The name struck a chord in Eragon. “When Roran and I rescued Katrina, we heard the priests of Helgrind mention a book of Tosk.”

Wyrden nodded. “It serves as the foundation of their faith. Tosk was not the first to offer up prayers to Helgrind, but he was the first to codify his beliefs and practices, and many others have imitated him since. Those who worship Helgrind regard him as a prophet of the divine. And this”—the elf cast his arms out wide—“is a history of Tosk, from his birth to his death: a true history, such as his disciples have never shared with those outside their sect.”

“We could learn much from this,” said Angela, never taking her eyes off the ceiling. “If only we had the time …” Eragon was surprised to see her so enthralled.

Arya glanced at the seven corridors. “A moment, then, but read quickly.”

While Angela and Wyrden perused the runes with avid intensity, Arya walked over to one of the archways and, in an undertone, began to chant a spell for finding and locating. When she finished, she waited a moment with her head cocked, then moved on to the next archway.

Eragon stared at the runes a bit longer. Then he returned to the mouth of the corridor that had brought them to the room and leaned against a wall while he waited. The cold of the stones seeped into his shoulder.

Arya stopped in front of the fourth archway. The now-familiar cadence of her recitation rose and fell like a soft sigh of wind.

Again, nothing.

A faint tickling on the back of his right hand caused Eragon to look down. A huge, wingless cricket clung to his glove. The insect was hideous: black and bulbous, with barbed legs and a massive, skull-like head. Its carapace gleamed like oil.

Eragon shuddered, his skin crawling, and shook his arm, flinging the cricket into the darkness.

It landed with an audible thump.

The fifth corridor proved no more fruitful for Arya than the preceding four. She bypassed the opening where Eragon stood and stationed herself in front of the seventh archway.

Before she could cast her spell, a guttural yowl echoed down the corridors, seemingly from all directions at once; then there was a hiss and a spat and a screech that made every hair on Eragon’s body stand on end.

Angela whirled around. “Solembum!”

As one, the four of them drew their blades.

Eragon backed into the center of the room, his gaze darting from one archway to the next. His gedwëy ignasia itched and tingled like a fleabite—a useless warning, for it did not tell him where or what the danger was.

“This way,” said Arya, moving toward the seventh archway.

The herbalist refused to budge. “No!” she whispered vehemently. “We have to help him.” Eragon noticed that she held a short sword with a strange colorless blade that flashed gemlike in the light.

Arya scowled. “If Murtagh learns we’re here, we’ll—”

It happened so quickly and silently, Eragon would never have noticed had he not been looking in the right direction: a half-dozen doors hidden within the walls of three different corridors swung open, and thirty or so black-garbed men ran out toward them, swords in hand.

“Letta!” shouted Wyrden, and the men in one group collided with each other as if those in front had run headlong into a wall.

Then the rest of the attackers fell upon them, and there was no time for magic. Eragon easily parried a stab, and with a looping backhanded stroke, sliced off the attacker’s head. Like all the others, the man wore a kerchief tied over his face, so only his eyes were exposed, and the kerchief fluttered as the head fell spinning toward the floor.

Eragon was relieved when he felt Brisingr sink into flesh and blood. For a moment, he had feared that their opponents were protected by spells or armor—or, worse, that they were something other than human.

He skewered another man through the ribs and had just turned to deal with two more of his attackers when a sword that should not have been there arced through the air toward his throat. His wards saved him from certain death, yet with the blade an inch away from his neck, Eragon could not help but stumble back.

To his astonishment, the man he had stabbed was still standing, blood streaming down his side, seemingly oblivious to the hole Eragon had poked through him.

Dread settled over Eragon. “They can’t feel pain,” he shouted, even as he frantically blocked swords from three different directions. If anyone heard him, they failed to respond.

He wasted no more time talking, but concentrated on fighting the men in front of him, trusting his companions to protect his back.

Eragon lunged and parried and dodged, whipping Brisingr through the air as if it weighed no more than a switch. Ordinarily, he could have killed any of the men in an instant, but the fact that they were impervious to pain meant that he had to either behead them, stab them through the heart, or cut them and hold them off until loss of blood rendered them unconscious. Otherwise, the attackers kept trying to kill him, regardless of their injuries. The number of men made it difficult to evade all of their blows and strike back in return. He could have stopped defending himself and just let his wards protect him, but that would tire him just as quickly as swinging Brisingr. And since he could not predict exactly when his wards would fail—as they must at a certain point, else they would kill him—and he knew he might need them later on, he fought just as carefully and cautiously as if he were facing men whose swords could kill or maim with a single stroke.

More black-garbed warriors streamed out of the hidden doorways within the corridors. They crowded around Eragon, pushing him back through sheer weight of numbers. Hands clung to his legs and arms, threatening to immobilize him.