An instant later, Thorn followed Saphira, teeth bared, flames boiling in his open maw. The two dragons hurtled a half mile beyond Dras-Leona’s yellow mud wall; then they looped around and began to race back.

From outside the walls, Eragon heard a loud cheer. The Varden must be almost to the gates.

A patch of skin on his left forearm burned as if someone had poured hot fat on it. He hissed and shook his arm, but the feeling persisted. Then he saw a blotch of blood soaking through his tunic. He glanced back at Saphira. It had to be dragon blood, but he could not tell whose.

As the dragons approached, Eragon took advantage of the soldiers’ momentary daze to kill three more. Then the rest of the men regained their wits, and the battle resumed in earnest.

A soldier with a battle-ax stepped in front of Eragon and started to swing at him. Halfway through the stroke, Arya dispatched the man with a slash from behind, nearly cutting him in twain.

With a quick nod, Eragon acknowledged her help. By unspoken agreement, they stood back to back and faced the soldiers together.

He could feel Arya panting as hard as he was. Though they were stronger and faster than most humans, there was a limit to their endurance, a limit to their resources. They had already killed dozens, but hundreds remained, and Eragon knew that reinforcements would soon arrive from elsewhere in Dras-Leona.

“What now?” he shouted, parrying a spear jabbed at his thigh.

“Magic!” Arya replied.

As Eragon fended off the soldiers’ attacks, he began to recite every spell he could think of that might kill their enemies.

Another gust of wind ruffled his hair, and a cool shadow swept over him as Saphira circled above, dissipating her excess speed. She flared her wings and started to drop toward the battlements of the wall.

Before she could land, Thorn caught up with her. The red dragon dove, breathing a jet of flame over a hundred feet long. Saphira roared with frustration and veered away from the wall as she flapped quickly to gain altitude. The two dragons spiraled around each other as they climbed into the sky, biting and clawing with furious abandon.

Seeing Saphira in danger only reinforced Eragon’s determination. He increased the speed with which he spoke, chanting the words of the ancient language as quickly as he could without mispronunciation. But no matter what he tried, neither his spells nor Arya’s had any effect on the soldiers.

Then Murtagh’s voice boomed out of the sky, like the voice of a cloud-scraping giant: “Those men are under my protection, Brother!”

Eragon looked up and saw Thorn plummeting toward the square. The red dragon’s sudden change in direction had caught Saphira unawares. She still hung high above the city, a dark blue shape against the lighter blue of the sky.

They know, Eragon thought, and dread punctured his earlier calm.

He lowered his gaze and swept it over the throng. More and more soldiers were streaming out of the streets along either side of Dras-Leona’s wall. The herbalist was backed up against one of the bordering houses, throwing glass vials with one hand and swinging Tinkledeath with the other. The vials released clouds of green vapor when they broke, and any soldiers caught in the miasma fell to the ground, clutching their throats and thrashing as little brown mushrooms sprang up on every inch of exposed skin. Behind Angela, upon a flat-topped garden wall, crouched Solembum. The werecat used his vantage point to claw at the soldiers’ faces and pull off their helms, distracting them as they attempted to close with the herbalist. Both he and Angela looked beleaguered, and Eragon doubted they would be able to hold out much longer.

Nothing Eragon saw gave him hope. He turned his eyes back toward the immense bulk of Thorn even as the red dragon filled his wings with air and slowed his descent.

“We have to leave!” Arya shouted.

Eragon hesitated. It would be a simple matter to lift Arya, Angela, Solembum, and himself over the wall, to where the Varden would be waiting. But if they fled, the Varden would be no better off than before. Their army could not afford to wait any longer: after another few days, their supplies would run out and the men would begin to desert. Once that happened, Eragon knew they would never again succeed in uniting all the races against Galbatorix.

Thorn’s body and wings blotted out the sky, casting the area in ruddy darkness and hiding Saphira from view. Globules of blood, each the size of Eragon’s fist, dripped from Thorn’s neck and legs, and more than one of the soldiers cried out in pain as the liquid scalded them.

“Eragon! Now!” shouted Arya. She grabbed his arm and pulled, but still he held his ground, unwilling to admit defeat.

Arya pulled harder, forcing Eragon to look down in order to stay on his feet. As he did, his eye fell on the third finger of his right hand, where he wore Aren.

He had hoped to save the energy contained within the ring for the day when he might finally confront Galbatorix. It was a meager amount compared with what the king had undoubtedly accumulated during his long years on the throne, but it was the greatest store of power Eragon possessed, and he knew he would not have the chance to gather its equal before the Varden reached Urû’baen, if indeed they did. Also, it was one of the few things Brom had left him. For both those reasons he was reluctant to use any of the energy.

Nevertheless, he could think of no alternative.

The pool of energy within Aren had always seemed enormous to Eragon; now he wondered if it would be enough for what he intended.

At the edge of his vision, he saw Thorn reaching toward him with talons as large as a man, and some small part of him screamed to run away before the monster above caught him and ate him alive.