Eragon recap

Eragon, a farm boy in a remote valley, finds a blue stone that hatches into a dragon he names Saphira, making him the first new Dragon Rider in a generation. When the king's servants kill his uncle and burn his home hunting the dragon, Eragon flees with Brom, the village storyteller, who is secretly a former Rider and teaches him swordplay and magic as they pursue the killers. Brom dies in an ambush, and a mysterious young man, Murtagh, joins Eragon. Guided by visions, Eragon frees a captive elf, Arya, and races to deliver her to the Varden, the rebels opposing King Galbatorix, in their hidden dwarf city beneath the mountains. There an enemy army attacks, and in the battle Eragon confronts and destroys the Shade Durza, though he is badly wounded. Recovering, he is contacted mind to mind by a hidden teacher who summons him to the elves' forest to complete his training.

Eragon is a fifteen-year-old boy raised on a small farm outside the remote village of Carvahall by his uncle Garrow, alongside his older cousin Roran. While hunting in the wild mountains called the Spine, he finds a smooth blue stone. It later cracks open to reveal a dragon hatchling, which bonds to him and marks him as a Dragon Rider, one of an order thought long dead. Eragon hides the growing dragon in the woods, feeds and cares for her in secret, and names her Saphira. As their minds link and she grows swiftly, he begins to grasp that his quiet life is over and that possessing a dragon is dangerous knowledge in a land ruled by a king who once destroyed the Riders.

Two sinister strangers, servants of the king, come to Carvahall asking about the stone. Eragon and Saphira flee, but the pursuers find the farm, fatally wound Garrow, and burn the home. Grief-stricken and set on revenge, Eragon leaves the valley to hunt the killers. He is joined by Brom, the old village storyteller, who surprises him by knowing a great deal about dragons and magic and by insisting on coming along. As they travel, Brom trains Eragon in swordsmanship and in the ancient language through which spells are cast, and slowly reveals that his own past is bound up with the lost Riders. Eragon commits himself to mastering his new powers while chasing the ones responsible for his uncle's death.

Eragon and Brom follow the trail of the king's servants across the countryside, and Eragon's skills grow through hard practice and real danger. When they come upon a village destroyed by raiders, Eragon uses magic in earnest for the first time, and Brom teaches him more about its rules and costs. Along the way Eragon learns fragments of the wider world: the tyranny of King Galbatorix, the vanished glory of the Riders, and the shadowy rebels who resist the Empire. The pursuit leads them toward the coastal city of Teirm as they try to pick up the cold trail of their quarry and understand who truly hunts the last dragon and her Rider.

In the port city of Teirm, Brom seeks out an old friend named Jeod to gather information, and Eragon crosses paths with the eccentric herbalist Angela and her companion, a werecat, who give him strange and troubling prophecies about his future. Using records in the city, they trace the movements of their enemies and set off again, now aimed toward the dark city of Dras-Leona where the king's servants are thought to lurk. Eragon continues to train, tests his growing magic, and begins to feel the weight of being hunted, even as he presses on with Brom toward a confrontation with the ones who destroyed his home.

Near Dras-Leona the king's servants ambush the travelers. Brom is mortally wounded shielding Eragon, and before he dies he confesses that he too was once a Dragon Rider, giving Eragon his blessing. A young stranger named Murtagh appears, drives off the attackers, and joins Eragon on the road. Haunted by visions of a beautiful woman imprisoned and in pain, Eragon is drawn to the fortress city of Gil'ead, where he is captured but then breaks free, rescuing the prisoner of his dreams. She is an elf named Arya, poisoned during her long captivity and desperately needing the rebels' healers. With Murtagh and Saphira, Eragon flees the city with her, pursued and running out of time.

To save the dying Arya, Eragon, Saphira, and Murtagh make a grueling crossing of the Hadarac Desert toward the mountains, guided by Arya's fevered directions to the Varden, the rebels fighting the Empire. Murtagh, oddly, dreads reaching them and reveals little of why. They arrive at Farthen Dur, a hidden stronghold within a hollow mountain shared with the dwarves, where Arya is at last healed. Eragon meets the Varden's stern leader, Ajihad, and his sharp daughter Nasuada, is tested and questioned, and learns how precarious the alliance of humans, dwarves, and elves really is. Their respite is short: word comes that a great army of the king's monstrous Urgals is marching to destroy the stronghold.

The Urgal host attacks Farthen Dur, and a savage battle rages through the mountain's caverns and the dwarf city within it. Eragon and Saphira fight in the thick of it and come face to face with the Shade Durza, the deadliest of the king's servants. Durza gravely wounds Eragon, opening a long scar across his back, but at the decisive instant Saphira and Arya distract the Shade, and Eragon drives his blade into Durza's heart, killing him. The Shade's death shatters the enemy's coordination and the Varden win the day. As Eragon recovers from his wound, a powerful presence touches his mind: a hidden teacher called the Cripple Who Is Whole, who tells him he must come to the elves' forest to be properly trained. His first war survived, Eragon and Saphira ready themselves to leave, their role in the struggle against Galbatorix just beginning.

Eragon reaches the Varden's mountain stronghold of Farthen Dur, where Arya is healed and he meets their leader, Ajihad. An army of the king's monstrous Urgals soon assaults the fortress. In the vast battle underground, Eragon and Saphira face the Shade Durza, who wounds Eragon terribly across the back; distracted at the crucial moment, Durza is stabbed through the heart, and his death breaks the enemy's will and turns the tide. As Eragon recovers, a distant presence reaches into his mind: a teacher who calls himself the Cripple Who Is Whole, summoning him to the elven forest of Du Weldenvarden to finish learning what it means to be a Rider. Eragon has survived his first war, lost his mentor Brom, gained an uneasy friend in Murtagh, and glimpsed the scale of the fight against Galbatorix. He and Saphira prepare to leave for their training, their part in the rebellion only beginning.