He packed away the parchment, quills, and ink, and then laid himself down on his blanket. He looked to Thorn and decided to let the dragon sleep rather than wake him for their nightly ritual. Thorn needed the rest after a long day of flying, and Murtagh was well familiar with Thorn’s true name. It was as dear to him as his own, and as the incident at the alders had shown, another telling of it would teach him nothing new.
Tomorrow will serve, Murtagh thought.
Too soft to hear, he spoke his true name, and the back of his neck prickled, and his heart quickened at the flood of self-knowledge, harsh and uncompromising.
Then he pulled the blanket closer around his shoulders and watched the pulsing of the coals while he waited for his heart to slow and sleep to take him.
Murtagh dreamt, and they were difficult dreams.
He found himself reliving his ambush and capture in Tronjheim. Being bound hand and foot, the Twins forcing him to ride through countless miles of dark tunnels and then across the better part of Alagaësia to Urû’baen and Galbatorix. Never had he felt so helpless….
Then he was fighting Eragon upon the Burning Plains. The hosts of men and dwarves clashed about them while the dwarven king lay dead in his golden armor amid the field of eternal flame. And regret mixed with rage.
When the battle receded from mind, his vision shifted:
Nasuada standing before him. Nasuada, as he had first seen her in Tronjheim. Young and untested by the rigors of command, not yet risen to the leadership of the Varden nor yet to her queenship, but tall and regal nonetheless.
And he, by contrast, a prisoner in a cell, sequestered there by the Varden as they attempted to determine where his true loyalties lay.
Even from that moment, he admired her, for he could see that her resolve was a match for his own. And she showed him kindness when no kindness was warranted; she spoke with him without prejudice, out of a sincere desire to understand what had brought him and Eragon to the Varden. She spoke with him as the person he was, not the person others believed him to be.
She shifted then: her dress changed to that which she had been wearing when, much later and at Galbatorix’s orders, Murtagh had seized her from the Varden’s encampment. Her expression of defiance tore at his heart. He could see her fear beneath, and the monstrous unfairness of the situation broke him.
He saw her chained to the ashen altar within the Hall of the Soothsayer, in the ancient chamber beneath Urû’baen, where Galbatorix had kept her prisoner. Stains and tears appeared on her dress, and her hair grew frazzled, her eyes haunted. Livid marks disfigured her arms. But never did her defiance vanish throughout the tortures Galbatorix had him inflict on her. And still, she showed him understanding.
Then they were together in the rubble-strewn courtyard outside the citadel in Urû’baen. Smoke darkened the sky, and ash fell like snow. The king was dead. The war was won. Nasuada was looking up at him, all defiance gone, her dark eyes round and vulnerable. And the only words he could manage were “I’m sorry.”
They weren’t enough. How could they be?
Starlings and magpies were arguing in the alder tops as Murtagh woke. His forehead was sweaty, and under his arms too, and his pulse was racing like a frightened horse.
He sat up and wiped his forehead.
The sun hadn’t risen yet, and Thorn was still asleep.
His heart felt hollow. There had been a brief time, after the battle for Tronjheim, where he had been a free man, and Nasuada as yet unburdened by the responsibilities of command. The possibility of a courtship had just begun to form between them when fate had intervened. Had they continued uninterrupted…
He shook his head. It was bootless to consider what ifs and might have beens. What was, was, and it was the lot of the living to deal with it as best they could.
But knowing that did nothing to ease his pain.
Careful to be quiet, Murtagh stood, picked up Zar’roc from by his blanket, and walked a ways from their camp.
The frost-laden grass crunched under his boots, a crisp, dry sound.
He stood in an expanse of empty sward. Chest up, shoulders back, staring forward into the future.
An intake of frozen air, and he swept Zar’roc from its crimson sheath. In dawn’s grey light, the sword’s blade was a sharpened shard of iridescent red—a shimmering thorn of frozen blood, eager to cut and stab and kill. The blade of a Rider, forged out of brightsteel by an elven smith over a century past and imbued with spells of strength and keenness and resistance. The finest weapon a warrior could hope to wield, and yet he regarded it with as much aversion as appreciation. A Rider’s blade, yes, but that Rider had been Morzan. His father. And Morzan had used Zar’roc for many a black and bloody deed…as had Murtagh after him.
Not for nothing had Morzan named the blade Misery in the ancient language, and true to its name, the sword had brought pain to many throughout the land, including Murtagh himself.
Sometimes he wondered if he should have ever taken Zar’roc from Eragon.
He shook off the thought. Whether he wanted it or not, Morzan’s shadow would always lie upon him, and aside from his name and the scar on his back, Zar’roc was all he had from his father. It was a meager and hateful inheritance, but it was his alone, and for that he clung to it.
He held the sheath in his off hand as he flowed through the familiar forms. Step, cut, parry, turn. Block, swing, lunge. He moved without thinking, his mind as still and empty as a windless lake on a cloudless day.
Attack, defend, escape. Beat and break, search the opening, make the cut, risk the stab. He used the sheath as a dagger, blocking, deflecting, rapping the wrist, creating opportunities for a lethal blow.
His skin warmed, and his pulse steadied. He moved faster, pushing himself to maintain the pace of battle, every movement a whip-snap of life-preserving, life-ending action.
His lungs gave out before his arms. Unable to continue, he fell to his knees and braced the sheath against the ground. Zar’roc he placed across his thighs.
As the first rays of light crept across the frozen grass, the egg-shaped ruby in Zar’roc’s pommel refracted the beams, splitting them into glowing darts of red.
Once his breath steadied, he stood, sheathed the blade, and staggered back to camp.
Across the dead fire, Thorn watched. He sniffed as Murtagh came close. You stink of fear.
Murtagh grunted. “I know. I’ll wash.” He flinched as Thorn licked his elbow. Then he forced himself to relax and patted the dragon’s head.
The days followed the same pattern. They flew, being careful to avoid detection. Murtagh thought and wrote and thought some more. At camp, he recorded whatever was worth saving and sometimes cast a few spells. And every evening, he and Thorn spoke their true names together in silent confession.
Nights he dreamt, and neither he nor Thorn spoke of what they saw in the small hours.
Throughout, Du Weldenvarden remained a seemingly endless sea of trees to their left. The forest’s dark depths filled Murtagh with foreboding; he disliked the idea of losing himself among the trackless ranks of pines. Still, he wondered what it would be like to walk the ancient forest. He and Thorn had never had an opportunity to visit the ancestral home of the first Riders.