It's 132 years after the fall of Galbatorix, and the Riders are finally returning. A young girl sees a thunder of dragons flying overhead whilst out playing with her friends, and knows exactly what she wants to be.
Ten years on, she still possesses...
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"Hey, Rory! Catch!"
The makeshift sword (a hastily whittled wooden stick) whirled through the air from five-year-old Lorna's outstretched hand. Roran reached out, catching it easily. It was a well-known fact that six-year-old Roran (or Rory, as many of the village children called him) was headed for the army. His sword-play skills were beyond those of any of the other village children, undoubtedly due to his rather militaristic father. However, every now and then, the odd boy was foolish enough to challenge him to a duel. Seven-year-old Darren was new to the village of Daret, the son of a travelling merchant, and had therefore not been pre-warned of Roran's expertise in swordplay. The challenge was to take place in the fields on the outskirts of the village, at seven o'clock, and countless children had arrived to watch. There was nothing like a duel to raise one's spirits – it was rare that anything as exciting as this would happen each year.
The two boys stood opposite each other in a makeshift duelling ring, composed of leaves and a thin chalk line drawn minutes earlier, each clutching a hastily-carved wooden sword-stick. Lorna, having handed the sword to Roran, settled down into the long grass between her two best friends, Taz Byronsson and Autumn Amirasdaughter. Taz was the blacksmith's son, a heavy-handed, bulky six-year-old with a passion for metalworking. Autumn was the four-year-old daughter of Amira and Holcomb, the local tailors. Not many of the village children liked Autumn particularly. In their minds, she was different from all of them, in that her skin was a richer, chocolatey brown, rather than the pale, olive pallor of their own skin. Autumn's parents were descendants of the Wandering Tribes, and had moved to Daret before Autumn was born.
"Okay, start in THREE! TWO! ONE! GOOOO!" shrieked the high-pitched daughter of the headman. Her name was Erika, and she was eight years old, the eldest at the gathering of village children. They accepted her, not because they actually liked her, but because of her father's prestigious position in the village rankings.
Darren charged forward immediately, clumsily cleaving his sword around towards Roran's knee. Roran danced backwards, and instantly retaliated with a swift jab to the other boy's stomach. Cheers erupted through the crowd as Darren fell to the grass with a muffled thump and a frustrated groan.
"Does this mean I win?" Roran turned, and appealed to the crowd of children. Spontaneous cheers of agreement burst out, and then died away as quickly as they had begun. Confused, Rory turned around, to see a makeshift wooden sword swinging towards his face. Roran closed his eyes to take the hit. There was a moment of stillness as the children anticipated the hit, yet instead, a great wind was flung up from nowhere, knocking all of the children, including Roran and Darren, to the ground.
'Thump. Thump. Thwop.'
The children raised their eyes to the skies. Gasps of astonishment and awe erupted from them as three dragons, a silver, a brown and an aquamarine, soared overhead. The children were temporarily blinded, the dragons' iridescent scales reflecting the sun's rays with frightening potency. Because of this, none of the children noted the three fearsome, cloaked figures riding the dragons. Well, none, except for one.
A pair of emerald-green eyes squinted against the flashes of sun reflected off the dragons' smooth, glossy scales. Slowly, very slowly, the eyes were able to make out the dark brown cloaks fluttering in the wind, and the dulled flashes of what appeared to be drawn swords. Real swords, not like the wooden sticks from the forest that the village children carved into vaguely blade-like shapes for the miniature duels that they often held outside Daret. The intelligent eyes widened slightly as the three winged lizards and their cloaked 'masters' flew over the village, and out of sight. The children burst into immediate conversation, the duel forgotten. Soon, the conversation drifted from the initial topic of the dragons, and back to the dishonourable act on Darren's part at the end of the fight. But still, the emerald eyes gazed at the place on the horizon where the dragons had disappeared. They stared for a long time. Gradually, the other children disappeared back to their own homes. Only when night fell did the child with the green eyes slowly stand, and walk away, mind filled with plans and ideas.
