The Ring of Earth - Chris Bradford [84]
Akiko immediately refocused on the task in hand, and turned to Miyuki. ‘What’s taking you so long?’
‘None of the keys work!’ Miyuki replied in annoyance. ‘I’ve tried them all twice.’
Akiko snatched the keys from her, but she didn’t have any luck either. In frustration she grabbed the bars, pulling futilely at them.
‘I could pick the lock,’ Jack suggested. ‘Tenzen, have you got a needle shuriken?’
Tenzen handed him the thinnest one he had. But the lock proved more resistant than the one on the cage. The tip jammed and he almost broke it off.
‘It’s no use,’ said Jack after his fifth attempt.
Akiko gripped the bars again in desperation, the torment of being so close yet so far from her little brother almost too much to bear.
‘Who would hold the key?’ asked Shonin calmly.
With cold certainty, Jack knew.
‘Gemnan.’
51
SLEEPING SAMURAI
‘Time is not on our side,’ Tenzen cautioned as Jack and Miyuki prepared for their mission to find the key. ‘There could be a change of guard at any moment.’ ‘Are you certain you know where his room is?’ asked Miyuki.
‘It’s on the second floor,’ Jack replied, praying his memory served him right. ‘After my meeting with daimyo Akechi, I was dragged out by the guards. But we briefly stopped on the stairs halfway down, while Gemnan went to his room. He’d joked he had to get the key to my lodgings!’
‘Jack, please get the key,’ implored Akiko, still kneeling beside the pit. ‘I want my Kiyoshi out of this hellhole and home where he belongs.’
‘Leave no trace and stay invisible,’ said Zenjubo, handing Jack his kaginawa climbing rope.
Like Momochi, he was unhappy about sending Jack, but he was the only one with personal knowledge of the keep’s layout. Miyuki had volunteered to go with him as her exceptional shinobi aruki skills would be required.
‘Jack,’ called Soke from the pit. ‘I have faith in you, but remember the rice paper. A tear is a tear.’
‘It’ll be like stealing a pillow from under your head,’ replied Jack, though in truth they both knew this wasn’t the case. This time the lives and future of the clan were at stake.
‘May the Five Rings guide you,’ said Shonin as the two of them set off.
Miyuki led the way, vaulting on top of the wall and darting along its length. Jack followed close behind, leaping from wall to wall and roof to roof in the direction of the keep. They reached it without resistance, only encountering a samurai patrol in the last courtyard. Once the guards had turned the corner, the two of them jumped down and ran over to its base. The keep presented greater challenges than the castle wall had. The first-floor shutters were closed and the lower roof jutted out. Somehow they’d have to negotiate the overhanging eaves to reach the second floor.
Miyuki took the kaginawa, spinning its grappling hook in one hand, and threw it high into the air. The rope wrapped round a gargoyle of a tiger-headed fish that projected from the curved roof two storeys up. She gave the kaginawa a tug, checking it was secure, before climbing the rope. Jack held it steady as she hauled herself up. As soon as she had negotiated the eaves and got a footing on the roof, she beckoned him to follow.
Jack grabbed hold of the kaginawa and shot up the rope with practised ease. For one brief moment, he even imagined he was in the rigging of the Alexandria, the wind blowing in his face and the waves crashing far below. He was snapped out of his reverie by Miyuki urgently gesturing to him. Jack wondered why she was being so impatient.
Then he heard the voices. The patrol was coming back.
His muscles straining, one hand after the next, he shimmied up the kaginawa as if the rope was burning like a fuse behind him. The voices were getting louder, the footsteps closer. He leapt for the roof and Miyuki snapped up the rope seconds before the patrol rounded the corner. Breathing hard, Jack and Miyuki crouched in the shadows while the samurai passed beneath them.
Jack whispered, ‘That was too close –’
Miyuki put a hand over his mouth, silencing him.