Luminescent (Inheritance Cycle and Beyond)

Chapter Eleven: Luminescent

"Good, you're here, Eragon. Meet Jörmundur, my second in command." Ajihad said, gesturing to the wirey man standing next to Arya. "I roused the five of you because we are all in grave danger.

About half an hour ago a dwarf ran out of an abandoned tunnel under Tronjheim. He was bleeding and nearly incoherent, but he had enough sense left to tell the dwarves what was pursuing him: an army of Urgals, maybe a day's march from here."

Silence filled the room before Jörmundur and Orik swore and started asked questions at the same time, I glanced at Arya, she hadn't moved a muscle.

"Quiet!" I barked out. The room went silent. "The Urgals aren't approaching over land, but under it. They're in our tunnels. We're going to be attacked from below."

"Why didn't the dwarves know about this sooner? How did the Urgals find the tunnels?" Eragon asked, looking around.

"We're lucky to know about it this early!" Orik bellowed. The chatter in the room went silent again "There are hundreds of tunnels throughout the Beor Mountains, uninhabited since the day they were mined. The only dwarves who go in them are eccentrics who don't want contact with anyone. We could have just as easily received no warning at all."

Ajihad pointed at the map, and Eragon moved closer, studying the map with curiosity. Ajihad's finger was on the section of the Beor Mountains that touched Surda's eastern border.

"This," he said, "is where the dwarf claimed to have come from."

"Orthíad!" Orik yelled out before Jörmundur gave him a puzzled look. "It's an ancient dwelling of ours that was deserted when Tronjheim was completed. During its time it was the greatest of our cities. But no one's lived there for centuries."

"And it's old enough for some of the tunnels to have collapsed," Ajihad said. "That's how we surmise it was discovered from the surface. I suspect that Orthíad is now being called Ithrö Zhâda. That's where the Urgal column that was chasing Eragon and Saphira was supposed to go, and I'm sure it's where the Urgals have been migrating all year. From Ithrö Zhâda they can travel anywhere they want in the Beor Mountains. They have the power to destroy both the Varden and the dwarves."

"Do you know how many Urgals there are? Are Galbatorix's troops with them? We can't plan a defense without knowing how large their army is." I asked, tilting my head at the vast expanse of tunnel connections that the Urgals could take.

"We're unsure about both those things, your highness, yet our survival rests on that last question," Ajihad answered in an unhappy tone. "If Galbatorix has augmented the Urgals' ranks with his own men, we don't stand a chance. But if he hasn't—because he still doesn't want his alliance with the Urgals revealed, or for some other reason—it's possible we can win. Neither Orrin nor the elves can help us at this late hour. Even so, I sent runners to both of them with news of our plight. At the very least they won't be caught by surprise if we fall." Ajihad paused and rubbed his forehead.

"I've already talked with Hrothgar and the queen, and we've decided on a course of action. Our only hope is to contain the Urgals in three of the larger tunnels and channel them into Farthen Dûr, so they don't swarm inside Tronjheim like locusts. I need you, Eragon and Arya, to help the dwarves collapse extraneous tunnels. The job is too big for normal means. Two groups of dwarves are already working on it: one outside Tronjheim, the other beneath it. Eragon, you're to work with the group outside. Arya, you'll be with the one underground; Orik will guide you to them."

"Why not collapse all the tunnels instead of leaving the large ones untouched?" Eragon asked.

"Because, that would force the Urgals to clear away the rubble, and they might decide to go in a direction we don't want them to. Plus, if we cut ourselves off, they could attack other dwarf cities—which we wouldn't be able to assist in time." Orik explained to Eragon.