The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm_Eragon by Christopher Paolini

Author:Christopher Paolini [Paolini, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, young adult
ISBN: 9781984894885
Goodreads: 26152839
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Published: 2018-12-31T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER VIII

The Worm of Kulkaras

The day the dragon arrived was a day of death.

He came from the north, a shadow upon the wind. Soft and silent, he swept across the valley, blotting out the sun with his velvet wings. Where he landed, field and forest went up in flame, drifts of ash choked the streams, beasts fled—and Horned also—and the sounds of grief and terror rent the summer air.

The dragon was named Vêrmund the Grim, and he was an old and cruel dragon, canny in the ways of the world. Word of him had come from the north, but never had there been a hint or warning that he had forsaken his lair in those frozen, far-off reaches.

And yet there he was. Black as charred bone, with a polished gleam to his fitted scales and a throat packed full of fire.

The youngling, Ilgra, watched with her friends from beside the spring-fed pool where they so often swam, high in the foothills along the eastern side of the valley. From that vantage, she saw the dragon ravage their farms with fire and claw and the sweep of his jagged tail. When the warriors of Clan Skgaro attacked—attacked with bow and spear and ax—Vêrmund’s flame consumed them or else he trod upon them and thus made an end to their ambitions. Even the sharpest blade could not pierce his hide, and the Skgaro had no spellcasters to aid them in battle. As such, they found themselves at the mercy of the dragon, able only to annoy or inconvenience him, but not to stop him. Never that.

Like the evil worm he was, Vêrmund ate every person who came within his reach: male and female, elder and youngling alike. None were spared. Their livestock too he ate, corralled them with fences of fire and feasted upon the helpless animals until his chops were clotted with gore and the ground a crimson shambles.

All that and more Ilgra saw. She could do nothing to help, so she stayed by the pool, though to wait hurt as much as any wound. Those of her friends who weren’t so wise ran to join the fray, and of their number, many were lost.

As the dragon approached the hall of her family, Ilgra bared her teeth in a helpless snarl. Closer it came, and then closer still, and then with a slow-moving swipe, the scaled monster crushed her home.

A howl tore from Ilgra’s throat, and she sank to her knees and grasped the tips of her horns.

Relief tempered her anguish as she saw her mother scramble free of the wreckage and, with her, Ilgra’s younger sister, Yhana. But it was a fleeting relief, for Vêrmund’s head descended toward them, his heated maw parted.

From across the fields came sprinting Ilgra’s father, spear held high. The lightness of hope filled her heart. Her father was first among the Anointed. Few there were who could match his might, and though he was small compared with the dragon, she knew his courage was equal to that of the gods’.

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