the great bow was too much, his right arm ached and his muscles cramped and jumped involuntarily.
'Rest!' Taita ordered. Take the Periapt of Lostris in your right hand, and rest.'
Nefer laid aside the bow and stood with his head bowed in an attitude of prayer, with the golden amulet in his right hand. He felt the strength begin to flow back into his bow arm. Meren was still trying with the smaller bow, but the pain of his cracked ribs almost doubled him over and the sweat of agony ran down his pale face.
At that moment the crowd along the top of the cliff stirred and turned and looked back up the terrace. Someone shouted, They come!' and the cry was taken up, until the shouting was deafening.
Nefer lifted his head and saw the first chariot come whirling over the skyline. It was close enough for him to recognize Daimios at the reins, his golden hair streaming back on the wind. Behind him came the other chariots of the pursuers strung out in a line. Faintly he heard the drivers shouting to the horses and the rumble of the wheels over the rough ground.
'Do not look at them,' Taita ordered him. 'Do not think about them. Think only of the target.'
Nefer turned his back on the approaching line of vehicles and lifted the bow.
'Draw and hold!' Taita said. The wind spurted and dropped. 'Now!' The arrow sped unerringly across the chasm and the fourth bladder burst.
Nefer slid another arrow from the quiver, then he paused with the shaft in his hand and felt despair in his heart. A dust-devil came spinning down out of the desert on to the line of targets. The dun-coloured curtains of dust and sand and debris obscured the range, and the single remaining bladder disappeared in its depths.
High on the hill behind them the pursuing charioteers shouted with triumph, and Nefer heard Daimios' voice above the roar of the whirlwind, 'Now you must stand and fight me, Nefer Seti.'
'One more target before you are clear,' Socco, the umpire, shouted sternly. 'Stand your ground.'
There is no target,' Nefer protested.
'The will of the Nameless God,' Socco told him. 'You must submit to it.'
'There!' shouted Taita. 'There is the manifest will of a greater and more powerful goddess.' He pointed across the deep ravine at the impenetrable cloud of yellow dust.
Like a cork floating up from the depths of a turbid lake , the bladder with its broken string trailing under it rose to the top of the dustcloud, and skittered in the heated air.
'Now, in the name of the goddess Lostris!' Taita urged Nefer. 'She is the only one who can help you now.'
'In the name of the goddess!' Nefer shouted, threw up the great bow and shot at the tiny balloon in the wild embrace of the storm. Up and up climbed the arrow, and it seemed that it must miss to the left, but abruptly the bladder ducked and dived to meet it. The razor-sharp flint arrowhead slashed it open, it burst and whipped away like a rag on the wind.
'You are through and clear!' Socco released them with a shout. Nefer dropped the bow and ran to the chariot. Meren ran after him, favouring his injured ribs, and the crowd urged them on as Dov and Krus jumped away together. Behind them the cries of the pursuit were frustrated and angry, but Nefer did not look back.
A thousand paces ahead the suspension bridge spanned the gorge from cliff to cliff, with the terrible drop below, but before they reached it they must run the fire.
--
Shabako was the umpire of the bridge crossing. On horseback, he had galloped across from his post at the javelin butts as soon as Nefer and Meren had cleared them. Now he had taken his next station at the bridge. This was the most crucial stage of the entire Red Road.
The novices had a choice here. They could decline to breach the wall of fire to reach the bridge. Instead they might take the long route and cross further down the valley where the cliffs fell gently away. However, this added almost two leagues to the course.
Shabako stood at the head of the bridge and watched Nefer's chariot leave the archery butt and, with the pursuit close behind, come racing towards him along the lip of the precipice.
Shabako's sympathies were with his pharaoh. However, his loyalty to the Red God was even more compelling. Though he longed with all his heart to see Nefer succeed, he dared not show him favour. That would go against his sacred oath, and place his immortal soul in peril.
He considered the fence. Along the length of it his men crouched with burning torches. The fence was twice the height of a man and made of bundles of dried grass that would burn like tinder on this hot, dry wind. The fence was built in a semi-circle with each end anchored on the edge of the cliff. It held the head of the bridge in its arms. There was no way round it. To reach the bridgehead the novices must break through it.
Reluctantly Shabako shouted the order to set the fire. The torch-bearers ran down its length, dragging the flames along the bottom of the fence. They caught instantly, rising in a towering wall of awful crimson flame and dark smoke.
Nefer saw the wall of flame rise ahead of them, and though he had anticipated it, still his spirits quailed and he feared for the horses, for they had already endured so much. He watched Krus' ears and saw them switching back and forth with alarm as he smelt the smoke and watched the flames leap and tumble on the wind.
Not far behind them he heard Daimios' derisive jeers: 'Take the long road, Nefer Seti. The fire is too hot for your tender skin.'
Nefer ignored him and studied the wall of fire as they bore down on it. There was no weak place that he could see, but the nearest end had been lit first and the flames burned faster and more furiously. As he watched, a heavy bundle of the dried grass fell out of the wall and left a narrow gap through which he could make out the wavering heat-obscured outline of the bridgehead beyond.
He steered for the gap and told Meren beside him, 'Cover your head!' They wound headcloths over their heads and splashed water from the skin over themselves, drenching their head clothes and chitons.
'Have the blindfolds ready,' Nefer told Meren.
