Even in the moonlight and across the street, she could see the swellings anddark spots, looking like bruises, on his face. And on his hands. The fingerswere rotting bananas.
He turned back to peer around the corner. His breathing became less heavy. Nowshe could hear the faint slap of feet down the street. His chasers would be heresoon.
Benna gave a soft ululation of despair. He staggered down the street towards amound of garbage and stopped before it. A rat scuttled out but stopped a fewfeet from him and chittered at him. Bold beasts, the rats of Sanctuary.
Now Masha could hear the loudness of approaching runners and words that soundedlike sheets being ripped apart.
Benna moaned. He reached under his tunic with clumsy fingers and drew somethingout. Masha couldn't see what it was, though she strained. She inched with herback to the wall towards a doorway. Its darkness would make her even moreundetectible.
Benna looked at the thing in his hand. He said something which sounded to Mashalike a curse. She couldn't be sure; he spoke in the Ilsig dialect.
The baby above had ceased crying; its mother must have given it the nipple orperhaps she'd made it drink water tinctured with a drug.
Now Benna was pulling something else from inside his tunic. Whatever it was, hemoulded it around the other thing, and now he had cast it in front of the rat.
The big grey beast ran away as the object arced towards him. A moment later, itapproached the little ball, sniffing. Then it darted forwards, still smellingit, touched it with its nose, perhaps tasted it, and was gone with it in itsmouth.
Masha watched it squeeze into a crack in the old adobe building at the nextcorner. No one lived there. It had been crumbling, falling down for years,