This summary section includes Prologue: “Shade of Fear,” Chapter 1: “Discovery,” Chapter 2: “Palancar Valley,” and Chapter 3: “Dragon Tales.”

The story begins in a medieval fictional world of sword and sorcery. A malevolent creature known as a Shade walks through the woods at night. He commands an army of monsters called Urgals, and they are lay in wait for three elves on horseback. Two are the male bodyguards of a female elf who is protecting an object in a pouch on her lap. After the Shade and his forces attack, the bodyguards are slain while the female elf kills several Urgals and flees. She is eventually cornered by the Shade. Before he can reach her, she takes a blue stone from her pouch and enchants it, so it disappears. The Shade shoots a pulse of energy at the elf, knocking her unconscious. He rages at the loss of the stone and carries the elf away as a hostage.

Elsewhere, a 15-year-old hunter named Eragon stalks deer in the mountains called the Spine. Without warning, a fiery blast in the woods ahead of him produces a strange object: “In the center of the blast radius lay a polished blue stone. Mist snaked across the scorched area and swirled insubstantial tendrils over the stone” (7).