"They tricked us."

Those were the first words Nausada said to us when we answered the urgent summons. I looked around at Arya, Jörmundur, the new apparent leader of the Du Vrangr Gata Trianna, and some various other officials or advisors whose names I didn't bother to remember. None of them seemed to know what she was talking about either.

"Okay, I'll bite. Who tricked us and how?" I asked.

Nasuada sighed and motioned to the map that had been laid out on a central table. "We just got an urgent report from our scouts. While we thought Galbatorix's army was here," she pointed at a spot on the map, "it's actually closer to here." She slid her finger much closer to Surda's border.

"...that's barely two days' march." Jörmundur said, horrified. "How did they get so close?"

"The only way they could is if they had magicians covering them and fooling our own scrying attempts." Trianna didn't sound much better. "The only way is for an incredible amount of magicians to simultaneously cast an illusion, or…for one incredibly powerful one to do it."

"You mean Galbatorix." Nasuada stated grimly. She frowned and turned to me and Arya. "If that's the case then we need Eragon for this. Complete training or no. Without him the only ones that could potentially face the Mad King are Alexandria and Arya, but without a dragon he could simply ignore them while he burns the army to ashes. Do either of you have a way to send him a message?"

I shook my head but Arya nodded. "Now that the Queen has opened the borders again I can send a message to an outpost. But it will still take time."

"Do that now then. Every moment counts."

Arya nodded once at Nasuada's order and left the room.

"So what's next?" I asked once the elf was gone.

"We're going to have to move the army as quickly as possible to intercept them." Jörmundur said, not taking his eyes off the map. "And without time to set up fortifications we are going to need somewhere that will negate their numbers."

Three locations were brought up and discussed, but in the end only one of them was really viable.

"So the Burning Plains then." One of the advisors said finally.

"It seems like our best bet." Nasuada said. "Very well, begin preparations for departure. Alexandria, could you stay behind?"

I waited patiently as everyone else filtered out to handle their own tasks. Once they were gone, Nasuada seemed to deflate.

"Well this is a mess." She muttered and I raised an eyebrow at her casual manner.

"Oh, don't give me that look. I realize by now you don't care about authority. Between you and Angela I've realized it's better to just ignore position and title occasionally."

I shrugged. "Fair enough. So why have me stay?"

"Is there anything you can do to shift the odds in our favor? If Galbatorix really is coming to face us then we will need every trick we can pull to delay him until Eragon arrives." Nasuada said seriously. "Like what you did at Farthun Dûr?"

I thought about it for a bit. "I could set up defensive wards and bounded fields with a bit more time than we had last time but I doubt I could do the perception one or anything more offensive. There simply wouldn't be a way to hide the anchor points in such a large open area in time. Other than that…more healing codes, maybe? Leona mentioned someone was trying to make their own version that didn't have to be made by me, but more can't hurt…"

"You don't know anything that could affect an army? Slow them down just a bit?"

"I know plenty." I scowled. "The problem is most of them would need time to make, weeks in some cases, and that is if I had the proper tools. Right now I'd have to make the tools to make the tools for those. And that could mean months of work, time we don't exactly have right now."

"Of course. My apologies." Nasuada seemed unsurprised. She probably already had or heard similar conversations with magicians in the past. "One last thing, about the Healer's Guild…"

"Hm? Oh yeah, I checked in a bit ago. They seemed to be doing fine."

"Did you mention to them to stop running roughshod over the local healers and their methods?"

I blinked. "No? Why would I do that?"

Nasuada looked pained. "I had hoped you would control them more once you saw what they were doing. While a lot of untrained healers are flocking to the guild, it's upsetting many of the more established ones."

I shrugged. "If they do things properly they have nothing to worry about. If not…well I don't think I care about them getting upset."

Now it was Nausada's turn to sigh. "I thought that would be your answer. I'd like to talk with you about it later so maybe we can avoid stepping on so many toes but we have more important things to worry about now."

I don't know what she expected me to do about it. I was perfectly happy to leave Leona in charge of everything but I nodded anyway and walked off to find something I could help with.

-o-

"Fredric! How are things?" I waved to the giant of a man as I made my way through the throngs of people scrambling to get things loaded onto carts and wagons.

The Varden weaponmaster was pretty easy to spot considering his height and the raw oxhide he wore. Not many others running around in that stuff. Which was probably the point, now that I thought about it.

"Lightbringer, good to see you!" Fredric returned with a smile. "Finally decided to pay a visit? Sandra was sad to see you leave without a word."

"Sorry, I wasn't in charge of the schedule. No time to find either of you." I replied, even as I made a mental note to apologize to the tavern keeper later. I might not have known either of them long, but they were good people. "She still in Tronjheim tricking innocent girls into dates for a meal?"

"Hah! Nay, she followed the rest of the Varden to Surda. She should be kicking around the food wagons. Says she can't trust us to pack anything other than meat and ale." Fredric said with a laugh. "Can't say she's wrong where I'm concerned either!"

I smiled. "I'll have to stop by later. Is there anything I can help with here?"

He shook his head. "This was the last of it. Nothing left to do but march out at dawn unless I miss my guess."

"I see…" I mused and looked around me. While there were still plenty of people packing things away, they seemed like personal packs and bags. Not really the types of things you wanted strangers messing with more than needed.

There really didn't seem to be much left to do than start walking.

"Well if you're set I won't get in the way." I said. "So anyway, how does the army feel about another large battle on the horizon?"

Fredric's smile fell away and he pulled me by the arm to a place where no one would causally overhear us. "Don't want this spreading further than us." he explained his action. "But honestly morale is pretty low. Thank the gods you came back when you did or it would be even worse."

"That bad?" I asked, surprised. Everything had seemed tense to me, but nowhere near like what Fredric was describing. "I thought it would be better considering how the last battle went."

"If we were marching normally, maybe. But we are rushing. Nasuada may not announce it to the masses, but it is obvious the Empire caught her unaware." The weaponmaster said grimly. "How does not really matter right now but for the second battle in a row, the Varden are scrambling to the battlefield like we have the dogs nipping at our heels and this time we have no Dragon Rider to put our hopes in." He looked off into the crowd. "Most of the common warriors think this is going to be another desperate last stand."

"...not a lot of faith in me, huh?" I tried joking but it fell fairly flat. I had no idea that morale was that low. Was it because of something Nasuada or one of the others in command shared? Or worse, was it because of something they didn't share and now rumors were taking a life of their own?

Fredric was polite enough to laugh anyway. "Just the opposite actually. You're the reason we don't have deserters by the dozens." He said, confusing me. How could people have faith in me but morale be terrible? "Most of the soldiers think this is going to be a hard, disorganized, mess of a battle but not many of them think we will lose." Fredric smiled. "We have the Lightbringer on our side afterall. Just need to last long enough for you to win the battle for us."

I gave him a friendly grin and made my excuses to leave, all while ignoring the slightly ill feeling in my stomach from the reminder that most of the Varden was counting on me to slaughter hundreds of Empire soldiers in the next few days.

I didn't really consider myself shy about killing, but it felt different when it was a duel or personal fight and not me simply erasing scores of faceless soldiers that stood about as much a chance of killing me as an army of ducks.

Theoretically possible. Extremely unlikely.

-o-

"Well, there's certainly a lot of them." I commented as I watched the Empire's army march ever closer over the Burning Plains.

I guess it was the movie-goer in me, but I couldn't help but notice how…disorganized…the enemy army was. That wasn't to say the Varden was any better, but some part of me expected the evil empire to have either hordes of slavering monsters or orderly lines of faceless soldiers. The Urgals had filled the role for the first type well enough, but the army in front of us wasn't much more disciplined than the Varden.

"...yes, there are." Nasuada agreed bitterly, still upset her intelligence groups were fooled and that there was no indication that Eragon had gotten their message.

I had no intention of telling her not to worry and that the Rider would be here in time. I had no desire to add prophet to my list of titles.

"We will have to make do without him." Arya stated simply when Nasuada mentioned the missing Rider out loud. "We could ponder over 'what ifs' all we wish to later, but that won't help us deal with the situation now."

"Very well, let us make use of what time remains." The Varden leader nodded. "I suppose we should try delaying the start of the battle as much as possible. The Empire's supply train has to stretch much farther than our own. The longer we can draw things out the better for us. It will also give Hrothgar's army time to arrive."

"Any word on where they are?" I questioned. Nasuada had Arya reach out to the Dwarves the same day she messaged the elves. Unlike with Ellesméra, the response and confirmation that the dwarves would march to the battle came barely a day later. The timing didn't quite work out and they wouldn't get here for another five days or so, but the promise of reinforcements was still welcomed.

"None so far." Nasuada sighed. "I'd like it if we could put off the start of the battle until their arrival, but much of that relies on Galbatorix's army deciding to wait.

"Well, they won't attack today." I pointed out. Between setting up their own camps and the fatigue of the march, the Empire would be idiots to attack now. No matter how much they outnumbered us.

"True enough. I'm sure both of you have things you want to do during the wait. I'll dispatch a messenger if I need either of you."

With that dismissal I made my way towards my personal tent/temporary workshop. There were a few nasty toys I was putting the finishing touches on…