It was Arya who answered. “It cannot be broken by any normal means, cannot be harmed by fire, and is almost completely impervious to magic, as you yourself saw. The Dauthdaertya were designed to be unaffected by whatever spells the dragons might work and to protect their wielder from the same—a daunting prospect, given the strength, complexity, and unexpected nature of dragons’ magic. Galbatorix may have wrapped Shruikan and himself in more wards than anyone else in Alagaësia, but it is possible that Niernen could pass through their defenses as if they don’t even exist.”

Eragon understood, and elation filled him. “We have to—”

A squeal interrupted him.

The sound was stabbing, slicing, shivering, like metal scraping against stone. Eragon’s teeth vibrated in sympathy and he covered his ears with his hands, grimacing as he twisted around, trying to locate the source of the noise. Saphira tossed her head, and even through the din, he heard her whine in distress.

Eragon swept his gaze over the courtyard two separate times before he noticed a faint puff of dust rising up the wall of the keep from a foot-wide crack that had appeared beneath the blackened, partially destroyed window where Blödhgarm had killed the magician. As the squeal increased in intensity, Eragon risked lifting one of his hands off his ears to point at the crack.

“Look!” he shouted to Arya, who nodded in acknowledgment. He replaced his hand over his ear.

Without warning or preamble, the sound stopped.

Eragon waited for a moment, then slowly lowered his hands, for once wishing that his hearing were not quite so sensitive.

Just as he did, the crack jerked open wider—spreading until it was several feet across—and raced down the wall of the keep. Like a bolt of lightning, the crack struck and shattered the keystone above the doors to the building, showering the floor below with pebbles. The whole castle groaned, and from the damaged window to the broken keystone, the front of the keep began to lean outward.

“Run!” Eragon shouted at the Varden, though the men were already scattering to either side of the courtyard, desperate to get out from under the precarious wall. Eragon took a single step forward, every muscle in his body tense as he searched for a glimpse of Roran somewhere in the throng of warriors.

At last Eragon spotted him, trapped behind the last group of men by the doorway, bellowing madly at them, his words lost in the commotion. Then the wall shifted and dropped several inches—leaning even farther away from the rest of the building—pelting Roran with rocks, knocking him off balance, and forcing him to stumble backward under the overhang of the doorway.

As Roran straightened from a crouch, his eyes met Eragon’s, and in his gaze Eragon saw a flash of fear and helplessness, quickly followed by resignation, as if Roran knew that, no matter how fast he ran, he could not possibly reach safety in time.

A wry smile touched Roran’s lips.

And the wall fell.

HAMMERFALL

o!” shouted Eragon as the wall of the keep tumbled down with a thunderous crash, burying Roran and five other men beneath a mound of stone twenty feet high and flooding the courtyard with a dark cloud of dust.

Eragon’s shout was so loud, his voice broke, and slick, copper-tasting blood coated the back of his throat. He inhaled and doubled over, coughing.

“Vaetna,” he gasped, and waved his hand. With a sound like rustling silk, the thick gray dust parted, leaving the center of the courtyard clear. Concerned as he was for Roran, Eragon barely noticed the strength the spell took from him.

“No, no, no, no,” Eragon muttered. He can’t be dead. He can’t, he can’t, he can’t.… As if repetition might make it true, Eragon continued to think the phrase. But with every repetition, it became less a statement of fact or hope and more a prayer to the world at large.

Before him, Arya and the other warriors of the Varden stood coughing and rubbing their eyes with the palms of their hands. Many were hunched over, as if expecting a blow; others gaped at the front of the damaged keep. The rubble from the building spilled into the middle of the courtyard, obscuring the mosaic. Two and a half rooms on the second story of the keep, and one on the third—the room where the magician had expired so violently—stood exposed to the elements. The chambers and their furnishings seemed dirty and rather shabby in the full light of the sun. Within, a half-dozen soldiers armed with crossbows were scrambling back from the drop they now found themselves standing by. With much pushing and shoving, they hurried through the doors at the far ends of the rooms and vanished into the depths of the keep.

Eragon tried to guess the weight of a block in the pile of rubble; it must have been many hundreds of pounds. If he, Saphira, and the elves all worked together, he was sure that they could shift the stones with magic, but the effort would leave them weak and vulnerable. Moreover, it would take an impractically long time. For a moment, Eragon thought of Glaedr—the golden dragon was more than strong enough to lift the whole pile at once—but haste was of the essence, and Glaedr’s Eldunarí would take too long to retrieve. In any case, Eragon knew that he might not even be able to convince Glaedr to talk with him, much less to help rescue Roran and the other men.

Then Eragon pictured Roran as he had appeared just before the deluge of stones and dust had hidden him from view, standing underneath the eaves of the doorway to the keep, and with a start, he realized what to do.

“Saphira, help them!” Eragon shouted as he cast aside his shield and bounded forward.

Behind him, he heard Arya say something in the ancient language—a short phrase that might have been “Hide this!” Then she had caught up to him, running with her sword in hand, ready to fight.