“And if we accepted?” the lead manghar asked. “What would you want in exchange?”
Still finding himself pinned to the ground, Archer sent Wick an irritable look.
“In exchange,” Wick said, “You let us go. Right here, where no one would ever see it and only the few of us would ever know. You can tell the Crowned Head that you drowned us or some other story, and you have our word that we'll never cross your borders again.”
The manghar's mouth twisted. “You would keep your word, but how do we know he will?” The manghar jabbed a finger at Archer on the ground. Archer made a show of looking offended but then dropped back into a blank face again. “He has no honor or integrity.”
“Believe my word for both of us,” Wick said. “Neither one of us will ever cross your borders again.”
The twelve manghar exchanged glances with their fellows, silently making decisions amongst themselves. The manghar's eyes snapped back to Wick's. “Agreed.”
Wick held out the stone, and the manghar snatched it. Holding it up to the light, he inspected it briefly, then nodded to his fellows. The manghar guard carrying the stolen throne hefted the chair back up onto his back, and all twelve of the huge bat men took off into the sky.
“Well,” Wick said in a flat voice. “I guess that's the end of it. They know who we are. The centaurs are watching us. And the nixies have all the stones. It's over.”
Archer picked himself up off the ground. “Good, thank you, very nice, goodbye, nice to meet you, so long and farewell.” He kicked a pile of leaves and began to walk away.
“Where are you going?” Wick demanded.
Archer stopped and swung around. “Elsewhere. I need a brief vacation from the drama before the whole world comes crashing in, thank you. If we're done for, I think I'd like a good long drink of my own self-pity first.”
Wick cocked his head. “You want to wallow in self-pity? I've lost everything. It's all fallen apart. I don't even have my face now.”
“That was your choice,” Archer said.
“My choice? You were the one that got caught back in the manghar palace. I had to rescue you!”
“Which was your choice,” Archer repeated, his tone getting sharper. “I never asked for your help. You chose what you chose for your reasons.”
“Then maybe I should have just let the manghar take you just now. I should have just bargained for my own freedom. Then I wouldn't have to deal with this anymore.”
“Oh, for crying out loud. Just admit you wanted to abandon me,” Archer said, shoving his face up to Wick's. “Admit it. This whole time, all you've been wanting to do is leave. You never wanted anything to do with this. You never trusted me, you never believed me, you think I'm just doing this so I can resell the stones. Well, guess what, I'm not quite as stupid as you think. I've been watching you, and I know–”
“You don't know anything,” Wick said simply. “And you certainly don't know anything about me. I knew this would happen.”
“What?”
“I got a letter from a friend in centaur territory that told me we would be caught like this.”
“And you didn't bother to tell me?”
“You didn't seem to think that the visions were credible, so I didn't see a point.” Wick's jaw tightened. “And now here we are, and it was right. See, you don't know everything.”
“See that?” Archer asked. “That right there? Your obnoxious attitude has been holding us up this entire time! None of your plans work, you mess up all of mine, and on top of that you act like you're the only one who matters! I should have never let you come with me in the first place. It was the worst decision of my whole life.”
“You didn't let me.” Wick bit off his words. “And it wasn't your decision, it was mine. I wasn't even going to join you in the first place. I was going to wait until the right moment to get you arrested because I saw what you were: a fraud and a liar. I never believed you for a second.”
Archer's jaw clenched and unclenched. “That's not what you said yesterday, was it? Who's the liar then, you or me? The one who was honest with you since the beginning, or the one who's acting like he never believed me when he was the one who decided to rescue me like I was a damsel in distress?” He took a quick step closer to Wick. “Don't act like everything that happened to you is all my fault when you chose every. Last. Little. Piece of it. So go ahead. Make it all about you. Because this is how the world looks from inside your head, doesn't it?” he demanded. “You act like you care so much about everything and everyone on the face of the Earth, but it's all to make you feel better about yourself. At the end of the day, everything is about you.”
Wick tried to speak, but Archer interrupted. “Don't even try to argue with me, because if you care about failure so much, it's probably a blow to your confidence to lose a fight. That would be the real end of the world, wouldn't it? If the high and mighty Wick got just a little bit of humility.”
“Don't talk to me about humility.” Wick's teeth ground against one another. “Not when everything you do is all for yourself. You think everything belongs to you. You think everything is owed to you.”
“If you want to talk about hypocrisy,” Archer began.
“Shut up,” Wick cut him off. “I listened to you, I followed you, and now here I am, with nothing, not even my dignity, and it's all your fault. You kept joking about how you wanted to make me like you. Well, congratulations, you've done it. Now I'm just like you.”
Archer's brow hardened further. “Are you now? It seems like all you ever want to talk about is how we have nothing in common.”
“No, I am,” Wick said. “I'm everything you are now: a lost, deluded idiot who doesn't look like anything, doesn't belong anywhere, and isn't welcome by anyone.”
Archer froze, and a new look came into his eye.
Wick almost wished he could take it back. No, he didn't. He would stand his ground. He and Archer stared each other down.
“Well, guess what, tree,” Archer said in a stiff tone. “You win. If I'm not welcome anywhere, I can tell I'm not welcome here. So I'm leaving. I'm leaving you alone, to think about what a sad, lonely hero you are and every time someone's wronged you since that's all you seem to care about. But I'm going to leave you this to chew on: at least I never pretended we weren't friends. I really thought we were, and I would never deny it. That one's on your conscience, not mine.”
With a quick nod, Archer turned on his heel and started off into the woods. Only ten feet away, he paused and looked over his shoulder.
“What?” Wick snapped.
“Nothing. I just admire how you think you've lost everything now when all you've lost is a reputation. Everything I had in the world was in that bag, and now I don't even have that. Have a nice life, Wick.”
With that, Archer walked away.
For a moment, Wick stood there, wide-eyed and terrified, wondering how everything had gone to pieces so quickly. Then he pulled himself together.
He shook his head after Archer's retreating back. He had nothing left to say to this seraph boy who was bent on making everything his fault. Turning on his heel, he walked away, headed east, toward the mountains.
He didn't look back.
Chapter Fifteen
If Death is Inevitable, I Might as Well Cross a Few Things Off My Bucket List
Archer didn't waste time dwelling on the fight. There was too little time as it was. Instead, he did what he always did: he put it all behind him and focused on himself.
What did he want right now?
Well, the world was going to end in about four months. That gave him approximately the rest of the winter to figure out what he wanted to do with what remained of his lifespan. Whatever that was, whatever he decided to do with the rest of his life, it probably wouldn't be a good idea.
He wasn't good at coming up with plans for the long term. But that was okay because for all he knew the Scorch could be coming a lot faster than that
crazy old centaur had thought. With all that taken into account, he decided on a new purpose for his expiring existence.
Nodding up at the sky, he told the clouds, “I think I'm going to get in a fight with everyone I've ever wanted to get in a fight with.”
With this mission in mind, he set out to find the first person he wanted to fight. And that involved going back to the nixie kingdom.
Getting back into the territory was easy. Now that the nixies were certain that he and Wick were headed back to manghar territory to be executed, all the patrols had been thinned out, making it easy for him to swim across the bay and climb back up the steps of the palace to punch the nixie general in the face.
His first fight until the end of the world was also the shortest fight. He only got a good few punches in before the nixie general pulled that silver dagger out of his belt and slashed at him with it. With Archer driven back a few steps, the general bellowed for security, but they were too slow to catch Archer as he dashed away.
By the time Archer swam back to the beach again, he looked over his shoulder and saw that the nixies had locked the whole palace shut again. Feeling very pleased with himself, he gingerly rubbed a sore eye and sauntered off to find his next quarry.
The next few fights went better. He lost some, he won some. He took a few good blows and had to sleep some of the damage off. But he kept going. He worked his way through satyr territory, picking off the satyrs and their guests who had angered him one by one. He found a particularly jaded satyr who had tried to rob him once and made certain he wouldn't breathe right for a month.
He caught up to that stupid little messenger who had brought the warning message to the nixies and throttled him good. The kid started crying before Archer was done with him. Archer checked the message he was carrying to make sure there wasn't anyone else he needed to catch before going to the next place, but it was just a message from the centaurs thanking someone else for their helpful input in something. Deciding he didn't care, he tossed the message back to the messenger and kept walking.
Over the course of the next few days, while he traveled across Aro, Archer did everything he could to make the country know the grudge he held against it. Every punch to the face and every jab at an eye was another win toward everything ending on his terms.
He hit from behind, he knocked over the head, he bellowed insults, he struck at the ribs, he slapped across the face, he tackled from doorways, he leaped out from the shadows, he fell for feints, he ducked punches, he came prepared, he came unprepared, he underestimated, he overshot, he tripped them up, he kicked when they were down, he swung with sticks and chairs and dropped weapons and shrieked in the face of death because he would not, could not go unnoticed in a world that kept on going with its back turned on him. And when he was not fighting, he slept.
Settling his score with the centaurs was the only fight Archer decided against. Since they would probably see him coming and lock him up, he decided it wasn't worth the effort anyway and passed straight by their territory. He made it across to human territory in a record time of two days and fought ten different humans, three of them being the men from the inn that had tried to jump them on their way to nixie territory. When he left them, they were screaming for their mothers. Two of the other fights gave him a second bruised eye and a pain in his ribs that flared up when he bent the wrong way. He took a few more good punches from different sources but made it through all the humans he wanted to fight with less damage than expected.
The morning after fighting the ninth and tenth humans, Archer was partaking of a meal at an inn that he didn't plan to pay for. The cooking here wasn't half bad. He might have to come back some other time and see what they did in the kitchen to make the meat this savory.
He ate with one hand and with the other he held a mug of wine to his sore eye, trying to ease some of the heat that the eye seemed to be storing up. The mug was barely cooler than room temperature, but it seemed to provide some relief. Idly he wondered if he should double back and go to seraph territory before he went on to the manghar. He stood a good chance of getting slaughtered by whoever he chose to fight once he got to manghar territory, and considering how he was now officially banned from entry, he might have to send personal invitations to the individual manghar he had a bone to pick with. That would take a significant amount of time. His only other option was to ignore the rules and go into the territory anyway, and that would mean going through the execution thing again, with no one to rescue him this time.
If any of the manghar pounded him into the ground like he expected they would, he probably wouldn't be able to crawl back to seraph territory to deal with all the seraphs he wanted to punch. Not before he died of his wounds or at least needed a few weeks to recover. He didn't want to waste that kind of time on something like recovery.
Yeah. It would probably be better if he backtracked first.
In the far corner of the tavern, three manghar stood up from their table. Archer jumped, forgetting he still had his cup in his hand and nearly splashing the wine all over his lap. As it was, he fumbled for a good moment to catch it again and managed to get away with only a small splattering of wine across the table.
He should have known that some of them would come to him. They were headed straight toward him. Archer set the cup down on the table firmly and started to get up.
But the manghar didn't even look at him. They brushed by him with all the indifference of strangers in the road and headed for the door. More than a little surprised, Archer sat back down in his seat with a thud, still staring after them as they thanked the host and hostess and stepped out the door.
They weren't here for him after all.
Huh.
Archer twisted back away from the door and returned to his meal. He would have gone on and finished his food in complete and blissful ignorance if his ears hadn't caught what the third manghar said as he slipped out the door. “Time for the leshy to get what's coming to him.”
Archer's chewing stopped. The meat went flavorless in his mouth.
They had found out the ruby was a fake.
Sure, he had known the stone was fake when Wick had given it to the manghar, and that was because it was his stone, from his bag. He only kept it because it was sparkly. He had known the manghar would eventually discover that it was only glass, but he hadn't guessed that they would do anything about it. It was just a rock.
And unlike Archer, the manghar didn't go after people just to teach them a lesson.
Archer's brow creased, and he stuffed another piece of meat into his mouth, chewing with renewed vigor. He refused to lift a finger to help. The stupid tree didn't want his help, after all. The stupid tree wouldn't want his help even if he offered it. There was no point in going to help the stupid tree because the stupid tree didn't even want him around. They weren't even friends, according to him. They hadn't discussed what they liked and didn't like. They hadn't laughed at the world together every time they had been thrown out of someplace. They hadn't traveled at midnight and discussed plans and poked fun at one another. They hadn't walked together for miles and somehow found a way to working in sync even though they had nothing in common.
He wasn't Wick's ally.
If put in the same situation, the tree wouldn't have tried to stop the manghar from killing him.
Except that it was all lies. Wick had rescued him, on purpose. He hadn't needed to come back for Archer when he was waiting to be executed. He hadn't needed to change the way he looked so he wouldn't be recognized for Archer's sake. He hadn't needed to risk life and limb to come back and get Archer out of the manghar palace before he hung above the highest branch of the highest tree.
Crows would probably be eating him right now if it wasn't for Wick.
Unfortunately.
“Ugh.” Archer ran his hands down his face. Whoever had invented morality needed a rock thrown at their head. Dragging himself off his chair, he left the half-empty plate where it was
and walked out the door before they could notice he hadn't paid.
Just as he stepped outside of the inn, the manghar took to the air at the edge of the woods.
This was the part Archer hadn't thought through. The manghar could fly, and in the air, they would probably be faster than he was on foot. There was no way he could keep up. But he had already committed to following them. He would just have to do the best he could. Archer started off at a run, following the manghar in the direction he had seen them fly over the trees. He had to weave between tree trunks, and frequently he needed to stop and untangle his clothes from a bush or something, but as long as he could hear the sound of leathery wingbeats ahead of him, he kept on running.
Less than a mile in, he could already tell that he wouldn't be able to keep up. The speed of their flying alone would be enough to leave him in the dust before the day was out, and on top of that, he had countless obstacles to dodge down in the brush. He was going to lose them.
He needed a new plan. Archer normally wasn't one for plans, but if he was going to get to Wick before the manghar did, he needed to come up with a good one.
The manghar seemed to be heading steadily southwest, which meant either they already knew where Wick was and it was a straight shot down, or they were just headed to wherever they saw him last so that they could track him from there. Archer hoped it was the second option. The manghar were incomparable trackers, and once they got ahold of Wick's scent they would likely find him within hours or days depending on how close he was. But if Archer could figure out where Wick was before they did, he stood a good chance of at least arriving when, if not before, the manghar did.
That was the new plan.
He stopped running and let the manghar go. The wingbeats faded into the distance as Archer caught his breath. He hoped he hadn't made the wrong decision. But if he had, it was too late to catch up to them again. He had made a decision, and now he had to suffer the consequences.
Robbing Centaurs and Other Bad Ideas Page 17
