face. “Insolent and cunning girl! How did you come by that?”

So it was something well known to him and so important as well that it warranted such a change in expression at the very hour of his absolute triumph. Eragon did not have time to think of what the trifle-looking thing might be, because just then a spear of immense size appeared out of thin air and was launched at the one thing beside Saphira that was dearer to him than even his own life: Arya.

Eragon screamed and Indra roared in horror for they knew Arya was devoid of her wards having been stripped off it by Galbatorix’s trickery. They could not even throw themselves in the spear’s path as they wanted to do considering the great distance that separated them from the spear's trajectory. Eragon had nothing to do but close his eyes in denial but then a sound like scraping of metal against hard floor was heard and he opened his eyes to a most extraordinary scene.

There was Thorn, the dragon he had not liked as dragons ought to be and there was Murtagh riding the said dragon standing between Galbatorix and Arya and then there was the metal spear suspended before them, like it was trying to find an opening in a hard wall.

“Eragon! Leave! Now!” Murtagh ordered with such authority that he was shaken to the core. Even Galbatorix seemed mortified by what had happened.

Saphira, the most resourceful of the lot, called Indra to join her as she swooped down swiftly and picked Arya up in her talons. In the next few seconds the two dragons were flying away from the black city, Murtagh’s voice calling out behind them, “I will do what I can to stop this usurper! Use that parchment well!”

Eragon could only guess that Nasuada and Murtagh had somehow planned all this beforehand without the knowledge of Galbatorix. But Murtagh fighting for the Varden again - a prospect Eragon had dismissed lately as impossible and maybe even improbable! So he had changed his true name! It was so unbelievable that the angry, dejected and almost unwilling half brother of Eragon would actually be able to achieve such a great victory in his quest for freedom. Those were Eragon’s thoughts even as sounds of explosions and red and black colours lit up the sky behind them.

Author's Note:

Sorry if the battle had nothing that could call attention to it. But my aim was to be done with it as early as possible because, as you would have noticed, it is not the battle that mattered but the aftermath in which Galbatorix uses the name of the ancient language to strip all but himself and Murtagh of magic use and Nasuada giving Arya the parchment she somehow caused to appear and Murtagh turning on Galbatorix at the opportune moment.