“That would be fine.”

“Who exactly do you want me to protect?”

Roran pointed at the men he had picked to join him, and Carn asked each of them their names. Standing with his shoulders hunched inward, Carn began to mutter in the ancient language, his face pale and strained. Three times he tried to cast the spell, and three times he failed. “I’m sorry,” he said, and released an unsteady breath. “I can’t seem to concentrate.”

“Blast it, don’t apologize,” growled Roran. “Just do it!” Leaping down from Snowfire, he grasped Carn on either side of his head, holding him in place. “Look at me! Look into the center of my eyes. That’s it. Keep staring at me. . . . Good. Now place the ward around us.”

Carn’s features cleared and his shoulders loosened, and then, in a confident voice, he recited the incantation. As he uttered the last word, he sagged slightly in Roran’s grip before recovering. “It is done,” he said.

Roran patted him on the shoulder, then clambered into Snowfire’s saddle again. Sweeping his gaze over the ten horsemen, he said, “Guard my sides and my back, but otherwise keep behind me so long as I am able to swing my hammer.”

“Yes, sir!”

“Remember, the bolts cannot harm you now. Carn, you stay here. Don’t move too much; conserve your strength. If you feel like you can’t maintain the spell any longer, signal us before you end it. Agreed?”

Carn sat on the front step of the house and nodded. “Agreed.”

Renewing his grip on his shield and hammer, Roran took a deep breath, attempting to calm himself. “Brace yourselves,” he said, and clucked his tongue to Snowfire.

With the ten horsemen following, Roran rode out into the middle of the dirt street that ran between the houses and faced the soldiers once more. Five hundred or so of Galbatorix’s troops remained in the center of the village, most of them crouching or kneeling behind their shields while they struggled to reload their crossbows. Occasionally, a soldier would stand and loose a bolt at one of the archers on the roofs before dropping back behind his shield as a flight of arrows sliced through the air where he had just been. Throughout the corpse-strewn clearing, patches of arrows studded the ground, like reeds sprouting from the bloody soil. Several hundred feet away, on the far side of the soldiers, Roran could see a knot of thrashing bodies, and he assumed that was where Sand, Edric, and whatever remained of their forces were fighting the soldiers. If the young woman and the boy were still in the clearing, he did not notice them.

A quarrel buzzed toward Roran. When the bolt was less than a yard from his chest, it abruptly changed direction and hurtled off at an angle, missing him and his men. Roran flinched, but the missile was already past. His throat constricted, and his heartbeat doubled.

Glancing around, Roran spotted a broken wagon leaning against a house off to his left. He pointed at it and said, “Pull that over here and lay it upside down. Block as much of the street as you can.” To the archers, he shouted, “Don’t let the soldiers sneak around and attack us from the sides! When they come at us, thin out their ranks as much as you can. And as soon as you run out of arrows, come join us.”

“Yes, sir!”

“Just be careful you don’t shoot us by accident, or I swear I’ll haunt your halls for the rest of time!”

“Yes, sir!”

More quarrels flew at Roran and the other horsemen in the street, but in every case, the bolts glanced off Carn’s ward and veered into a wall or the ground or vanished into the sky.

Roran watched his men drag the wagon into the street. When they were nearly finished, he lifted his chin, filled his lungs, and then, projecting his voice toward the soldiers, he roared, “Ho there, you cowering carrion dogs! See how only eleven of us bar your way. Win past us, and you win your freedom. Try your hand if you have the guts. What? You hesitate? Where is your manhood, you deformed maggots, you bilious, swine-faced murderers? Your fathers were dribbling half-wits who should have been drowned at birth! Aye, and your mothers were poxy trollops and the consorts of Urgals!” Roran smiled with satisfaction as several of the soldiers howled with outrage and began to insult him in return. One of the soldiers, however, seemed to lose his will to continue fighting, for he sprang to his feet and ran northward, covering himself with his shield and darting from side to side in a desperate attempt to avoid the archers. Despite his efforts, the Varden shot him dead before he had gone more than a hundred feet. “Ha!” exclaimed Roran. “Cowards you are, every last one of you, you verminous river rats! If it will give you spine, then know this: Roran Stronghammer is my name, and Eragon Shadeslayer is my cousin! Kill me, and that foul king of yours will reward you with an earldom, or more. But you will have to kill me with a blade; your crossbows are of no use against me. Come now, you slugs; you leeches; you starving, white-bellied ticks! Come and best me if you can!”

With a flurry of battle-cries, a group of thirty soldiers dropped their crossbows, drew their flashing swords, and, with shields held high, ran toward Roran and his men.

From over his right shoulder, Roran heard Harald say, “Sir, there are many more of them than us.”

“Aye,” Roran said, keeping his eyes fixed on the approaching soldiers. Four of them stumbled and then lay motionless on the ground, pierced through by numerous shafts.

“If they all charge us at once, we won’t stand a chance.”

“Yes, but they won’t. Look, they’re confused and disorganized. Their commander must have fallen. As long as we maintain order, they cannot overwhelm us.”