Eragon looked under all the nearby pews, and he even ran back to the altar and inspected the area around it.

“It’s not here,” he finally said, despairing. He turned toward the freestanding wall that hid the entrance to the underground chambers. “They must have left it in the tunnels.” He cast his gaze in the direction of the priory. “Or maybe …” He hesitated, torn between the two options.

Muttering the words under his breath, he cast a spell designed to find and lead him to the belt, but the only result he received was an image of smooth gray emptiness. As he had feared, there were wards around the belt that protected it from magical observation or interference, just as similar wards protected Brisingr.

Eragon scowled and took a half step toward the freestanding wall.

The bell tolled louder than ever.

“Eragon,” called Arya from the other end of the cathedral, shifting the unconscious novitiate from one shoulder to the other. “We have to go.”

“But—”

“Oromis would understand. It’s not your fault.”

“But—”

“Leave it! The belt has been lost before. We will find it again. But for now, we must fly. Hurry!”

Eragon cursed, spun around, and ran to join Arya, Angela, and Solembum at the front of the cathedral. Of all the things to lose … It seemed almost sacrilegious to abandon the belt when so many creatures had died to fill it with energy. Besides, he had a horrible feeling that he might have need of that energy before the day was out.

Even as he and the herbalist pushed open the heavy doors that led out of the cathedral, Eragon sent his mind questing for Saphira, who he knew would be circling high above the city, waiting for him to contact her. The time for discretion had long since passed, and Eragon no longer cared if Murtagh or some other magician sensed his presence.

He soon felt the familiar touch of Saphira’s consciousness. As their thoughts melded together once again, a certain tightness in Eragon’s chest vanished.

What took you so long? exclaimed Saphira. He could taste her worry, and he knew she had been considering descending upon Dras-Leona and tearing it to pieces in search of him.

He poured his memories into her, sharing everything that had happened to him since they parted. The process took a few seconds, by which time he, Arya, Angela, and the werecat had exited the cathedral and were running down the front steps.

Without pausing to give Saphira an opportunity to make sense of his jumbled recollections, Eragon said, We need a distraction—now!

She acknowledged his statement, and he could feel her tip into a steep dive.

Also, tell Nasuada to start her attack. We’ll be at the south gate in a few minutes. If the Varden aren’t there when we open it, I don’t know how we’re going to escape.

BLACK-SHRIKE-THORN-CAVE

he cool, moist, morning-air-off-water whistled past Saphira’s head as she dove toward the rat-nest-city half lit by the rising sun. The low rays of light made the smelly-wood-eggshell-buildings stand out in high relief, their western sides black with shadow.

The wolf-elf-in-Eragon’s-shape who was riding on her back shouted something at her, but the hungry wind tore at his words, and she could not make out his meaning. He began to ask her questions with his song-filled-mind, but she did not wait to let him finish. Instead, she told him of Eragon’s plight and asked him to alert Nasuada that now was the time for action.

How the shadow-of-Eragon that Blödhgarm wore was supposed to fool anyone, Saphira could not understand. He did not smell like her partner-of-heart-and-mind, nor did his thoughts feel like Eragon’s. Still, the two-legs seemed impressed by the apparition, and it was two-legs they were trying to fool.

On the left side of the rat-nest-city, the glittering shape of Thorn lay stretched out along the battlements above the southern gate. He lifted his crimson head, and she could tell that he had spotted her hurtling toward the break-bone-ground, as she had expected. Her feelings toward Thorn were too complicated to sum up in a few brief impressions. Every time she thought of him, she became confused and uncertain, something she was unaccustomed to.

Nevertheless, she was not about to let the upstart whelp best her in battle.

As the dark chimneys and sharp-edged roofs grew larger, she spread her wings a bit more, feeling the increased strain in her chest, shoulders, and wing muscles as she began to slow their descent. When she was only a few hundred feet above the closely packed swell of buildings, she swooped upward and allowed her wings to snap out to their full extent. The effort required to stop her fall was immense; for a moment, it felt as if the wind might tear her wings free of their sockets.

She shifted her tail to maintain balance, then wheeled over the city until she located the black-shrike-thorn-cave where the blood-mad-priests worshipped. Tucking in her wings again, she dropped the last number of feet and, with a thunderous crash, landed on the middle of the cathedral’s roof.

She dug her claws into the tiles of the roof to stop herself from sliding off into the street below. Then she threw back her head and roared as loudly as she could, challenging the world and everything in it.

There was a bell clanging in the tower of the building next to the black-shrike-thorn-cave. She found the noise irritating, so she twisted her neck and loosed a jet of blue and yellow flame at it. The tower did not catch fire, as it was stone, but the rope and beams supporting the bell ignited, and a few seconds later, the bell fell crashing into the interior of the tower.

That pleased her, as did the two-legs-round-ears who ran screaming from the area. She was a dragon, after all. It was only right that they should fear her.