Dragon-Ridden (32 page)

Put that way, she owed him. She
wasn’t the type to welsh on a debt so she resigned herself to getting used to
him.

“I don’t know about teaching you.
I’m not even sure some of the things I do can be taught.” His face fell and she
admitted grudgingly, “I can, however, let you watch how I do things. Maybe you
can pick up a few things that way.”

“Like partners?” he asked
excitedly.

Her lips quirked. “Yeah, like
partners.”

He pumped his fist in the air and
jumped to his feet. She had to admit the prospect was a little exciting for her
too.

“We can’t go back to the room, so
we’ll have to figure something else out. I want off the street for now. Lucius
probably has men out looking for us,” she said.

“What about Night?”

She shook her head. “He doesn’t
have anything to do with this, really. He’s a bystander so I doubt Ryu is going
to do anything to him. He and his family are probably safest at Colton’s
Place.”

“I have a hideout we can use,”
Dewdrop suggested.

Tate considered his offer but ended
up shaking her head no. “We can’t use anything Lucius or his men know about.
That includes known hangouts.”

His focus turned inward as he ran
through possibilities. “I know a place,” he said slowly. “I hope you can climb,
though.”

***

“This is where you want to hide?”
Tate asked looking up in disbelief. She pointed at the stone steps cut into the
side of the cliff face. It had taken the better part of two hours using back
alleys and rooftops to work their way over to the cliff the city butted up
against.

Tate was sweating under her shirt
from the exertion and didn’t see how his hideout could possibly work. She
looked up a long line of steps that had been worn smooth with the passage of
thousands of feet. It continued straight up until it disappeared from view.
Dewdrop assured her it went all the way up to the Upper City and had a thousand
steps in total. Though it had been heavily used as a passage connecting the
Upper and Lower cities, in the past few hundred years it had fallen into disuse
with the advent of an elevator and the more gentle hill climb at the rear of
the city.

“Nobody comes this way anymore,”
Dewdrop was saying. “About a quarter of the way up, there’s a ledge we can
climb that will hide us from view.”

Tate did the math in her head. That
was roughly 250 stairs. While not impossible, her legs ached from walking and
running all over the city for the past two days. They didn’t want to go up one
step let alone 250.

“Wait for me,” she called to
Dewdrop who had already started up the stairs. He waved and kept climbing.
Resigned, Tate started up after him. At least they weren’t going back
underground.

She was breathing hard when she
finally made it to where Dewdrop waited. He was breathing heavily and had one
hand planted on his hip as he looked down at her. It was gratifying to see she
wasn’t the only one out of breath.

He flew up the cliff using natural
hand and foot holds. She groaned and started after him. He had way too much
energy.

The ledge he’d spoken of wasn’t
terribly big but would work for a short amount of time as it had plenty of
space for both to sit or stretch out on. She flopped down on her back sucking
in air. Thank the Saviors that she could rest.

After a period of time, when her
breathing evened out and her legs stopped burning she sat up and looked down at
the city. The view was breathtaking. She could only see the part of the city
surrounding the port but the tiny crescent was breathtaking against the bay and
sky.

“How did you find this?” Tate
asked.

“Luck.” He shrugged. “And
desperation.”

“It’s beautiful.”

He came to look over her shoulder
at the city spread before them. After the events of the previous night and that
morning, Tate felt a sense of peace and calm steal through her at the view. It
felt like a bit of balance was being restored and she felt the same hopefulness
she’d had standing on Jost’s ship looking at Aurelia only three days ago.

Because of how deep into the cliffs
the stairs had been cut, their little ledge remained in shadow even in the
middle of the day. Though hungry, Tate didn’t want to climb down to find food,
instead content to luxuriate in the delicate feeling of peace their ledge
offered.

Dewdrop pulled out things he’d
stored in a small nook while Tate dangled her feet off the edge.

“We should get some rest,” she
finally said breaking the silence. “It’s going to be a busy night.”

“What’s happening tonight?”

Tate leaned back and looked up at
the sky. “We’re going to find the fulcrum.”

As they waited for night to fall,
Tate explained what she had overheard before her torture session with the Red
Lady. She hoped having the fulcrum would give her enough bargaining power to
get a couple of her enemies off her back.

Their captors had let it slip that
the fulcrum was being hid near the docks. Dewdrop said he knew several places
on the waterfront that were ideal for holing up in if one was trying to avoid
the law. They decided to narrow the search parameters to warehouses that were
easily accessible by boat. That left them with more than a few to search. It
wasn’t the best plan, admittedly, but without more information it was the only
one they had. Hopefully, through some stroke of luck, they would find the right
one before Umi and her men.

As the last rays of light faded
from the world, the two crept from their hiding place and made their way down
to the docks. The streets were jammed with people celebrating the Donza
Festival. Tate stuck close to Dewdrop, not wanting to get lost in the shuffle.

Street performers had roped off
areas and put on elaborate shows attracting crowds of people. Tate stumbled to
a stop when a man abruptly stepped in front of her, handing her a small, round
transparent ball with a glow light rattling around inside it. With a vacant
smile, he went on his way.

“What’s this for?” She held the
lantern up.

Dewdrop glanced back. “At midnight
everybody releases the lanterns. There’s magic attached to them to make them
float into the air. People even take boats out into the harbor to watch them go
up. It’s one of the best things about the festival.”

Tate noticed all the people around
them seemed to have the lanterns as well, attached to belts or looped onto
necklaces. Others had softly glowing lines wrapped around their arms or
threaded into their hair. It looked as if the stars had come down from their
heavens to adorn the city’s people.

Her eyes nearly popped from her
head trying to take it all in, and it was with regret that they moved into less
populated areas to search. With the gaiety and vibrancy of the festival behind
them, they moved onto the docks, methodically searching for their quarry.

They started with the places
Dewdrop deemed the most likely for someone to hole up in. After running through
over half their list and encountering several little gangs in the midst of
smuggling operations, Tate was ready to call it a night. They had very little
information to go on, and the city was just too vast to search in one night.
She knew Umi already had several advantages over her, knowing where and what
the fulcrum actually was.

Dewdrop dropped lightly to the ground
beside her where she was waiting in a darkened alley right off the harbor’s
edge.

“Nothing.”

She took the news with an
expressionless face and sighed inwardly. It had been a long shot anyways.

Voices alerted them to the presence
of others, and they sank back into the shadows. Tate didn’t want to advertise
their presence, figuring anybody on the waterfront at this time of night was
probably up to no good.

As the voice’s owners got closer,
Tate chanced edging closer to the mouth of the alley. One of the voices sounded
very familiar. She hissed silently when the man passed into view.

Danny.

She couldn’t be entirely sure,
considering the darkness, but the body height and shape were right. When she
saw the slight figure beside him, she was convinced. She couldn’t fight the
sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach nor the small voice inside crying
out and telling her to run. When she’d made her final decision to leave the
Marauder, she hadn’t thought she’d be tangling with its crew just days
afterward.

She ducked back into the alley and
held her head in her hands. Given Ryu’s involvement and the secrecy surrounding
their return, she was willing to bet they were mixed up in this somehow. She
swore silently. What should she do now? On the one hand she now had someone to
lead her to the fulcrum. On the other, doing this closed a lot of options to
her. Joss would never pardon someone who stole from him.

She could still walk away. Pretend
she hadn’t seen anything and disappear. Even as she thought it, she knew she
wouldn’t do it. Not when the Red Lady’s face still haunted her and not when Umi
had the chance to succeed at whatever she had planned. Tate had never before
let someone betray her and get away with it; she wasn’t about to start now.

She hardened her heart against any
misgivings about stealing from Joss. They’d fired the first salvo by hiding
their actions, and she’d be damned to the abyss before she’d roll over.

Tapping Dewdrop on the shoulder,
she motioned for him to follow her. She was careful as she moved from shadow to
shadow, never exposing herself for too long. She made sure she kept an eye out
for men who’d been positioned to watch for people tailing anyone returning to
the hideout. She’d been on lookout more than once herself and knew the favored
spots.

She pointed one out to Dewdrop
before ducking into an alley and running along a parallel street to catch up to
Danny again. They had to detour several more times for similar reasons before
Danny and his friend disappeared into a small wooden building built on one of
the piers. It was more of a boathouse than a warehouse, a place where fishermen
could unload their catch directly into rooms specially built to freeze the
fish. There’d even be room for a small boat in case they needed to escape.

“Is this it?”

She nodded. The boy had done a
pretty good job following her lead and hadn’t asked a lot of questions. He was
adept at slipping unseen through shadows and had pointed out more than one
sentry. She was beginning to like the idea of them teaming up more and more.

“This wasn’t even on my list,” he
grumbled.

She snorted. Probably not. Jost was
incredibly good at keeping operations hidden. He had to be to avoid heat from
the Emperor’s justice. It was sheer luck they’d happened on Danny and Trent and
were able to follow them back to their hideout.

Tate’s hands were sweating, and she
wiped them on her pants. She hadn’t thought she’d be this nervous. But she had
first hand experience with how careful Jost was when setting up a perimeter. In
the time she’d traveled with him he’d never had a cargo lifted, and there were
plenty of people who tried. A big part of her wanted to walk away and forget
about the fulcrum. If she did that she’d have to leave Aurelia. She considered
that for a moment. She had no real ties to the city. No friends, no
connections. It would be easy to leave and find somewhere else to settle.

She just couldn’t do that. There
was a stubborn piece of her that refused to relinquish her spot here. She had
learned more about her past in the three days she had been in town than in the
entire eight months she spent traveling. She couldn’t help but hope that
staying meant learning more pieces of the puzzle.

Dewdrop didn’t look any more
convinced of their success than she did and regarded the boathouse with a
skeptical expression. He’d heard stories of the Pirate Captain Jost and how
ruthless he was. Stealing his cargo seemed a sure way to a shortened life span.

“Are you sure you want to do this?”
he asked echoing Tate’s thoughts.

Not wanting to be exposed while
they did their planning, they’d broken into a building across the street. Each
had staked out their own window and peered out of it, careful not to be seen by
any on the street. He crawled under his window and over to Tate, sitting with
his back against the wall at her feet.

“Yes.” No. “We need a bargaining
chip. It’ll be fine.” It probably wouldn’t. “I’ll understand if you don’t want
to help. Angering Jost isn’t something you signed up for.” She hadn’t either.

He stared out the window. She
couldn’t really blame him. She had to do this, and even she had doubts. For
someone who had no real vested interest in events, it would take a lot of
courage or stupidity to walk the path she was about to travel.

She went back to looking out the
window. There was no way to make it across the street to the boathouse without
being seen. A distraction might get her across, but it wouldn’t last long
enough to get in and out without getting caught.

How should she do this?

Her eyes caught movement in the
water. At first, she couldn’t quite make out what the objects were, but as her
eyes adjusted she could see boats, hundreds of them as they floated in the
harbor. Dim lights bobbed among the waves.

“What time do you think it is?” she
asked.

Dewdrop looked up at her in question.
“About ten.”

He got up to see what had caught
her attention and studied the water. The Donza Festival would really kick off
in two hours, with everything before a lead up to the main events, and it
looked like many had decided to take their party onto the water. The boats had
begun to clump into clusters creating makeshift rafts that their occupants used
to share food, drink and music. Because of the unique formation of the harbor,
the waters were calm with only gentle rolling waves. With the chain dropped
across its mouth, the revelers were corralled in its arms with little danger of
floating out to sea by accident.