Eldest

From his hiding place in the mountains, Roran spends a few days watching the soldiers and the villagers. He notices increasing tension between the two groups, and this understated conflict comes to a head when some of the soldiers kill a man in a brawl and accidentally set the town’s hay barn on fire. Baldor and his brother Albriech occasionally bring Roran news, and they eventually ask him to come back to the village. Once he returns, Roran finds Carvahall’s men planning to retaliate against the invaders.

The villagers attack the soldiers’ camp and successfully drive them away, but they know that the soldiers will regroup and come back. The villagers barricade the village and wait. When the king’s men return, they are led by the Ra’zac and brutally attack the villagers. Some of the village men are killed, but Roran fights heroically, armed only with a hammer. The soldiers are forced to retreat, but not before one of the Ra’zac gives the villagers an ultimatum: surrender Roran or be killed.

Two days after Eragon and his companion first entered the tunnel under the mountain, they finally emerge at the foot of the Dwarf city of Tarnag, which is home to five clans.