Paolini, Christopher - Inheritance Trilogy, Book 2 - Eldest (v1.5) (82 page)

ing to outrun an avalanche; you might succeed, but then you just as well

might be ground into dust.”

“What,” asked Roran, “is this Boar’s Eye?”

“The all-devouring maw of the ocean,” proclaimed Uthar.

In a milder tone, Jeod said, “It’s a whirlpool, Roran. The Eye forms as

the result of tidal currents that collide between Beirland and Nía. When

the tide waxes, the Eye rotates north to west. When the tide wanes, it

rotates north to east.”

“That doesn’t sound so dangerous.”

Uthar shook his head, queue whipping the sides of his wind-burned

neck, and laughed. “Not so dangerous, he says! Ha!”

“What you fail to comprehend,” continued Jeod, “is the size of the vor-

tex. On average, the center of the Eye is a league in diameter, while the

arms of the pool can be anywhere from ten to fifteen miles across. Ships

unlucky enough to be snared by the Eye are borne down to the floor of

the ocean and dashed against the jagged rocks therein. Remnants of the

vessels are often found as flotsam on the beaches of the two islands.”

“Would anyone expect us to take this route?” Roran queried.

“No, an’ for good reason,” growled Uthar. Jeod shook his head at the

same time.

“Is it even possible for us to cross the Eye?”

“It’d be a blasted fool thing to do.”

Roran nodded. “I know it’s not something you want to risk, Uthar, but

our options are limited. I’m no seaman, so I must rely upon your judg-

ment: Can we cross the Eye?”

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The captain hesitated. “Maybe, maybe not. You’d have t’ be stark raving

mad to go nearer’n five miles of that monster.”

Pulling out his hammer, Roran banged it on the table, leaving a dent a

half-inch deep. “Then I’m stark raving mad!” He held Uthar’s gaze until

the sailor shifted with discomfort. “Must I remind you, we’ve only gotten

this far by doing what quibbling worrywarts said couldn’t, or shouldn’t,

be done? We of Carvahall dared to abandon our homes and cross the

Spine. Jeod dared to imagine we could steal the Dragon Wing. What will

you dare, Uthar? If we can brave the Eye and live to tell the tale, you

shall be hailed as one of the greatest mariners in history. Now answer me

and answer me well and true: Can this be done?”

Uthar drew a hand over his face. When he spoke, it was in a low voice,

as if Roran’s outburst had caused him to abandon all bluster. “I don’t

know, Stronghammer. . If we wait for the Eye to subside, the sloops may

be so close to us that if we escape, they’d escape. An’ if the wind should

falter, we’d be caught in the current, unable to break free.”

“As captain, are you willing to attempt it? Neither Jeod nor I can

command the Dragon Wing in your place.”

Long did Uthar stare down at the charts, one hand clasped over the

other. He drew a line or two from their position and worked a table of

figures that Roran could make nothing of. At last he said, “I fear we sail

to our doom, but aye, I’ll do my best to see us through.”

Satisfied, Roran put away his hammer. “So be it.”

527

RUNNING THE BOAR’S EYE

The sloops continued to draw closer to the Dragon Wing over the

course of the day. Roran watched their progress whenever he could, con-

cerned that they would get near enough to attack before the Dragon

Wing reached the Eye. Still, Uthar seemed able to outrun them, at least

for a little while longer.

At Uthar’s orders, Roran and the other villagers worked to tidy up the

ship after the storm and prepare for the ordeal that was to come. Their

work ended at nightfall, when they extinguished every light on board in

an attempt to confuse their pursuers as to the Dragon Wing ’s heading.

The ruse succeeded in part, for when the sun rose, Roran saw that the

sloops had fallen back to the northwest another mile or so, though they

soon made up the lost distance.

Late that morning, Roran climbed the mainmast and pulled himself up

into the crow’s nest a hundred and thirty feet above the deck, so high

that the men below appeared no larger than his little finger. The water

and sky seemed to rock perilously about him as the Dragon Wing heeled

from side to side.

Taking out the spyglass he had brought with him, Roran put it to his

eye and adjusted it until the sloops came into focus not four miles astern

and approaching faster than he would have liked. They must have realized

what we intend to do, he thought. Sweeping the glass around, he searched

the ocean for any sign of the Boar’s Eye. He stopped as he descried a great

disk of foam the size of an island, gyrating from north to east. We’re late,

he thought, a pit in his stomach. High tide had already passed and the

Boar’s Eye was gathering in speed and strength as the ocean withdrew

from land. Roran trained the glass over the edge of the crow’s nest and

saw that the knotted rope Uthar had tied to the starboard side of the

stern—to detect when they entered the pull of the whirlpool—now

floated alongside the Dragon Wing instead of trailing behind as was usual.

The one thing in their favor was that they were sailing with the Eye’s

current and not against it. If it had been the other way around, they

would have had no choice but to wait until the tide turned.

Below, Roran heard Uthar shout for the villagers to man the oars. A

moment later, the Dragon Wing sprouted two rows of poles along each

side, making the ship look like nothing more than a giant water strider.

At the beat of an ox-hide drum, accompanied by Bonden’s rhythmic

chant as he set the tempo, the oars arched forward, dipped into the sea of

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green, and swept back across the surface of the water, leaving white

streaks of bubbles in their wake. The Dragon Wing accelerated quickly,

now moving faster than the sloops, which were still outside the Eye’s in-

fluence.

Roran watched with horrified fascination the play that unfolded around

him. The essential plot element, the crux upon which the outcome de-

pended, was time. Though they were late, was the Dragon Wing, with its

oars and sails combined, fast enough to traverse the Eye? And could the

sloops—which had deployed their own oars now—narrow the gap be-

tween them and the Dragon Wing enough to ensure their own survival?

He could not tell. The pounding drum measured out the minutes; Roran

was acutely aware of each moment as it trickled by.

He was surprised when an arm reached over the edge of the basket and

Baldor’s face appeared, looking up at him. “Give me a hand, won’t you? I

feel like I’m about to fall.”

Bracing himself, Roran helped Baldor into the basket. Baldor handed

Roran a biscuit and a dried apple and said, “Thought you might like some

lunch.” With a nod of thanks, Roran tore into the biscuit and resumed

gazing through the spyglass. When Baldor asked, “Can you see the Eye?”

Roran passed him the glass and concentrated on eating.

Over the next half hour, the foam disk increased the speed of its revo-

lutions until it spun like a top. The water around the foam bulged and

began to rise, while the foam itself sank from view into the bottom of a

gigantic pit that continued to deepen and enlarge. The air over the vortex

filled with a cyclone of twisting mist, and from the ebony throat of the

abyss came a tortured howl like the cries of an injured wolf.

The speed with which the Boar’s Eye formed amazed Roran. “You’d

better go tell Uthar,” he said.

Baldor climbed out of the nest. “Tie yourself to the mast or you may

get thrown off.”

“I will.”

Roran left his arms free when he secured himself, making sure that, if

needed, he could reach his belt knife to cut himself free. Anxiety filled

him as he surveyed the situation. The Dragon Wing was but a mile past

the median of the Eye, the sloops were but two miles behind her, and the

Eye itself was quickly building toward its full fury. Worse, disrupted by

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the whirlpool, the wind sputtered and gasped, blowing first from one di-

rection and then the other. The sails billowed for a moment, then fell

slack, then filled again as the confused wind swirled about the ship.

Perhaps Uthar was right, thought Roran. Perhaps I’ve gone too far and

pitted myself against an opponent that cannot be overcome by sheer deter-

mination. Perhaps I am sending the villagers to their deaths. The forces of

nature were immune to intimidation.

The gaping center of the Boar’s Eye was now almost nine and a half

miles in circumference, and how many fathoms deep no one could say,

except for those who had been trapped within it. The sides of the Eye

slanted inward at a forty-five-degree angle; they were striated with shal-

low grooves, like wet clay being molded on a potter’s wheel. The bass

howl grew louder, until it seemed to Roran that the entire world must

crumble to pieces from the intensity of the vibrations. A glorious rain-

bow emerged from the mist over the whirling chasm.

The current moved faster than ever, driving the Dragon Wing at a

breakneck pace as it whipped around the rim of the whirlpool and mak-

ing it more and more unlikely that the ship could break free at the Eye’s

southern edge. So prodigious was her velocity, the Dragon Wing tilted far

to the starboard, suspending Roran out over the rushing water.

Despite the Dragon Wing ’s progress, the sloops continued to gain on

her. The enemy ships sailed abreast less than a mile away, their oars mov-

ing in perfect accord, two fins of water flying from each prow as they

plowed the ocean. Roran could not help but admire the sight.

He tucked the spyglass away in his shirt; he had no need of it now. The

sloops were close enough for the naked eye, while the whirlpool was in-

creasingly obscured by the clouds of white vapor thrown off the lip of

the funnel. As it was pulled into the deep, the vapor formed a spiral lens

over the gulf, mimicking the whirlpool’s appearance.

Then the Dragon Wing tacked port, diverging from the current in

Uthar’s bid for the open sea. The keel chattered across the puckered wa-

ter, and the ship’s speed dropped in half as the Dragon Wing fought the

deadly embrace of the Boar’s Eye. A shudder ran up the mast, jarring Ro-

ran’s teeth, and the crow’s nest swung in the new direction, making him

giddy with vertigo.

Fear gripped Roran when they continued to slow. He slashed off his

bindings and—with reckless disregard for his own safety—swung himself

530

over the edge of the basket, grabbed the ropes underneath, and shinnied

down the rigging so quickly that he lost his grip once and fell several feet

before he could catch himself. He jumped to the deck, ran to the fore

hatchway, and descended to the first bank of oars, where he joined Bal-

dor and Albriech on an oak pole.

They said not a word, but labored to the sound of their own desperate

breathing, the frenzied beat of the drum, Bonden’s hoarse shouts, and the

roar of the Boar’s Eye. Roran could feel the mighty whirlpool resisting

with every stroke of the oar.

And yet their efforts could not keep the Dragon Wing from coming to

a virtual standstill. We’re not going to make it, thought Roran. His back

and legs burned from the exertion. His lungs stabbed. Between the

drumbeats, he heard Uthar ordering the hands above deck to trim the

sails to take full advantage of the fickle wind.

Two places ahead of Roran, Darmmen and Hamund surrendered their

oar to Thane and Ridley, then lay in the middle of the aisle, their limbs

trembling. Less than a minute later, someone else collapsed farther down

the gallery and was immediately replaced by Birgit and another woman.

If we survive, thought Roran, it’ll only be because we have enough people

to sustain this pace however long is necessary.

It seemed an eternity that he worked the oar in the murky, smoky

room, first pushing, then pulling, doing his best to ignore the pain mount-

ing within his body. His neck ached from hunching underneath the low

ceiling. The dark wood of the pole was streaked with blood where his

skin had blistered and torn. He ripped off his shirt—dropping the spy-

glass to the floor—wrapped the cloth around the oar, and continued row-

ing.

At last Roran could do no more. His legs gave way and he fell on his

side, slipping across the aisle because he was so sweaty. Orval took his

place. Roran lay still until his breath returned, then pushed himself onto

his hands and knees and crawled to the hatchway.

Like a fever-mad drunk, he pulled himself up the ladder, swaying with

the motion of the ship and often slumping against the wall to rest. When

he came out on deck, he took a brief moment to appreciate the fresh air,

then staggered aft to the helm, his legs threatening to cramp with every

step.

531

“How goes it?” he gasped to Uthar, who manned the wheel.

Uthar shook his head.

Peering over the gunwale, Roran espied the three sloops perhaps a half

mile away and slightly more to the west, closer to the center of the Eye.

The sloops appeared motionless in relation to the Dragon Wing.