Paolini, Christopher - Inheritance Trilogy, Book 2 - Eldest (v1.5) (20 page)

them harness your horses so we can drag the trees back.” The men agreed

and scattered through Carvahall to gather axes and saws for the job. Ro-

ran stopped Darmmen and said, “Make sure that the trees have branches

all along the trunk or else they won’t work.”

“Where will you be?” asked Darmmen.

“Working on another line of defense.” Roran left him then and ran to

Quimby’s house, where he found Birgit busy boarding up the windows.

“Yes?” she said, looking at him.

He quickly explained his plan with the trees. “I want to dig a trench in-

side the ring of trees, to slow down anyone who gets through. We could

even put pointed stakes in the bottom of it and—”

“What is your point, Roran?”

“I’d like you to organize every woman and child, and everyone else you

can, to dig. It’s too much for me to handle by myself, and we don’t have

long. . ” Roran looked her straight in the eyes. “Please.”

Birgit frowned. “Why ask me?”

“Because, like me, you hate the Ra’zac, and I know you will do every-

thing possible to stop them.”

“Aye,” whispered Birgit, then clapped her hands briskly. “Very well, as

you wish. But I will never forget, Roran Garrowsson, that it was you and

your family who brought about my husband’s doom.” She strode away

before Roran could respond.

He accepted her animosity with equanimity; it was to be expected,

considering her loss. He was only lucky she had not started a blood feud.

Then he shook himself and ran to where the main road entered Carva-

hall. It was the weakest spot in the village and had to be doubly pro-

tected. The Ra’zac can’t be allowed to just blast their way in again.

Roran recruited Baldor, and together they began excavating a ditch

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across the road. “I’ll have to go soon,” warned Baldor between strokes of

his pickax. “Dad needs me in the forge.”

Roran grunted an acknowledgment without looking up. As he worked,

his mind once again filled with memories of the soldiers: how they had

looked as he struck them, and the feeling, the horrible feeling of smashing

a body as if it were a rotten stump. He paused, nauseated, and noted the

commotion throughout Carvahall as people readied themselves for the

next assault.

After Baldor left, Roran completed the thigh-deep ditch himself, then

went to Fisk’s workshop. With the carpenter’s permission, he had five

logs from the stockpile of seasoned wood pulled by horses back to the

main road. There Roran tipped the logs on end into the trench so that

they formed an impenetrable barrier into Carvahall.

As he tamped down the earth around the logs, Darmmen trotted up.

“We got the trees. They’re just being put into place now.” Roran accom-

panied him to Carvahall’s northern edge, where twelve men wrestled

four lush green pines into alignment while a team of draft horses under

the whip of a young boy returned to the foothills. “Most of us are helping

to retrieve the trees. The others got inspired; they seemed determined to

chop down the rest of the forest when I left.”

“Good, we can use the extra timber.”

Darmmen pointed to a pile of dense brambles that sat on the edge of

Kiselt’s fields. “I cut those along the Anora. Use them however you want.

I’m going to find more.”

Roran clapped him on the arm, then turned toward the eastern side of

Carvahall, where a long, curved line of women, children, and men la-

bored in the dirt. He went to them and found Birgit issuing orders like a

general and distributing water among the diggers. The trench was already

five feet wide and two feet deep. When Birgit paused for breath, he said,

“I’m impressed.”

She brushed back a lock of hair without looking at him. “We plowed

the ground to begin with. It made things easier.”

“Do you have a shovel I can use?” he asked. Birgit pointed to a mound

of tools at the other end of the trench. As Roran walked toward it, he

spied the copper gleam of Katrina’s hair in the midst of the bobbing

backs. Beside her, Sloan hacked at the soft loam with a furious, obsessive

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energy, as if he were attempting to tear open the earth’s skin, to peel

back its clay hide and expose the muscle beneath. His eyes were wild,

and his teeth were bared in a knotted grimace, despite the flecks of dirt

and filth that spotted his lips.

Roran shuddered at Sloan’s expression and hurried past, averting his

face so as to avoid meeting his bloodshot gaze. He grabbed a shovel and

immediately plunged it into the soil, doing his best to forget his worries

in the heat of physical exertion.

The day progressed in a continuous rush of activity, without breaks for

meals or rest. The trench grew longer and deeper, until it cupped two-

thirds of the village and reached the banks of the Anora River. All the

loose dirt was piled on the inside edge of the trench in an attempt to

prevent anyone from jumping over it. . and to make it difficult to climb

out.

The wall of trees was finished in early afternoon. Roran stopped digging

then to help sharpen the innumerable branches—which were overlapped

and interlocked as much as possible—and affix the nets of brambles. Oc-

casionally, they had to pull out a tree so farmers like Ivor could drive

their livestock into the safety of Carvahall.

By evening the fortifications were stronger and more extensive than

Roran had dared hope, though they still required several more hours of

work to complete to his satisfaction.

He sat on the ground, gnawing a hunk of sourdough bread and staring

at the stars through a haze of exhaustion. A hand dropped on his shoul-

der, and he looked up to see Albriech. “Here.” Albriech extended a rough

shield—made of sawed boards pegged together—and a six-foot-long

spear. Roran accepted them gratefully, then Albriech proceeded onward,

distributing spears and shields to whomever he encountered.

Roran dragged himself upright, got his hammer from Horst’s house, and

thus armed, went to the entrance to the main road, where Baldor and

two others kept watch. “Wake me when you need to rest,” Roran said,

then lay on the soft grass underneath the eaves of a nearby house. He ar-

ranged his weapons so he could find them in the dark and closed his eyes

in eager anticipation.

“Roran.”

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The whisper came from by his right ear. “Katrina?” He struggled into a

sitting position, blinking as she unshuttered a lantern so a key of light

struck his thigh. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to see you.” Her eyes, large and mysterious against her pale

face, pooled with the night’s shadows. She took his arm and led him to a

deserted porch far out of earshot of Baldor and the other guards. There

she placed her hands on his cheeks and softly kissed him, but he was too

tired and troubled to respond to her affection. She drew away and stud-

ied him. “What is wrong, Roran?”

A bark of humorless laughter escaped him. “What’s wrong? The world

is wrong; it’s as askew as a picture frame knocked on its side.” He

jammed his fist against his gut. “And I am wrong. Every time I allow my-

self to relax, I see the soldiers bleeding under my hammer. Men I killed,

Katrina. And their eyes. . their eyes ! They knew they were about to die

and that they could nothing do about it.” He trembled in the darkness.

“They knew. . I knew.. and I still had to do it. It couldn’t—” Words failed

him as he felt hot tears roll down his cheeks.

Katrina cradled his head as Roran cried from the shock of the past few

days. He wept for Garrow and Eragon; he wept for Parr, Quimby, and

the other dead; he wept for himself; and he wept for the fate of Carva-

hall. He sobbed until his emotions ebbed and left him as dry and hollow

as an old barley husk.

Forcing himself to take a long breath, Roran looked at Katrina and no-

ticed her own tears. He brushed them away with his thumb, like dia-

monds in the night. “Katrina. . my love.” He said it again, tasting the

words: “My love. I have naught to give you but my love. Still. . I must ask.

Will you marry me?”

In the dim lantern light, he saw pure joy and wonder leap across her

face. Then she hesitated and troubled doubt appeared. It was wrong for

him to ask, or for her to accept, without Sloan’s permission. But Roran no

longer cared; he had to know now if he and Katrina would spend their

lives together.

Then, softly: “Yes, Roran, I will.”

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UNDER A DARKLING SKY

That night it rained.

Layer upon layer of pregnant clouds blanketed Palancar Valley, clinging

to the mountains with tenacious arms and filling the air with heavy, cold

mist. From inside, Roran watched as cords of gray water pelted the trees

with their frothing leaves, muddied the trench around Carvahall, and

scrabbled with blunt fingers against the thatched roofs and eaves as the

clouds disgorged their load. Everything was streaked, blurred, and hidden

behind the torrent’s inexorable streamers.

By midmorning the storm had abated, although a continuous drizzle

still percolated through the mist. It quickly soaked Roran’s hair and

clothes when he took his watch at the barricade to the main road. He

squatted by the upright logs, shook his cloak, then pulled the hood far-

ther over his face and tried to ignore the cold.

Despite the weather, Roran soared and exulted with his joy at Katrina’s

acceptance. They were engaged! In his mind, it was as if a missing piece

of the world had dropped into place, as if he had been granted the confi-

dence of an invulnerable warrior. What did the soldiers matter, or the

Ra’zac, or the Empire itself, before love such as theirs? They were noth-

ing but tinder to the blaze.

For all his new bliss, however, his mind was entirely focused on what

had become the most important conundrum of his existence: how to as-

sure that Katrina would survive Galbatorix’s wrath. He had thought of

nothing else since waking. The best thing would be for Katrina to go to

Cawley’s, he decided, staring down the hazy road, but she would never

agree to leave... unless Sloan told her to. I might be able to convince him;

I’m sure he wants her out of danger as much as I do.

As he considered ways to approach the butcher, the clouds thickened

again and the rain renewed its assault on the village, arching down in

stinging waves. Around Roran, the puddles jumped to life as pellets of

water drummed their surfaces, bouncing back up like startled grasshop-

pers.

When Roran grew hungry, he passed his watch to Larne—Loring’s

youngest son—and went to find lunch, darting from the shelter of one

eave to another. As he rounded a corner, he was surprised to see Albriech

on the house’s porch, arguing violently with a group of men.

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Ridley shouted, “. . you’re blind—follow the cottonwoods and they’ll

never see! You took the addle-brain’s route.”

“Try it if you want,” retorted Albriech.

“I will!”

“Then you can tell me how you like the taste of arrows.”

“Maybe,” said Thane, “we aren’t as clubfooted as you are.”

Albriech turned on him with a snarl. “Your words are as thick as your

wits. I’m not stupid enough to risk my family on the cover of a few

leaves that I’ve never seen before.” Thane’s eyes bulged and his face

turned a deep mottled crimson. “What?” taunted Albriech. “Have you no

tongue?”

Thane roared and struck Albriech on the cheek with his fist. Albriech

laughed. “Your arm is as weak as a woman’s.” Then he grabbed Thane’s

shoulder and threw him off the porch and into the mud, where he lay on

his side, stunned.

Holding his spear like a staff, Roran jumped beside Albriech, prevent-

ing Ridley and the others from laying hands on him. “No more,” growled

Roran, furious. “We have other enemies. An assembly can be called and

arbitrators will decide whether compensation is due to either Albriech or

Thane. But until then, we can’t fight ourselves.”

“Easy for you to say,” spat Ridley. “You have no wife or children.” Then

he helped Thane to his feet and departed with the group of men.

Roran stared hard at Albriech and the purple bruise that was spreading

beneath his right eye. “What started it?” he asked.

“I—” Albriech stopped with a grimace and felt his jaw. “I went scouting

with Darmmen. The Ra’zac have posted soldiers on several hills. They

can see across the Anora and up and down the valley. One or two of us

might, might, be able to creep past them without notice, but we’ll never

get the children to Cawley without killing the soldiers, and then we

might as well tell the Ra’zac where we’re going.”

Dread clutched at Roran, flooding like poison through his heart and

veins. What can I do? Sick with a sense of impending doom, he put an

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arm around Albriech’s shoulders. “Come on; Gertrude should have a look

at you.”

“No,” said Albriech, shrugging him off. “She has more pressing cases

than me.” He took a preparatory breath—as if he were about to dive into

a lake—and lumbered off through the downpour in the direction of the