The Truth About Lies (An Inheritance Cycle Fanfiction)

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The pile of rotting corpses rose high into the air; the frozen faces of men, women, and children stared out at me with wide eyes locked forever in fear, begging for help but far too late for any to come. My heart fell into my stomach as I saw the infant child impaled upon the spear at the summit of the pile. Tears spilled freely down my face and I had to tear my gaze away from the gruesome scene, burying my face in Eragon's chest as he held me while I cried.

"Who could have done such a thing?" I uttered quietly as I quelled my sobs.

"This was no doing of the Ra'zac," Brom said, getting down off of Snowfire. He knelt in the dirt and examined the trampled ground. "They passed this way, but this is the work of Urgals. I'm sure of it." After a moment's silence for the slaughtered innocents, Brom suddenly stiffened his back going straight as a board. He raced back into Snowfire's saddle. "Ride!" he hissed quietly.

"What's wrong?" I asked in confusion, looking around at the empty streets.

"Urgals still linger here," he explained, spurring Snowfire forward. We needed no more prompting after that.

We almost made it out of town until I was knocked out of the saddle by a great club of a hand. My head hit the ground with a sickening crack and the world seemed to spin around me.

"Tabatha!" I heard Eragon screaming. I tried to tell him that I was okay, but my ears were buzzing wildly and I found that I couldn't raise my head to speak. My vision went blurry and I finally lost consciousness...

"Tabby..." I heard a voice calling, as though from a far distance. It was a woman's voice, soft a lilting, like a bell. I could see light, as though at the end of a tunnel. "Tabatha," the voice called again, stronger this time. I knew that I had to find that voice, though I couldn't say why. With all of my might, I sped towards the light, crying out.

"Tabatha, please wake up," Eragon said, his voice cutting through the haze of my stupor. I opened my eyelids and saw him kneeling over me, his hands on my shoulders.

"Eragon," I croaked. He smiled and pushed a piece of hair out of my face.

"Brom! She's awake!" he called over his shoulder, his voice splitting my head with pain.

"Oh gods," I groaned as he helped me into a sitting position. "I feel like I've been hit with a ton of bricks. What happened?"

"An Urgal gave you a pretty nasty knock on the head," Brom explained as he came over to us.

"How kind of him," I replied sarcastically, rubbing my temple to try and stop the throbbing.

"We thought you were a goner back there," Eragon continued, his hand remaining on my back. "When we couldn't wake you up I thought..."

"Wait," I snapped, cutting him off. "How long have I been unconscious?" Eragon looked over at Brom nervously but he finally answered.

"A few days, at least. We've traveled further down the river and gone into Daret to get supplies already," he said. Gods above and below, why did this always happen to me! "I got some medicine from a healer there and she said it would help revive you. I guess she was right." Eragon held out a little vial flue of dark blue liquid. I inspected it, and then pulled out the cork to smell it. It had a woodsy fragrance, like pine needles and tree sap, and it evoked a memory in me. A memory of a young woman... As Eragon took the vial back and replaced it in his pocket, the memory vanished, but I couldn't help but think it had been a memory of my mother.

"Thank you," I said, standing up with the help of his shoulder. I swayed for a moment but the pain in my head was slowly dissipating, and I could soon move around on my own.