Children of the Forsworn
Well, what an exciting chapter we had last time…here's the promised update! It was even quicker than anticipated, I was spurred on by Yashamew… I won't waffle on too much.
This is for ALL of you who supported me, as this is the last chapter! (Aside from the epilogue of course.)
Disclaimer: Chris Paoulini wrote Eragon. May he live long and prosper, and also may he hurry up and write the third book before we all explode.
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"He's YOUR enemy, not mine!" She screamed as he lunged towards them. Eragon pulled her to his chest and tried to shout a spell, but he was clearly too exhausted. With a huge effort, she pointed her blade away from her, her hands shaking as her own father plunged his sword into her.
"LILLY!"
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Renn completely freaked out as the King collapsed on top of her sister and Eragon. What the hell just happened? She screamed in her head to anyone who was listening. She was vaguely aware of a lot of shouting and expletives, and a lot of noise as she struggled with the dead weight of her brother. Her brain was fogged, she couldn't think properly. Minutes, maybe hours passed, as the shock started to take hold of her body. The magic she was using to help Aaran was slipping, as was the shield.
"Nn…I…help me…" She muttered numbly.
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Torket fell to his knees beside his fallen best friend and his sister. "Renn! Aaran! The army's in disarray, the Varden, they…I think we've won…I…Renn!" The dark haired girl blinked owlishly at him, clinging to Aaran. She was in shock. "Tor…I…Lilly…she…"
"Renn?" Torket called some of the Varden over. Those who weren't driving the army away came to him. "Help me with her, she's in shock…can you take her back to…wherever you're based…and help her?" He stammered, gently prying Aaran from her grip. He easily lifted the unconscious boy into his arms and over his shoulders. "I'll follow you…I don't know where the others are…"
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Thorn, finally able to follow Saphira onto the floor, landed ungracefully on the floor, turning immediately to his Rider.
Murtagh!
His cry was joined by a second. "Murtagh!" Eragon lay a few feet away, shaking violently, tears coursing down his face, mixing with the blood on his face. Lillian lay, tiny in his arms, a dark stain on the front of her tunic. Eragon had his hand pressed to the wound. Beside them, the King lay, Lillian's sword sticking out of his back. He was dead.
Thorn nuzzled Murtagh, who had a spelled arrow sticking out of his chest. He turned to his Rider's younger brother, and pushed Murtagh over to him.
Help him? He said in a very small voice. Saphira let out a little growl and shifted painfully. Thorn turned to her, growling in sympathy. Then something clicked in his head.
The King was dead. Galbatorix had been defeated. By his own, thirteen year old daughter.
There was a sad irony to that, he mused, but he shook the thought from his head and turned his attention back to more important matters.
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Eragon whimpered, feeling a little lost and very small. Extending the hand that wasn't wrapped around Lillian, he puller his brother close and glanced at the arrow. Gasping for breath, he was about to pull it from Murtagh's chest, before a shout that sounded very distant stayed his hand.
"Stop! Not yet!" He glanced up and caught sight of Nasuada, closely flanked by Arya. He wanted to greet them, but his hands were no longer responding to his brain. The dark skinned woman gently prised his brother from his grip, while Arya looked over him and Lillian, appraising them with a healers expert eye. Apparently she sensed his inner panic and pulled him close, into a half-embrace.
"It's nothing either of you can't recover from, if given the right treatment." Eragon would have gasped with relief, had he not been so exhausted. Arya continued. "Let me take her back; then I'll come for you, help you walk."
"What about my brother?" He whispered.
"Nasuada will look after him. I'm sure he'll be fine." She took his hand away from Lillian's wound, and laid him back against the ground, whispering a word in the ancient language.
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Arya motioned to a few of the Varden who had accompanied her, and they picked up the now sleeping boy and began to follow Nasuada, who had already left. The elf then turned to the little blonde girl lying on the floor. Odd, was this really the child of Galbatorix? She'd never heard of any issue, then again, she was not well aware of the politics of court, as she'd not been in much of a position to make notes the one time she was there.
She knelt beside…Lilly, had Eragon called her? Dried blood matted her left side, and she did a closer inspection of the injury. She'd been right, the wound was not fatal, as long as the right things were done to prevent infection and close up internal bleeding, spells only healers would know. Of course, elves had much more time to learn the art of healing than ordinary humans, and Arya considered herself a perfectly adequate medicine woman. She decided to 'operate' as it were, before moving the girl, just in case. Her brow furrowed in concentration as she moved a hand over the wound and began a complex string of utterances that would hopefully fix the child. She was very lucky. If the King hadn't impaled himself on her raised sword, which was what she assumed must have happened, the black blade might have got as far as her lungs.
It was sad, she mused, that someone so young could have so many scars. She didn't have to see them; she could sense them, both physical and emotional. She'd be unwell for a long time. Arya wondered what would become of her. She was so young to be on her own, although she didn't doubt that Eragon and Murtagh would see to it. Who were the other youngsters they had arrived with? More children of the King? Of the Forsworn, like Eragon, and indeed Murtagh?
Breaking off the healing spell, she gently picked the girl up and headed for the camp, where she knew there would be basic medical supplies. She'd finish there.
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The two sons of Morzan lay next to each other, one sleeping, the other unconscious. Arya laid the blonde girl down on the bed opposite Eragon, where she administered some lotion that would prevent any infection from slowing the healing process.
Presently, Eragon stirred behind her. Without looking up, she waved him over, and the boy, who had acquired a sling from one of the healers and was looking at it in a rather bemused fashion, made his slow way over. She glanced at him. "Your arm broke in three places from the fall. You're lucky it wasn't more serious than that." Eragon grinned weakly, clearly still a little disorientated. His eyes glazed over and the elf princess recognised he was conversing with his dragon.
As soon as he was done, she raised an eyebrow. "Is Saphira alright?"
"Thorn's looking after her." Eragon replied with a slight grin. "What about Lillian?" He said, the smile disappearing as he caught sight of her behind Arya.
"So that's her name. She, and the others, are they all sons and daughters of Galbatorix?"
"Yeah…no…um, some of them…" Eragon shook his head and Arya rolled her eyes. "She and your brother are going to be fine in a day or two. I promise I'll look after them. You should probably go and find your other friends, and let them know."
Eragon made to leave, then frowned and turned back. "Arya Svit-kona, may I ask you one thing?"
"Yes…"
"When…when they took me…why didn't you come?" It sounded childish and almost whiny, but she supposed he had every right to be upset.
"I wanted to." She growled. "Believe me I wanted to with every fibre of my being. But one elf, as all the men of the Varden so loved to remind me, had no chance of performing a rescue from Uru-baen by myself." She left it at that, and after a moment, Eragon nodded, and turned to leave.
"Wait…" he spun round once more. "I would have followed you to the end…but it looks like you have someone more suited to the job, now." She indicated the girl on the bed, and Eragon flushed, before practically running out of the tent.
She smiled and shook her head.
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Three hours, twenty six minutes and forty three seconds. Renn stared into space and Torket counted seconds. Aaran lay between them, having not moved since they brought him in. Which had been precisely three hours, twenty six minutes and forty seven seconds ago. His best friend lay pale as death, hardly breathing. Healers checked in on him every half an hour or so, but always they shook their heads. Which was never a good sign. Torkets emotions were haywire, but when he turned to Renn, she looked strangely calm.
At his questioning glance, she murmured, "It looks bad, Tor…but I'd know if he…" she trailed off, turning back to her brother. At least she could sit with him now. A couple of hours ago she'd been rushing between Murtagh, Lillian, Aaran and her own assigned healer, who'd been trying, and failing, to get her to stay still. However, once Lillian had opened her eyes and said "Ow…" and she'd been informed that her lover was not going to die and would recover, she'd sat down, much to the relief of Clarice, the nurse who was treating Renn's cuts and bruises.
It was just Aaran's life now, hanging in the balance. He looked fine now, barely a drop of blood on his clothes. A large white bandage obscured his left eye and forehead. Patches of red had seeped through the white material, but for now, the bleeding had stopped.
A hand rested on his shoulder. He jumped, and turned to find Eragon stood behind him, arm covered in bandages and some sort of salve on the skin of his face, which had been badly burnt by the King's spell fire.
The King. It seemed almost…anticlimactic. Then again, he supposed it hadn't been for Eragon, Murtagh and Lillian. The man's body had been burnt, somewhat unceremoniously. It had been an accident, apparently; the people sent to recover the body had found it reduced to ashes. After a brief panic when people assumed he's got away, Arya had calmly told them that the ashy remains on the ground were most definitely the King's. People knew not to question her.
"Murtagh is awake…sort of." The boy sighed. Torket shot him a questioning look. "He isn't saying much, I think the spell fire seared his throat. He might not speak for a while…which can only be a good thing."
Torket smiled weakly at the attempt at humour.
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Within a day, Lillian was beside Renn, having been given a relatively clean bill of health by Arya, whom the teenager decided she liked. The elf was aloof and haughty, but had a kind heart, really.
Although her mind was not on the elf princess right now. Her brother still lay, cold and unmoving, his breathing shallow, his chest barely rising and falling. Renn held his left hand and Lillian held his right. It had been hours since she'd first joined Renn by Aaran's side, and she was already tired and fidgety, though she knew Renn had been there for almost two days straight. Nothing anyone said could move her from her twin's side. Lillian could only imagine what she was going through, the two were very different people, but as twins, they shared a connection that ran deeper than blood, and it was a connection she envied, although she wasn't sure she could handle having someone else's mind running tandem with her own…
They'd always been close, even after they developed their own personalities. She hadn't been jealous of the fact they'd had each other, she'd had Murtagh (who at the time was way more interesting – he was older and could pick her up and throw her around.)
Then Aaran's fingers moved around hers, clenching and unclenching ever so slightly. She froze, and squeezed back, probably harder than was absolutely necessary. A pained groan came from the bed, and both sisters leapt to their feet. Almost instantly they were surrounded by nurses and healers, and she felt a gentle, familiar hand pull her away from the scene. As she let herself be led away from her brother and sister so that the healers could work, she looked up at Eragon, the boy she had decided she loved.
Then she smiled, and something inside her decided that everything would be all right, now.
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TA DA!!!! The End.
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OKAY…I'm a sucker for happy endings. Actually Aaran was going to die but I hadn't the heart to do it…If you wanted some of them to die, TOUGH. There, yashamew, you got what you wanted (so did I)
Ooh, free doodle to anyone who can correctly guess how the King's body got destroyed…
AND…aside from that…we have two obvious pairings, but what about the other two boys? I have my thoughts as to who they end up with (because they can't be lonely for the rest of their lives) but feel free to suggest someone. Anyone. It might be a better choice than what I have in mind….so let me know. Really, LET ME KNOW.
Wow, do you realise, originally, when this idea first came to me, there weren't going to be ANY OCs at all, and the story was going a completely different direction? I have NO IDEA why I included so many original characters, but some of you appear to like them, which is good. At least they weren't totally Mary Sue/Gary Stu ish…
I also got Arya totally wrong, but I don't suppose it matters much.
Expect the epilogue withintwo weeks (its long and memory filled), which will also work as a set up to the (possible) sequel.
So…your thoughts:)