Robbing Centaurs and Other Bad Ideas

by Bethany Meyer

  Archer took that moment to slip out of a window.

  Lowering himself down from the windowsill, he swung down to another window on the level below, just as he had done yesterday after he had stolen the throne. Shouts of rage came from upstairs; they had discovered his escape.

  He had to move fast.

  Archer jumped down onto the cold floor of the hallway and started running as fast as he could. Wherever the tree was, the tree had his bag, and he planned to find that stupid kid and beat the leaves out of him for not coming back. Then he would get all the pieces of the Heather Stone and finally finish this. Somehow.

  There were wingbeats behind him. Big, stupid, leathery ones. The guards were catching up, and they would catch him if he didn't make a quick getaway. Unfortunately, there weren't any more windows nearby for him to jump out of and no stairs anywhere in this blasted palace. He would have to make it out by the main entrance.

  The entryway that he and Wick had entered through only a day ago came into view. The morning light shone through it like a beacon. He raced toward it.

  A huge manghar dropped down on him like a bird of prey.

  Everything fell into a mess of arms and legs and wings and that terrifying pig face with teeth that was much too close to Archer’s face. Archer tried to shove the bat off, but the manghar had to weigh at least twice what he did, and manghar were all muscle.

  I'm not going to make it.

  More manghar dropped down from above like demons, surrounding him on all sides.

  He wasn't going to make it out. There was no question now. He just wasn't going to make it.

  Then the least expected happened.

  Whap.

  A rock bounced off the back of the manghar's skull, and the bat leaped up, ready to take down whoever had thrown the rock. The other manghar jumped back as more rocks came flying through the entryway into the manghar palace. As all the manghar started to move away from the onslaught of flying rocks, a filthy boy with blond hair came racing up the steps and across the room toward Archer.

  Archer scrambled up as the heathen ran toward him. The boy still clutched an armful of rocks, throwing them at random. The boy reached Archer just as he made it to his feet and got between Archer and the manghar.

  The boy threw one more massive rock. “I thought I was too late. The sun was getting pretty high, and I couldn't hear anything. The manghar are never quiet.”

  The boy's voice sounded familiar. Come to think of it, he looked familiar, too. Something about the tall and strong but ultimately scrawny build, something around the face, but the face looked wrong, somehow. Not that Archer could see it very well; the kid was caked in dirt.

  And the voice. . . the voice sounded familiar, but at the same time, it sounded wrong. The way Archer remembered it, it should have been quieter. Less echoey. Less weird. What was weird about someone's voice sounding the way a voice should?

  The boy threw the last of his rocks, driving the manghar as far back as he could. But the manghar were waiting for that. As soon as the last rock left the boy's hand, one of them leaped away from the wall and sprang toward them, arms outstretched, wings flared to catch the air.

  The boy whipped a bag up from his side and ripped the flap open.

  “I'm watching my back,” he muttered.

  What?

  Whoosh.

  Water spurted, poured, leaped out, gushed in a huge flood toward the manghar.

  That was when everything fell into place. Archer's eyes bugged out as he tried to take in the blond boy's whole face.

  “Wick?”

  The strength of the river pouring out of the bag suddenly became stronger, knocking them both backward and across the smooth stone floor. They flew back toward the open arch that marked the edge of the manghar palace. Archer tried to grab the edge of the archway on the way by, but there was too much water, too much force, and not a thing to grip anywhere.

  Out they washed, out of the manghar palace and down the steps. Every step thumped against Archer's spine on the way down. They reached the bottom with the bag still pouring water, and for a brief second Archer thought they might drown, but then all of a sudden the river seemed to wear itself out. The stream slowed to a significant trickle, then down to a little splash, and then all Wick was left with was a soggy leather bag.

  Everything hurt. Archer's head throbbed as he tried to figure out what on earth had just happened. But there wasn't any time. He could already imagine the manghar were getting up off the drowned floor of the palace and preparing to come after them.

  “Come on, run!” the strange humanish Wick exclaimed, and still dripping, they took off into the forest. Nearly everyone had been gathered to see Archer hang, so they met no manghar in the forest. It was a tight squeeze, and they barely made it out of the city and into the wilderness part of manghar territory without being seen.

  About two miles out, when they were out of the reach of anyone trying to catch them at least for the moment, Archer slowed to a jog and stopped, panting. He held up a hand for Wick to stop too. “Okay, stop. Stop, stop, stop.” He sucked in a breath, straightened, and gestured at Wick with both open palms. “What. In the world. Happened to you?”

  Wick's brow furrowed, worried, and he waved a hand. “I think we should go another few miles before we stop. We don't want them to catch up with us.”

  “No. Not a chance. I'm not taking another step until you tell me what's going on.” Archer took a few steps over to a dead tree stump and sat. Crossing his arms over his chest, he said, “Except for those ones.”

  Wick, if it really was Wick, turned toward him and rubbed a hand over his mouth, slowly, as if only just realizing he had one. “I had to go back in to rescue you. They would have recognized me in an instant, and if they recognized me, I wouldn't have made it even close to the palace. I had to find a way to disguise myself. Leshy don't disguise very well.”

  “Yeah, but how did you do that?” Archer asked, still confused. “I think I would have noticed if you had some kind of. . . transform-y magic before.”

  “Well, I did,” Wick said, sort of shrugging just a little bit. “It's called transmogrification. And I've thought about changing before, too, into something more. . . relatable? Something that had a whole face and no glowing orbs for eyes.”

  Archer was temporarily taken aback. In all his jabs at Wick's appearance, talking about how he only had part of a face, Wick had never once given him the impression that it bothered him. Archer had never considered that maybe things got under that woody hide. He opened his mouth to apologize, but changed his mind.

  “Can you change back?” Archer asked at last.

  Wick looked away. “No. It's done now, I can't change it ever again.”

  Archer nodded. “Okay.”

  For a moment neither of them said anything. Wick shifted on his feet uncomfortably. He looked around and then decided to sit down against the trunk of a tree across from Archer. “How do I look?” he asked.

  “How do you expect me to tell under all that dirt? You're filthy!”

  Wick scrubbed at his face with the green fabric of his shirt. Once enough dirt had made it onto the shirt, he looked up again. “How about now?”

  He could still do with a good dunking in a large body of water, but now Wick's face was clean enough for Archer to get a good grasp on what features he had been given.

  Archer squinted at Wick, tilting his head to the side as he considered Wick's new face. “It's different, that's for sure. It's a little weird seeing you with a full set of– you know– features. Typical that you'd end up prettier than me. . . But it's not a bad look. You look just like a human.” He hesitated. “Well, sort of like a human.”

  Wick's brow furrowed, yet another new thing to get used to. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, your eyes. They're still yellowish. And then there's this. Have you not noticed this?” Archer reached over and grabbed up one of Wick's arms to show to him. Wick
's new skin, while a fairly normal brown skin tone, was covered in little ridges that could have been mistaken for scars if they both didn't already know what the marks looked like.

  Tree bark.

  Wick stared at the skin on his arm for a long time.

  “I think you've lost some height, too,” Archer said, and Wick's eyes bugged out. “No, really. I think you were taller and maybe broader before, too. But that still makes you bigger than me, so here we are.” He shrugged.

  “So,” Archer added, raising his eyebrows. “You better not have lost every single piece of the Heather Stone when you took the entire river out of the bag.”

  “I didn't. They're all in my messenger's bag,” Wick said. “It wasn't easy to get them all out of the river. I had to swim for hours before I got everything that wasn't river out of your bag.”

  “What about the food I had in there?” Archer asked, narrowing his eyes.

  “Here.” Wick handed him a canvas sack, one that Archer now remembered he had been keeping inside of the unfillable bag.

  “My trinkets? My cooking utensils?”

  Wick gestured to the bag. “They're in there.”

  “My extra clothes?”

  “I'm wearing them.”

  Archer didn't like the sound of that, but for now, he let it go. “My horse?”

  Wick did a full-handed point over Archer's shoulder. “She's been following us for the last mile and a half!”

  Archer looked behind him and lo and behold, Sasha stood behind him, munching on the only patch of green grass in sight. She rolled her eyes up at him and kept chewing. She better than he had expected, all things considered. All things being she had survived on a boulder inside an unfillable bag for several weeks now. Her hide was still drying out, but Archer still wasn't fully dry himself.

  Archer twisted back to face forward again and said what he'd been thinking about since the manghar palace. “I thought you weren't coming back for me.”

  Wick hesitated, then admitted, “For a bit, I thought I wasn't, either.”

  “But?”

  “I thought better of it. You came back for me; I came back for you. It would have been a long and lonely journey to the coast without you.”

  Something in Archer's heart tried to stir, but he wouldn't let it. His mouth quirked sideways. “That's touching and all, but there has to be more to it than that. I can't imagine you actually missed me.”

  Wick shrugged, uncharacteristic for him. “Then don't. If you don't think I see you as a friend and wanted to make sure you didn't die, then think whatever you want. But it's as simple as that.” He got up off the ground and slung his bag back over his shoulder. “We have to get moving again. We're still in manghar territory. They can still catch up with us if we don't keep going.”

  Interesting. Archer got up, too, and they started walking again.

  It was a long, long journey to nixie territory. Most of the way across Aro, actually. The manghar were the furthest territory inland, and the nixies were on the coast. They would have to walk to the edge of manghar territory, which from here was another day's walk yet, and from there they needed to skirt the edge of centaur territory to start their journey to the coast.

  Of course, it would be easier to rob the centaurs on their way past and then get the nixies last, but centaur territory was the Heather Stone's resting place. They would need all the other stones before going to the valley to cast the spell. They would just have to get to the nixies and then double back.

  However, by now they had robbed everyone but the centaurs and the nixies, which meant that anyone who was dedicated to stopping them from stealing the last two pieces would be gathered at both places. The pieces would be under triple guard and watched at all times.

  Stealing the last two pieces wouldn't be easy.

  But Archer hadn't come for easy. He looked at Wick. “Are you with me for the last two?”

  Wick's grip on his bag tightened. “The flower I had in my bag turned into dust. Flowers don't just do that, even if they're dead.”

  “And?” Archer asked.

  “And the rain is black. And the birds are leaving. I see more flying away every day.”

  “And what do you gather from that?”

  “The Scorch is coming back,” Wick said. “I don't know why the centaurs haven't seen anything about it, but if we're the only two people in the world who know what's coming, it's up to us to make sure everyone's safe.”

  At last.

  “Ah, forever the martyr hero.” Archer slung an arm around Wick's shoulders and walked lopsidedly, trying to keep up since Wick wouldn't slow down for him. “But it's true, we're the only ones who know. No one else wants to listen. I'll tell you now, though: the last two won't be pretty. They're waiting for us now. Are you still with me?”

  “Yeah.” Wick nodded. “Let's do it.”

  Chapter thirteen

  When All Else Fails,

  A Bag Strap is A

  Good Weapon

  The mountains of centaur territory had just come into view over the treetops when Archer said, “Okay, let's stop to catch up on some sleep.”

  Wick turned to him in exasperation. “You had all night to sleep while you were in the manghar prison!”

  “While I was in prison waiting to be executed!” Archer exclaimed. “Do you seriously think I got any sleep while I was there?”

  In the end, Archer won, and they found a hidden space where they wouldn't be spotted if anyone caught up to them.

  Waiting up while Archer slept was a strange feeling. Over the last few weeks of traveling, they had fallen into a familiar rhythm of stopping at noon to rest. Wick had always stood and absorbed the rays of the sun while Archer slept, and then they had traveled all night. Wick wondered if that would change now that he was human. Well, reasonably human. It would be more realistic to travel during the day now, wouldn't it?

  It probably wouldn't be the only thing that changed since his transformation.

  While waiting for Archer to finish his nap, Wick found he felt very odd, and no wonder. The sun still felt wonderful on his face, but it didn't have the same effect it had before he changed. His energy reserves were wearing out.

  But it didn't feel the same as when he needed the sun. Usually, when he needed sun, he would feel stiff and slightly groggy, but this feeling was more of a gradual slowing, a heaviness behind his eyes spreading through his head.

  He rested against the trunk of a tree, clutching his bag to himself out of habit like a pillow, and slowly his eyes drifted shut.

  Something thudded into the side of his head, and Wick woke up with a start. Archer, who had just slapped him in the side of the head, rocked back on his heels. “You sleep like the dead!”

  “In my defense,” Wick mumbled, scrubbing at his eyes with the heels of his hands, “I've never fallen asleep before.”

  “It's not like you can help sleeping that soundly.” Archer stood up. “It just happens. And yeah, you might sleep lighter in the future, but I doubt it. Do you want to get something to eat?”

  Now that he was paying attention, Wick realized he felt sort of hollow inside, and there was a different kind of drain on his body, like he was running on fumes. “I think so. But I don't think there's enough food in your bag to feed both of us.”

  “There isn't,” Archer shrugged, “but I can probably find something around here. I'm willing to look. I've been waiting for ages for you to stop asking me what things taste like.”

  They didn't have to walk far, it turned out. Archer went around looking for berry bushes and nuts on the trees, and even found a few. But the real success was when they ran across a single house of fair folk living in the woods. Once it was established that the fair folk would trade one of Archer's pilfered trinkets for some of their supply of food, Archer straightened and turned to Wick. “While I get us some food, you go that way. I saw a pond or something over there, go get clean. You're filthier than even I can ha
ndle, so you go wash off and I'll stay here and trade for food.”

  Wick nodded and wandered off. He found the pond just as Archer had described, and while it didn't have the cleanest water he had ever seen, water was water. He jumped in, clothes and all.

  He really was dirty. The filth was caught in the cracks of his palms, caked in the hair on his arms, embedded in his scalp. Every swipe of his hands revealed more earth ground into his skin. It was as if he had been flung into a pit of dust. Where it had all come from, he had no idea, but he sat in the weed-filled water and cleaned off until he couldn't see any more dirt.

  When he deemed himself clean enough, he climbed out of the water and sat in the sun. The rays of the sun didn't have the same effect as they did before, but it did still feel good, and in a few minutes, he was still damp, but not dripping. Then he returned to where he had left Archer.

  Archer had been busy while Wick was gone. He had a small cooking fire lit and had slung a pot over the flames. In the pot bubbled a conglomeration of various vegetables and a bit of meat, and it seemed he had even haggled a loaf of bread away from the fair folk, which he had torn into five or six pieces.

  “Well, now you've gotten my extra clothes covered in pond scum, but I'll just have to bear it.” Archer leaned forward to inspect his stew as it boiled. “Sit down, this is probably the only hot meal we're going to have until this whole thing is over.”

  Wick sat down next to the fire, enjoying the warmth, and ladled himself some stew into one of the wooden bowls Archer had produced from his bag.

  “Just don't burn yourself,” Archer said as Wick brought a spoonful up to his mouth.

  The stew, straight out of the pot, immediately burned Wick's mouth, and he choked.

  “I did warn you,” Archer said and blew on his own spoonful of stew before putting it in his mouth. He chewed and then swallowed. “It's all right. I should have brought some salt or something. It's a little flavorless.”

  Wick got a spoonful of stew cool enough not to burn him, and he put the whole spoonful into his mouth. Flavors took over his entire focus. Whatever meat the fair folk had given them tasted like the darkness in the hollow of a tree, like the way good, rich soil felt between your fingers. And the texture! Texture was another new experience, one that he had never considered or thought to ask about. The meat was a little rough but soft from cooking for so long. It was thick and it was chewy and took a while to swallow down.