'Mount your chariot,' Hilto ordered, and Nefer and Meren climbed to the footplate. Nefer gathered up the reins. Dov and Krus arched their necks, stamped and backed up a single turn of the wheels.
'Bring on the birds!' Hilto ordered.
The handlers climbed into the circular sanded cockpit, each with a fighting cock under his arm. The wattles of both birds had been cut away so their heads were sleek, almost reptilian, with no dangling flesh or skin to give the enemy bird purchase. The sunlight gleamed on their plumage with the iridescence of oil spilled on water.
A tense, aching silence fell over the crowded forum. The handlers knelt, facing each other, in the centre of the sanded pit, and held their birds in front of them. The birds did not have artificial spurs strapped to their feet: the long metal spikes would make a kill too swift and certain, but their natural spurs had been sharpened and polished.
'Bait your birds!' Hilto called, and the handlers thrust them at each other, without allowing them to touch. The eyes of the two roosters gleamed with malice, their heads began to swell with rage and the naked skin of their heads and throats turned an angry crimson. They beat their wings, and tried to break from the handlers' grip to fly at each other.
With his drawn sword Hilto pointed across the forum at the ruined roof of the temple of Bes, the patron god of Gallala, where a blue flag flapped idly in the hot breeze. 'The novices will start when the birds are released. The flag will be lowered when one of the birds is killed, and only then will the chase begin. The Red God, in his infinite wisdom, will determine how long the birds will survive and how long the lead time will be. Now, hold yourselves in readiness.'
Every eye, even those of Nefer and Meren, turned to the challenging cock-birds. Hilto lifted his sword. The birds' hackles were raised, they were crimson with rage, fighting to be at each other.
'Now!' cried Hilto, and the handlers set them free. They flew across the sand in a flutter of bright wings, leaping high, thrusting with claws and spurs.
'Ha, Dov! Ha, Krus!' Nefer called and they sprang away, throwing gravel and dust from under their hoofs. A mighty shout went up from the crowd and the chariot raced once around the forum then out into the open avenue. Behind them the cheering faded as they tore through the gates and turned on to the track that led into the hills, its length marked every two hundred paces with white linen flags, which shook and flapped lazily in the early breeze that came in off the desert. 'Keep the flags to the right!' Meren reminded Nefer. If they missed a flag on the wrong side the judges would send them back to round it fairly.
While he drove, saving the horses, bringing them down to a trot as the slope rose steeply under them Nefer assessed that breeze by flag and dust, judging its strength and direction. It was coming harsh and hot from the west, strong enough to blow the dustcloud aside behind them. This was the worst possible wind. It would drain the horses, and confuse the range when they came to the trial of javelin and bow. He thrust the thought aside to concentrate first on the ascent of the hills.
The gradient tilted sharply upwards, and at a word of command from Nefer they sprang down from the footplate and ran beside the horses, to lighten the burden. Dov and Krus surged ahead so strongly that they had to take a grip on the harness to keep pace with them. As they reached the crest, Nefer halted them and let them rest for a measured three hundred beats of his own heart.
He looked back at the city walls below and heard the regular roar swelling and subsiding like the sound of distant surf on a coral reef, the characteristic sound of the cockfight as the crowd hailed each attack of the birds. But the flag still flew on the crumbling top of the temple of Bes to signal that the fight had not been decided. He turned away and looked down the length of the level plain that stretched ahead, and picked out the line of javelin butts, five of them spaced at intervals of two hundred paces. There was a low fence of thorn brush running parallel to them that would keep the chariot at a range of fifty paces.
Nefer jumped to the footplate, and called, 'Come away!' and the pair strode forward. He glanced back and the blue flag still flew on the tower of Bes.
As they raced in on the line of targets, Nefer wound the thong around his wrist and composed himself, seeing in his mind's eye the target, imagining the flight of the missile from his hand to the inner red circle, ignoring the yellow outer. He watched the wind moving the flags.
He saw Shabako standing on a low knoll near the centre of the line. He would show a red flag for an inner, and a yellow for a miss. They carried only five javelins, and they would be allowed only one yellow. If they failed on the first run they must turn back, retrieve the thrown javelins, and run again until they had scored the four reds.
Nefer handed the reins to Meren, who steered in close to the dividing fence to give Nefer the best shot. The first target came up fast, and Nefer braced himself on the bouncing swerving footplate.
'Nile!' He gave the command and instantly Dov and Krus changed their gait into that wonderful gliding motion. The chariot steadied under him and he rode the easy movement with his legs and he threw. There was never a doubt from the moment the javelin left his hand, its velocity accelerated by the whip of the thong - he had allowed for the wind. It flew fifty paces swinging across the wind into the heart of the red circle, and from the corner of his eye Nefer saw Shabako wave the red flag to acknowledge the strike. He snatched another javelin from the bin, and wound the thong. He felt a supreme almost godlike confidence: he knew that the next four darts would fly as true as the first. He watched the second target come up, and he threw again. It was another perfect throw. He did not even have to glance at the flag, and beside him Meren shouted, 'Bak-her, brother!' and steered for the third.
They were running in close, and the thorn fence flew by the off-wheel in a blur. Nefer lined up and whipped his right arm into the throw, and at exactly that moment the wheel touched the fence and the chariot swerved violently and hung for a moment on the verge of capsizing. The horses pulled it straight with their combined weight, but the javelin was already in flight. With despair in his heart Nefer saw it fly wide, missing the target completely, and the yellow flag went up.
'It was me,' Meren gritted. 'I ran too fine.'
'Hold her true now,' Nefer snapped at him. 'We need two more reds.'
The fourth target came up but Nefer felt the altered motion under him. Krus was leading with the wrong foot, the collision with the fence had unbalanced him.
'Ho, Krus,' Meren called, and tried to steady him with the touch of reins. Then Dov leaned lightly against him and he felt her rhythm and picked up the step from her just as the fourth target came up.
Nefer threw and beside him Meren called, 'Red! A clean hit. You have done it.'
'Not yet,' Nefer told him, and snatched the last javelin from the bin. 'One more to go.'
