When Eragon realized he had nothing to do, he squatted by the fire with Orik and Shrrgnien. As Shrrgnien pulled off his gloves and held his scarred hands over the flames, Eragon noticed that a polished steel stud—perhaps a quarter of an inch long—protruded from each of the dwarf’s knuckles, except for on his thumbs.

“What are those?” he asked.

Shrrgnien looked at Orik and laughed. “These are mine Ascûdgamln . . . mine ‘fists of steel.’ ” Without standing, he twisted and punched the bole of an aspen, leaving four symmetrical holes in the bark. Shrrgnien laughed again. “They are good for hitting things, eh?”

Eragon’s curiosity and envy were aroused. “How are they made? I mean, how are the spikes attached to your hands?”

Shrrgnien hesitated, trying to find the right words. “A healer puts you in a deep sleep, so you feel no pain. Then a hole is—isdrilled, yes?—is drilled down through the joints . . .” He broke off and spoke quickly to Orik in the dwarf language.

“A metal socket is embedded in each hole,” explained Orik. “Magic is used to seal it in place, and when the warrior has fully recovered, various-sized spikes can be threaded into the sockets.”

“Yes, see,” said Shrrgnien, grinning. He gripped the stud above his left index finger, carefully twisted it free of his knuckle, and then handed it to Eragon.

Eragon smiled as he rolled the sharp lump around his palm. “I wouldn’t mind having ‘fists of steel’ myself.” He returned the stud to Shrrgnien.

“It’s a dangerous operation,” warned Orik. “Few knurlan get Ascûdgamln because you can easily lose the use of your hands if the drill goes too deep.” He raised his fist and showed it to Eragon. “Our bones are thicker than yours. It might not work for a human.”

“I’ll remember that.” Still, Eragon could not help but imagine what it would be like to fight with Ascûdgamln, to be able to strike anything he wanted with impunity, including armored Urgals. He loved the idea.

After eating, Eragon retired to his tent. The fire provided enough light that he could see the silhouette of Saphira nestled alongside the tent, like a figure cut from black paper and pasted against the canvas wall.

Eragon sat with the blankets pulled over his legs and stared at his lap, drowsy but unwilling to sleep quite yet. Unbidden, his mind turned to thoughts of home. He wondered how Roran, Horst, and everyone else from Carvahall was doing, and if the weather in Palancar Valley was warm enough for the farmers to start planting their crops. Longing and sadness suddenly gripped Eragon.

He removed a wood bowl from his pack and, taking his waterskin, filled it to the brim with liquid. Then he focused on an image of Roran and whispered, “Draumr kópa.”

As always, the water went black before brightening to reveal the object being scryed. Eragon saw Roran sitting alone in a candlelit bedroom he recognized from Horst’s house.Roran must have given up his job in Therinsford, realized Eragon. His cousin leaned on his knees and clasped his hands, staring at the far wall with an expression that Eragon knew meant Roran was grappling with some difficult problem. Still, Roran seemed well enough, if a bit drawn, which comforted Eragon. After a minute, he released the magic, ending the spell and clearing the surface of the water.

Reassured, Eragon emptied the bowl, then lay down, pulling the blankets up to his chin. He closed his eyes and sank into the warm dusk that separates consciousness and sleep, where reality bends and sways to the wind of thought, and where creativity blossoms in its freedom from boundaries and all things are possible.

Slumber soon took him. Most of his rest was uneventful, but right before he woke, the usual night phantasms were replaced with a vision as clear and vibrant as any waking experience.

He saw a tortured sky, black and crimson with smoke. Crows and eagles swirled high above flights of arrows that arched from one side to another of a great battle. A man sprawled in the clotted mud with a dented helm and bloody mail—his face concealed behind an upthrown arm.

An armored hand entered Eragon’s view. The gauntlet was so near it blotted out half the world with polished steel. Like an inexorable machine, the thumb and last three fingers curled into a fist, leaving the trunk of the index finger to point at the downed man with all the authority of fate itself.

The vision still filled Eragon’s mind when he crawled out of the tent. He found Saphira some distance from the camp, gnawing on a furry lump. When he told her what he had seen, she paused in midbite, then jerked her neck and swallowed a strip of meat.

The last time this occurred,she said,it proved to be a true prediction of events elsewhere. Do you think a battle is in progress in Alagaësia?

He kicked a loose branch.I’m not sure. . . . Brom said you could only scry people, places, and things that you had already seen. Yet I’ve never seen this place. Nor had I seen Arya when I first dreamt about her in Teirm.

Perhaps Togira Ikonoka will be able to explain it.

As they prepared to leave, the dwarves seemed much more relaxed now that they were a good distance from Tarnag. When they started poling down the Az Ragni, Ekksvar—who was steering Snowfire’s raft—began chanting in his rough bass:

Down the rushing mere-wash

Of Kílf’s welling blood,

We ride the twisting timbers,

For hearth, clan, and honor.

Under the ernes’ sky-vat,

Through the ice-wolves’ forest bowls,

We ride the gory wood,

For iron, gold, and diamond.