Risuko: A Kunoichi Tale (Seasons of the Sword #1)(19)

Putting down his bow, but with his knife still at Toumi’s throat, he pulled a length of thin cord from beneath his cloak and tied it quickly around first my wrists and then Toumi’s. Squinting at us and then up at the tree, he spied the thick lower branches of the cedar. The cord went sailing over the branch and he caught it, then quickly pulled at it, so that our wrists were yanked in the air.

Toumi was standing on tiptoe; I, being shorter, was actually dangling by my wrists, which were burning as the cord cut into them.

“There,” grunted the squinty man with satisfaction. “That ought to hold you two.” Keeping the tension on our arms, he ran the cord over to one of the juniper trees and tied it off. Then he came back, picked up his bow, looked at us once more, and grimaced. “‘Look after the horses,’ right.” He gave a nasty laugh. “Damn Tanaka to seven damned hells. Well, you squirts aren’t going anywhere.” He started toward the uphill edge of the clearing, and then turned. “Don’t you get any ideas!” Almost without aiming he sent an arrow at us that missed my elbow by a hand’s breadth.

As soon as he was gone, we started to try to get loose. I was desperately trying to scramble up the bark behind me to take the pressure off, but the more I struggled the tighter the cord was. My hands and wrists were on fire; I could feel blood dribbling down my arms.

I looked at Toumi, who was crying, for which I didn’t blame her at all. Blinking at me, she tried to shove the gag out of her mouth. When that failed, she howled in frustration, but began lifting up with her chin and looking upward, as if she were trying to tell me to climb.

Climb? Climb what? I looked up; the branch wasn’t that far overhead, but there was no way to climb to it—

Toumi kicked me, then lifted her chin again, first up, and then to the side. When I didn’t respond, she growled and did it again. CLIMB ME!

Ah! I threw my legs around her waist as if she were herself a small pine and shimmied up. Immediately, the pressure on my wrists lessened, and I almost passed out from the relief, sliding back down so that cords began to bite back into my flesh.

Toumi growled, waking me to my purpose again, and, using my legs and—once I’d worked my way up just a bit—grabbing on to the cord itself, I climbed until the cord looped around my wrists fell away and I dropped to the ground.

The relief was so intense that for a second I couldn’t stand, but Toumi started kicking dirt on me. I yanked the gag from my mouth. “I’ll untie it from the other end. I can’t cut it from—”

She shook her head emphatically, screaming through the rag stuffed in her mouth, then threw her legs up over my shoulders. Realizing what she was trying to do, I did my best to lift her until at last she was able to work her wrists free—releasing Toumi’s full weight onto me. I collapsed to the ground beneath her.

We rolled apart, gasping for breath and shaking the blood and feeling back into our hands.

A shadow blocked the sun shining on my sweat-slick face, and I gasped, sure that the bandit had come back to kill us in spite of the ringleader Tanaka’s orders.

“Well done, Risuko-chan, Toumi-chan,” said a warm, hushed voice.

Mieko-san stood above us, her dagger in her hand, a twig in her hair the only other sign that the situation was at all unusual.

“But... but...!” spluttered Toumi. “I saw you riding away with the others!”

“Did you?” Mieko smiled mildly. “Come, girls. We must hurry.”

“The man,” I gasped, standing and brushing myself off. “The one who tied us up—”

“—is not likely to bother us.”

“Really?” asked Toumi, eyes fierce, staring at Mieko’s knife.

“I cut loose the horses,” said Mieko, pursing her lips. “When I last saw him, he was trying to chase them down, and that should take some time.”

“Oh,” muttered Toumi.

“But we need to warn the others. They’ll have just started back this way from the switchback. If we can warn them...” Mieko frowned. “But I don’t want to risk exposing you to these bandits, or...” Her eyes swept around the clearing, ending on the cedar to which we’d been tied. Her eyes narrowed and she walked toward the tree, plucking the arrow that had nearly pierced my arm from the bark. She turned. “Risuko,” she said, her voice suddenly low, “do you think it would be quicker for you to scurry through this bramble, or to climb over the top?”

I blinked. “Um. Through the canopy?”

She nodded and pointed to the right of the tree. “Go. Now. That way. Warn Masugu and the rest that there’s an ambush.”

Not waiting for another word, I sprinted to the edge of the clearing and clambered to the matted top of the juniper. Glancing back, I saw Mieko hauling Toumi into hiding in the brush.

The juniper branches were thick and springy. As I burst up through the top layer, I could hear the muted sound of our company. They had just turned at the switchback; squinting, I could just make out Masugu’s tall stallion, where I should have been riding.

I set out at a sprint, running along one bouncy juniper limb, crossing to the next where they crossed. The branches were so thickly overlapping that, while the going was slower than it would have been on open ground, I was moving much faster than I would have through the underbrush below, and with a much clearer sense of where I was going. I zigged and zagged along the treetops for a few heartbeats...