Moon hesitated, but this berth was facing out and away from the hanging city structure, and as long as he stayed inside it, nothing could see him from below. He shifted and the change flowed over him, his skin turning to dark scales, spines growing from his head and back, claws from his hands and feet, and the weight of his furled wings settling on his back.
He crouched and leapt, caught the edge of a petal with the claws of one hand and one foot, and leaned in for a closer look. The dark substance on the metal was moss, scraped from the hull of a Kishan flying boat. Moon used his free hand to carefully collect it. It was from the upper hull, not from a motivator, so he didn’t know if the usual Kishan method of detecting the boat’s direction would work on it. But it was worth a try, and it might help Lithe with her scrying.
He dropped to the floor, shifted back to groundling, and dug one-handed in the pack until he found his spare shirt. He carefully wiped the moss off his hand, rolled the shirt into a ball to protect it, and tucked it away.
Moon went down the ramp at a run and stopped just above the last level to taste the air. The Fell taint was faint, and he didn’t hear any screaming from the ground or the upper city.
He started around the last curve and saw the base of the stalk, lit with only a few flickering insect lights amid the carapace huts. A crowd of swamplings and an assortment of other groundlings who stunk of predator gathered in the cleared area, watching something. Moon followed the faint trace of Fell stink to the crowd.
He found Stone standing with folded arms, on the outskirts of the group. The swamplings had loosely surrounded a big soft-skinned groundling, who was paying no attention to them and looking up toward the tops of the docking stalks. It was taller and wider than Moon, and probably male. His skin was pale and it was hard to tell if it was tinged with any other color under the insect-lights. His face was boney and heavy, his hair dark and tied back in braids. He wore nothing but a short wrap of fabric around his waist, held up by a belt of braided cord.
Moon stared, looked blankly at Stone, and stared at the figure again. Bare feet, no weapons, no pack, clothing little suited for travel even in this climate. And the casual disregard of the swamplings and other predators that could only mean it was far more dangerous than they were. He looked again at the pale, colorless skin, the blocky brow. Baffled, he said, “A kethel?”
Stone’s expression was somewhere between incredulous and homicidal. “Have you ever seen a kethel wear clothes?”
Moon was still trying to get past the braided hair. He had seen kethel wear collars or chains around their necks, probably given to them by rulers or their progenitor. He wasn’t even sure a kethel understood how to disguise itself as a groundling, unless a ruler had told it to. But what ruler would tell it to braid . . . “The half-Fell queen,” Moon said, and the words came out in a growl.
Just then the kethel turned and met Moon’s gaze. It froze.
Moon stalked forward, a snarl building in his throat. Stone had already slipped away through the crowd of distracted swamplings, circling to come up on the kethel from behind.
The kethel hesitated, lowered its head in indecision, then bared its teeth at Moon. Its fangs had been filed or cut back somehow, so they weren’t piercing its lower lip.
Moon said, in Raksuran, “You’re following us.”
The kethel glared. “Consort.” It slid a wary glance back toward Stone. “Old consort.” Its voice was deep and rough, and it spoke Raksuran. It added, “She sent me.”
“What does she want?” Moon said. He took the last step forward, so he was easily within its arm’s reach. Major kethel were far stronger even in their groundling form than a consort or a warrior, but with Stone ready to gut it, Moon figured it was worth taking the chance. His back teeth were aching and the skin on his fingertips itched with the urge to shift. “We’re not drugged now.”
It dropped its gaze with a flicker of unease. “She helps you.”
Moon had never seen a kethel talk for long before a ruler took over its mind and voice. He kept waiting for that to happen. It spoke the Raksuran words with an odd accent, as if it had learned the language from someone who could barely speak it.
“Helps us?” Moon hissed a laugh. “We know what kind of ‘help’ Fell give Raksura.”
The kethel’s gaze lifted briefly. “Help you find the weapon.”
Moon gritted his teeth. “Why?” It was his fault the Fell-born queen knew about the weapon, the dangerous artifact from the foundation builder city. He had been drugged and sick and panicked when he told her about it, but that was no excuse and it was like a stab from a claw every time he thought of it.
Moon had been half-aware of a swampling in his peripheral vision, now it stalked aggressively toward them. “You softskins—”
Moon turned on it and let loose the snarl of thwarted fury he had been withholding, in time with the kethel’s deep warning growl. The swampling flailed, fell on its backside, and scrambled away. The watching crowd flinched and edged back.
Moon met the kethel’s gaze. It said, “Weapon. Other Fell want it.”
“Help by leaving us alone.”
“Other Fell won’t leave you alone,” the kethel said. “They follow too. She warns you.”
Stone stepped between them suddenly, shouldering Moon away a pace. The kethel fell back a few steps, lowering its head, turning its gaze away. Stone eyed it, his expression revealing nothing. He said to Moon, “We need to go.”
Moon didn’t care what happened to the stupid swamplings and their predator friends, but the fate of the groundlings and skylings in the bustling upper city worried him. He asked the kethel, “You think you’re going to feed on this city?”
The kethel grimaced and showed its fangs again. “We don’t eat groundlings.”
Stone rocked on his heels toward it and the kethel fell back another step. It said, again, “She warns you. She helps you,” and turned away.
The swamplings, proving they weren’t incapable of learning, scattered as it strode off through the crowd.
Watching it disappear into the shadows, Moon said, “You believe that? That the half-Fell flight won’t attack the city?”
Stone snorted. “No.” Then he added, “Maybe. But if it was telling the truth about the other Fell flight following us too . . .”
Moon hissed a breath, trying to think how to warn the city without lengthy explanations and the risk of being exposed as shapeshifters who would look exactly like Fell to everyone here. It’s not like we have to come back here. “We can make sure the city’s prepared for Fell.”
Stone followed that thought immediately. His brows quirked as he considered it, then he sighed. “I wanted some of those rice ball things at that other food place we passed.”
“You should have got some while we were there.” Moon glanced around. The swamplings gathered in a rough circle, clearly having some sort of debate as to whether to rush the strangers or just keep staring at them. The sensible ones casually wandered off into the shadows. This was the edge of the port and Moon and Stone had a clear path to the sky on the far side of the stalk, away from the fire weapon emplacements in the upper city. Moon didn’t see anyone on the ground with projectile weapons. “Ready?”
Stone stepped back and shifted. His form flowed into existence, large dark wings lifted and spread. Moon turned and flung himself at the swamplings, shifting in mid leap. The predators scattered and cried out as he bounced off the ground and snapped his wings out. Moon landed on the climbing rack of a stalk and paused to watch Stone.