Heaven's Net Is Wide Lian Hearn (leveled readers .TXT) 📖

There was no wind, no sound at all other than the mewing of kites and the clamor of cicadas.

He woke to the same sounds, drank again, and went back to the track. As he came to the pass, he could see all the way back across Yaegahara and as far as the sea to the north. The sun was well over to the west; he thought it would be two hours or so before sunset-but anyway he planned to walk all night, south to the mountains behind Inuyama.

He made the descent quickly in the cooler air, always listening for the sounds of human activity on the track ahead. But he was almost in the valley and the light was fading before he came suddenly on the mining party.

They had stopped to rest by a small pool, presumably for the night. The miners, men and women tied together, some hardly out of childhood, had fallen to the ground where they had halted, and slept as if already dead, like grotesque heaps of corpses. No one had made fire: a group of armed men-five by his swift count-squatted at the head of the line, eating cold food from a shared box and passing a bamboo flask around. They ate in complete silence.

Their hands went to their swords when they saw Shigeru: he greeted them briefly and walked on past them, ready at any moment to turn to meet their attack with Jato. Their glances were suspicious; they did not jump on him, possibly deterred by his sword, but one of them called to him, “Sir, just a moment, please.”

He turned: the man who had spoken stepped toward him, a large soldier with an air of authority, not the sort of person he would have expected to find guarding what was little more than a bunch of slaves. Shigeru felt he knew him, might have seen him once years ago when Iida had ridden away from Chigawa. He stood and waited impassively.

The soldier peered up into his face. Recognition flickered into his eyes.

“Is it you?” he began but got no further, as a disturbance erupted behind him among the prostrate bodies. One of the miners was screaming, thrashing against his bonds, tossing those tied to him from side to side, their bony arms rising and falling as though thrown up by the sea.

Shigeru saw Komori, the man who had saved Iida’s life, the Underground Emperor. He realized that Komori knew him, that this was a ploy to save Shigeru’s life, and, in the instant it took to draw Jato, that he would die here rather than abandon him.

The large man screamed to the others, “It is Otori! Don’t kill him! He must be taken alive.” Shigeru struck him from behind, in the neck, severing the spinal cord. Two others had seized a net, with which they trapped villagers to abduct them into the mines. He evaded their first throw, ducking under it and cutting one of them upward deep into the thigh, opening the main artery of the leg. As the wounded man fell, his net descended over him, enmeshing him. Shigeru rolled backward, using his left shoulder to propel himself out of the reach of the fourth man; he landed on his feet and in the same movement went forward and brought Jato down on this man’s right arm, severing it. The fifth man rushed at him, but the roped miners rose like one shuffling beast and wound themselves around him. He cut vainly at them, but they overpowered him and brought him down.

Shigeru ended the lives of the three who still breathed; then, taking out his short sword, he cut the bonds of the prisoners, starting with Komori.

Many of them were wailing with distress and fear; most of them, as soon as they were released, ran to the pool to slake their thirst and then disappeared into the forest.

Komori was bleeding from a cut under his armpit. It was impossible to tell in the fading light how deep it was. Shigeru washed it as best he could and packed it with moss from around the tree roots. Neither of them spoke at first. Komori’s eyes glittered; he was so thin his bones seemed to glimmer palely through his taut skin.

“We have a few hours’ start,” he said, getting to his feet and wincing. “We are not expected at the mine until tomorrow midday. Lord Otori must be on the other side of Yaegahara by then.” He looked at the dead men, kicked their leader, and spat on him. “None of them will talk!”

“What about the prisoners?”

“They will go home-until they are kidnapped again. This is what life is like for us under the Tohan. They will not want to betray you, but no one knows what he will blab out under torture. That’s why you must go now, as fast as you can.”

“I would take you with me,” Shigeru said. “But I am not going back. I am going on.”

“They will come after you. Moreover, you are heading straight toward Iida himself. He is combing that whole area”-he jerked his head toward the southeast-“searching for those poor wretches they call the Hidden.”

“That’s why I must get to a place called Mino. There is someone there I have to save from Iida.”

“Then while I can walk, I will come with you. I think you will go faster with me to guide you. I’ve never been to Mino, but I know Hinode: there’s an old mine there. Mino is not far away. Loyalty to the Heron! It will be my last act of service to you.”

Komori muttered one last curse as they left the bodies. “How I’ve longed for this day, to see that brute dead. Iida gave us to each other. He has a flair for matching people up like that. He never forgot me, how I made him strip naked and leave his swords behind, and saved his life. This was my reward: to be kept alive in the mines with