Roran elbowed his way back through the men and grabbed one of the elves, Othíara, by the arm. She gave him a look of anger, which he ignored. “Keep the ladders in place!” he shouted. “Don’t let the soldiers push them away!”

She nodded and began to chant in the ancient language, as did the other elves.

Turning, Roran hurried back to the wall. One of the men was already starting to climb the nearest ladder. Roran grabbed him by the belt and pulled him off. “I’ll go first,” he said.

“Stronghammer!”

Roran slung his shield over his back, then began to climb, hammer in hand. He had never been fond of heights, and as the men and Urgals grew smaller below him, he felt increasingly uneasy. The feeling just grew worse when he reached the section of the ladder that lay flat against the wall, for he could no longer wrap his hands all the way around the rungs, nor could he get a good foothold—only the first few inches of his boots would fit on the bark-covered branches, and he had to move carefully to ensure that they did not slip off.

A spear flew past him, close enough that he felt the wind on his cheek.

He swore and kept climbing.

He was less than a yard from the battlements when a soldier with blue eyes leaned over the edge and looked straight at him.

“Bah!” Roran shouted, and the soldier flinched and stepped back. Before the man had time to recover, Roran scrambled up the remaining rungs and hopped over the battlements to land on the walkway along the top of the wall.

The soldier he had scared stood several feet in front of him, holding a short archer’s sword. The man’s head was turned to the side as he shouted at a group of soldiers farther down the wall.

Roran’s shield was still on his back so he swung his hammer at the man’s wrist. Without the shield, Roran knew he would have difficulty fending off a trained swordsman; his safest course was to disarm his opponent as quickly as possible.

The soldier saw what he intended and parried the blow. Then he stabbed Roran in the belly.

Or rather, he tried to. Eragon’s spells stopped the tip of the blade a quarter inch from Roran’s gut. Roran grunted, surprised, then knocked aside the blade and brained the man with three rapid strikes.

He swore again. It was a bad beginning.

Up and down the wall, more of the Varden tried to climb over the battlements. Few made it. Clumps of soldiers waited at the top of most every ladder, and reinforcements were streaming onto the walkway from the stairs to the city.

Baldor joined him—he had used the same ladder as Roran—and together they ran toward a ballista manned by eight soldiers. The ballista was mounted near the base of one of the many towers that rose out of the wall, each of which stood about two hundred feet apart. Behind the soldiers and the tower, Roran saw the illusion of Saphira that the elves had created, flying over and around the wall, breathing fire on it.

The soldiers were smart; they grabbed their spears and poked at him and Baldor, keeping them at a distance. Roran tried to catch one of the spears, but the man wielding it was too fast, and Roran nearly got stabbed again. A moment more and he knew the soldiers would overwhelm him and Baldor.

Before that could happen, an Urgal pulled himself over the edge of the wall behind the soldiers, then lowered his head and charged, bellowing and swinging the ironbound club he carried.

The Urgal struck one man in the chest, breaking his ribs, and another on the hip, breaking his pelvis. Either injury ought to have incapacitated the soldiers, but as the Urgal bulled past them, the two men picked themselves off the stone as if nothing had happened and proceeded to stab the Urgal in the back.

A sense of doom settled upon Roran. “We’ll have to bash in their skulls or take off their heads if we’re going to stop them,” he growled to Baldor. Keeping his eyes on the soldiers, he shouted to the Varden behind them, “They can’t feel pain!”

Out over the city, the illusionary Saphira crashed into a tower. Everyone but Roran paused to look; he knew what the elves were doing.

Jumping forward, he slew one of the soldiers with a blow to the temple. He used his shield to shove the next soldier aside; then he was too close for their spears to be of any use, and he was able to make short work of them with his hammer.

Once he and Baldor had killed the rest of the soldiers around the ballista, Baldor looked at him with an expression of despair. “Did you see? Saphira—”

“She’s fine.”

“But—”

“Don’t worry about it. She’s fine.”

Baldor hesitated, then accepted Roran’s word, and they rushed at the next clump of soldiers.

Soon afterward, Saphira—the real Saphira—appeared over the southern part of the wall as she flew toward the citadel, prompting cheers of relief from the Varden.

Roran frowned. She was supposed to remain hidden for the whole of her flight. “Frethya. Frethya,” he said quickly under his breath. He remained visible. Blast it, he thought.

Turning, he said, “Back to the ladders!”

“Why?” demanded Baldor as he grappled with another soldier. Uttering a ferocious shout, he pushed the man off the wall, into the city.

“Stop asking questions! Move!”

Side by side, they fought their way through the line of soldiers that separated them from the ladders. It was bloody and difficult, and Baldor received a cut on his left calf, behind his greave, and a severe bruise on one of his shoulders, where a spear nearly pierced his mail shirt.

The soldiers’ immunity to pain meant that killing them was the only sure way to stop them, and killing them was no easy task. Also, it meant that Roran dared not show mercy. More than once, he thought he had killed a soldier, only to have the wounded man rear up and strike at him while he was engaged with another opponent. And there were so many soldiers on the walkway, he began to fear that he and Baldor would never make it off.