Be Thou My Good: Chapter 14 (Patreon)

Chapter 14: Grin and Bear It

Between Archer and Hunter, we were always going to stop and dress the kill.

I sighed as Indrani—that is: Archer—cheerily spit-roasted one of the bear’s haunches over a roaring fire. A musky smell filled the air, which both of the more nature-adjacent Named paid no mind to. Hunter sat on the opposite side of the fire pit as Archer, gamely scraping the hide with a borrowed knife.

On the one hand, he was no longer tied up, and the two of them weren’t at each other’s throats anymore. On the other, I could see that nothing between them had been resolved. Killing and dressing the bear had merely provided a momentary release for deeper tensions.

I didn’t like how carelessly brutal Archer was with her adopted ‘family’, and it pained me to realize that once again, I’d fallen in with debatably terrible people who I now cared for far more than I should.

Hopefully this time, I wouldn’t have to rescue a prepubescent precognitive.

As if she could hear my thoughts, Archer’s eyes tracked over to me. “What’s the matter, Tay? Promise it tastes better than it smells.”

I blinked slowly, letting out a single breath. “I’ve eaten worse.”

“Bet you have.” Archer laughed. “I’ve seen what the Legions use as rations.”

Hunter gave a grunt. “Thought I’d break my teeth on the hardtack.” Like Archer, the rage had vanished, and the two of them seemed almost friendly again.

“Give me raw meat any day of the week.” Archer shook her head. “Here, try a bit.”

She cut a strip from the outside of the roast, passing it to me on the tip of her knife. I raised an eyebrow at her implied attempt to feed me before plucking the blade from a loose grip.

I blew, steam wafting off the meat as it cooled. The first bite still almost burned, but after a few seconds, I was finally able to chew it properly. It tasted savory, fatty even. Modern seasonings had ruined me for most of the cooking on Calernia, still.

“I can safely say that bear is better than Legion rations.” I finished off the strip with a few more bites before tossing Archer’s dagger back.

She frowned playfully at me. “Can’t believe that’s all the thanks I get for dinner.”

I rolled my eyes. “Keep it for yourself then. Some of us packed properly.” I patted my saddlebags. Fortunately, it hadn’t taken much to track down the horses. “I doubt you’re planning to take the whole bear.”

“We will leave the rest of the meat for the scavengers,” Hunter said.

“Oh, we will, will we?” Archer tilted her head challengingly.

I sighed. “What are you going to do with it, Indrani? Feed it to your horse?”

Her shoulders stiffened. It wasn’t until Hunter chuckled that I realized her real name had just slipped out, a habit born from my time with the Undersiders that I’d never fully kicked.

Without acknowledging the pause, Archer resumed turning the spit a few seconds later. “Maybe I’ll eat it all myself.”

“Only if you expect us to roll you back to Sanctuary,” I replied. “And in case you missed it, Hunter is down a hand, and I don’t know the way.”

“Just summon another bear to carry me.” Archer smirked. “Is that your new aspect, ‘Bear’?”

I pinched my nose. “If it was, this conversation wouldn’t be so unbearable.”

She snorted, and that line even startled a laugh out of Hunter, before he returned to his pelt. Since Archer had nearly been trampled, Hunter was the one who’d claimed the kill with his borrowed dagger. I didn’t know what he planned to do with the pelt, but I imagined he could sell it at Sanctuary or keep it for himself.

“Anyway.” Archer waved a hand. “I’ll probably cook some more for breakfast tomorrow and leave the rest. The real problem is that we lost a whole day of riding.”

I held back a sigh. Whose fault was that, Indrani? Outwardly, I shrugged. “Then it will just take us another day to reach Sanctuary.”

“Oooor, we could take a shortcut.”

Hunter raised his eyes. “You can’t mean to show her that way into Sanctuary.”

Archer raised an eyebrow. “If you want me to tie you back onto Maple, you could just say so.”

He sighed, leaning back. “Hate you so much.”

“There we go!” Archer sliced another cut off of the bear haunch and tossed it to him. “Here, have some dinner. We’re gonna be moving quick tomorrow.”

“The Lady isn’t going to like that,” Hunter said.

“Yeah, well, she didn’t like you running off to play hero either, but it’s not like she cared.”

I noticed Hunter flinch at those words, even if he tried to cover it by taking a bite of his portion. “Sent you to haul me back. Who do you think she’ll send after you?” he drawled.

Archer shrugged “If we get in deep shit, we’ll just die young and leave a beautiful corpse…” She took a second to glance around the fire. “Well, mine’ll be beautiful.”

“I certainly won’t leave mine trying to save you, then.” I placed my chin on my hand. “So where are we going? Is there some secret underground network that ferries Named from place to place?”

“Nah, that’s just the Dwarven Kingdom.” Archer waved her hand. “We’re taking the back ways.”

“That sounds a lot like what I just said,” I said.

Archer just smiled. “You’ll see.”

I rolled my eyes, but that didn’t stop me from accepting another cut of the bear. The flavor was growing on me, and keeping two Named with unresolved childhood trauma from killing each other was hungry work.

“I hope another bear drops on you while you’re sleeping,” I said.

“Sounds like you volunteered for first watch.” Indrani scooted around the fire closer to me, eyes sparkling.

“You’re trying to come up with a bear pun right now.”

She pouted at my words. “You’re no fun.”

I sighed. I found it easier to address Archer like this, but it felt almost like I was ignoring how she’d behaved with Hunter earlier. I’d… always made excuses for the people I cared about, but I was trying to be better this time.

I thought that, but here I was helping literal and literary villains.

“Why are things always so complicated?” I asked the night air, and while the trees groaned and the wind whispered, no reply emerged from the susurrations of the forest.

Archer bumped me. “Taking a watch is complicated?”

No, but then, I could hardly come out and say that her behavior made me question my relationship with her. “Are we letting Hunter take a shift?”

“S’long as he promises not to run off.” Archer smirked over her shoulder. “Besides, he knows I’d just track him down.”

He sneered back, “I’ve gotten better at covering my tracks.”

“Not good enough, apparently.” She shrugged. “Anyway, the meat should be done right now, and I’m starving.”

“Full.” With a grunt, Hunter rolled to the side, putting his back to the fire and throwing the fresh bearskin over his shoulders. I wrinkled my nose at how ripe that would smell by morning.

Archer picked up on it, and she leaned forward next to me. “Covering yourself with bear musk won’t wash off the scent of the bakery, John.”

Hunter shifted once but didn’t reply.

Archer opened her mouth a second time, but I cut her off with a jab to the side.

“What?” She glanced at me, peeved.

I rested my face in my hands. Here I was thinking that Archer wouldn’t be receptive to any criticism and that I didn’t want to spend the rest of this trip with her glaring at both of us.

But maybe I would say it anyway.

I pushed myself to my feet, ignoring how Archer rocked back, arms whirling comedically in the air. I jerked my head in the opposite direction of Hunter, starting to walk away from the fire. For her part, Archer took the time to cut another strip of meat, just to make sure I knew she wasn’t following because I’d told her to.

I never thought high school power dynamics would be so useful when it came to running superpowered cliques, but here I was for the second—or maybe third even—time.

I came to a stop under a sycamore tree, its thick and knotted trunk rising overhead into strong branches. Was there some symbolism to this kind of tree? I didn’t know; half of the reason I’d gone on this expedition with Archer was to grow my understanding of this new world, where the stories were so similar but yet so different from my own.

Archer meandered up a moment later, thumbs tucked into her broad leather belt.

“John might use this as a chance to run away, y’know.”

I turned to look at her, appreciating how her dark hair and clothes almost made her vanish into the night. “I thought you said you could track him down, Indrani.”

My words came soft from my lips, but I noticed her shift, all the same.

“Is there some taboo about using real names,” I asked, “when dealing with people like us?”

She shrugged, looking away. “Archer is my real name.”

I said nothing.

“Ugh, fine.” She crossed her arms. “Some people don’t like it, ‘specially those of us whose names didn’t mean shit before we earned our Names.”

I nodded, musing briefly on the linguistic implications of ‘Names’. I’d heard that other nations referred to Heroes and Villains using different terms, but Callow seemed content to wallow in the inevitable confusion.

All of that was besides the point.

“Why do you call Hunter by his, then?”

Archer met my gaze challengingly. “Have a problem with that?”

I hummed, turning my gaze back to the forest. I didn’t claim that my eye was keen enough to see any sort of ‘hidden hurt’ in her expression, but I could feel the tension on the weave.

“I don’t bullies.” I drummed my prosthetic figures against my thigh. “Heroes, Villains, and Rogues like you? I’ve dealt with time and time again, including people who’ve done far worse than poke fun at a childhood acquaintance.” I paused, taking in the motion of the trees. “But I don’t like bullies, Archer.”

She huffed. “Go back to Squire, then.”

“I came on this trip to get to know you better,” I said. “I suppose I am, at that.”

“So, what? I should just play nicey-nice with John, even though I’m here to drag his recalcitrant ass back home because he was too stubborn to do what he was told?”

I laughed lightly. “When have you ever done as told?”

She shifted, boots scuffing the raw earth. “It’s different,” she said. “When Ranger’s the one doing the telling.”

I shrugged. “It seems to me that your Lady Ranger is content to let people live with their own mistakes.” My lips twitched. “I’m different, always sticking my nose in other people’s business. It’s why I won’t live as long.”

Indrani chuckled as well. “If you said you were gonna outlive the Lady of the Lake, she might kill you just for that.”

I nodded.

After a moment of silence, Archer spoke again. “So, what? You wanted to tell me you didn’t like how I was hurting John’s feelings? That’s it?”

“No.” I turned back to face her. “I wanted to tell you that I don’t like youwhen you ‘hurt John's feelings’. Especially not to impress me.”

“Impress you?” Archer scoffed, and I realized that I’d immediately overstepped. “You’ve got another thing coming if you think I give a damn about impressing you.” She turned, cloak whirling behind her.

I closed my eyes, letting the wind rustle the sycamore. “If you go and kick Hunter awake to prove a point,” I said, “I’ll ride back to Marcheford tonight.”

She stopped. “...Not if I lame your horse, you won’t.”

“Then I’ll walk.” I shrugged. “Either way, you won’t get to show me these ‘back ways’ you’re so proud of.”

She huffed again, but even if she’d just claimed that she didn’t care about my opinion, Archer marched back to the campsite without another word.

I waited a few moments longer before following, gingerly picking my way through the darkness. Archer had rolled up in her cloak on the opposite side of the fire as Hunter. The roast bear had been cut and packed away into our saddlebags.

I fed another log into the slowly dwindling blaze and passed my watch in hungry silence.