Dragon-Ridden

by T. A. White

  She bowed her head and the words for a prayer came to her. “May Death keep you and guide you to the shadowed realm. May he care for you and hold you against the anything that might hurt you. May he shelter and comfort you until your loved ones join you in that peaceful place.” She picked up his hand and clasped it in hers. This part was from her. She knelt and said into his ear, “I won’t forget your sacrifice, and I’ll make sure the rest of the world knows it too. Find peace in the land beyond death, you deserve it. I’ll see you on the other side.”

  Night peered over her shoulder. That was beautiful.

  “Thanks,” she said softly. She looked up at him. “We need to cover him properly.”

  He padded over to the bed, pulling one of the sheets off with his teeth, and dragged it over to Tate. She took it gratefully and spread it over Tempest, hesitating before pulling it up over his face. She wished she could remember his real name, not the one she’d called him by. She was sure Umi had mentioned it at some point, but she hadn’t been paying attention and had forgotten it quickly.

  They stepped out of the room after they’d tended to Tempest, neither one of them able to stay with the body. Tate took a seat on the stairs and rested her head against her folded arms, Night a warm weight as he leaned against her. Tate hadn’t known Tempest long and of that time they’d been adversaries for most of it. She’d found him rigid and unwilling to see things through other’s eyes. Her face crumpled. But he’d been noble and good, willing to die to protect another. He’d deserved better than being stabbed in the back by a gutless coward.

  What should we do now? Night asked.

  Tate shook her head. There was nothing to do. All of their cards had been played and the consequence of their failure was in the other room.

  Night’s whiskers brushed Tate’s skin, and she jerked when he stuck his wet nose in her ear. She put one hand up to the offended ear and shot him a scandalized glare.

  “What are you doing?”

  His tail swished as he gave her an expectant look. What do we do now?

  “Nothing,” she yelled. “There’s nothing we can do. You heard Ryu. He wants us to stay here, and we’ve already screwed everything else up, so I’m inclined to listen to him for once. Besides we’d just get in the way if we went down there.”

  You’re feeling sorry for yourself, he observed lifting his lip to show one fang.

  Stung, she said, “There’s a difference between feeling sorry for myself and accepting defeat.”

  Well while you’re ‘accepting defeat’ maybe you can see your way to remembering that the Red Lady was driven out of her territory when we drove the Tsuchigon into it.

  She propped a chin on one hand. “So?”

  He huffed at her. She would have found someplace deeper and not normally associated with her name to hide. If a cat could roll his eyes, Night would have. Ryu and the Kairi are probably heading for the old hide out. The one where she won’t be.

  Tate’s face was thoughtful as she drummed her fingers on her thigh. “That doesn’t mean she’ll be any easier for us to find.”

  True, but I spent a lot of time down there and know many of the places she might have retreated to.

  She nodded slowly. If they went down there, they could rescue Dewdrop and clue Ryu and his friends in on the real location. She rubbed at a spot of blood on her pants. Utterly aside from the rescue mission, there’d be the very real possibility of settling debts with a couple of false friends.

  “You really want to go down there again?” Tate asked Night.

  Don’t you?

  “No.” Tate rolled her head around her shoulders then reached up and massaged her neck. “Yes,” she finally said.

  He gave her a feline smirk and bounded down the stairs.

  “I’m not going down there again without a plan,” she shouted after him. “And supplies.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” Tate said in disgruntlement to Night’s back.

  After all her promises to never set foot in the tunnels again, here she was meekly following as Night led her deeper and deeper underground.

  So you’ve said. Over and over, Night said. You don’t have to do this, you know

  “You know I do. Everybody is so focused on Umi and the fulcrum. Nobody’s concerned about Dewdrop. It’s my fault he got mixed up in this.” Tate’s throat tightened with emotion. “We never should have stayed in the room. I forgot Umi knew about it. I should have been more careful. More alert.”

  Night’s ears flickered back and forth. We’re getting close.

  Tate hugged the wall behind him. She strained her ears but couldn’t hear anything. Her hearing still wasn’t back to normal after the thumper. Night’s either, but he relied on smell just as much as his ears. His hearing had always been exponentially better than Tate’s anyway, so even damaged he could detect movement from a fair distance.

  “Remember the plan,” Tate told him. “We’re only going to confirm the presence of Umi and the fulcrum, then you’ll go find Ryu and lead him back here. We don’t make a move until then.”

  Her face was serious as she met his eyes. She didn’t intend this to be a suicide mission. That would leave Dewdrop and the boy at the Red Lady’s mercy, and that was unacceptable. Even revenge came second to getting the two boys out.

  Night flicked his tail and prowled down the tunnel, Tate following behind as silently as she could. Luckily for them, this was an older section of the catacombs. One that had been half underwater. They’d gotten a little wet as they waded up to one of the drier sections. The water level must have been lower when these things were first built because other tunnels they’d past had been fully submerged. Night had assured her very few knew about this entrance. He’d stumbled on them by chance and almost drowned when the tide came back in unexpectedly. For that reason, they’d passed no guards and weren’t likely to. A continuous breeze brought the smell of salt water through the gaping cracks where water had worn them down over time. Tate’s foot slipped on a slick rock she’d been trying to use as a steppingstone. Unlike the dry tunnels, this one had rocks and silt littering the floor.

  We’re here, Night whispered before stopping and listening. Tate froze. She didn’t see anything.

  This tunnel, unlike the others, was clearly above the waterline and didn’t have to contend with puddles and sand as they had with the previous tunnels. Unfortunately, their way forward was blocked by a cave-in. It was the first sign of major damage to any of the tunnel’s structure that she’d seen. She looked enquiringly at Night. He reared up on his hind legs and indicated a narrow hole in the rock next to the collapse.

  Her eyebrows rose. He expected her to crawl through there? Was he crazy? He climbed up and belly crawled through the opening. Within moments he’d disappeared inside. Evidently he was. Tate had no choice but to follow or be left to find her way back out. She chose to follow.

  It was with much mental swearing and lost skin on her elbows and back that she made her way after Night. How she envied his paws right now. And his fur. She crashed into Night’s hind legs when he stopped unexpectedly. With a curse she backed up. He should have warned her he was stopping, she thought, rubbing her head. She tried to look around him to see what was causing the holdup, but with Night’s bulk in front she couldn’t see much except fur and darkness.

  Tate settled for grabbing Night’s tail and shaking it. He didn’t answer so she pulled harder. He jerked and then kicked back letting her have a paw to the face. She let go and spit out the dirt and fur he’d left behind. After being pinched once more, he flicked his tail at her.

  Wait.

  The dirt in front of her face plumed up from her sigh as she plunked her chin on her arms. Tate hated waiting. Especially when she couldn’t tell what was happening. She just had to trust that Night knew what he was doing. Not her strong point.

  With nothing else to do, she got to thinking about the very small space she was in. Not a good th
ought to have. Perhaps she should think of other things, like how this small tunnel had been formed. She chewed on her lip. That was a good question. It hadn’t been built as the others had in an almost perfect rectangular path. It wasn’t very big either with barely enough space to crawl through on her stomach. This one was much more circular and whatever had made it had left deep groves on the wall. She held one hand up to a mark as long as her forearm. Maybe this wasn’t a good line of thinking after all.

  Night crawled forward flinging dirt back into Tate’s face. She shook her head sharply, not wanting to use her hands to clean her face, since they were equally as filthy, then hurried in his wake. She wanted out of this place as quickly as possible before whatever had made those marks came back.

  As they crawled, they began to hear human voices. The volume rose until the sound felt like it was coming right from under them. Tate put one ear to the ground, listening. Her heart leapt when she made out the high and slightly manic laughter of the Red Lady and the deep baritones of her guards. Yet she didn’t hear Umi or the boy.

  The murmur of sound overlapped and erased the distinct words, leaving only the rise and fall of pitches. It was impossible to make out what they were talking about. Damn it.

  Night kicked her to signal they were moving again. Tate’s ouch was mental, knowing that their enemies were right under them and could probably hear her if she was loud enough.

  Night’s eyes glowed blue briefly from the reflected light as he bared his teeth in a silent hiss before he turned and crawled again, Tate following.

  Tate dropped down to land silently beside Night. The room they’d tumbled into had oddly shaped chairs bolted to the floor and empty floor-length glass capsules looming from the shadows. Tate shivered at the sight, reminded of another chamber similar to this one. Glass crunched under foot as she moved to a pile of fallen rubble against the ruins of one wall. Night had bounded up it and then belly climbed into a small crevasse. He looked back at her and then bobbed his head at the small horizontal crack in the wall. Tate bared her teeth in distaste and rubbed her smarting elbow. She really didn’t want to have to fit through any more crawl spaces.

  Night seemed content to crouch and peer up into the next chamber. Rocks shifted underfoot as Tate stumbled up beside him and gingerly lowered herself onto her belly. Voices spilled from the crack along with small slivers of light. Interested, Tate wedged herself further into the small space, knocking her head on rock a few times before she finally maneuvered so she could see into the next room. The crack she used to spy on the next chamber with was no more than inches apart allowing a narrow view of their neighbors. The levels of the two rooms must have been off because Tate’s vantage point was very close to the floor, but it was enough. She gasped and pressed closer when she caught a glimpse of the boy known as the fulcrum.

  He had been stripped to the waist and tied with his arms behind his back. A chained collar wrapped around his neck to latch securely onto the stone floor. A diagram had been etched into that same floor in a complicated pattern Tate could only half see.

  She carefully wiggled away from the wall, laboriously backing herself away from the crevasse and looked at Night with worry. “We found them.” She was a little stunned. She hadn’t really thought they’d be successful. The catacombs were huge and they were just two people. She’d prepared herself for the possibility that they’d stumble around down here for hours, maybe days of fruitless searching. The fact that they’d found their quarry so quickly was amazing but also just a little unfortunate.

  Finding the Red Lady and her companions so easily and quickly wasn’t the good news that it seemed. They’d been hoping to find her much further in and not so close to the ocean entrance. According to Night, the Red Lady’s former hideout was located right off the Night Market under the heart of the Lower City. Their current location, however, was right under the cliffs, not far from the sea. Nowhere close to the night market. To get Ryu and the others meant going through several dangerous tunnels inhabited by all sorts of creatures. Distance wise it wasn’t too bad, maybe an hour out and then an hour back. That’s if Night could find a direct path, didn’t get lost, or have to back track because of Tsuchigon and some of the other dangerous tunnel dwellers. Even Night would have a tough time navigating the maze of catacombs.

  This was made worse by the fact that it looked like whatever was going to happen was going to happen soon. Probably as soon as Umi and Kadien showed up.

  She bit her lip and glanced at the crevasse. They had to try. “Get going,” she told him firmly. “I won’t act unless absolutely necessary.”

  His tail drooped, and he butted his head against her. Don’t die.

  She raised a hand in goodbye as he loped out of the room. “I’ll do my best.” Silently, Tate urged him to hurry.

  Tate settled down to wait, her back against the wall. Time passed agonizingly slowly now that they had found the boys, and Night had gone to get help. Her stomach was an anxious mass of nerves as she calculated the odds of their plan meeting with success.

  Any way she figured it, the odds favored their enemies.

  Eventually she wound up on her side, her back pressed against the opening of the crevasse, staring blankly at the glass silhouettes. Though every fiber of her being called for action, intellectually she knew they had to wait.

  She folded her arms and tapped her foot. One thing she still couldn’t figure out was how Lucius had known about the key in the first place. Then there was Ai, the odd little girl they’d found in the tunnels who knew much more than she should. Above all, why hadn’t Umi and her friends grabbed Tate if they thought she had the key? The thumper had knocked her out. It would have been easy to grab Tate too. None of it made sense. There were all these bits and pieces that not only didn’t seem to fit together, but they didn’t even feel like they were part of the same puzzle.

  There was a loud commotion in the other room. Tate lifted her head and listened. Faint chanting reached her, its rhythmic cadence rising in strength. It sounded like whatever was happening had started. Tate crawled into the tight space and pressed herself against the wall to peer out her spy hole. Legs blocked her view. She cursed silently and shifted back and forth trying to see something. Anything.

  Night hadn’t been gone long. Half an hour at most. And that was being rather generous with time. She rested her head against the cool stone.

  From the sounds of things Umi hadn’t arrived yet. Tate doubted with all the trouble the woman had went through to secure the child that she’d miss the action. It was a huge gamble to assume that, though.

  Tate banged her head against the rock.

  Dirt sprinkled down on her as feet shuffled and one of the men standing next to her little hiding place laughed. Tate lifted her head and craned her neck to look out her vantage point. She needed more information before she took any action. She’d act if need be, but not until the absolutely last moment.

  “What are you doing?” asked a voice next to her ear.

  Tate squealed and jumped, hitting her head against rock. She flailed trying to get out of the tight spot she was wedged in, but only succeeded in getting herself stuck.

  “Did you hear something?” a voice asked from the chamber.

  Tate held her breath and stayed perfectly still, not even blinking, certain that any moment now they’d bend down and discover her spying on them.

  “No,” his friend replied in a bored tone.

  Tate released her breath and relaxed, every muscle loosening in relief. She tensed as she remembered what had led her to squeal in the first place. Dreading what she’d find, she inched out of the crawl space and straightened to meet a pair of very blue eyes, not inches from hers. She nearly screamed again and jumped away, her heart thumping painfully in her chest.

  She put one hand to her chest and took a deep breath. “Ai, you startled me.” She dropped her hand and tilted her head in confusion. “What are you doing here?”

  Ai mirrored Tate by tilting h
er head. “You didn’t come to visit.”

  Tate blinked at her blankly. What? Oh, that’s right, the girl had wanted her to visit. Tate had forgotten. Telling Ai that she’d been busy with more important things didn’t seem like a good idea so she told a half-truth. “I wanted to come, but I had to save my friends first.”

  “The power source and experiment 553’s descendent?”

  Tate’s eyebrows furrowed as she deciphered Ai’s words. “Yes?” her tone made it a question.

  “It will not work.”

  Tate lowered her chin and set her jaw stubbornly. “You don’t know that.”

  Ai’s body was still as she stared blankly at Tate. “Experiment 1269 is currently heading in the opposite direction of the Red Lady’s former hide out. If one factors in his rate of speed, the number of times he is likely to lose his way and the detours he will have to take to avoid the more hostile inhabitants, he will not arrive with reinforcements for another three hours.”

  Tate wiggled her jaw and crossed her arms. “It’s a good thing they haven’t started yet on the boy, then.”

  “I do not understand why you feel you must interfere,” Ai said stiffly. “You are not related to either one, and if my hypothesis is correct, you just recently met them. Am I wrong?”

  “You’re not wrong.”

  “Then why risk your life? There is no benefit to you.”

  Tate sighed and crouched down next to the crevasse. She didn’t have time for all these questions; she needed to get back in there to gather information. She paused before crawling beneath the stone overhang. “What do you see when you look in the mirror?”

  Ai’s hands fluttered at her waist as the slightest crease registered on her forehead. Her eyes met Tate’s. “I do not look in mirrors.”

  Tate’s lips quirked. She’d suspected as much. “Perhaps you should start.”