The Dark Hours - Eragon Fanfic

Chapter Twenty One: Plans

A disturbance in the lower city called Murtagh out of his bed early the next morning–the wall guards had sounded some kind of alarm. For just a fleeting moment Murtagh wondered if Eragon had arrived to rescue Nasuada, and he was filled with hope.

But it wasn't Eragon.

It was cats.

"What?" Murtagh held Zar'roc's pommel and glowered at a bloodied soldier who sat slumped against the guardhouse wall, holding a cloth to his head, his tunic torn and his neck covered in claw marks.

"S–sir, we–well, there was an attack... one of the men thought... sir, it really is–"

"How many were there?"

"Sir?"

"The cats. How many."

"Uh... at least twenty, but–"

"They escaped?"

"Well... they're cats, sir..."

"And yet you're nearly fainting from your wounds," Murtagh spat, annoyed at the man's denseness.

"Where did the cats go?"

"Well, two of my men were chasing after a group, and they had them cornered, but when they came into sight... poof, they were gone." The man was wide-eyed and his voice moved quickly.

"Gone?"

"Yeah, just a couple street urchins in the alleyway, no sign of em."

"Street urchins." Murtagh repeated, his annoyance growing.

"Kids, I dunno. They said it was just a bunch of–"

"They're werecats, you idiot," He spat, "Those kids gave you that scar."

The guardsman's face seemed to fluctuate between fear that Murtagh was going to kill him, and absolute bewilderment.

After that, Murtagh spent the better part of the morning chasing down what seemed to be a rogue band of Werecat-spies that had been sent ahead of the Varden army.

The King had told him to "deal with the disturbance", and he did, but he didn't kill the werecats, and he didn't capture them. He had sworn no oath to the King and felt no desire to do so, but he made sure they scampered over the city walls and fled into the fields.

He met with real trouble only once. He'd frozen one of the large cats with magic, and was about to grab it by the scruff and haul it to the edge of the city, when seven of them jumped down on him from a nearby roof. If he hadn't been so annoyed about being kept from Nasuada, he might've found it comical.

They scratched and bit and tore at his sleeves, but he allowed their attack to last only seconds, before blasting them away with a single spell and sending them scampering back over the nearest roof.

No doubt they had been dispatched as scouts ahead of the army–to report on the city's defenses and to try and find out where Nasuada was being held. He wished he could help them, wished he could open the citadel doors for them and usher them in to rescue their captured leader. But that his oaths would not allow.

After escaping the surprise attack, he soon found one of them in an alley, in human form–a crouched girl with a shock of yellow hair and razor sharp teeth, a dagger in both hands.

He'd managed to bind her with magic, but then he stood for a second in the alleyway, catching his breath, watching the creature blink at him. He was torn between anger and amusement, his arms bloodied from dozens of scratches, his clothes dusty, but his mind working.