Murtagh

Still, he hated to enter the village. It would be the perfect place for an ambush, if the Dreamers were so inclined. There was also the matter of Thorn: the buildings looked uncomfortably close for him.

I will be all right, said Thorn. Do not worry about me.

How can I not? Maybe I should go alone.

Thorn growled. No! I would rather bite off my own tail. We stay together.

Are you sure? Absolutely sure?

Yes!

Fine. But if you need to leave, we leave, no matter what. Don’t wait until it’s too late.

I promise, said Thorn, and hummed his appreciation.

Murtagh tapped Zar’roc’s blade against his thigh as he studied the village a moment more. Let the witch play her little games. It mattered not, and he refused to wait outside her doors, like a supplicant peasant seeking a favor. Now she might see them enter her domain, proud and unafraid. “After him, then.”

Thorn pressed his wings close against his sides and started forward. His claws clacked loudly against the mossy flagstones that paved the road as they entered the village.

As Murtagh had feared, there was little space for them between the buildings, and Thorn grew tense beneath him. Murtagh could feel his apprehension as if it were his own. Still, for the time, the dragon kept himself under control.

Murtagh had never seen buildings such as the ones in the village. The stonework was dwarven in quality, but with an elven grace, and there were strange runes—neither dwarven nor elven—cut into the frames and lintels of the arched doorways. Sculptures of dragon-like beasts adorned the cornices, and their frozen snarls gave Murtagh an uneasy sense of being watched, as if the entire village were a living creature crouched close to the earth, waiting for its prey.

The most unusual feature of the village was the raised patterns covering walls, set into mosaics, and painted onto shutters—swirling, branching, crystalline patterns that seemed to repeat themselves as they diminished: variations on a common theme. The patterns were dangerously fascinating; Murtagh felt as if he could stare into them for the rest of his life and still find new things to see. They contained an obsessive, seemingly impossible amount of detail, and the longer Murtagh looked, the more his vision swirled and swayed. The decorations reminded him of the involuted depths of an Eldunarí…or of shapes that appeared only in the deepest of dreams.

With an effort, he focused elsewhere.

The curious craftsmanship of the village disturbed him. To find such accomplished, well-formed creations in such an isolated place didn’t make sense. There ought to be a long lineage of like works elsewhere, but there wasn’t. Not in Alagaësia, at least, and if the tradition came from across the ocean, well, that was hardly more explicable.

Murtagh shifted in his seat, feeling as if the ground had tilted beneath them. There was a deeper mystery here than he had anticipated.

Careful now, he said.

A sense of terse acknowledgment came from Thorn.

The goateed man was waiting for them halfway through the village. Seeing them, he turned and continued walking at a steady pace, long arms swinging, oversized hands nearly at his knees. Each step, he put his whole foot flat on the flagstones—a firm, unwavering stamp, heel and toes landing as one—and then pushed off in a similar fashion. Stamp, lift. Stamp, lift.

The street ascended at a steep incline toward the far side of the village. As they went, Murtagh kept a close watch on the rooflines, the alleys, the corners: anywhere that foes might be waiting. But no one showed their face, and he didn’t want to risk opening his mind to search the area. That was a good way to invite a mental attack.

The more Murtagh saw of the settlement, the more he gathered an impression of extreme age. The sculptures were weathered, the steps hollowed; walls bowed from centuries of weight, and more than a few structures had collapsed on themselves and remained as crumbling, lichen-covered ruins.

I do not like this place, said Thorn.

No. Murtagh reset his grip on sword and shield. Maybe he should have contacted Eragon before entering the village. There were many secrets in the world, and some of them were older than even the Riders. Nasuada has to be told of this, he thought.

The man led them into a modest square in front of the temple-like building. A fountain stood in the center of the yard, but it was dry and full of dust and overgrown with moss, and the fluted finial atop had cracked and split sideways, leaving a chisel tip of stone pointing toward the dismal sky.