This is my first Eragon fic…though I wouldn't really call it that. This is not, I repeat NOT how I think nor want any part of Empire to go…it's just something I wrote based on a poem I wrote some years ago…I've adapted it (by only changing 'They/Their' to He/His) and broken it into pieces. Don't flame me for writing this please (unless you think its of poor quality)….KP

Silence abounds

This battlefield

No soldier stands

No rage to wield

He surveyed the scene around him taking it all in through the painful silence. The scavengers circling overheard were his only reminder that the world had not halted to a stand-still. It was a gruesome scene that stretched nearly to the horizon. The morning star, rising to his right, cast an orange glow over the land.

The ichor of men

Is mourning's dew

Their pride and hope

Have fallen through

The aftermath of war settled upon his shoulders like the weight of the mountains themselves that overlooked the destruction. The responsibility was his and his alone. He had caused this. He had done this. His only partner in crime swayed gently above him, looking down from nearly a league in the air. But there was no blame to share, not even with his dragon.

Swept up with the winds

That graze their face

Their purposes bold

Have left this place

Fear washed over him as he began to walk the length of his destruction. He sidestepped the clusters of lifeless men, and even women he noticed, as he made his way towards the open plains. How could he have done such a thing? Surely they hadn't deserved to die. Their cause was just. Their cause - at one time - was his own.

The fallen lie low

Their breaths no more

They've lost their cause

They've lost this war

What had he done? He wanted to scream to all who could not hear him. What had he done? And for what? It was certainly not glory. He searched his own mind for a reason, anything to help himself cope. He was Rider. A Rider who had just single-handedly erased the overwhelmingly large force that stood before him. Now, there stood not a single soul save himself.

And yet for them

They could not know

The enemy they faced

Went down also

Why? Why could he not have been slain? Why did he have to reach down into himself and unleash the deadly power he contained? Why was it so easy for him to kill? Why had he not found a way to escape what he had to do? What he had done?

Upon his knees

He wept so long

For what he'd done

His old friends gone

He gathered the bloodied cloak of a fallen soldier beneath his hands. If he could not share his blood with these men, we would surely leave his tears. These warriors had once taken him in, sheltered him. He'd fought beside these men and women. And now, they were gone, because of him. Because of what he had done. He felt the presence of his life's only companion now descending upon him. He didn't want to leave, he wanted to spend eternity here wallowing in his guilt as these men now wallowed in their deaths. But he could not. He slowly climbed into the saddle before his dragon took to the skies.

Now silence abounds

This burial ground

No life to see

No cry to sound

As they flew into the morning's rays, Murtagh and Thorn wept. They wept for the Varden they had eradicated on that fateful eve.