'Halfway through!' Meren tried to sound gay, but his voice was tight with the pain of his cracked ribs, and each breath he drew was agony. They crossed the plateau and reached the far side where the terraces dropped in a series of giant steps to the rim of the chasm. They looked down towards the paddocks and pastures of the irrigated lands, startlingly green against the ochre and dun hues of the surrounding landscape, and the towers and rooftops of Gallala, so tumbled and earth-coloured that from this distance they seemed not man-made but natural features of the desert.
They looked ahead and the chasm gaped at them like the maw of a monster. Its sides were sheer and unscaleable, falling to shaded purple depths. There were small groups of people on the path that skirted the top of the cliffs. These were the spectators who had watched the trial of the javelins and who had taken the short-cut and were hurrying to watch the archery trial.
Nefer drove hard down the terrace, pushing the horses to their best speed, trying to win back even a few yards from the pursuit. This was where Krus made up in full measure for his mistakes at the javelin butts: his great strength bore them on and gave new heart to Dov at his side. They reached the lip of the chasm and raced along the edge, so close to it that the small pebbles thrown up by the wheels were flung out over the void. Though Krus was on the side closest to it he never broke his stride but leaned into the traces and ran with all his heart and will. Nefer felt his spirits soar on high.
'We can still beat them to the bridge,' He shouted in the wind. 'Come away, Krus! Come away, Dov.'
Nefer looked ahead and saw the tall, unmistakable figure of Taita standing on the lip of the precipice. He was staring across the chasm at the archery targets on the far side, and he did not look round as they pulled up behind him and jumped down from the chariot.
The previous evening Taita had predicted, 'With the west wind blowing, the archery and the crossing of the chasm will determine the final outcome. I will wait for you there.'
They took down the bows and arrow quivers from the racks, and left the horse in the care of the waiting grooms as they hurried to join Taita at the edge of the cliff.
'We lost time at the javelin butts,' Nefer told him grimly, as he strung the great war bow, one end anchored on the ground between his feet as he exerted all his strength and weight on the other end to flex the stock.
'Krus was too eager,' Taita said, 'and so were you. But there is no profit in looking back. Look ahead!' He pointed across the deep void to where the targets were suspended on a light bamboo scaffolding.
As at the javelin butts, there were five targets. They were inflated pigs' bladders, each suspended on the crosspiece of the scaffold by a length of flax twine. They were well separated so that an arrow intended for one would not strike another by chance. The twine that held them was two cubits long, so that they had freedom of movement. Light as air they danced on the west wind, bobbing and ducking unpredictably.
The great open void between them made it almost impossible to judge the range accurately, and the west wind swirled and eddied along the cliffs. The force and direction of the wind that they felt on this side of the chasm would be different from that on the far bank. However, it would affect the arrows almost as much as the targets.
'What is the range, Old Father?' Nefer asked, as he chose a long arrow from the quiver. Earlier that morning Taita had paced out one side of a right-angled triangle along this lip of the chasm. Then he had gauged the angle subtended by the targets on the far side with a weird arrangement of pegs and strings on a board. He had used these measurements, in a manner that was unfathomable to Nefer, to calculate the range across the chasm.
'One hundred and twenty-seven cubits,' Taita told him now. Nefer added this information to his own calculations of wind speed and direction, as he took his stance on the crumbling edge of the cliff. Meren stepped up beside him with the lighter cavalry bow in his hand.
'In the name of Horus and the goddess,' Nefer prayed, 'let us begin!' They shot at the same time.
Nefer's arrow dropped over the crosspiece of the scaffold, too long and high. Meren's arrow rose at a steeper angle aimed wide into the wind. As it slowed at the top of its trajectory the wind took hold of it, and it veered to the left, almost at the limit of its range it dropped towards the dangling bobbing line of pigs' bladders. It struck the middle target cleanly and they heard the pop as it burst, and disappeared like a stroke of magic.
A joyous shout went up from the watchers, and the umpire called the hit in a loud voice, but Meren muttered as he nocked another arrow, 'That was a fluke.'
'I'll take any more flukes that you have in your quiver,' Nefer told him, 'Bak-her, brother, Bak-her.'
They drew and fired again, this time Meren's arrow fell short, rattling against the rocks of the cliff. Nefer missed the bladder on the right-hand end by half a cubit, and cursed Seth for the wind he had sent.
Unlike the javelins, the rules of the Red Road placed no limit on the number of arrows they were allowed. The only stipulation was that they must carry them all on the chariot from the start, so it was a trade-off between weight and numbers. They had each brought fifty missiles, but one of Nefer's long arrows weighed half again as much as one of Meren's.
They shot and missed, and shot again and missed again.
Taita had watched the wind and the flight of each arrow. He had gathered all his powers around him to feel the strength and impetus of the treacherous wind. He could almost see it, the flow and the strength of it, like the currents in a clear stream of water.
'Hold the same point of aim!' he ordered Nefer. 'But wait for my command.'
Nefer drew to full strength and though every muscle in his right arm quivered with the strain he held it.
Taita read the wind, became part of it, felt it in the depths of his being. 'Now!' he whispered, and the arrow leaped out high over the void and wavered on the capricious airs. Then like a towering falcon it seemed to gather itself and stoop to the target. The bladder popped as it struck, and the crowd howled.
The next one!' Taita ordered, and Nefer drew, held his aim high and to the right of the second bladder.
'Now!' Taita whispered. The old man seemed to control the flight of the arrow by the force of his mind. At the very last instant before it struck the west wind tried spitefully to turn it aside, but it held the line and the bladder burst with a sharp crack.
The next one. Draw!' whispered Taita. 'Hold!' and a heartbeat later, 'Now!' This time the arrow almost touched the bladder, but at the last moment the ball bounced aside.
Nefer shot again on Taita's command and he missed by a full arrow length, high and left. The strain of working
