Murtagh

He shifted on the cot, uncomfortable. He’d spent so long out of doors with Thorn, it felt strange to be lying on a bed again, even an unpadded cot. The canvas backing sagged beneath his weight, putting a curve in his spine that made his lower back ache. He tried shifting to his side, but that only put a painful crook in his neck.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. It was going to be a taxing few hours.

To distract himself, he set to composing another poem, this one not an Attenwrack, but a form of his own devising. In a silent voice, he said:

Sing of sorrows soft and sad.

Cry, O winged herald, of battles won and lost.

Who mourns for fallen men, in conflict slain?

What comfort tears when flocks of crows descend?

The words echoed in his mind as he lay in the dark. “Forgive me,” he whispered. Whether the words were meant for the ghosts of his past or the men in the barracks, he wasn’t sure, but when he closed his eyes, a field of drowned bones filled his vision.

CHAPTER X Softly Creeping…

Somewhere in the sleeping city, a black-faced owl hooted and then hooted again.

Murtagh levered himself into a sitting position on his cot. Throughout the barracks, the guards lay still and silent, their breathing slow, even, measured. One or two of them snored, but not loudly enough to wake the others.

Ever so carefully, Murtagh opened his mind and extended his consciousness to touch the thoughts of the other men. They were, as he hoped, all deeply asleep, lost in the confusion of their dreams.

He maintained a delicate contact with their collective minds as he edged down his cot and put a hand on the lid of the chest. “Maela,” he whispered. Quiet.

Holding his breath, he lifted the lid.

It swung up and back with hardly a sound.

Relieved, he slowly pulled out his bedroll and all it contained, as well as the boots, cloak, and arming sword he’d been given.

But he left the kite shield. It would just slow him down and make stealth that much more difficult. Besides, he had his own shield, albeit with Thorn. And he left the tabard. It might have helped him to avoid unwanted attention, but he no longer felt comfortable wearing the uniform of the guard.

He wrapped the cloak around the belt of the sword so the buckle wouldn’t jangle, and then slowly stood and padded on sock-covered feet toward the back of the room.

At the last cot in line—which was empty—he tripped.

He cursed silently as he regained his balance, his face frozen in a snarl.

Across the barracks, one of the guards stirred, and he sensed a twinge of awareness from the man’s mind.

Murtagh remained hunched in a half crouch, afraid to move.

After several minutes, when the man seemed to again be deep in slumber, Murtagh straightened inch by inch and continued to the ink-black archway at the rear of the barracks.

He put a hand against the cold stone wall and felt his way down several steps. Then he sat and pulled on his boots, laced them tight, unwrapped the sword, buckled it around his waist, and secured the clasp of the cloak at his throat. The cloak was a gamble; it could easily get caught between his legs at an inopportune time, but it would also serve to muffle his movements. Lastly, he slung his bedroll across his shoulders. He wasn’t planning on returning to the barracks—not to sleep, in any case—and there was a chance he’d have to leave in a hurry, and he didn’t want to lose any more of his belongings. When you owned only a few things, they became all the more precious.

He stood and resumed feeling his way down the stairs. He wanted to cast a werelight, but it would be too risky, and besides…

…a dull orange glow appeared before him as he spiraled beneath the surface of the earth, gilding the face of the stone wall so that every pit and pock and chipped imperfection stood in high relief.

At the bottom of the stairs was another archway, this one easy enough to see in the flickering light.

Murtagh pressed himself against the outer curve of the staircase as he edged down to the archway and poked his head around the frame of mortared stone.

A long, dark tunnel stretched out to the left and right. Despite what Esvar had said, it didn’t look like elf-work to Murtagh, but rather ordinary human craftsmanship. The passage to the right extended underneath the fortress, while the left-hand branch reached toward the city.

Too many tunnels, he thought. It would have been helpful to know of them when he’d been trying to rescue Eragon from the fortress. He’d had no idea that the city was sitting on a rabbit warren of underground passages.