Murtagh

You could go by yourself, said Thorn. And Murtagh knew how much it cost the dragon to suggest such a thing after the events of Ceunon and Gil’ead.

No…no, I think not. But thank you. If nothing else, he didn’t want to take the time. Visiting Carvahall would delay them by at least a day, probably more, and Murtagh felt an increasing urgency to find the witch-woman Bachel.

“Someday,” he muttered as Carvahall and the unfinished castle passed under them. Someday he and Roran would have a reckoning. Even though they’d never met, the bonds of blood could not be ignored.

Murtagh took one last look over the full scope of Palancar Valley, doing his best to remember every detail of the place where his mother had grown up, and Eragon too. A lonely pain formed in his heart, and then he turned his back on the vista and held on to Thorn even tighter.

***

Palancar Valley was the last large valley they saw. Thereafter, the mountains grew closer together and only allowed for small rifts and gaps between their forested flanks: narrow, deeply shadowed vales where, during the winter months, the sun never touched the bottom.

As they flew, Murtagh had a sense they were leaving behind the last vestiges of civilization. As rough and isolated as Carvahall was, it at least shared some connection with the rest of Nasuada’s realm. Now they were entering lands that belonged to no country or race.

By late afternoon, the Bay of Fundor was visible to their right, butted up against the edge of the Spine. The mountains plunged to the water’s edge, with hardly a buffer of open land, and the air acquired the taste of salt, and the cries of gulls and terns followed them along the jagged range.

Look for a wharf or a jetty. Any sort of building, said Murtagh, even though he knew they were probably still several days away from the village they sought.

Thorn coughed in agreement.

Before long, a harsh wind sprang up from the north, and Thorn’s flight slowed until they were barely moving relative to the ground.

Enough, said Murtagh, and Thorn descended to a small island—no more than a hundred feet across—just off the shore. There they camped, and the wind bore down on them with unrelenting ferocity while flurries of snow obscured the mountains.

By morning, the clouds had vanished.

We should make haste, said Thorn. The weather will not last.

***

Whitecapped water to the right, mountains beneath and to the left. A domed expanse of sky ahead. The landscape was beautiful and forbidding in equal measure, and Murtagh felt the loneliness of their position with physical force.

He kept an eye on the bay, but no ships appeared. If anyone were making the trip to visit Bachel, they were steering well away from the bay’s western shore.

That day they saw great numbers of wildlife along the edge of the bay. Vast herds of bugling red elk, the animals far larger than those Murtagh had hunted on the plains by Gil’ead. Giant brown bears that trundled their solitary way through the forest. Packs of shaggy grey wolves. Hawks that screamed, and ravens and crows that cawed, and fish vultures that wheeled above the shallows and occasionally dove for the silvery bergenhed that darted through the leaden water.

Even high in the air, Murtagh felt the need to stay alert. The mountains were stark and savage, and the slightest mistake might cost them their lives, despite all their strength, spells, and experience. It was not lost on him or Thorn that Galbatorix’s first dragon, Jarnunvösk, had died in the frozen reaches of the Spine.

I understand now why the Riders warned Galbatorix against venturing so far, Murtagh said.

He and Jarnunvösk were not alone, were they?

No, two others went with them. Riders both, all of the same age. Galbatorix was their leader. Always he craved power, and always it was his undoing.

A slow beat of Thorn’s wings punctuated their conversation. The dragon said, Did Galbatorix ever tell you why they flew north?

Murtagh snorted. For the daring of it, I believe. To show their mettle, despite their elders’ disapproval.

A sorrowful cast darkened Thorn’s mind. And so they paid the price of their folly.

We all did.

It was Urgals who attacked them upon the ice, was it not?