Dagny: An Inheritance Cycle Fanfiction.

20. The Cloaked Man

Dagny suspected the man knew she was following him. Why? Because he had stopped trying to lose her. At first, he had been difficult to follow, deliberately so. He had the air of a man used to avoiding pursuit and if she had not been very familiar with the city, as well the methods he used to evade her, he would have succeeded in losing her. But now he made no attempt to muddle her or to disguise his direction. It could be, Dagny thought, overconfidence. Perhaps he believed his earlier measures had been enough to confuse any would-be pursuers. But somehow, she suspected this was a man more likely to be paranoid than careless.

He turned to look over his shoulder and seemed to look directly at her. She froze and kept chanting under her breath, a spell she had laboriously memorised from an old elven text, meant to hide the caster from all eyes under starlight, even if she stood in plain sight. It was fourteen pages long, and had been painful to commit to memory at the time. She was grateful now for that wasted sunny afternoon spent poring over a dusty old book. The cloaked man turned away and kept walking. She followed.

He was heading east. She had realised it some time ago. There was a gate to the east of the city, one that lead to a broad road stretching further eastward, out of the City's demesne entirely and into the Broddring Kingdom proper. There had been, until recently, a horse waiting tethered not far from that gate. Despite Dagny's disapproval, Sverrir had eaten it, saddlebags and all. He claimed that he had been unable to hunt earlier, out of worry and stress.

And besides, he added now, if this man is a traitor - which he must be since he was at that meeting - and this horse is his property then I think I have a right to claim it as spoils. Especially since I was very hungry.

I don't think they took hungry dragons into account when writing the laws of the Broddring Kingdom.

Then they must be stupid. He was decisive and completely unrepentant. If I was a little human, I would certainly worry about hungry dragons when making my laws.

She snorted.

The cloaked magician took a sharp turn down an alleyway. Curious - she didn't know where he meant to get to, that way - Dagny quickened her pace to catch him. She turned into the alley and stopped warily. It was empty.

A stirring in the air gave her a split-second's warning. Her fist came up and she struck the man under his jaw as he tackled her. His head went back slightly, but it wasn't enough. The force of his body slamming into her threw her against the wall of the alley and then his mind slammed into hers, battering like a roaring storm against barriers that suddenly seemed incredibly flimsy.

Sverrir!

He was there, bolstering her, and the agonising weight of the attack seemed a fraction lighter. It was bearable. It was disorienting, screamingly painful, but they could stand under it. They did stand. Dagny forced herself back to an awareness of her body, collapsed against the wall of the alley, and she made herself get up. The man was standing over her, unruffled, as his mind sent shards and daggers driving down into hers. She and Sverrir gathered themselves, gathered their strength behind the walls around their minds, and lashed out.

He took a step back. Just one. All their combined strength had been in that attack.

This is impossible, Sverrir thought. What is he?

Inhuman, they were certain of that. An elf? A Shade, even? There had not been one of those in Alagaesia since Galbatorix fell, but then no elf Dagny had ever met could have so easily overpowered a dragon. No Shade she had ever heard of could have done it, either.