Free Risuko by David Kudler

grove’s close quarters. I angled toward what looked like a clearing, hoping to get past her without her knowing. In my mind, I imagined sitting on the road, cleaning my nails as she stumbled out onto the switchback.
    Caught up in my own exhilaration and my rage, I burst out into the clearing without looking at what I was running into—another mistake.
    The clearing had been created by the fall of a large cedar. At one end, another cedar grew up from the old tree’s rotted trunk, smaller than its parent but much taller than the tangled juniper that surrounded it. In its lower branches stood a man in a brown cloak peering down toward where the road was. At the cedar’s base stood two other men, also in brown, with bows. Alerted by my noisy arrival, they were both staring at me. One of them raised his bow to shoot at me, and I tried to turn back up the hill, only to slip on the mulch of the fallen tree and tumble right at his feet.
    At the same moment, a loud shout above me announced that Toumi had fallen into the clearing as well. With a thud and a grunt, she too fell to the ground, just where the other man could step over, grab her by the neck of her jacket, pull her up, and shove her against the cedar.
    Trying to reach my feet, I stumbled against the man above me, sending his arrow flitting off harmlessly into the trees. Without a sound, the man clamped his hand over my mouth and pushed me against the rough bark of the cedar. I heard the hiss of a blade being drawn and screamed into the man’s hand.
    â€œDon’t kill ‘em yet,” came a loud whisper from the man above. “Even if we can’t get anything off of this bunch, we can still sell these two.”
    â€œYou sure, boss?” The man’s face was masked with a strip of cloth, so that I could only see his eyes squinting at me. “This one’s awful scrawny.”
    â€œShut up,” hissed the man above. “They’re probably reaching the switchback soon. I need to get down to the look-out. Tie these two up. Gag ‘em. Me and Sanjiro are going down by the road to signal the others. Shirogawa, you guard these runts and get the horses ready.” With that, he leapt from the branch he was standing on down into the juniper behind us.
    I heard a smack and a grunt, and felt a weight slam against my shoulder.
    The man raised his knife, and I screamed again into his hand, but he was lifting it to Toumi’s throat. She started to snarl at him, but stopped suddenly with a gulp as the blade bit into her flesh. “ ‘Tie ‘em up,’ the man says,” he muttered, followed by a string of words that I had never heard, not even after nearly seven days of traveling with soldiers. He leaned his body heavily against me, so that I couldn’t move—I could barely breathe—yanked the cloth mask from his face, balled it up and shoved it in my mouth. Pushing back his leather helmet, he pulled off the greasy cap beneath and did the same to Toumi. When she tried to fight, he growled, “I’d be just as happy to kill you both, girl. We ain’t here for no slaves. But if Tanaka says to keep you, I’ll keep you. Now shut up and stay still.”
    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.
    â€œThere,” 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,