For the most part, they fought in silence, save for grunts and clashes of metal and the occasional quick cry. No one had the wind to speak. They were panting and fearfully focused, and sweat dripped into their eyes.
And yet…for all of Tornac’s skill, and Murtagh’s too, the numbers were badly against them. Twelve against two. Even with surprise on their side, it was hardly a fair fight. Murtagh glimpsed a blot of blood on Tornac’s right shoulder and more streaming from a cut on his scalp, and he felt a burning line somewhere on his own hip.
The swordmaster fought like a cornered cat, twisting and bounding and lashing out with blinding speed. Gone were the stylized forms used at court duels. Gone were the perfect angles and distances of sparring. And yet it was a dazzling, daring, dashing display that would have won applause from even the most jaded audience. At that moment, Murtagh truly believed that no man could have stood before Tornac.
But like all perfect moments, even in dreams, it could not last.
Murtagh tripped, and he felt the point of a spear jar his ribs as a soldier rushed him. He fell. Before he could make sense of what was happening, Tornac was standing over him, sword buried in the soldier’s side.
Then another soldier came at Tornac from behind and, with a long-bladed knife, stabbed him between the shoulder blades and bore him to the ground.
Murtagh scrambled free and slew the soldier before he could pull the knife out of Tornac’s back. Then another minute of desperate fighting followed as he contended with the last four soldiers.
The men were no match for Murtagh, but he knew they were sworn to Galbatorix with the most solemn of oaths. They could no more retreat than he would surrender.
In the end, in the grey predawn light, only he remained standing amid the scattered bodies. The roan mare had run from the field, but his charger stood by the gate, snorting and pawing.
Anguished, Murtagh staggered over to Tornac and turned him on his side. Frothed blood dripped from the swordmaster’s lips, but his eyes were still open, and he smiled as he saw Murtagh. “Did you end them rightly?” he asked.
Murtagh nodded, struggling to find enough breath to speak. “All dead.” He grasped the swordmaster’s hands. They were startlingly cold.
Tornac smiled again. “I taught you well, Murtagh.” Then his expression caught, and his grip weakened. “Tell…tell Ola I’m sorry…. If you get the chance.”
“Of course,” said Murtagh. He couldn’t bear to think how the pleasant, round-cheeked woman would take the news.
“She’s going to hate me for this.” Tornac’s eyes wandered, and then his gaze sharpened again, and for a moment, he was as lucid as Murtagh ever remembered. “Go. You have to go, blast you. Take my charm and leave me. I’m done. Go and be free and forget…me….” A harsh rattle sounded in his chest, and his body went limp, and the gleam faded from his eyes.
Then Murtagh wept, and he was not ashamed.
…
A disjunction, and Murtagh once again found himself cowering on the desolate plain, at the end of all things, with the black sun rippling with tendrils of black flame while the monstrous, mountainous, humpbacked dragon rose wingless against the horizon, blotting out light and hope.
…
Another disjunction. A field of golden grass blanketed the gentle curve of a hill. Standing amid the grass was Nasuada clad in a dress of red velvet. She turned to look back at him, and she held out her hand toward him, but her expression was sorrowful, and no matter how he reached for her, he could not close the distance.
Then the sky darkened, and the sun lost its luster, and land and sky both became the color of tarnished pewter. Tears traced lines down Nasuada’s cheeks, but he felt them on his own, hot with regret and the pain of parting.
Stars pricked the blackened sky, and a sense of impending and unavoidable doom hollowed out his chest. And far in the distance, a humped mass stirred along the horizon and began to ascend to eat the guttering sun….
Murtagh woke covered in cold sweat, disoriented, uncertain of what was real and what wasn’t, and yet consumed by a sudden conviction that time was desperately short.
The clash of chimes and bells and brazen cymbals sounded outside the temple, loud enough that the commotion filtered through the stones of the building. And wild, barbaric cries too, as if the entire village had gone mad.
Across the hall, half-shadowed Uvek looked out with a grim, heavy-lined expression. “Time of black smoke has arrived, Murtagh-man.”
Fear spurred Murtagh to action. He pawed through his cloak until he felt the yellow diamond hidden within the hem. Where was the charm Uvek had given him? Where? Where? Where? For a moment, he couldn’t remember. Then he recalled: tucked deep in his left boot.
He grasped the charm and reached for the energy stored in the diamond. The swirling vortex tickled his brain, tantalizingly close. He could almost touch it. The drug vorgethan must have been nearly purged from his body, but try though he might, he couldn’t quite unlock the flow of energy.
Clang!
The unseen door at the end of the hall opened, and boots tromped toward the cells. Cultists come to fetch him.
Murtagh yanked his hand out of his boot and stood. He cursed to himself. He’d been too slow. Time had run out. Now he had to face whatever the Draumar had planned.
Black smoke. Black sun. Doom.
CHAPTER XXII
Black Smoke
“Are ye going to th’ festival?” asked one of the cultists, a red-bearded dwarf who leered at Murtagh through the bars of his cell. “ ’Course you are, Kingkiller. ’Course you are.”
The dwarf and the man who was his companion dragged Murtagh from his confinement. Murtagh put up no resistance. Until he could move and think of his own accord, he was at Bachel’s mercy…and she possessed precious little of that particular virtue.
Uvek remained squatting and watching as the cultists removed Murtagh, and Murtagh gave no look or sign of acknowledgment to the Urgal. Best the Draumar did not know they had even spoken.
As the cultists escorted Murtagh up the worn stairs and through dark corridors to the front of the temple, he noticed that the ever-present stench of brimstone was startlingly stronger. The miasma lay on the village, as heavy as a blanket, and it made his eyes water and the back of his throat sting. Every breath threatened to make him retch.
Bloody light broke across him as the dwarf and man guided him between pillars into the temple courtyard. Smoke filled the valley. Black smoke, rising from the vents in the ground, and it acted as a curtain upon the sky: a red and orange scrim that diminished the sun to a dull disk no brighter than an ember in a dying fire.
The courtyard was transformed. Bachel’s carved throne had been moved into the yard and placed upon the dais at one end. A long table stood at right angles to the dais, and in the center of the yard, before the ruined fountain, the cultists had placed the great ash-colored altar. Murtagh could not fathom how they had moved such an enormous block of stone, unless Bachel had employed magic in the effort.