Under Cover of Darkness (3 page)

Galetia fell into a steady, rangy trot, wolflike in endurance, and in economy of movement. She hadn't bothered to change into cittie clothes—the knee pants that ballooned to huge proportions; the fine-woven blousy top with droopy, fashionable sleeves that only got in the way. She wore the clothes of the hunter-warrior the citties had made of her: rough-woven knee-length trous, leather leg-bells loosely covering her lower legs and strapped tight at the bottom to keep away the mud ticks and root leeches, and worn leather ankle-shoes stolen from someone's back stoop. Atop she wore the season's half-cape and hood over an indeterminate muddle of a shirt.

Not girl's clothing. But neither was her short-cropped hair meant for a girl, and she hardly moved like a cittie girl, stumbling in too-short box-toed shoes or getting tangled in an excess of material at her knees. And if her breasts this past year had become impossible to ignore, the indeterminate muddle of a shirt and half-cape obscured them well enough for a first glance, maybe well enough for a second.

Or whatever it took to get Alleksa out of the city and away.

She cannot stay
, Galetia told the others, her inner voice steady even as she panted evenly for breath, running along the old city path that none of them ever used.
I will take her away. To the caves, perhaps. To the lake—

So far?
they asked her. But no one protested. They did nothing but beat at her in a constant pummeling of escaping thoughts, using the web of thought that Galetia herself had once stabilized. Their worry, their anger at Alleksa, their understanding . . . every one of them had been through the change. Every one of them had been driven to stupidity and danger along the way. They knew the stakes here. What Alleksa could do for them . . . what she could do
to
them if allowed.

With voices in her head and panting in her ears, Galetia almost missed the signs. Someone else coming toward her, twisting through the trees at a steady walk and perceptible at a distance only because of Galetia's hawk-imbued vision. She leaped from the trail, loping uphill with every intent to skirt the interloper.

With her first step, she realized her mistake—that the crooked trees thinned, leaving her exposed to a man clothed in hunting garments much like hers. The hunter gave a shout, lifting one hand to point, the other whirling a tangler weapon of leather and stone—and though Galetia leaped farther uphill, the man anticipated her move and flung his tangler directly into her new path.

Leather wrapped around her legs, tripping her; the stones smacked against her shins, a white-hot pain that numbed her legs. Galetia fell, and she could not help but tumble down the hill. Only by grabbing a spindly, warped tree trunk did she keep herself from landing at his feet. Already she reached for her flint knife to free herself, and already she flung her mind wide open to the elders, letting them see. Letting them know. Making sure they understood if another was needed.

In the background conversation, she heard snatches of Bodhan's report, his efforts to send others to find and shadow Alleksa within the city. For only Galetia could handle her one on one, and only because Alleksa could not yet rely on herself.

Because if she could, she wouldn't be in the throes of the change. She wouldn't be in the city, drawn by curiosity, driven by the warped sense of reality that came with the change.

But Galetia was long past that stage, and she had far too much experience with citties to be cowed by a man who had no concept of her true strength and speed, or of the adeptness with which she'd learned to lie. “Are you crazed?” she sputtered, sparing him only a swift glare as she tackled the confining leather with her knife, ignoring the pained shout of protest from the hunter. “These are cabra hills! Take me down, will you, when I'm already running for my life?”

“Here, now!” the man said, gesturing at her knife and ignoring her words. “Unwrap 'em, like!”

“No call for it,” Galetia insisted, sawing all the harder at the leather as the man broke from the trail to come after his precious tangler. If he got that close, he'd see she was no boy. He'd think of Alleksa and he'd start to wonder. “Take what comes to you, then.”

“It was a mistake, that's all. I'm not hunting cabra or deer today.”

Alleksa.
The man hunted Alleksa, with no idea that she'd already gone to the city.

Galetia ripped the tangler free of her throbbing legs and threw it at the hunter. She put strength behind it, and the rocks thudded into his chest, knocking him hard enough to stumble and fall. “Another day, we'd have words over the pain you've caused. Today, I'm getting out of cabra turf.” And even leaping up on unsteady legs, she quickly put herself out of his range. She pulled the doors to her mind closed, enough to nurse her pain in privacy—but not so much she didn't hear the cabra team head out.

For there
were
cabras in these hills. And the team would find one, guide it to the right place at the right time.

She had warned the cittie. He hadn't heeded her, and now he would discover the truth of her words.

And the Scoria, long reviled simply for what they might possibly grow up to be, would finally deserve the fears they inspired.

Galetia hoped the movement of the run would ease her legs, keep the swelling down and the blood moving.

She'd been wrong.

Let me look for her
, Bodhan told her, sensing her difficulty through even the small inner window Galetia had left open.
I can get away from this crew—

A crew on an important work site, pulling down the remains of a damaged building—a city-owned building, with a jaded and experienced work crew who took their conduit of inside information for granted. And for what would he lose that connection? The opportunity to watch Alleksa evading him.

And she would. Bodhan, for all his skill with the number grasses and detailed projects, could not keep up with Alleksa—and could not hold her without drawing attention. Galetia could do both.

I should have been watching her
. Never mind that a handful of others
had
been watching her, and let her slip away. Or that Galetia had needs—to sleep, to eat, to rest her mind in time with the children. She was the only one who could have stopped this.

By goddess, she'd stop it now.

Bodhan perceived her answer, flashing her unspoken acceptance. But he added,
If you need me . . .

She wouldn't.

She slowed on the outer edges of the city, coming into it through little-used alleyways left only to the bold. Noxious, dangerous . . . they reflected none of the city's stolid splendor, the magnificent buildings, the streets that were bright both day and night with their tall cedar-oil lamps, the gentle drift of those out walking simply for the purpose of being seen. This was an area of skulkers and wounded and those who barely survived—along with those who made it hard to survive. But Galetia settled into her cabra's stalk, her eyes confident, her gaze quick, and her sling ready in her hand. No one bothered her—everyone here knew the difference between predator and prey, even if this particular predator wasn't as graceful as she ought to have been.

Two rows of buildings separated this section of ragged homes and the glory of the city—warehouses, storage rooms, and a line of stables and livestock shelters for the animals not allowed in the city proper. Galetia paused between two buildings, finding a quiet spot beside a struggling tuft of grasses. This close, she would be able to sense Alleksa directly, her familiarity with Alleksa's touch honed by weeks of close proximity and endless hours of searching. Even if she were in a change phase, Alleksa couldn't hide herself; she could only close herself off.

She wasn't even closing herself off. She was too far immersed in what she'd found . . . and no wonder. The ever-flowing central city fountain was a delight to the senses, even for those without quite so many senses to delight. Sun sparkling off water, coins glinting from the glass mosaic of the fountain floor—all copper, all thrown in thanks to the copper ore mining that kept this city prosperous. The giggling and singing of the water as it splashed from one tiered saucer to the next, spraying the air with a mist so fine that rainbows often surrounded the fountain itself.

Once she'd seen it, Alleksa wouldn't have been able to resist, driven by her changes and a mind not quite sane in the middle of it all.

Galetia opened her eyes, found herself so quickly grown stiff that she dared not rest any longer. Following Alleksa's simple, profound sensory exhilaration, she moved through the streets as quickly as she could without drawing attention to herself. In the background of her mind, the elders encouraged her, a support tinged with desperation.
Save her. Save us.

Alleksa stood at the fountain, arms outstretched as if greeting ecstasy. Those around her—servants of the affluent, carrying errand baskets and private messages and responsibility—gave her wide berth, for the most part pretending they saw nothing at all. Children—running those same errands, or simply tagging along with their parent—had no such compulsion. They pointed, asking questions. They laughed at Alleksa's bemused expression, her eyes half-lidded, a smile curving her lips. They laughed at her rough clothing, at the scanty nature of it in spite of the taste of fall in the air.

In the warrens, she would have been plenty warm. Here in the bright sunshine, her skin looked pale, her hair washed out, her face bleached of color aside from the spots on her cheeks and lips that looked too full, too mature on that thin face. Here, she was attracting attention. Soon enough the wrong person would see her . . . someone who was determined to do something about this spectacle.

Alleksa
, Galetia whispered, making her way around the edge of the small square within which the fountain sat. She had little hope that Alleksa could or would hear her, but it would be best for them all if she did, if she could pull herself away from that which so delighted her beleaguered mind.
You are not safe. Come to me.

Alleksa's body gave a little shiver of denial. She turned her pale face to the sun. On it shimmered the signs of change, clear for all to see. Shadows chasing across her skin, sparks of iridescence and hints of color.

So be it.

Lower legs aching, pounding with the pain of too much swollen bruising inside skin too small to hold it all, Galetia did not waste any time. Not with Alleksa's change out there for the whole of the city to see—not when some of them had already gasped and drawn back, forgetting to pretend they saw nothing at all. Galetia strode to the fountain, shaking off the grim fear of those who perceived the situation through her thoughts. All these years they'd stayed hidden . . . and now they teetered on the verge of exposure, betrayed by the strength of the change in which they'd so recently placed their hopes.

Galetia did nothing more than put her hand on Alleksa's arm, her voice almost hidden in the song of the fountain as she said, “
Now.
”

Too late—
Bodhan's inner voice whispered into her mind, so close that she jerked around to find him at the edge of the square, having come in spite of her injunction against it.

Scoria voices wailed in silence, filling her head in response to what Bodhan now showed her from his better vantage point. The constables, striding into the other side of the square with truncheons to hand, their faces holding fear beyond what any mere adolescent girl could inspire. They'd heard. Even now Galetia heard the murmurs through Bodhan's ears, where through her own she heard only the sweet fountain.
Her face! Did you see her face?
and
It's her! It's the girl from the high ground. She's one of the cursed!

Galetia's fingers dug into soft skin. Alleksa's eyes widened, bemused by the change, by the fountain, by Galetia's presence. She did not try to break away; even fey, she had long learned she could not evade Galetia. But the constables rounded the end of the long fountain, and Galetia needed more than that. She needed
Alleksa
, returned to her senses—shedding the change, or
using
it. With the constables bearing down on them, she needed cooperation . . . she needed
help
. To do this on her own . . .

She could. Hurt, profoundly frightened for her own, for the future of the Scoria—Galetia could still do it.

But not without giving away just how much the citties had to fear.

She reached out to Alleksa, unable to imagine failure. She wrapped herself around that embattled mind, blanketing it, scrabbling against that smooth, polished surface that was Alleksa. And then she found her grip and she
wrenched—