Robbing Centaurs and Other Bad Ideas

by Bethany Meyer

  Wick heard a few shouts not far away. They were still looking for him.

  Immediate priorities took over, and grabbing both bags, he made himself scarce.

  He found a little shelter under the low hanging branches of a spruce tree and hid there, trying to absorb what little sunlight filtered through the gaps between the branches and grasping for a plan. The flap of wings went overhead several times, and every time he ducked down and covered his head. When footsteps passed directly next to the spruce bush, Wick finally had to accept that he couldn't stay. If he stayed in his current hiding spot, he would be found, and he would be no use to anyone, least of all himself.

  Wrapping the straps of both bags over his shoulders, he took off into the gathering darkness. Once he was far enough from the palace and deep enough into the underbrush that no one would find him, Wick collapsed under an overhanging boulder, shivering.

  He needed a plan.

  Dragging the bags off his shoulders, he dug through them with stiff fingers. His supplies were limited. Traveling essentials, brick-a-brack, several pieces of enchanted stone, and what else? He was forgetting something. There had been something else in his bag, hadn't there?

  Oh. The flower Archer had made him carry. Wick's fingers searched the bottom of the bag, but the flower was nowhere to be found.

  Stop worrying about the flower.

  An objective. He had to start with an objective.

  Wick shook himself and inched into a crack of moonlight, hoping that the weak light would grant him enough energy to think straight again. He desperately needed to focus. He had to figure out what his objective was. What was he going to do?

  A terrible thought crossed his mind.

  He had Archer's bag. He had his own bag. Unless something had fallen out of either one of them, he had everything he needed. He had a horse and supplies. He had all the pieces of the Heather Stone that they had stolen. He even had the unfillable bag that had been stolen from the centaurs a century or longer ago. If he wanted to, he could escape the manghar kingdom and take everything back to the centaurs, who would put everything where it belonged. He would be able to straighten everything out and clear his name. He might get to prove himself the way his mentors wanted him to.

  It seemed straightforward. Take the opportunity and go. Why didn't he just get up and do that?

  “Good question.” Wick hugged himself and sank back against the base of the rock. The breeze, as cold as it was, was beginning to dry him off from his dunking in the river.

  He could go. Why didn't he just go?

  Something large flew overhead, and Wick ducked down.

  How many stones did he have now? He thought back through the territories they had come through. Between the two bags, he had six stones.

  In other words, most of the stones.

  Just like Eland had said.

  Wick ripped the letter back out of the envelope and pored over it again. You had come a long way somehow. . . reached a vital turning point. Watch your back.

  Now that he needed guidance, Wick realized how unhelpful the letter was. It had warned him of what was coming, but it hadn't given him a solution. It had only given him the problem. He didn't know what he was meant to do now that the time was upon him.

  He wished he could just take the bags and leave. Why couldn't he just leave?

  He couldn't go, he admitted to himself, because of Archer. Archer was in prison. The seraph boy who he had followed all this way, who he had done so much with, was locked up in the manghar palace probably staring out a window, waiting to die. Wick had seen the dungeon himself from the outside of the palace. Every cell had a slatted window overlooking the pit of spikes.

  It would not be a good night's sleep for anyone locked up in there.

  If Wick was the one locked up in the tower, staring out over bodies on spikes, would Archer come and get him out?

  He tried to tell himself that Archer wouldn't. Archer didn't seem to care about a living soul on the surface of Aro or anyone who had been buried under it. Nothing mattered to him. Right?

  Wrong. Some traitorous part of Wick's memory reminded him of how Archer had watched out for him in Eri. In all their travels together, even when chaos arrived, Archer had never abandoned him. It had often seemed like he wanted to, and maybe the only reason he didn't was to stay within stealing range of the Oak Leaf, but he had never left Wick. Only a few hours ago in the manghar palace, when Wick had been arrested and without a means of escape, Archer had come back for him.

  Still, he might have just come back for Wick's bag and the piece of the Heather Stone inside, but then again, Wick had asked him about it, and Archer had casually replied:

  “You say that like I wouldn't have come back for just you. I would have come back for you if you didn't have it.”

  And the way he had said it, matter-of-factly, offhand, as though it was instinctive, had been enough to make Wick believe him when he said it.

  The moon glinted down on him through the trees. It had to be nearing midnight now. If he was going to form a plan, it would have to be soon or he would have no time to prepare.

  His mind wandered back to the flower Archer had made him put in his bag.

  Something about the flower being missing bothered him. He took everything out of the bag and dug to the bottom in search of it. Once everything else was out, he shook the bag upside down over his lap.

  A black powder poured out. Setting the bag to the side, Wick inspected the powder. It was the deep black color of something that had been rotted or burned. It was finer than dust, rougher than soot. The flower had disintegrated.

  That bothered him much more than when he had thought the flower was just missing. The flower had gone from dead to dust. To ash. To a fine powder. Dead things didn't just do that.

  The only reason it would was if. . .

  If Archer had been telling the truth all along.

  Wick's mind raced. The plants were dying and turning to dust. The birds were leaving. The rain was turning black.

  All the signs were there. Everything that had happened when the Scorch had come to Aro the first time was happening again.

  Wick's heart beat faster as, for the first time, the truth hit him.

  We'll all be destroyed. Everyone is going to die.

  Someone had to do something. Something had to be done before the Scorch made it back.

  While Wick now knew what he had to do, he understood everything that would happen as a result.

  If he committed to this, he would have to go in and rescue Archer, and then together they would have to finish this. They would have to steal the rest of the stones and save Aro, and he would have to face the consequences of pillaging every race in his country. He would be breaking dozens of treaties and alliances between the people.

  If he did this he would be stealing, not observing stealing, not trying to prevent stealing, not trying to decide if stealing was the wrong thing to do or not. And in doing so he would be risking his reputation and his status.

  The worst-case scenario was losing face, losing his job, losing the opportunity to be a counselor for the centaurs. Maybe even losing every friend he knew.

  But it was the right thing to do, wasn't it?

  He dropped his head into his hands and didn't move for a long, long time.

  He was never meant to make big decisions like this. He was a messenger, a helper. People consulted him for their own decisions, and he offered what input he could. Even if he had received the counselor promotion, he would never have needed to decide the fate of Aro alone.

  Sitting there in the dark, with his arms wrapped around his head and a branch digging into his back, he realized he had never made a big decision in his life.

  But one way or another, he had to decide something, or the world he knew would end, and Archer would die.

  Time ticked as he did his best to put everything into a logical format. In its purest form, the situation was
this: The Scorch was undeniably coming back, and something had to be done about it. It was much too late to take the case to the centaurs and have them sort it out.

  He had to do something, but he couldn't do anything on his own.

  And the one person who could help him finish all this was waiting to be executed.

  Despite his gut begging him to run, Wick decided to rescue his seraph friend before he was slaughtered in the morning.

  But how? Looking back at the unfillable bag, he realized he had the perfect rescue plan once he made it in. But, he thought a little sadly as he looked down at his woody hands and fingers, he wouldn't make it anywhere near the palace looking like this. Even if he wrapped himself in a cloak and drew on a mustache, they would still recognize him in an instant, and he would be put in the noose the second Archer's broken neck left it. Other Leshy didn't travel much, and even if they did it was highly unlikely that any other leshy of his exact height and build were to pass through this area, so he couldn't possibly pretend to be anyone else.

  No.

  He would have to make more changes to his appearance than a mustache. If he was going to pull this off, he would have to look completely different.

  Transmogrification was his only option.

  Ready to face the vital turning point that Eland's letter had warned him about, he dug through the unfillable bag to see if Archer kept an extra shirt and pants anywhere.

  Chapter twelve

  A River in a Bag

  Archer stared out the window as the first gleam of sunlight crept over the tops of the trees.

  So this is how I die, he thought to himself and nodded. Sure, plenty of times before he had come close. Sometimes, very, very close. He reached back to grasp the huge bow in his useless wing and pressed his lips tight together.

  But he should have known the real thing would be at the hands of the manghar. He had never made a clean escape from them in the past, of course they were going to catch him eventually.

  He just wished the stupid tree hadn't described the whole thing to him ahead of time. He would have been just fine going into it confused and ignorant. But no. The twig had to go and ruin everything. Now Archer had to stare out the window at a pit full of spikes and ragged bodies, knowing he would have to hang gruesomely before they threw him in there, too. That thought made him sweat just a little more than he was comfortable with.

  Archer abandoned the window and started to pace, hands grasped in front of him, rubbing his thumbs up and down across the sides of his pointer fingers, back and forth, over and over.

  He didn't know what he had expected of Wick, but he had sort of hoped the twig would make an effort to rescue him. He had hoped that someone would want him not to die. There were enough people in the world who wanted him dead or at least out of the way, but he had hoped that just maybe one person somewhere would want him to exist as he was.

  He glanced toward the window and saw the sun start to spread across the ground outside. No one was coming for him.

  No one cared after all.

  I should have known.

  I really should have known.

  Archer slid down the wall with his good wing facing out and wrapped the wing around himself, blocking him from view to anyone outside the cell. His head dropped onto his knees, and he ground his forehead into his kneecaps.

  He was going to die. Any minute now, someone would come to the cell, and they would take him away to be killed.

  Pathetic.

  Well, then, he'd make as big of a ruckus as he could on his way out.

  He unwrapped his wing from around his shoulders and started to sing. It was an old song and probably a stupid song, but the seraphs had taught it to him, and there had always been something about it that he liked. So he sang it, as loudly and lustily as he could manage.

  “There once was a princess of Eri in land, and she was a sight to see!” he yelled. “But it's just that she wasn't a princess at all, seraphs don't have princesses, you see!”

  A low groan came from outside the cell as whoever was guarding him realized it was a song and not just some random statement. Archer grinned. They hadn't started yelling at him yet; clearly he wasn't being loud enough.

  “She flew the whole world, and she never came down, and that is the tale she told!” he bellowed, tucking his legs tighter into himself and screaming louder, “She made men besotted, was never forgotten, she died and will never grow old!”

  He paused for effect, waiting, listening.

  He barely had to wait for a heartbeat before the guard yelled, “Stop that!”

  Archer took a huge breath. “There was a young princess from citadel Eri and she was a wonder to hear! She sang like an angel and looked like a cherub, she sang fit to sorrow your ear!” The words were getting tangled, and his singing was more yelling now than anything resembling a tune, but he was making a clamor, and that was how he wanted to go out.

  “Shut up!” the guard bellowed.

  Archer interrupted him. “Her singing made her enemies or something, I don't remember how this line goes! Something something, to have her killed! I remember that part! Wherever she went, assassins were sent, but she still went wherever she willed!”

  The flap of many wings came up the hallway. Archer's eyes darted up toward the window. The sun was truly shining through now. This was it. His heart took a terrifying plunge.

  Determined, he sucked in a breath and started on the third verse. “There was a young princeling from seraphs land fair, and he was the ugliest thing!” That wasn't how the verse went, but he didn't care. He didn't care about anything at all. Nothing mattered to him now. “His people still loved him for he was not above them, and that's why they made him their king!”

  Footsteps approached.

  “About time,” the guard growled, and someone threw Archer's cell door open. More manghar ducked into the cell. Grabbing Archer by his upper arms, they dragged him to his feet and hauled him with them out the door. Archer grinned over his shoulder at the one who had been guarding him as he left, and the manghar shot him a bristling glare.

  Archer found he really wanted to start on the fourth and final verse of the song. He started bellowing it out. “There once was a family in Eri the town and they were–”

  The guard on his left hit him in the stomach so hard he nearly lost all the air in his lungs. That was the end of singing folk songs.

  This is really it.

  They dragged him down the stairs of the tower and back into the throne room of the Crowned Head, where he sat on a glorified armchair instead of a throne. That little detail was enough to make Archer smile, but not laugh, since laughing probably would have made his stomach hurt more than it already did.

  Manghar men, women and children alike, gathered in the throne room as the Crowned Head leaned forward on his throne and spoke to Archer.

  “You stand accused of theft, border crossing, and overall foolishness within the borders of manghar territory, which is against the laws of our people. You have mocked superior powers and taken things that are worth more than your thieving self,” the Crowned Head said. “And for these charges, you are sentenced to death. You will be brought out into the courtyard and hanged above the highest branch of the highest tree, and your body will serve as a warning to all who come after you who think to do the same.”

  The other manghar nodded in agreement.

  The Crowned Head banged a fist against the arm of his glorified armchair. “And thus, you are–”

  “Hang on,” Archer said. “Can't I have any last words or something? Isn't someone going to write down my last words?”

  “We don't write down last words,” the Crowned Head said in a tired voice. It was apparently too early in the morning for him to be dealing with these kinds of shenanigans. But Archer could work with that. Maybe if he bothered this guy just enough, he could get something out of dying. “Those we deem worthy of death are not people we honor enough to remember
. Your last words don't have any worth to us.”

  “What about last requests?” Archer asked. “Can I have a last request? It would only take you a minute.”

  “That doesn't matter,” the Crowned Head said. “You aren't getting a last request.”

  Archer shrugged. “Then I'll be singing folk songs the whole way down to the courtyard. Doesn't bother me.”

  Both the guard on his left and the guard on his right flinched. One of them shot a pleading look at the Crowned Head, whose lip curled. It seemed he didn't want to listen to Archer's rendition of 'The Princesses of Eri' all the way down to the courtyard and possibly all the way up into the sky. Which was good, since Archer didn't particularly want to die mid-verse.

  “Fine, what is your last request?” the Crowned Head said, visibly suppressing a sigh.

  “It won't take you long,” Archer said. “It won't be hard. Won't even take a minute out of your day.”

  The fingers of the Crowned Head's left hand started tapping at the arm of his chair. “Say what you want quickly, or you won't get a last request at all.”

  “Fine,” Archer said. “I just want a moment of silence. That's all. I am about to die, remember. I just want everyone to bow their heads and have a moment of respectful silence before I go hang above the highest leaf on the highest branch or whatever. Just a moment of silence. That's all I'm asking for.”

  The Crowned Head waved a hand flippantly. “It doesn't matter to me. Have it. Everyone, bow your heads.”

  Everyone reluctantly lowered their heads and closed their eyes. Archer shook off the hands of the guards on either side of him. “I'm capable of standing on my own while I'm having a moment of silence for myself. There are people between me and the doors. I won't escape.”

  The guards let go of his arms, and he nodded his thanks before lowering his head himself. For a long and blissful moment, everyone in the Crowned Head's throne room was silent.