Warlock: A Novel of Ancient Egypt

'There is always that possibility. Trok is a bull, but Naja especially is cunning and devious. It is the type of bluff he might try.'

'We must keep the expeditionary army under observation,' Nefer decided. 'I will take a scouting party north to watch the road through Ismailiya, and make certain that they pass that way.'

'I will go with you,' Taita agreed.

'No, Magus,' Nefer demurred. 'You will best be employed here, to keep our defences alert, and ensure that if Naja leads three thousand chariots down upon us, the populace is poised for instant flight. Also, there is another service I require of you ...' He hesitated. 'That is to care for Mintaka. I believe she might be discontented here with the other women, and may attempt something unwise.'

Taita smiled. 'Precipitous action on the part of the princess is always a distinct possibility. However, I know well enough where my first duty lies. I will go with you.' Though Nefer argued long and strenuously, Taita was adamant, and in the end Nefer was secretly relieved to know that the old man would be at his side, as always.

Even with the latest arrival of troops to their cause, they could muster only thirty-two battle-ready chariots, and less than a hundred horses fit enough to draw them.

They left half of the chariots under the command of Shabako to defend Gallala. Taking Hilto and Meren with them, they set out with sixteen fighting vehicles to drive around the eastern shore of the Great Bitter Lake and intercept the main route north of Ismailiya. The new moon was only days past full, the nights dark but pleasantly cool, so they made good progress, and completed the journey through the uncharted wilderness before the moon was into its second quarter.

--

At dawn on the fifteenth day after leaving Gallala they lay hidden on the hills to the east of Ismailiya, from where they could overlook the town. The main highway ran below their lookout post and the army of the two pharaohs would have to pass this way. Ismailiya was the Egyptian border fortress, and the natural starting point for the campaign.

'It seems that our intelligence is good enough,' Nefer called down to Taita. He had climbed one of the tall cedar trees on the front slope of the hill, and from there he had a fine uninterrupted view over many leagues of terrain. 'The town is swarming with activity. There are horse lines and a city of tents outside the walls of the fort.' He shaded his eyes. 'There are clouds of dust coming up the road from the delta. It looks like all the wagons and chariots of Egypt are on the march.'

He continued to call down his sightings to the Magus through the rest of that morning, until the heat had built up to the point where all activity around the city and upon the roads fell off into the somnolent noonday. Then he climbed down and went to find shade, like the rest of the squadron, to wait out the hot hours.

In the late afternoon as the air cooled, they roused themselves to feed and water the horses. Then Nefer climbed once more to his vantage-point.

It was at once apparent that they had arrived just in time. The road to the east was an artery pulsing with the life force of a mighty army. Squadron after squadron, fifty chariots strong, wound out through the gates of Ismailiya, each followed by wagons carrying their baggage and fodder, and streamed down the road towards their hiding-place. The vanguard passed so close to where Nefer sat in the high branches of the cedar tree that he could make out individuals among them.

The army flowed by like an endless river, glinting with the reflections of bronze weapons, and the dust rose in a dense cloud over it all until it threaten to obscure the sun.

Four cohorts made up the vanguard, and then came a gap. Obviously this was to let the dust settle a little and to alleviate the discomfort of the royal party that followed.

Next came two chariots riding abreast. Both vehicles were so massive, and covered with gold leaf, that each needed six horses to draw it. Nefer's hatred rose with the taste of gall into the back of his throat as he recognized the drivers.

Trok had the reins of the nearest chariot. There was no mistaking his broad shoulders nor the dark, beribboned bush of his beard. He wore a gold helmet shaped like a beehive, decorated with a crest of foaming white ostrich plumes. On his shoulder clanged the double shield, each leaf as thick as his thumb, so weighty that it was said that he alone of all his army could wield it, just like the great war bow in the rack at his right hand.

In the other great chariot rode Pharaoh Naja Kiafan. Like his namesake the cobra, he cut a slimmer, more graceful figure. He wore a pectoral of gold and precious stones that sparkled in the red sunlight that filtered through the dustclouds. On his head he wore the blue war crown of Egypt, and at his side, sheathed in silver and electrum, studded with turquoise and lapis lazuli, was the legendary blue sword, that he had plundered from the body of Nefer's father.

Strangely, though he lacked the physical stature of Trok, Naja was the more threatening of the two.

The golden chariots passed and were hidden by their own dustclouds, but Nefer remained stretched out on the main branch of the cedar tree as the warlike phalanxes rolled by below him.

The sun had slipped below the horizon, but there was still just enough light to make out the next section of the endless procession. Nefer straightened up with renewed interest and attention.

Swaying and rolling over the surface of the highway, which was already rutted by the passage of the hundreds of chariots and wagons that had preceded them, came two litters drawn by teams of bullocks. They were so capacious, the silk curtains decorated with golden stars and rosettes, that Nefer knew the passengers within must be women of the royal harem. Nefer could not imagine Trok taking his wives or concubines on campaign with him - he had heard that Trok relied for his pleasure on the prisoners he took from the captured enemy towns and that he enjoyed boys or girls with equal gusto. So if they did not belong to Trok, they must be Naja's women. Nefer wondered if Naja had tired of Heseret and taken other wives.

Then the curtain of the second litter jerked open, a girl jumped down into the dusty roadway and skipped along beside the bullocks. Though she had changed markedly since he had last seen her, he could not doubt that this lovely creature was Merykara, his younger sister. She no longer wore the side-lock of childhood, her hair was bobbed upon her shoulders and cut in a thick straight fringe at the level of her eyebrows. The loss of her side-lock was the token that she had seen her first red moon. Nefer felt a pang that his funny little monkey was a child no more. Then it occurred to him that there was no longer any impediment to Naja taking Merykara to the connubial bed. He had heard that Naja was a voluptuous satyr and the idea of him ravishing his little sister revolted Nefer so much that he could taste it in the back of his throat, like rotten fish.

He felt an overwhelming desire to speak to Merykara, to learn if she was happy, if there was aught he could do to make her lot easier. Then it occurred to him to rescue her and take her back to Gallala. He knew that such thoughts were dangerous, and that his comrades would try to dissuade him from such suicidal fantasy.

Following close behind the litters he saw the carts carrying the war chests of the false pharaohs. Here was a motive that the others would understand. They were unornamented carts painted a dull, sombre blue, but sturdily built and with the trucks reinforced to withstand the great weight of their cargo. The metal-shod wheels cut deeply into the road surface. The doors at the rear of the truck bed were chained and locked, and armed men marched beside them. These were the standard conveyances of the treasures without which no army marched. Nefer knew that they contained gold bullion cast into bars and fingers, rings and beads. These would be used to pay the troops, and to buy the allegiance of minor kings and satraps, to subvert the allies of Babylon and Assyria, and to bribe spies and informers in the ranks of the enemy.

Nefer slid down the trunk of the cedar to the ground. Taita was dozing quietly there, but he opened his eyes before Nefer could touch his arm. 'The war chests of the false pharaohs,' Nefer whispered in his ear. 'Enough to pay an army or buy a throne.'

--

For many nights that followed Nefer and the Magus stalked the column from the moonlit shadows, moving parallel to the carts that carried the treasure, observing the routine and behaviour of the guards. From the first they realized that it would be impossible to seize the carts and carry away that mass of bullion without the entire army coming down upon them.

'At the speed those oxen are capable of maintaining, Naja's chariots would catch us before we had gone a league with them,' Nefer observed ruefully.

'We will need to be a little more subtle than that,' Taita agreed. The only time when we might be able to tamper with the chests would be when they go into laager during the day.'

'What about the guards?'

'Ah!' said Taita. 'The guards will present some small problem.'

--

Each day when the sun rose high and the heat became oppressive the entire army went into laager. The litters bearing the royal wives, and treasure carts were usually placed in a separate encampment a short distance from the main army. At first there was a great bustle as the animals were loosed from their harness, fed and watered, the sentries posted and the tents of the wives erected. Then the fires were lit and the midday meal was cooked and eaten, washed down with beer. After that Heseret, Merykara and their maids retired to their tents. The men who were not on sentry duty lay down under makeshift shelters to rest after the long night's journey. Gradually a languid silence fell over the huge muster of men and animals, and the camp slept.

Nefer and Taita left the rest of their party lying in a patch of dense thornbush up in the valley and crept to the camp. They were able to get within a few hundred paces of the sentries and lie there unobserved for an hour, whispering together, trying to find some manner of reaching the war chests without being discovered by the sentries.

'Is there no way we can distract them?' Nefer asked.

'For that we will need help from inside the camp,' Taita said.

'Merykara?' Nefer looked at him sharply.

'Merykara,' Taita agreed.

'How can we get a message to her?' Nefer looked puzzled, but Taita smiled, touched the Periapt of Lostris that hung on his necklace and closed his eyes. After a while Nefer thought he had fallen asleep. The old man knew exactly how to infuriate him.

His age is catching up with him at last, he thought irritably, and was about to shake him awake, when he heard voices from the camp, and looked up.

Merykara had come out of her tent. She had obviously been sleeping for her face was flushed and marked by the pillow. She stretched and yawned. She wore only a blue linen skirt, whose pleats hung below her knees. Her upper body was bare. Despite himself Nefer was astonished at the way her breasts had bloomed: they were pear-shaped and the nipples stood proud and rosy. Merykara was arguing with the guard at the entrance to her tent and her voice rose imperiously so that Nefer could hear every word. 'I cannot sleep, and I am going out to walk awhile.' The sentry was trying to restrain her, but she shook her head until her hair danced on her shoulders. 'No, I will not let you escort me. I want to be alone.' The sentry insisted and she flared at him, 'Stand aside, you insolent creature, or I will report your behaviour to my husband.' Reluctantly the sentry acceded to her orders and grounded his spear. He called after her anxiously, 'Please, Your Majesty, be not too long nor venture too far. It will be more than my miserable life is worth should Pharaoh find out about this.'

Merykara ignored him, ducked through the horses' lines, and came out through the gate of the thornbush fence that surrounded the camp. She looked back only once to make certain that she was not observed by any of the sentries. Then as though to an assignation, she came directly to where Nefer and Taita lay among the desert scrub.

Nefer saw that her green eyes were rapt and that there was an intent expression on her lovely face, as though she were listening to music that she alone could hear.

When she was close enough to touch, Nefer said softly, 'Merykara, don't be afraid. It's Nefer.'

She started like an awakening sleep-walker and stared down at him. Then her face lit with an expression of untrammelled joy and she sprang forward to embrace him.

'Wait!' Nefer ordered. 'Don't betray us to the guards.'

He was proud of her, for she obeyed him and stopped instantly. She had always been an intelligent child. She glanced around quickly and her voice trembled when she said softly, 'I was sound asleep, but suddenly I woke and knew that I had to come out into the desert. It was almost as though a voice in my head was calling to me.' She looked at Taita. 'Was it your voice, Magus?' Then her eyes went back to Nefer. 'Darling brother, you will never know how I have missed you. First I thought you were dead, and I mourned in your funeral procession with ashes on my head. Look here are the scars where I cut my arms to bleed for you.'

'I am alive, Merykara. Believe me, this is no shade you are looking at.'

'I know, Nefer. All the world knows now how you took Mintaka away from Avaris into the desert, and I knew in my heart that you would come for me also, one day.' She smiled through happy tears. 'I knew you would come.'

'Yes,' Nefer said, 'we will take you away with us. But first there is something you must do to help us.'

'Anything for you and Taita,' she agreed readily.

Speaking swiftly and urgently, Taita told her what she had to do and then he made her repeat it. She did so faultlessly. 'You are a clever girl, my little one.' Taita said. 'That is exactly what we want you to do.' He handed her a small packet. 'Here is the powder. Remember, just enough to cover your fingernail in each jar.'

'First you call me clever, and then you treat me as though I were stupid,' she snapped.

'Forgive me, Your Majesty.' Taita made a gesture of penitence.

'Don't call me that either. I hate being married to that slimy serpent, and now I know what he is going to do to me, I hate it even more.'

'You are not easy to please, Merykara. Now, go back to the camp before the guards come looking for you.'

She stooped quickly and kissed Nefer on the lips. 'Until tomorrow then, my beloved brother.'

--

The following noon the mighty army of Egypt camped below the high plateau where the sandy desert and the dry lands ended. They had almost completed the crossing and tomorrow they would go up through the pass into the cooler lands where the oases were only a day's journey apart, where forests and fields and vineyards grew and mountain streams flowed all year round.

When the escort of the royal wives began to set up camp for the day, they found that the young Queen Merykara was fractious and overbearing, not at all her usual sweet and gracious self. She wanted her own tent set further apart from that of her sister, Queen Heseret, and when this was done she insisted that they move the carts that carried the army war chests down into a narrow wadi two hundred paces from the main encampment. In vain the commander of the guard pointed out that the bed of the wadi was soft and sandy and the wheels of the heavy vehicles would sink in deeply.

'I don't care if they disappear into the sand completely,' she told him. 'I am sick of looking at those ugly carts and listening to the mooing of the bullocks. Get them out of my sight.'

The commander thought of appealing to Pharaoh Naja Kiafan to ratify this unreasonable order from his youngest wife. Then he contemplated the fact that the column was spread out over almost four leagues of desert. It would take an hour of hard riding to reach Pharaoh at it's head, and the return ride would be just as arduous. The day was even hotter than those that had preceded it and, besides, he had a tryst with one of Merykara's slave girls, an enchanting little black Nubian who knew more tricks than a performing monkey. He moved the carts into the wadi bottom and, as a sop to his conscience, doubled the guard upon them.

Having got her own way, Merykara became once again the endearing girl they all loved so well.

'I am so sorry I was hard on you, Moram. It must be this awful heat that affects us all,' she told the commander of the guard sweetly in front of his men. 'I am going to have Misha bring you five jars of the finest beer from my private stores to make it up to you. But be certain that you share it equally with all your men for I have given them extra work and trouble too.'

Misha, the statuesque Nubian maid with an imperious carriage and a legendary pair of buttocks, brought the beer jars to Moram's tent, and the men lined up to receive their share, calling down the gods' blessings on Queen Merykara and toasting her health as they swigged down the first draught of the frothing liquor.

Despite his promise to Merykara, the beer was of such surpassing excellence that Moram drank more than his share. As soon as they were alone in his tent he pounced on Misha who, squealing and resisting playfully, finally allowed him to lift her clothing and unveil her prodigious buttocks. They sprang out from under her short linen skirts, shining black as new mined anthracite, great quivering rounds, dark full moons that overflowed his clutching hands.

In a transport of lust he mounted her, but after less than a dozen mighty thrusts, he keeled over slowly, fast asleep before he reached the floor. Misha stared at him in astonishment. Nothing like this had ever happened to her in all her short but busy lifetime. Moram let out a snore that reverberated like distant thunder, and she sprang to her feet, pulled on her skirt, delivered one furious kick to his sleeping form and stormed out of the tent back to her mistress. The guard at the entrance to the royal tent was also sleeping like a dead man.

'All men are pigs,' Misha said, in her savage native tongue, and kicked him with all the strength of her long and shapely right leg.

--

Nefer led a small party of his men down the dry riverbed. They kept close under the bank, and the soft sand muffled their footsteps.

The four treasure carts were drawn up side by side, and their wheels were chained together so that they could not be driven off in haste by bandits or robbers.

Eight armed men were posted around them as sentries, and every one was laid out on the soft sand like a corpse awaiting the embalmers. Taita went to each in turn, felt for the pulse in the throat then drew back a lid to examine the eye of the unconscious man. Finally he nodded to Nefer, and went to the rear door of the first cart.

He took a long bronze probe from his pouch and worked intently on the massive bronze lock. It fell open and the hasp snapped back. Taita swung open the heavy metal door to reveal the four small cases that were tied down to ringbolts in the wagon bed. The lids of the treasure chests were sealed with a clay tablet that carried the cartouche of Pharaoh Naja Kiafan.

Taita used his dagger blade to lift the seals, and dropped them into his pouch so that they would not be evidence of tampering when next the cart doors were opened. He used the point of the dagger to unscrew the fastenings that held down the lid, then lifted it. The chest was filled with small leather pouches. Taita weighed one in his hand, and smiled. He opened the mouth of the pouch to see the unmistakable glint of the precious metal within.

While he had been busy, Nefer and Meren had dug a shallow hole in the soft sand under the wagon truck. Taita passed down the leather pouch to Nefer, who laid it in the bottom of the hole. In all Taita selected fifty of the heaviest leather bags from the first chest. Then he screwed back the lid. Using a lump of fresh damp clay that he had brought with him he resealed the lid. With the engraved ruby ring that Naja had given him as a gift when he had left Thebes, he imprinted the clay seal with the royal cartouche. Then he went on to the next chest in the row of four.

'We are not taking enough,' Meren grumbled. 'We are leaving more than half of it for Naja and Trok.'

'Greed would be our undoing," Taita grunted, as he prised up the lid of the last case. 'This way they will not know that any of the bullion is missing until the paymaster opens the cases again and counts it, which may not be for several more months.'

From each case in the four carts they lifted fifty leather bags and buried them in the loose sand of the wadi bed. Though they worked as swiftly as care would allow, the sun was low in the western sky when they resealed the final chest and locked the rear doors of the last cart. One of the sleeping guards stirred and mumbled, and tried to sit up. Taita went to him and laid a gentle hand on his brow. The man sighed and lay back. Taita pulled open his mouth and sprinkled a pinch of white powder under his tongue, and he lay quiet.

'We must hurry now. They are beginning to revive.'

They spread sand over the rows of bags in the bottom of the hole beneath the last wagon, and then roughed and dotted the surface with footprints so that the smooth sand would not be conspicuous.

'How much do you estimate we took?' Nefer asked.

'Impossible to tell until we weigh it,' Taita said, 'but I would guess we have at least three lakhs.'

'Enough to recruit and equip an army,' Nefer muttered, as he worked.

They made one last quick but thorough inspection of the carts and the area around them, to make sure that they had overlooked nothing. Then leaving the guards still in heavy drugged sleep, they slipped away down the wadi.

They climbed into the foothills below the plateau, back to where they had left Hilto with the chariots. From this vantage-point they kept watch on where they had buried the plundered gold. They observed no evidence of any outcry or unusual activity in the wadi. Perhaps the guards felt too guilty when they woke to make any report on their dereliction of duty.

Just before dark they saw the straining teams of bullocks heave the four carts out of the sandy riverbed, and trudge away behind the royal litters as the host of the false pharaohs resumed the night march.

For five more days and nights the great army of Egypt streamed past this spot. There were successive squadrons of chariots, regiments of slingers, archers and spearmen. These were followed by marching columns of slaves who would be used for the heavy labour of building fortifications and sapping the walls of besieged cities. Then came the craftsmen, the chariot builders and carpenters, the armourers and arrow makers, and after them the camp-followers, the wives, sweethearts and whores with their slaves, servants and infants. They were followed by the merchants with wagonloads of goods and luxuries of every possible description to sell to the troops when they were rich with loot and plunder.

Yet out of all this multitude the watchers on the hills saw nobody enter the dried wadi where the gold was buried, and though each day companies and regiments camped nearby no one approached the wadi to use it as a latrine or a camping site.

When the last vehicle in that mighty host had trundled past and climbed up through the rocky Khatmia Pass, and the last straggler had limped by, Nefer and Taita were certain that the short-weight of bullion in the treasure carts had not been discovered by the army paymasters, and they were almost certain that the cache in the riverbed had not been stumbled upon by chance.

When at last the eastern highway was deserted they came down from the hills during the night and left the chariots on the high bank of the wadi with the horses still in the traces, ready for instant flight. Nefer and Meren went down into the sandy bed, and in the moonlight the tracks left by the treasure carts and the oxen were still plain to see. After only a few thrusts with the wooden spade Meren whistled with glee and turned up the first pouch of gold. As they lifted each bag from the hole they counted them, making certain that they overlooked not a single one. Then they carried them up the wadi bank, staggering under their weight, and stacked them beside the waiting chariots. Eight hundred leather bags filled with fine gold made an impressive pile.

Too much! We will not be able to carry away all of it,' Nefer said doubtfully.

'It is one of the natural laws of this wicked world.' Taita shook his head. 'Of gold there can never be too much.'

The light fighting chariots had not been designed as transport carts, but they loaded them until the axles sagged and the coachwork groaned. Still they had not taken half of it on board. Nursing the horses, leading them by the reins, they took the overloaded chariots up into the hills then came back for the next load. It required two more trips to carry it all away.

They divided the treasure into five equal parts and buried four in separate caches, well dispersed, taking great care to conceal them and leave no sign. Thus, if one hoard was discovered they would not lose all. The fifth part they loaded on to thirteen of the chariots and Nefer sent them back to Gallala under the command of Hilto. Once he reached the city Hilto would return with a convoy of heavy wagons to fetch in the remainder.

Nefer kept back the remaining three chariots. They would be driven by himself, Taita and Meren. The two squadrons parted company, Hilto taking his laden vehicles south again, and Nefer leading his smaller group eastwards, shadowing the army of the two pharaohs.

--

Nefer travelled by day, knowing that the army they were following would be resting in camp, and with a daylight view ahead they were unlikely to run into any surprises.

They went up through the pass on to the plateau where they found ample water, although much of it had been fouled by the thousands of animals and men who had been there ahead of them. The horses were well rested, and they travelled fast in the lightly laden chariots. They passed hundreds of abandoned campsites, marked by dead fires and sagging lean-to shelters, litter and scattered filth. There were also hastily dug graves, for an army on the march suffers constant attrition. Some had already been dug open by the hyena and the jackal, the corpses dragged out and partially consumed.

'We will need her,' Nefer said, as he dismounted and stood over the body of a young woman, probably one of the army whores. There was no way of telling how she had died for the vultures had almost completed what the hyena had begun. Her eyes and lips were missing and her skull grinned at them through blood blackened teeth.

'In all love of the gods,' Meren cried, 'have you lost your senses? That thing stinks to the skies.'

'Help me wrap her.' Nefer ignored his protest. He had found a length of discarded linen, so torn and dirty that even the Bedouin who scavenged behind the army had found no use for it. Between them they lifted the remains of the dead woman on to it and wrapped her neatly. Then, to his loudly expressed disgust, they tied the bundle to the back of Meren's chariot.

Though they had been travelling under the dust pall since dawn, it was mid-morning before they caught up with the rearguard of the army. The entire expeditionary force had already gone into laager for the day, and the smoke from the cooking fires marked the position of hundreds of separate encampments along the road ahead.

Nefer led them off the road, and they circled out to avoid the baggage train, keeping out of sight of the road. Scouting the terrain ahead, they went forward cautiously. Eventually they caught up with the convoy of treasure carts and the tall litters of the royal wives halted in a grove of olive trees. It was well past noon when Nefer crept up close to them, and climbed a tamarind tree from which he could spy over the thornbush zareba that surrounded the camp.

Queen Merykara's pavilion was set up at some distance from that of Heseret, but the two sisters were sitting under a linen awning, protected from the sun and picking at the lavish meal their serving maids had brought from the cooking fires.

Nefer was not close enough to overhear their conversation. Heseret sat facing him, chattering and laughing gaily. She was even more beautiful than Nefer remembered her. Even in these informal circumstances she was wearing carefully applied makeup, which was intended to make her resemble the statue of Hathor in Memphis. She was decked out in a suite of magnificent jewels, and her thick dark hair had been freshly oiled and crimped. Misha, the tall black slave girl with the legendary posterior, leaned over her shoulder to refill her golden bowl. A splash of the red wine spilled down the front of Heseret's dress. She sprang to her feet and thrashed Misha over the head with a heavy fan of silver and ostrich feathers. The girl fell to her knees and covered it with both hands but the blood sprang up between her fingers. Merykara tried to restrain her elder sister, but Heseret rained blows on Misha's head until the shaft of the fan snapped in two, then hurled the broken end at Merykara and flounced away, yelling threats and abuse over her shoulder.

Merykara lifted the slave girl to her feet and led her away to her own pavilion. Nefer waited patiently, hidden in the top branches of the tamarind tree. Some time later, Misha left the tent with her head bandaged. Still weeping she disappeared among the trees. Nefer did not move, until Merykara appeared in the opening of her pavilion.

When they had last spoken, Nefer had warned her to keep alert and to wait for him to come to her. Now she looked around her carefully, spoke to the guard at the door of the tent, and began to wander, without any apparent purpose, around the periphery of the camp. Clearly she had taken Nefer's instructions seriously and was searching the surrounding countryside for a glimpse of her rescuers. She was the only person stirring: most of the others were sheltering from the sun and the heat, and even the sentries showed no interest in her.

Nefer took a small polished silver mirror from his pouch, picked up the sun's reflection and shot a ray of light into Merykara's face. She stopped instantly, shaded her eyes, and peered in his direction. He flashed thrice more, the agreed signal and, even from that distance, saw her smile become as radiant as the reflected sunbeam that danced over her lovely face.

--

Merykara lay in the swaying, jolting litter, on cushions and a mattress stuffed with swansdown. Misha was curled at her feet like a sleeping puppy, but Merykara was awake and alert. The curtains of the litter were drawn back to let in the cool night air and she could hear the sounds of the army on the march: the clatter of hoofs, the creak and rattle of the wagons, the lowing of the draught oxen, the cries of the wagoners and the tramp of the guards alongside the litter.

Suddenly there was a commotion ahead, the swish and crack of whips, the crash of wheels over rocks, the sound of running water and the splashing of animals and vehicles. Then Merykara heard her sister's querulous voice: 'Ho there! What is happening?'

'Your Majesty, we are fording a small stream. I must beg you to dismount, lest the litter capsize. The safety of your divine person is all our concern.'

She heard Heseret complain bitterly about the inconvenience, and Merykara took advantage of the diversion to whisper her final instructions to Misha. Then they climbed down from the litter. Slaves waited with lanterns to lead them down to the riverbank, where Heseret was already waiting.

They woke me when I was sleeping,' she told Merykara. 'I shall report that oaf of a caravan master to my husband, the Pharaoh of Upper Egypt.'

'I am sure that it will be beneficial to your health to have the skin flogged from his back,' Merykara agreed, with sweet irony. Heseret tossed her head and turned away.

At that moment a nightingale called upstream from where they stood, and Merykara thrilled to the sound. As children Nefer had tried to teach her how to imitate that low, warbling note, but she had never mastered it. Three times the bird called, but only she took notice of it. The others were engrossed in getting the ungainly litters and the heavy treasure carts across the treacherous riverbed. The thousands of vehicles ahead of them had cut up the entrance to the ford, and churned the bottom to a morass. It was after midnight before the crossing was accomplished and the last treasure cart was dragged through with loud exhortations to the oxen to 'Heave away!' and the flourish and cracking of whips up the far bank.

Then the caravan master brought up sedan chairs for the royal wives. They were helped into the seats and carried over by teams of slaves. When they reached the far bank there was further consternation and confusion for one of the treasure carts had lost a wheel and was blocking the road ahead. Now, in addition to this mishap, the slaves who had carried Heseret across in the sedan chair had allowed the water to flow over her feet and ruin her sandals. Heseret insisted that they were punished on the spot, and the slash of the overseers' whips and the howls of the miscreants added to the uproar.

Over it all Merykara heard the nightingale call again, this time close at hand and on the same side of the stream. 'Do not fail me,' she said to Misha.

'My life is yours, mistress,' the girl replied, and Merykara kissed her.

'You have proved that often, and I shall never forget it.' She turned from Misha and walked calmly into the darkness.

Only Heseret paid her the least notice. 'Where are you going, Merykara?'

To drown the bad fairies.' Merykara used their childhood euphemism. Heseret shrugged, climbed back into her own litter and drew the curtains.

As soon as she was hidden from the road, Merykara stopped and gave her own inept version of the bird call. Almost at once a firm hand closed on her upper arm and her brother whispered in her ear, 'Pray desist, little one, you will terrify every nightingale from here to Beersheba.'

She spun round, threw her arms about his neck, and hugged him with all her strength, too overcome to speak. Gently he loosened her grip then took her hand and led her along the dark riverbank. He went swiftly and he seemed to have the night eyes of a leopard for he never stumbled or hesitated. He did not speak except to whisper a warning when there was a hole or an obstacle in the path. She followed him blindly. After what seemed half the night, he stopped to allow her to rest.

'Does Misha know what to do?' he asked.

'She will keep the curtains of the litter closed and tell anyone who asks that I am sleeping and will not be disturbed. No one will know that I am gone.'

'Until they halt tomorrow,' he qualified. 'We have only that much time to get away. Are you ready to go on? We must cross back over the river here.'

He picked her up easily and carried her across, and she was amazed at how strong he had grown. She was a doll in his arms. He set her down again on the opposite bank, and they went on.

After a while she tugged on his hand. 'What is that awful smell?' She gagged.

'It's you,' he told her. 'Or, at least, one who shall take your place.' Before he finished speaking two dark figures stepped out into the starlight on the path ahead of them, and Merykara gave a small gasp of fright.

''Tis only Taita and Meren,' Nefer reassured her. They led her into a coppice in which they were screened by the dense growth of leafy branches, and Meren opened the shutter of the lantern he carried. Merykara gasped again as, by the feeble yellow light, she saw the gruesome object stretched on the ground. It was a corpse, but so dreadfully mutilated that it was difficult to tell that it was human and female.

'Quickly, now!' Nefer told her. 'Give me all your jewellery and your clothing.'

Merykara stripped herself naked, and handed everything to Nefer. Taita handed her a small bundle of spare clothing, tunic, skirt and sandals, to replace her own.

Nefer knelt beside the corpse and placed the strings of necklaces around the dead girl's neck, and the rings and bracelets on her skeletal fingers and wrists. He could not work Merykara's skirt and loincloth up over the rigid legs, so he ripped them to tatters and rubbed them in the dirt, then he stabbed his own thumb with the point of his dagger and dribbled fresh blood on the fine cloth. From near at hand there came the shrieking, whooping chorus of a pack of hungry hyena.

Merykara shuddered. 'They have smelt the body.'

They will leave only enough evidence to convince Naja that you were devoured by wild animals.' He stood up. 'Now we must go.'

The chariots were waiting a little further upstream. Nefer had not wanted to leave their tracks too close to the body of the dead girl. As he pulled his sister up on to the footplate beside him, he looked into the east. 'The morning star,' he said quietly. 'It will be light in an hour. We must make the most of the darkness that remains.'

When the dawn bloomed, like a bouquet of roses and mimosa blossom, across the sky behind them they were already halfway down the escarpment of the plateau, and the desert was spread out below them.

It was such a grand sight that involuntarily they reined in the horses and stared out across the ocean of golden sands in awe. All except Meren. With the air of a pilgrim who has travelled across half the world to reach the shrine of the goddess he worshipped, he stared at Merykara as she stood beside her brother in the leading chariot. Through the long night ride she had been hidden from him by the darkness, but now the early sun played upon her, and he stared. He had known her for most of his life as the saucy, impish little sister of his best friend, but this was the first time in two years that he had laid eyes upon her. Time had wrought a miracle of change. Now, every movement she made, each gesture and turn of her head, was perfect grace. Every angle and plane of her face, every curve and line of her slim body was exquisite. Her skin was cream and mother-of-pearl, her eyes greener and brighter than any emerald, her voice and laughter the most enchanting music he had ever heard.

Taita caught his expression and smiled inwardly. Even in the most dire situations, life struggles to renew itself, he thought, but aloud he said, 'Majesty, we must not linger here. The horses are in need of water.'

At the foot of the hills they left the highway and struck out in a southerly direction towards the Great Bitter Lake. They kept going until they reached the first cache of water jars they had left for their return journey, and found that Hilto had been there before them. From his tracks they could tell that his chariots, heavily laden with gold bullion, were moving only slowly, and that he was not far ahead.

They found with relief that he had not used up all the water but had left four jars untouched, enough to keep their horses going until they reached the next oasis at Zinalla.

Although Merykara had been sparkling and animated when she chatted and jested with Nefer and Taita, by some chance she had not acknowledged Meren or even glanced in his direction, except when she knew it was safe to do so. Although once not long ago he had treated her with lordly disdain, Meren was now too overcome to approach her directly. For she was a queen, albeit to a false pharaoh, and in his eyes at least a goddess.

For the hundredth time since they had halted he placed himself artlessly in her direct line of vision as she rested in the scant shade of a flowering acacia tree. This time she lifted her eyes and inclined her head. He made a loyal obeisance. 'Greetings, Your Majesty. I am delighted to see you safe. I was infernally worried for your safety.'

She gave him a single long look, searching and calculating, to take in his increased height and the confident, powerful set of his shoulders. She saw how long and thick his hair had grown, and not for the first time that day she was aware of a strange congestion in her breathing. 'Meren Cambyses,' she said sternly, 'the last time I had any truck with you, you broke my favourite kite. Can I ever trust you again?'

'With your very life,' he said fervently.

When the horses were fed and rested and it was time to move on, Merykara told her brother casually, 'Your horses have borne my extra weight all night. I think I should relieve them now.'

'How will you do that?' He looked puzzled.

'I will ride in another chariot,' she said, and went to where Meren waited for her.

The following day they reached the oasis of Zinalla and found Hilto's squadron there before them. Now Nefer redistributed the weight of men and bullion equally between the fifteen chariots and they went on towards Gallala at a much better pace.

--

Mintaka was on the roof of the temple of Hathor, which she and some of the women and old men were making habitable for the goddess so that they might resume their worship in her presence. The building might have been a thousand years old, there was no way of telling, but many of the murals were in a marvellous state of preservation and needed only a little touching up. The roof was another matter. However, the elements were kindly and so consistent that the great holes mattered little. It was only necessary to remove the rotten rafters, which placed the worshippers below in mortal jeopardy. Mintaka was supervising this work. She was dressed like the other women in simple, well-worn clothing, and like them she was burnt brown by the sun. This life was so different from that closeted existence in the zenana of Avaris, and she revelled in her new freedom, the friendship and company of her common companions.

She straightened and stretched her aching back, balancing easily on the high wall. Then she shaded her eyes and looked out over the green fields of young dhurra, and the patterns of irrigation ditches filled with sparkling water from Taita's fountain. Herds of cattle and a flock of fat-tailed sheep were grazing in the lush paddocks, but very few horses. Like every other person in Gallala, she felt the lack of them keenly.

Then, as she had every hour over the past long and lonely days since Nefer had left the city, she raised her eyes and looked down the length of the valley, between the bare, forbidding hills that stood in such bleak contrast to the green fields clustered around the city. This was the direction from which Nefer would come. She searched the blue distance without real hope for she had been disappointed too often recently.

Suddenly she narrowed her eyes against the glare, and her heartbeat quickened. Something was there, tiny against the soaring immensity of the sky, insubstantial and ethereal as a feather blowing in the wind. A dust-devil, perhaps, one of the whirlwinds born of the heated desert airs. She looked away and wiped the sweat from her thick dark brows, resting her eyes. When she looked again the dustcloud was closer, and she allowed herself to hope. At that moment a ram's horn sounded a single long blast. The lookouts on the crest of the hills had seen it also. Around her the others stopped work and peered down the valley. From the streets below came the excited shouts of the children, grooms ran to the stables, the charioteers to where their vehicles lay beyond the market-place. All was happy bustle.

Mintaka could restrain herself no longer. She went down the scaffolding that covered the outer wall of the temple with the alacrity of a vervet caught stealing fruit in an orchard. Shabako was driving his chariot across the forum, past the battle memorial of Tanus, heading for the gates.

'Shabako!' She ran to intercept him. He swerved to meet her, and as he pulled up the team she leaped on to the footplate behind him. They raced out through the gates and down the rutted track. Ahead, the dustcloud was coming on apace.

'Is it them, Shabako? Tell me it is.'

'I do believe it is, Majesty,' he shouted, above the rush of the wind.

'Then why do you drive so slowly?'

Over the rise ahead came a single vehicle, and she clung to the dashboard, trying to make out the charioteer, but he was still too far away.

'Look, mistress! He flies the blue pennant.' Shabako pointed to the scrap of dyed cloth that fluttered on the long bamboo rod above the chariot.

''Tis Nefer! Oh, all praise to the goddess, it is him!'

She ripped off her headcloth and waved it, while Nefer lashed up his team and came on at the charge.

'Let me off!' She beat on Shabako's shoulder to enforce the order and he slowed the horses to a trot. She jumped from the moving vehicle and landed gracefully in balance. Then she ran to meet the advancing chariot with her arms open wide.

Coming up behind, Taita thought that in his eagerness Nefer might run her down, but at the last moment he swerved and, as the chariot lost speed, he leaned far out over the side of the cockpit and reached down for her. Trustingly she threw herself into the circle of his arm. If she had hesitated or flinched she might have been dashed beneath the galloping team or crushed under the metal-shod wheels but he caught her up, swung her high and she laughed in his arms.

--

Nefer called his council to assemble in the old city forum and made a full report to them. He described in detail the lifting of the bullion out of the treasure carts and they listened agog. Then he presented Merykara to them and related how she had been rescued from under the very noses of Trok and Naja. They shouted, 'Bak-her!' and stood to applaud him.

Then Nefer sent for the scribes, and they weighed the gold bullion in front of the members of the council. The final tally was well over half a lakh. 'My lords, this is only a fifth part of what we have won. Hilto will take a convoy of wagons back to retrieve the rest. He will leave tomorrow but he will need men to go with him.'

It seemed that every able-bodied man in Gallala was desperate to volunteer, but when Shabako and the most tried and experienced of his warriors were passed over, they protested bitterly. 'Will Pharaoh have us sit here in Gallala, dreaming at the hearth like old women?' Shabako asked.

Nefer smiled. 'I will have sterner work for you. But now the sun is well set, and a victory feast is prepared for us. We will meet again soon in war council, I give you my oath on it,' he assured them, and adjourned the assembly. They went away grumbling, but their mood revived after the first jars of freshly brewed beer had been disposed of.

Nefer had ordered the slaughter of two bullocks and a dozen fat sheep, and the women had spent every minute since his return preparing a celebratory feast. Every man and woman in the city was invited, and even the garrisons of hilltop forts and watchtowers were sent their share. Like the digging of the fountain, the winning of the gold was an achievement that had knit the community closer.

Taita had composed a heroic poem to honour the occasion and, like all his creative efforts, it was an instant, overwhelming success. They would not let him sit down when he had finished, but yelled and banged their bowls on the board until he had repeated all sixty verses. By then they had memorized the entire epic and the musicians had extemporized a musical score. The entire company joined with gusto in the third and final rendition.

Then Nefer called upon any citizen who felt an oratorical urge to stand up and speak out. Some of the speeches were incoherent but well received, others were hilarious or so poignant that most of the women and many men were reduced to tears. In this emotional atmosphere Merykara leaned across Mintaka to speak to her brother. The din around them was so great that she had to raise her voice to be heard. 'Royal and divine brother!' she teased him, for she had also sampled the contents of the beer pots. 'I have a boon to ask of you.'

'Little sister, who is little no more, ask what you wish and if it is in my power you shall have it.'

'It is very much in your power.' She broke off, looked down the table at Meren, caught his avid eye, lowered her gaze and blushed an appealing shade of pink. 'You know that as a child I was married without my consent and against my will. That marriage was never consummated. I want you to proclaim my divorce from Naja. I want you to set me free so that I can go to a husband of my own choice. This would be the most precious gift you could ever give me.'

'Is that possible?' Nefer sobered at once, and looked at Taita. 'Do I have it in my power to divorce a husband and wife in the sight of the gods?'

'You are Pharaoh,' Merykara cut in, before Taita could reply. 'Just as Trok divorced Mintaka, so you are able to divorce me from Naja.'

'Trok divorced Mintaka?' Nefer demanded, so sharply that all those within hearing fell silent.

'Did you not know?' Merykara asked. 'Forgive me for breaking it to you in such a tactless, thoughtless fashion. I thought that such momentous news would have reached even here." Nefer took Mintaka's hand and shook his head, too overcome with emotion to speak. Merykara went on blithely. 'Oh, yes! On his own sacred holy-day, in his own new temple, Pharaoh Trok sacrificed a ram and proclaimed three times "I divorce her."' Merykara clapped her hands. 'And, poof! the dread deed was done.'

Nefer drew Mintaka a little closer to him, and looked at Taita. The old man knew the law better than any temple scribe in Egypt, and now, in answer to Nefer's silent enquiry, he nodded solemnly.

Merykara was rattling on. 'Of course, immediately after the divorce he sacrificed another ram and passed sentence of death upon Mintaka for adultery and sacrilege in dishonouring a god.'

Nefer turned his head and stared deeply into Mintaka's eyes. She stared back as they considered the implication of Merykara's revelations. Slowly a strange expression spread over Nefer's face, like that of a condemned man hearing of his reprieve. 'You are free, my one true love,' he said. 'And your freedom has set me free.'

--

Before dawn the following morning, while most of the city was still sleeping off the effects of the good strong beer, Nefer sought out Taita in his private quarters in one of the old buildings. Taita looked up from the papyrus scroll he was reading by the flickering yellow light of an oil lamp.

'Are you occupied with some important matter?' Nefer asked, with strange diffidence.

'You can see that I am,' said Taita, but resignedly he began to roll the scroll on to its wooden spine. For a while Nefer wandered aimlessly around the room, pausing to examine some articles that the old man had collected since they had been here in Gallala: preserved skins of colourful birds, skeletons of small mammals and reptiles, oddly shaped pieces of dried wood or plants, and other amorphous substances in bowls or bottles or bags that were piled on the benches or in odd recesses. Taita waited patiently for him to come to the reason for this visit, though he knew well enough what it must be.

Nefer picked up a fossil of some antediluvian crustacean and held it to the lamplight. 'Mintaka is no longer married to Trok,' he said, without looking up.

'Stone deaf as I may be in both ears, even I was able to make that out.'

Nefer replaced the fossil and took up a copper statuette of Isis with the infant Horus sitting on her lap and nursing at her breast that Taita had dug up from beneath the city walls. It was coated with a rich layer of green verdigris.

'What are the restrictions placed on the marriage of a king under the statutes of Chephren?' he enquired casually.

Taita picked his nose thoughtfully and examined what he had retrieved on the end of his forefinger. 'Like any other bride his wife should be free to marry, either a virgin or a widow,' he said.

'Or divorced by her husband.'

'Or divorced by her husband, or by the decree of the reigning Pharaoh.' Taita nodded. 'And before he is deified or married the king should be ordained in his sovereignty.'

To be ordained, Pharaoh must have reached his majority, which I have not, or taken his godbird, which I have attempted but failed, or he must have become an adept of the Red Road,' Nefer paused then went on, 'Which I have not. Yet.' He emphasized the last word and Taita blinked, but did not reply.

Nefer set down the idol and looked at Taita with determination. 'I intend to run the Red Road.'

Taita studied him in silence. 'You are not yet at your full growth and strength.'

'I am grown enough and strong enough.'

'Who will ride with you?'

'Meren,' said Taita firmly.

'There are others stronger and more experienced who might be of greater help to you. There will be many who would dearly love to gather the hair braid of a pharaoh of the Tamosian line.'

'I have promised Meren,' said Nefer firmly.

Two puppies, tripping over their own paws in their enthusiasm and ignorance, Taita thought, but instead he said, 'There are no unbroken horses in Gallala - at least none that would answer the purpose.'

'I know where to find them. Naja and Trok have left all the remaining herds of Egypt unguarded.' Taita did not bother to point out the fallacy of that assertion. The false pharaohs had left more veteran troops to guard Egypt than ever they had taken with them on the adventure to Mesopotamia, but he knew that Nefer was not inclined to listen to any argument that ran contrary to his fixed intention.

'If you fail in the attempt you will lose much more than your hair. You will lose so much prestige that your claim to the throne might fail also.'

'I shall not fail,' Nefer said quietly. Taita had anticipated that exact reply.

'When do you intend to attempt the Red Road?' he asked.

'First I must have my horses.'

--

As soon as they had dug the fountain and it had become feasible to use Gallala as a permanent base Nefer, advised by Taita, had instituted a cleansing system for the city. The human waste, the manure from the cattle pens and horse lines were gathered up by the dung carts and spread on the fields as fertilizer, while the rest was carried out to dumps at the end of the valley, which soon became the home of a permanent population of crows and kites, vultures and the offal-eating marabou storks, with their obscenely naked heads. The baboons came down from the hills, and hundreds of jackals and pariah dogs picked over the heaps of rubbish.

At Nefer's orders traps were set each evening on the dumps, and the following morning the captured animals were taken away in cages.

In the meantime Shabako and his most trusted men were sent as scouts and spies back to the towns and villages of the Nile valley. They drank in the taverns and questioned the travellers they met on the road. They scouted each fort and garrison, and counted the troops they saw entering, leaving and drilling. When they returned weeks later the intelligence they brought back was detailed and accurate.

They reported that the false pharaohs had left at least half of their infantry, spearmen, slingers and archers, to counter any threat to their rear. All the border forts were fully manned and guarded, and the garrisons seemed alert and vigilant.

'What of the remount divisions?' Nefer asked, when Shabako had come to the end of his long report.

Trok has taken most of his chariots with him to Mesopotamia. He has left less than two regiments in reserve in Egypt. However, all the army workshops are hard at work building more chariots.'

'Horses?' Nefer demanded.

They have commandeered every animal in both kingdoms that they could lay their thieving hands on. They have even sent army dealers to Libya to buy what they could find. It seems that the remount depots at Thane and Manashi are at full strength. However, most of these animals appear young and untrained. The battle-hardened animals have been taken with the main army to the east.'

'Thane,' Nefer decided. 'It's much closer to the edge of the desert than Manashi.' He recalled that Thane was where Taita had used his requisition order from Naja to obtain fresh horses and chariots from Socco, Hilto's old comrade-in-arms, while they were on their way to rescue Mintaka from Avaris. He cast his mind back and tried to memorize the layout of the garrison and the surrounding terrain, but it had all been a long time ago.

'Tell me all you can about Thane. Is Socco still in command there?'

'We drank beer in the local brothel with a sergeant of the garrison. He told me that Socco has done such a good job there that Trok has promoted him to the rank of Best of Ten Thousand.'

Ten days later Nefer and Taita sat in the thick green grass and pretended to watch over the herd of goats that grazed around them. Although the land around the garrison of Thane was well irrigated and rich in grazing, it was also flat, treeless and featureless. There were no hills from which they could overlook the camp. The nearest high ground was along the edge of the desert, a league to the east.

The two of them were dressed in the ragged dusty black robes of the Bedouin. In this guise they were able to blend into the landscape as readily as a pair of hares or crows. At intervals they stood and herded the goats a little closer to the garrison, then squatted down again in the characteristic attitude of the Bedouin herdsman.

Not far from where they sat the herds of remounts were also grazing, tended by armed and uniformed herders. 'I would think there are upward of two thousand animals here,' Nefer guessed.

'Perhaps not as many as that.' Taita shook his head. 'Closer to fifteen hundred, but still more than we can handle.'

They watched and waited through the long, lazy afternoon. In the stockades alongside the cavalry lines the handlers were at work breaking the young animals to the chariot harness. Their shouted commands and the crack of the stock whips carried faintly to where Nefer and Taita sat. In the late afternoon the herds of horses were driven in from the fields and stockades to the long horse lines beyond the fort. From a distance they watched them tethered and bedded down for the night.

As the sun was setting Nefer and Taita rounded up their goats and drove them slowly back towards the desert. In the dusk a small detachment of four chariots came bowling down the road from Avaris. At the reins of the leading vehicle stood a burly officer wearing the silver pectoral plate of the Best of Ten Thousand. As he came closer they both recognized him.

The curse of Seth on it,' Nefer murmured. ''Tis Socco, Hilto's old comrade-in-arms. Will he recognize us?'

They bowed their heads, slumped their shoulders in a submissive attitude, and shuffled along after the goats. Socco swerved off the road and drove directly at them. 'You stinking scum!' he shouted. 'How often must I warn you to keep your filthy, disease-ridden beasts off my grass and away from my horses?' He leaned out and struck Nefer across the shoulders. The whiplash hummed and cracked against his flesh, and red rage blinded Nefer. Before he could drag Socco out of the chariot, though, Taita made a restraining gesture that riveted him where he stood. It seemed to affect Socco too, for his tone moderated a little as he coiled his whip and said, 'If I catch you people here again, I'll lop off your balls and stick them up your bung-hole.' He steered the chariot back on to the road and trotted off towards the fort.

Six nights later in the dark of the new moon, they returned to Thane in force, every man from Gallala who could ride astride, forty horsemen with black-dyed robes and soot-daubed faces. Each rider carried a large bag slung behind him over his horse's haunches. The contents of the bags squirmed and writhed, emitting muffled yips and whimpers: for each contained two or three live jackals. Their legs were tied, and strips of flax twine were bound around their muzzles to gag them.

The horses' hoofs were muffled with leather boots so they made no sound as Nefer led them in single file in a wide circuit round to the westerly side of the fort, keeping well clear of the cavalry lines so that they did not alarm the sentries.

Every man knew what was expected of him for they had practised this manoeuvre many times, and they kept silently in their formation, a half-moon of dark horsemen between Thane and the river. They were spaced at intervals just close enough together that a quiet command could be passed down the line. Nefer was in the centre, Meren on the left wing and Shabako on the right.

When Nefer was satisfied that they were in position he gave the warbling call of a nightingale, three times repeated, and saw the red line of glowing spots in the darkness as his men opened the lids of the clay firepots they all carried and blew the tinder into flame. He did the same, and then he opened the mouth of one of the bags on his horse's rump and reached in. He brought out a fat vixen by the scruff of the neck. She writhed in his grip.

There was a harsh, tarry smell, strong enough to mask the natural odour of the animals. The fur and brush had been soaked in a black viscous liquid. Taita had gathered this sticky substance from a natural seep that he knew of in the wilderness. It oozed from the earth and Taita said that it came up from great depth. It was highly inflammable, but he had mixed it with another substance, a yellow crystalline powder, that made it even more so. Every one of the captured jackals had been treated with this mixture.

With his dagger Nefer cut the twine that secured the vixen's four paws together. When she sensed freedom, she kicked and thrashed in his grip. He touched the firepot to her furry brush, which burst into spluttering, smoking flame. She redoubled her efforts to escape, but before he released her he slipped the point of the dagger between her lips and cut the loop of twine that muzzled her. She opened her jaws wide and let loose a screech, unearthly and terrifying. Nefer dropped her to the ground and the little creature shot away, spreading a stream of fire and sparks behind her, howling and shrieking in a fashion that set even his nerves on edge and made the hair rise down the back of his neck.

He pulled another jackal out of the bag. All down the line balls of flame flared in the darkness and steamed out across the open fields and those terrible agonized howls made the night hideous. A few of the tormented creatures broke back towards the river valley but the rest headed instinctively for their home in the desert, with the garrison of Thane directly in their path. In a pack they bore down on the cavalry lines.

As Nefer released the last screaming jackal, he drew his sword and kicked his mount into a gallop. He raced after the burning animals, and on either hand his troopers rode with him. They were all yelling like demons, adding their voices to the uproar.

Some of the jackals dragged their flaming tails through the dry horse fodder and bedding, which burst into flame also. The scene was lit by an eerie flickering light that made the dark riders seem monstrous.

Ahead Nefer saw the nearest sentries hurl aside their weapons and flee, screaming as loudly as the burning animals.

'Djinns!' they howled.

'Save us! The dark legions of Seth are upon us!'

'The hordes of hell! Run! Run!'

The tethered horses were rearing and plunging. When a stake was pulled up from the earth, or one of the long lines snapped under the strain, twenty horses were freed at once and wheeled away before the line of yelling, shrieking riders that swept into the camp.

Nefer leaned from his horse's back and sabred one of the running guards, striking deeply between his shoulder-blades and letting the slack body slide off the blade. Then he swerved to where a bunch of terrified horses struggled against a line that resisted their combined efforts to break free. With a single slash he cut the rope and whooped to send them to join the panic-stricken horde, then rounded up another bunch of milling disorientated animals and pushed them out of the lines into the open fields. Shabako and his men rode with him, shouting and whipping the horses along, a racing tide of men and animals compressed into a single entity and lit only by the flames of the burning garrison behind them. The last of the jackals had burnt to death and their black, smouldering carcasses were left in the grass as the riders thundered towards the hills.

Shabako appeared out of the night and rode at Nefer's side. 'By the sweat and seed of Seth!' he shouted. That was fun!' Then he turned and looked back. 'No sign yet of any pursuit, more is the pity. A good hack and slash now would be the perfect ending to an entertaining evening.'

'I promise you much entertainment later,' Nefer laughed, 'but now, we must head off the herd, before they run their guts out.'

They pushed their mounts hard, moving through the galloping mass until they rode in the first rank, then cut across them flagging them down from the gallop into a trot and then a walk, turning them in the direction of the open desert and Gallala.

Dawn found the long herd of loose horses spread out down a gaunt, rocky defile, moving at an easy but steady pace with Nefer and Shabako pointing them while Meren and his drovers brought up the stragglers from behind.

Nefer squinted into the first rays of the sun, and called to Shabako, 'Keep them headed up and moving. I am going back to see if Socco and his men are after us yet.'

As he rode back, Nefer singled out Meren and three others, all skilled with javelin and sword. He signalled to them and they galloped up to join him. 'If they are after us, we should try to change their minds for them.'

Nefer led them along their back trail, and at a point where the rock defile narrowed they left the three troopers to hold their horses, and he and Meren climbed the steep rock-strewn slope.

By the time they reached the top the sun was clear of the horizon, but had not yet dissipated the cool of the night and the dust and heat-haze had not built up. The land glowed with that peculiar lambency of the desert dawn. Each distant detail of rock and dune, cliff and gnarled tree, was etched with breath-stopping beauty.

'There!' said Nefer. Meren's eyes were sharp, but his were more so. 'Ten riders.' Meren tried to hide his chagrin at not finding them first. 'Eleven,' Nefer corrected him, and he did not argue. Instead he grinned delightedly. 'Fair odds to our five.'

'We will take them there.' Nefer pointed down into the gorge. 'There, where it narrows. We don't want them to carry back their news to Avaris. There must be no survivors.'

'That suits me above all things.' Meren laughed. They waited among the boulders, standing by the heads of their horses, hands over their nostrils to prevent them whickering or snorting and springing the trap prematurely. In the middle of the gap, Nefer had placed a leather bag, that had earlier contained captured jackals. It was now stuffed with their cloaks, which were no longer needed in the rising morning warmth.

Their heads went up as, from lower down the gorge, they heard the click of hoof against stone and the rattle of a dislodged pebble. Nefer looked across the open ground to where Meren and one of the other men were hidden on the far side of the defile. He held up his left hand with fingers spread. The signal for silence and vigilance. His father had taught him that hand signals were always preferable to spoken commands, especially in the heat of battle when they might be lost and drowned in the tumult, or in situations when stealth was paramount.

Now he picked out other small sounds, loud in the great silence of the sands: the creak of tackle and the rattle of arrows in quivers. Nefer glanced around the boulder that hid him and two of his troopers. A scrubby growth of bottlebrush broke up the silhouette of his head.

A rider appeared in the mouth of the gorge, and halted his horse as he saw the leather bag lying in the path. He looked around carefully and the rest of his troop crowded up behind him. Even under the crocodile-skin helmet Nefer recognized Socco, and his back itched where the whip had raised a bloody welt.

Time to return a favour, he thought grimly. Socco took his time, an old soldier, wary and suspicious. Then he walked his horse forward and the others followed him. They halted in a tight group, all leaning out and staring down at the bag. Socco grunted an order, 'Steady now! Watch my back,' and swung down from his horse. He stooped over the bag, and Nefer gave the command, a chopping motion with his raised left hand.

The throwing thongs were wrapped around every one of their right wrists and the range was point-blank. They threw as one man, and because Hilto and Shabako had trained them to perfection no two picked the same target. Five javelins buzzed like enraged bees, and struck where no armour could deflect them, three in the throat and two in the back of the neck. Five men toppled from horseback, and fell under the hoofs of their startled steeds.

Nefer and his men burst from ambush at the gallop, swords drawn and screaming their war-cry, 'Horus and Seti!'

The survivors of that first murderous flight of javelins turned instinctively to meet them but did not have time to clear their swords from the scabbards before they crashed into them, their horses trained to charge in chest to chest. Two more of Socco's horses were taken off-balance and dashed off their feet, throwing their riders. Nefer picked the nearest man, who was still mounted, and killed him with a thrust to the throat. Now Socco cleared his sword and thrust up at Nefer's belly. Nefer turned the blow and his horse reared and lashed at Socco with both hoofs, one of which struck him a solid blow. He was thrown sprawling into the sand. Before Nefer could finish him another of the enemy rode at him, sword lifted high. Nefer rode in under the stroke and engaged him, cut and parry, as they milled and shouted, struggling at close quarters.

Socco's men had only just rallied from the first shock when Meren chose his moment perfectly and led the trooper with him in a furious charge into the melee. He sent a thrust to the heart and yelled in triumph. Then immediately he reversed his blade and killed again, a cut across the neck. His victim slid down on to the earth with his head half severed from the trembling jerking trunk.

Socco had lost his helmet and his sword and crawled desperately on his knees to try to retrieve the weapon. He was the only one of all his men still able to resist. Nefer leaned out from his horse's back and aimed at the opening where his breastplate of crocodile-skin armour was fastened between his shoulder-blades, but at the last moment could not bring himself to drive home. He changed his blow smoothly, rolling his wrist to present the flat of the sickle-shaped blade and cracked Socco across the back of his grizzled pate. The man dropped face down in the sand.

Nefer glanced round to make certain that Meren had everything in hand. Then slid off his horse to the ground just as Socco groaned, shook his head and tried to sit up. Nefer slammed his heel into his adversary's chest and thrust him back, then placed the point of his sword at his throat. 'Yield, Socco, or I will send the news of your passing to your mother and all the one hundred stinking goatherds who had a hand in fathering you.'

Socco's dazed expression cleared and became a defiant glare. 'Let me reach my sword, puppy, and I will teach you how to lift your leg when you piss.' He was about to add more to the insult, when suddenly the bellicose light in his eyes faded. He stammered wordlessly. He was gawking at the cartouche on Nefer's thigh.

'Majesty,' he gasped. 'Forgive me! Strike! Take my worthless life as forfeit for those gross and stupid words of mine. I heard the rumours that you still lived, but I had wept at your funeral and could not believe in such a miracle.'

Nefer smiled with relief. He had not wanted to kill him - he was an attractive old rogue, and Hilto said that he was one of the finest horse-handlers in all the armies of Egypt. Hilto should know. 'Will you swear the loyal oath to me as Pharaoh?' he demanded sternly.

'Gladly, for all the earth fears you in your name of Nefer Seti, beloved of all the gods, and light of this very Egypt. My heart beats only for you and my soul will sing my duty to you until the hour of my death.'

Then, Socco, I promote you to Master of a Thousand Chariots, and Taita had best guard his title of Poet Laureate, for you turn a pretty phrase.'

'Let me kiss your foot, Pharaoh,' Socco pleaded.

'Give me your hand, rather,' Nefer said, seized his horny fist and pulled him to his feet. ''Tis a pity about your men.' Nefer glanced at the corpses. 'If they had shared your loyal sentiments, they need not have died.'

'They died at the hand of a god,' Socco pointed out. 'There is no greater honour. Besides, Taita the Warlock may be able to save the few who are still groaning and twitching.'

Three days later, when they rode into Gallala, they were droving nigh on four hundred horses, and Socco rode proudly at the right hand of his new pharaoh with his helmet sitting high on the bandages that were wound around his injured head.

--

Socco was not only quartermaster general of the armies of the false pharaohs with the rank of Best of Ten Thousand, but he was also an adept of the Red Road. He was able to give Nefer the exact tally of all the enemy fighting chariots and transport wagons, and where they were deployed. From memory he drew up a list of the numbers of horses and bullocks in depots of the delta, and the latest inventory of weapons stored in the armouries.

'Trok and Naja have taken almost the last serviceable fighting chariot with them on the expedition to the east. There are less than fifty left in Egypt, in either the Upper or Lower Kingdom. The military workshops at Avaris, Thebes and Aswan are working day and night, but every chariot they turn out is sent immediately along the road to Beersheba and Mesopotamia.'

'Horses we now have, thanks to Pharaoh's bold stroke at Thane, even though most are young and unbroken, but we cannot fight a campaign without chariots,' said Hilto gloomily. 'We cannot seize what does not exist, and all the gold now in the royal treasury cannot buy a single squadron.'

While they had been away from Gallala on the great horse raid, Hilto had brought in the remaining gold from the caches along the eastern highway. There was over three lakhs of the precious metal in the ancient cisterns under the city of Gallala. He went on, 'Soon Trok must hear of our successes. He will realize that we have become a real threat. As soon as he has captured Babylon, he will divert part of his army to attack us here. If he sent only a hundred chariots, we could not stand against them in our present state.'

When all the others had had their say, Nefer stood to address the council. He did not speak long. 'Socco, you train the horses for me,' he said. 'Taita and I will find the chariots.'

'That, Majesty, will take a minor miracle,' said Socco gloomily.

'Be not so parsimonious, Master of a Thousand Chariots.' Nefer smiled at him. 'How can we make good your title with only a minor miracle? Let us put our faith in a major one.'

--

Taita stood on the black rock outcrop. Around him the sand dunes stretched away to the limit of the eye. From the base of the rock a hundred men watched him, puzzled but intrigued. The fame of the Magus was as boundless as the desert in which they found themselves. All of them were warriors who had come to Gallala of their own accord, forsaking the false pharaohs to offer their allegiance to Nefer Seti. That allegiance was wearing a little thin, for here they found themselves without weapons or chariots, and daily there were fresh rumours that either Trok or Naja or both were on the march to seek vengeance for their desertion.

Pharaoh Nefer Seti stood beside the Warlock on the pinnacle of rock. They were in deep discussion. Occasionally one or the other would gesticulate or point out towards the west, where there was nothing to see but sand, sand and more sand.

They waited patiently through the heat of the day. Not one expressed disenchantment or disbelief for they were all in awe of Taita. As the shadows in the hollows of the dunes deepened to purple, that ill-assorted pair, young monarch and ancient Magus, came down from the pinnacle and walked out into the dunes. Without any apparent purpose the Warlock wandered back and forth along one of the dune faces. He stopped at intervals and made strange, esoteric gestures with his long staff, then went on again with Pharaoh and his officers following him.

At last in the gathering dusk the Magus planted his staff in the soft sand and spoke quietly to Pharaoh Nefer Seti. Now, suddenly, they were all galvanized by the shouted orders of the officers.

Twenty men ran forward carrying the digging tools with which they had been issued. Under the direction of Hilto and Meren, and under the daunting eyes of their king and the Magus, they began to dig. When the hole was shoulder deep the loose sand ran back into it almost as fast as they shovelled it out, and they were forced to redouble their efforts to make any gains. The heads of the diggers sank slowly below the level of the surrounding earth, until abruptly there came an excited shout from the bottom of the excavation. Nefer strode forward and stood on the lip.

'There is something here, divine Majesty.' A man was kneeling in the bottom of the hole, and he looked up with sweat mixed with the grit that coated his face and body.

'Let me see.' Nefer jumped down and pushed the man out of the way. A patch of hide was exposed, still covered with hair but hard as cedarwood.

Nefer looked up at Taita. 'It is the body of a horse!' he called.

'What colour?' Taita asked. 'Is it black?'

'How did you know that?' Nefer was not really surprised.

'Does the halter carry the golden cartouche of Pharaoh Trok Uruk?' Taita answered his question with another.

'Dig it open!" Nefer ordered the sweating men around him. 'But gently now. Do no damage.'

They worked with great care, using their bare hands to sweep away the sand. Gradually they exposed the complete head of a black horse that wore on its forehead the cartouche of Trok, embossed on a gold disc, just as Taita had foreseen.

Then they went on to uncover the rest of the carcass. The animal had been wonderfully preserved by the hot dry sand. The embalmers in Thebes would have difficulty in matching what the desert had achieved. Beside it lay its harness mate, another stallion. Nefer recalled how he had last seen these magnificent animals as they drew Trok's chariot forward under the louring dustclouds of the khamsin.

By this time night had fallen and the workmen lit the oil lamps and placed them on the lip of the excavation. They went on with the work through the night. The dead horses were unbuckled from the traces and lifted out. Their desiccated carcasses were so light that four men could carry them with ease.

Then they recovered the harness. It was in a perfect state of preservation, and Nefer set his grooms to work immediately, oiling the leather and polishing the gold and bronze parts.

Now they worked back to the chariot itself and a gasp went up from the diggers as the dashboard was cleared of the engulfing sand: it was covered with gold leaf, and gleamed in the lamplight, shooting out darts of light that pricked their eyes. The javelins and lances were still in their bins on either side of the cockpit, ready to the hand of the charioteer. Each weapon was a work of art in itself, the lance handles laminated for strength and the metal heads sharp as the scalpels of a surgeon. The arrows had been made by Grippa of Avaris, the shafts straight and true, the fletchings dyed crimson, yellow and green, the royal cartouche carved into the shaft.

Trok's great war bow was still in its rack, and only the bowstring needed to be replaced. Nefer flexed the shaft in his hands and wondered if he had the strength to wield it in battle.

When the entire chariot had been uncovered they passed ropes under the chassis and lifted it out of the excavation. The gold leaf had been beaten so thin that it added no more than two taels to the total weight of the vehicle, and to compensate for this the chassis had been carved from dark hard woods, hewn in the sinister rain-forests far to the south of Egypt's borders. These timbers were more resilient than the finest bronze, but light and tough. They could be fined down to save weight without sacrificing strength.

Now it was morning, and the sun was climbing above the horizon. Nefer and Taita circled the chariot as it gleamed in the light. It was so sleek and graceful that it seemed already in motion. Its single shaft seemed to pine like a lover for the touch of two proud horses. Nefer stroked the gold work. It was smooth as a lovely woman's skin and warm beneath his hand.

'It seems to be a living creature,' he breathed. 'Surely there was never a more magnificent weapon of war ever conceived.'

'Fifty years ago I built a chariot for Lord Tanus.' Taita sniffed and shook his head. 'You should have seen that one. But it rests with him in his tomb in far-off Ethiopia.'

Nefer hid a smile - the old man would never admit second best. Then I shall have to be content with this inferior work cart,' he said seriously. 'I need only the blue sword that Naja stole from my father to complete my armoury.'

Over the weeks and months that followed Taita pinpointed the other buried vehicles and their accoutrements. Teams of workmen dug them out and sent them to the chariot-makers who had set up a workshop in the lee of the rock pinnacle, roofed over with palm thatch. Here, fifty of them and nearly a hundred armourers laboured through the daylight hours, never letting up even in the furious heat of noon. The armourers polished and sharpened swords, javelins and lances. They rebound the shafts and reset the heads. Over slow fires they straightened the arrows that had warped. The chariot-makers stripped each vehicle as it came out from under the sand, checked each component, painted and lacquered the chassis and the panels, and balanced and lubricated the wheels to run true and sweetly. Then they reassembled them and sent them on to Gallala, loaded with the restored weapons, to equip the army that Hilto, Shabako and Socco were training.

Many of the vehicles were so deeply buried under the burning yellow dunes that they were lost for ever, or until the next great storm uncovered them, but in the end they salvaged a hundred and five. Enough to equip five squadrons.

When Nefer drove through the gates of Gallala in the royal chariot, Meren was on the footplate by his side.

Mintaka and Merykara stood together on the roof pediment of the temple of Hathor, and strewed oleander petals upon them as they passed below.

'He is so handsome.' Merykara's voice was husky with awe. 'So tall and handsome.'

'So tall and handsome and strong,' Mintaka agreed. 'He will be the greatest pharaoh in the history of this very Egypt."

'I did not mean Nefer,' said Merykara.

--

By this time a thriving smuggling route existed between the city and Egypt, and other caravans came in regularly from the port of Safaga on the eastern sea. Since the capture of the treasure of Trok and Naja, Gallala had become a city rich with gold. Like hyenas the merchants sniffed the aroma of the yellow metal from afar and brought in their wares from the ends of the world. Nowadays there was no luxury or necessity that could not be obtained in the city's souks, so Mintaka was able to procure a wagonload of the finest red wine from the vineyards of the temple of Osiris at Busiris for the welcome banquet she had arranged for the evening that the charioteers returned.

At her orders, the butchers spitted and roasted ten whole oxen, and chickens and geese by the hundred. Fast relays of the new chariots brought up fresh fish, and baskets of lobsters in seaweed from the coast. Most of the long-whiskered crustaceans were still alive when they were dropped squeaking into the boiling pots. Hunters scoured the surrounding desert and came in with gazelle, oryx, and the flesh and eggs of the ostrich.

The banquet was a joyous celebration of their achievements and small victories over the false pharaohs. The wine had flowed to great effect when Nefer rose to welcome the guests and announce the recovery of the five squadrons of chariots from under the sands. 'With the horses that we freed from the tyranny of Trok ..." there were hoots and guffaws at this '... and the weapons and chariots we now have, we are well able to defend ourselves against Trok and Naja. As you are aware, every day that passes sees fresh recruits to the blue banner. Soon it will not be merely a case of defending ourselves, but of taking back what was stolen from us and avenging the terrible deeds that those two monsters have perpetrated. They have the blood of true and noble kings upon their hands. They are the murderers of King Apepi, who was the father of the noble lady at my side, and they slew my own father, Pharaoh Tamose.' The guests were silent and puzzled now, looking at each other for guidance. Then Hilto rose to his feet. Nefer had primed him, and placed the question on his lips. 'Divine Majesty, forgive my ignorance for I am just a simple man, but I do not understand. All the world knows that King Apepi died in an accident when his barge caught fire while anchored at Balasfura. Now you lay the guilt for his death on the pretenders. How can that be?'

'There is one among us who was a witness to the true events of that tragic night.' Nefer reached down and drew Mintaka to her feet. The company cheered her, for they had all come to love her for her beauty and her gracious spirit. When Nefer held up his hand they fell silent and listened to her with all their attention as she related the story of the murder of her father and brothers. She used simple words and spoke to them as friends and comrades, yet she was able to share with them her own horror and grief. When she had finished they were growling like a cage of hungry lions at feeding time.

Now Shabako rose and asked his prepared question: 'But, divine Pharaoh, you spoke also of the death of your own father, King Tamose of blessed memory. How was he murdered - and by whom?'

'For the answer to this question I must call upon the Magus, Lord Taita, from whom no secret, however devious and grisly, can be hidden.'

Taita faced them and spoke in a whisper that riveted their attention. His every word carried to the ears of even those on the outskirts of the gathering, and the softness of those words contrasted so effectively with the gruesome circumstances they described that men shuddered and women wept.

At the end Taita held up the broken arrow with its crimson, green and yellow feathers. This is the instrument of Pharaoh Tamose's death. The arrow that bears the signet of Trok, but which was loosed by Naja, the man whom Pharaoh loved and trusted as a brother.'

They howled their outrage and their craving for justice to the starlit skies above Gallala. Taita hurled the arrow on to the nearest fire over which one of the oxen was roasting. It would not have borne closer inspection, for it was not the arrow that had killed Pharaoh but one of those he had taken from the buried chariot. He sat down and closed his eyes, as if composing himself to sleep.

Nefer let the guests give full vent to their feelings and when they began to quieten a little he signalled for more wine flagons to be carried out.

There was one last proclamation he had to make, and he waited until the mood had mellowed further before he stood up again. All fell silent and watched him in anticipation heightened by the good wine from Busiris. The night had already held so many marvels and they wondered what was yet to come.

'Before a king leads his armies against the enemies of this sacred land of our forefathers, he should be a king indeed, a true and veritable king. I purpose to lead you against the usurpers, but I am not yet ordained as Pharaoh. I can achieve this confirmation if I wait until the year of my majority, but that is still far off, and I do not choose to wait that long. Nor will my enemies allow me that grace.' He paused and they watched him, fascinated - so young yet so tall and straight, as his father had been before him. Now he raised his right hand in the gesture of oath-taking.

'In the sight of my people and my gods, I will run the Red Road to prove to you that I am your king.'

Some sighed and shook their heads, others started to their feet and cried out, 'No! Pharaoh, we will not see you killed,' while others called, 'Bak-her! If he fails then he fails as a brave man.'

That night Mintaka wept as she asked him, 'Why did you not tell me first?'

'Because you would have tried to stop me.'

'But why must you do it?'

'Because my gods and my duty require it.'

'Even if it kills you.'

'Even if it kills me.'

She stared long into his green eyes and saw how steadfast was his resolve. Then she kissed him and said, 'I am proud that I am to be wife to such a man as you.'

--

The astrologers among the priests of Horus, assisted by the Magus, consulted the calendars and set the date for the trial of the Red Road to be held on the day of the new moon of the god. Therefore, as Taita had remarked, Nefer had little time to prepare for the ordeal. He withdrew from all his other duties, leaving even the conduct of affairs of state to Taita and the council while he gave all his attention to the first task required of him. Before a novice could present himself for trial he must break and train his own team of horses to carry him on the Red Road.

Nefer had to pick out a team of horses from the herd they had captured at Thane, then train them to the shaft of the chariot. He would have liked to ask Socco to help him with the selection of his team: not only was he a famous horseman but he knew each of the captured animals. However, Socco was one of only five Red Road warriors in Gallala and was one of those who would examine Nefer. He could not assist him in his preparations for the ordeal.

There was another to whom Nefer could appeal: Taita's knowledge, understanding and experience of horsemanship and chariot tactics exceeded even Socco's. Yet Taita was not a Red Road warrior. His physical imperfections precluded him from the brotherhood, and added to that he had religious scruples. He would never forswear Horus and the other gods of the pantheon to pledge himself to the mysterious Red God of war, a god whose name was known only to his adepts.

The two spent the first day on the hillside above the green fields where the unbroken horses grazed. They sat together and watched the animals below them, discussing those that caught the eye. Nefer pointed out a handsome white colt, but Taita shook his head. 'A grey looks good in the traces, but I have always been wary of them. I have found they lack stamina and heart. Let us look for either black or bay, matched in colour.'

Nefer picked out a filly with a white blaze on her forehead, but again Taita shook his head. The Bedouin say that a white mark is the touch of a devil or a djinn. I want not a trace of white on the animals we choose.'

'Do you believe what they say?'

Taita shrugged. 'A blaze or a sock mars their symmetry. You and your team should have the look of a pharaoh when you ride out.'

Taita and Nefer stayed on the hillside until nightfall, and went out again the next morning, as soon as it was light enough to see the path, with Meren and three grooms. They began to sort the horses, driving any imperfect animal into the adjacent field. By noon they had whittled down the herd to twenty-three animals, all clean-limbed and strong, no scars, no blemish, no obvious impediment in their gait. There was not a single white hair on any of them.

They let them settle down, and when the horses were grazing quietly they sat in the grass and watched them.

'I like that black colt,' Nefer said.

'He is lame. Almost certainly he has a cracked left front hoof.'

'He does not limp,' Nefer protested.

'Watch his left ear. He flicks it at every pace. Tell Meren to drive him out.'

A little later Nefer marked a black filly. 'She has a fine head and a bright eye.'

'She is too highly strung. The eye is more nervous than intelligent. She will wilt in the din of battle. Meren can let her go.'

'What of the black colt with the long tail and mane?'

The tail disguises the fact that he is half a thumb's length short in the back.'

By late afternoon there were only six horses left in the field. In a pact of silence, they had avoided speaking of one particular colt. He was too obviously the choice they must make. He was a marvellous beast, not too tall or heavy, well proportioned, with strong legs and back. His neck was long and his head noble. They watched him a while longer.

At last Magus spoke, 'I can find no vice in him. There is a spark in his eyes that comes from the fire in his heart.'

'I will call him Krus,' Nefer decided. 'It is the Bedouin name for fire.'

'Yes, the name is important. I never knew a good horse with an ugly name. It as if the gods are listening. Let Krus be your right-hander, but now you need a left hander.'

'Another colt-' Nefer started, but Taita stopped him.

'No, we need a filly on the left. A feminine influence to keep Krus in check, and steady him in the heat of the fight. A great heart to pull with him when the road is hard.'

'You have chosen already, have you not?' Nefer asked.

'And so have you.' Taita nodded. 'We both know who she must be.'

Their eyes went back to the filly grazing placidly beside the main irrigation channel, a little separated from Krus and the rest of the herd. Almost as though she knew they were speaking about her, she raised her head and stared back at them, with large shining eyes behind thick lashes.

'She is beautiful,' Nefer murmured. 'I would love to take her without having to put a rope on her.' Taita was silent, and after another minute Nefer said impulsively, 'I am going to try.' He stood up and called to Meren. Take the others out of the field. Leave only the bay filly.'

When Nefer and the filly had the field to themselves, he left the fence, and moved casually in her direction, not going straight at her but strolling obliquely across her front. As soon as she showed the first sign of agitation he squatted down in the green grass and waited. She began feeding again but all the while she was watching him from the corner of her eye. Nefer began to sing the monkey song softly, and she raised her head and looked at him again. He took out a dhurra cake from the pouch on his belt, and without standing up offered it to her. She flared her nostrils and snuffled loudly.

'Come, my darling.'

She took an uncertain step towards him, then stopped and threw up her head.

'Sweetheart,' he crooned, 'my lovely darling.'

A step at a time she came in, then extended her neck to full stretch and sniffed noisily at the cake. Terrified by her own audacity she jerked back and galloped away, making a wide circuit of the field.

'She moves like the wind,' Meren called.

'Dov.' Nefer used the Bedouin word for the north wind, the soft cool wind of the winter season. 'Dov, that is her name.'

Having shown him her feminine capriciousness, Dov circled back flirtatiously and came to him from the other side. This time she accepted his offering readily and drooled saliva as she crunched it up. She ran her velvet muzzle over his open palm searching for crumbs, and when she found none she reached for his pouch and bumped it so demandingly that she knocked Nefer over backwards. He scrambled up and fished out another cake.

While she ate it he touched her neck with the other hand. As though flies were crawling over her, she made her dark mahogany-coloured hide dance, but did not pull away. There was a tick in her ear-hole, and Nefer plucked it off then crushed it between his fingernails and offered the bloody fragment for her to smell. She shuddered with disgust and rolled her eyes at the offensive odour, but allowed him to examine and fondle the other ear. When he left the field she followed him like a dog to the fence. Then she hung her head over the rail, and whickered after him.

'I am consumed with jealousy.' Mintaka had watched the encounter from the temple roof. 'Already she loves you almost as much as I do.'

The next morning Nefer came down to the field alone. Taita and Meren were watching from the roof of the temple. This was something between Nefer and Dov. No others should interfere.

Nefer whistled as he came down to the fence and Dov threw up her head and galloped across the field to meet him. As soon as she reached him she pushed her muzzle into his pouch.

'You are a typical woman,' Nefer scolded her. 'You are interested only in the gifts I bring you.'

While she ate the cake he fondled and caressed her, until he could slip one arm around her neck. Then he walked her along the fence and back again, and she leaned her shoulder against him. He fed her one more cake and as she savoured it he moved back along her left flank, stroking her and telling her how beautiful she was. Then in one smooth movement he swung up and straddled her back. She started under him and he braced himself for her first wild plunge, but she stood trembling with her legs slightly splayed. Then she turned her head and stared at him in such comical astonishment that he could not help laughing. 'It's all right, my sweetling. This is what you were born to.'

She stamped her forefoot and snorted.

'Come now,' he said. 'Are you not going to try to throw me off? Let us get this question settled at once.' She reached back and sniffed his toe, as if she could not bring herself to believe the extraordinary solecism he had committed against her dignity. She shuddered and stamped her hoof again, but she stood firm.

'Come then!' he said. 'Let's try a canter.' He touched her flanks with his heels and she jumped with surprise, then walked forward. They went down the fence sedately, and he touched her again. She broke into a trot, then a gentle canter. Meren was whooping and shouting from the temple roof, and the men and women working in the fields straightened up and watched with interest.

'Now let's see you really move.' Nefer slapped her lightly on the neck and urged her forward with a thrust of his hips. She stretched out and floated away, her dainty hoofs seeming barely to touch the earth, like the gentle wind for which she had been named. She ran so that the wind stung his eyes and the tears streamed over his temples and wet the dense tresses of his hair.

Round and round the paddock they sped, while on the roof of the temple Mintaka clapped her hands and cried out with amazement.

Beside her, Taita smiled distantly. 'A royal pair,' he said. They will be hard to catch on the Red Road.'

--

The entire city had heard of the instant love affair between Pharaoh and his filly. Now the word spread rapidly through Gallala that Nefer was going to put the rope on Krus. Horsemen all, they knew that the colt would be a different proposition from the filly. They were in a ferment of excitement at the prospect of Nefer's first attempt to break him in. Nobody went out into the fields that morning and all work in the vehicle shops and on the buildings was suspended. Even the training regiments were given a day's holiday to watch the attempt. Thus, there was fierce competition for the best positions on the city walls and rooftops that overlooked the field below the fountain of Horus.

Nefer and Meren went out through the gates to ironical cheers and ribald advice shouted down from the walls by the wags among the crowd. Krus was in the centre of the herd. He stood out among the other animals, taller by a hand and his head was distinguished. All the horses had sensed the mood of the watchers, and were skittish and nervous as the two men paused at the gate and hung the coils of flax ropes over the fence.

'I will try him first with a cake,' Nefer said, and Meren laughed. 'Look in his eye. I think he would eat you before the cake.'

'Nevertheless, I will try. Wait here.'

Nefer went through the gate, and moved in slowly as he had with Dov. Krus disliked this attention. He arched that long neck and rolled his eyes. Nefer stopped and let him settle down to graze again. He took a dhurra cake from his pouch and held it out, but when he moved forward Krus tossed his head, kicked his heels to the sky and galloped furiously away down the fence line. Nefer chuckled ruefully. 'So much for my gifts. He will not make it easy.'

'Look at him run,' Meren called. 'Sweet Horus, if Dov is the north wind then this one is the khamsin.'

Krus was running with the other horses now, leading them. Nefer and Meren went into the field together and between them worked the herd gently down to the corner of the fence of heavy poles. There they milled around nervously in the dust as the men came up. Then they broke the wrong way, galloping back to the top end of the field before Nefer could cut them off. Twice more Krus led them out of the trap, but then Nefer sent Meren to cut him off on the far side of the field and Krus made his first mistake. He came thundering back towards Nefer.

Nefer shook out the loop on the end of the long flax rope he carried coiled over his shoulder, and waited for the colt to come through the narrow gap between him and the wooden slats of the fence. Nefer judged his moment and put the loop into flight, a spinning circle over his head, then as Krus galloped through with his neck stretched out, Nefer shot out the loop, which dropped neatly over his head and slipped back to the front of his shoulder. The coils of rope were whipped off Nefer's shoulder, one after the other, as Krus bore away. Nefer braced himself with legs spread wide, leaning back with the end of the rope wrapped half a dozen times around his wrist.

The rope came up hard with the running colt at the other end, and Nefer was yanked off his feet, and hauled face down on to his belly. The colt felt the grab of the rope and the weight, panicked and bolted. Nefer was dragged after him like a sledge, bouncing and rolling at the rope's end.

The crowds on the rooftops and the walls exploded into hysterical mirth and cheers. Mintaka stuffed her fingers into her mouth to stop herself screaming and Merykara covered her eyes and turned away. 'I cannot watch!' she cried.

The colt reached the fence at the end of the field and swung parallel to it. For a moment there was slack in the rope and Nefer used it to roll on to his feet. His belly and legs were grazed and covered with green grass stains, but the rope was tight around his wrist. It came up hard again and he was jerked forward brutally, but he kept on his feet. Using the impetus he went after Krus with long strides, dragged along on the rope's end.

After one circuit of the field Krus slowed to the heavy drag, and Nefer consolidated his gain by digging in the heels of his bronze-cleated sandals. Then as they slowed he swung himself out on the rope's end, catching the colt by surprise. The animal stumbled at the changed direction of the pull, and as soon as he steadied Nefer swung himself the other way. Twice more Nefer was pulled down, but each time he fought his way to his feet again and put pressure on the colt.

In the meantime Meren had opened the gate and driven the rest of the herd into the adjacent field, then he closed it so that man and horse had the empty field in which to fight it out.

Nefer dug in for a foothold and swung the colt's head towards the fence, forcing him to back up on the rope or crash into the heavy poles. He gathered up the slack in the rope then raced forward. Before Krus could recover he had taken three turns of rope around the heavy corner post of the fence and pinned him. Krus reared and plunged, shaking his head and rolling his eyes until the whites showed.

'I have you now,' Nefer gasped, and worked himself hand over hand down the rope towards him. Krus rose on his hind legs and struck out at the rope, whinnying shrilly. 'Gently, gently. Will you kill us both?'

Krus reared again and lifted Nefer off his feet. He came down foursquare and they confronted each other, the colt trembling wildly and sweating down his back and shoulders. Nefer was in no better case, the front of his body covered with scratches and grass burns, from which blood and pale lymph oozed. He, too, was running with sweat, and his face was contorted with the effort of holding down the colt.

They both rested for a space, then Nefer started creeping hand over hand down the rope towards Krus again. He reached the horse's head and flung one arm around his neck. Krus reared again and lifted Nefer high, but he kept his grip. Again and again Krus tried to break away, but Nefer hung on.

At last the colt stood trembling, and before he could recover Nefer had thrown a loop of the rope around his back leg and pulled it tight. When Krus tried to bolt again his nose was almost touching his right flank and he could only turn in a tight circle. Nefer secured the knots in the rope, so that they would not slip and strangle Krus, then staggered back.

He was so exhausted that he could barely keep his feet. Krus tried to run, but managed only to follow his nose in another tight circle. Round and round he went in a right-hand turn, slower and slower, until at last he stood confused and helpless, nose pointing at his rump.

Nefer left him and dragged his battered body to the gate.

--

The next morning the rooftops and walls were crowded once more with men and women, as Nefer made his way out of the gates and down to the field. He was trying not to limp. Despite the salves and unguents that Taita had mixed and that Mintaka had applied, his injuries had stiffened overnight. Krus was still standing in the same attitude in which Nefer had left him the previous evening, nose to tail. Nefer began to sing softly as he came through the gate into the field. Krus did not move but laid his ears flat on his neck and bared his teeth in a vicious grin.

Nefer moved around him slowly, singing and whispering to him, and Krus fidgeted and tried to move away, but he was locked in that monotonous circle. Nefer seized the head rope and gently adjusted his knots so that they could be released and dropped with a single movement.

Then he moved quietly down Krus' left flank where he was hidden from the colt. He stroked his back and kept talking as he gathered himself. Then, in one easy movement, he swung up and straddled Krus' back. The colt's entire body convulsed then froze with terror and outrage. He tried to run but his head was held down. He made another uneasy circle. He tried to buck but the rope jerked up hard around his neck. He stood again, but with his ears laid back.

Nefer jerked the tag end of the slip-knot, first the one that secured his back leg and then the loop around his neck. The rope dropped away, and Krus lifted his head and arched his neck. For another moment nothing happened. Then he realized that he was free. Like a gull launching into flight, Krus seemed to rise straight up into the air on four stiff legs with his nose touching his front hoofs. He came down and jumped again spinning on his tail, switching from side to side. Nefer stuck to his back like a growth. Krus started to buck, kicking viciously at the sky with both back legs together. In a series of these wild running lunges he crossed from one side of the field to the other.

Then he rose high on his back legs and flung himself over, crashing down on his own spine with a thud that carried clearly to the watchers on the walls, attempting to crush his rider between himself and the earth.

Mintaka screamed, expecting to hear the crackle of breaking bone, but Nefer had jumped clear, landing like a cat, and crouched beside the colt as Krus lay on his back and thrashed his legs in the air.

'Only a clever and warlike horse will try like that to kill a man,' Taita remarked, without emotion.

Frustrated, Krus raised himself on his front legs, but before he could scramble back on to all four feet Nefer had vaulted firmly on to his back. The colt stood under him, trembling and shaking his head, then burst into a furious gallop. He tore across the field stretched in full stride, and aimed straight at the fence. Nefer lay stretched out on his neck and shouted at him, 'Yes! As fast as you like!'

Krus went at the high fence without a check, and Nefer shifted his weight to help him over. They rose together on a great wave of power, and sailed clear over the top bar, landing cleanly in balance.

Nefer laughed with exhilaration, and urged him forward with a thrust of his hips. 'Come on! Let's see your best speed.'

Krus went up the lower slopes of the bleak bare hills like a wild oryx, and disappeared over the skyline, headed out into the desert. The cheering and hubbub on the city walls died away, and a profound silence fell.

'We must send someone after them,' Mintaka cried in the silence. 'Nefer may be thrown. He could be lying out there in the wilderness with his back broken.'

Taita shook his head. 'It is between the two of them now. Nobody should intervene.'

They waited on the walls and rooftops while the sun made its noon then began to sink towards the horizon, but nobody left their position -they would not chance missing the climax of this trial of strength and nerve between man and beast.

'They have killed each other,' Mintaka fretted. 'That horse is a monster. If it has hurt Nefer I will have it destroyed,' she vowed furiously.

Another hour passed, slowly as dripping honey, and then a stir ran along the top of the wall. Men jumped to their feet and stared up at the crest of the hills, and a murmur rose slowly to an excited chorus of shouts and laughter.

On the skyline appeared a sorry pair. The colt's head was hanging, and his coat was dark with sweat, limed with the salt the had dried upon him. His utter exhaustion was evident in every halting pace he took. On his back Nefer drooped wearily, and as Krus picked his way down the slope they could see how Pharaoh's body had been bruised and battered.

Krus reached the foot of the hills. He was too far gone to jump the fence again, but he came submissively down the dusty road towards the city gates.

Mintaka shouted, 'Bak-her! Well done, Your Majesty!' and immediately the cry was taken up and flung from man to man until it echoed from the hills above the fountain of Osiris.

'Bak-her! Bak-her!'

Nefer straightened on the colt's back and raised one fist high in a triumphant salute. The cheering redoubled.

Below the walls he showed his mastery by putting Krus through a series of turns, first one way then the other. Then he stopped him with a hand on his withers and made him back up. His commands were almost imperceptible, light pressure of his knees or a toe pressed behind Krus' elbow, or subtle shifts of his weight, but the horse responded submissively.

'I feared he had broken the colt's spirit,' Taita told Mintaka, 'but Krus is one of those rare creatures who needs firm treatment rather than kindness. Nefer had to establish his mastery and, Horus is my witness, I have never seen it done so swiftly and completely.'

Nefer rode in through the city gates and waved up at Mintaka, then went down the long avenue to the cavalry lines. He tethered Krus and held the leather bucket for him to drink. Once the colt had slaked his thirst he washed off the dust and dried sweat with hot water, then took him out of the stable to roll in the sand lot. He filled his nosebag with crushed dhurra sweetened with honey, and while Krus ate greedily, Nefer rubbed him down, telling him how brave he was, how they would run the Red Road together, and Krus switched his ears back and forth as he listened to him.

As the sun went down Nefer spread the straw bedding thickly on the stable floor. Krus sniffed at it, nibbled a mouthful then lowered himself wearily and stretched out upon his side. Nefer lay down in the straw beside him and pillowed his head on Krus' neck. They fell asleep together, and Mintaka lay alone that night.

--

The next day Nefer introduced Krus to Dov. The horses circled each other warily, sniffed each other's mouths and circled again. When Krus thrust his nose under Dov's tail she feigned outrage and lashed out at him with both back legs, then raced away flirtatiously with Krus prancing after her. Nefer let them graze together for the rest of the day, and the following morning showed them the chariot. This was not the magnificent royal vehicle, but an older, well-used one. He let them smell the shaft, which had been rubbed and polished smooth by contact with the flanks of many other horses. When they both lost interest in such a mundane object, Meren led Krus away while Nefer took Dov through the next step.

Stroking and caressing her, he placed the harness carefully over her shoulders and fastened the straps. She fidgeted unhappily but allowed him to place these unaccustomed restraints on her. He went up on her back and took her on two circuits of the field. When he brought her back, Meren had the shaft ready. It was not attached to the chariot, although it had the ring bolt at one end. Nefer hitched the harness to it, and Dov rolled her eyes nervously as she felt the weight hanging down her side. She turned her head to examine the shaft, and once she had satisfied her curiosity he took her head and led her forward.

She snorted and crabbed as the shaft followed her, but Nefer gentled and reassured her. After they had circled the field a few times she was no longer skittering sideways. Now came the crucial step. Nefer had borrowed Hike's placid old mare and placed her in the right-hand traces. She stood there stolidly. He hitched Dov into the left-hand position. The calm nature of the old mare reassured Dov and she stood quietly. Nefer put their nosebags on them and fed them a ration of crushed dhurra. When she was relaxed and content, he padded Dov's back legs with strips of linen bandage so that she did not damage herself if she started kicking when she felt the full weight of the chariot behind her.

He need not have worried. He took her head and led her forward and she moved easily beside the old mare. Nefer touched her shoulder and she leaned into the harness and took her share of the weight like a veteran. Nefer broke into a run and Dov trotted at his side. Then he jumped up into the cockpit and gathered up the reins. He put the pair through a series of turns, each one tighter than the last, and though Dov had never felt the reins before she mimicked her right-hand partner faithfully. By the end of that first day she recognized the commands and responded to them instantly, rather than waiting for the old mare to show her the way. For another five days he ran the two mares together and Dov learned fast.

Now it was time to take Krus through the same routine. It was three days before he stopped bolting as soon as he felt the drag of the shaft. Nefer almost gave up on him, but Taita made him persevere. 'Give him your patience now and he will reward you a thousand times over,' he counselled. 'He has intelligence and heart. You will never find another to replace him.'

Eventually Krus resigned himself to the pole that slithered after him and aped his every move so alarmingly. Nefer was at last able to place him in the traces beside Dov. She turned her head and nuzzled his neck, like a mother with a fractious child. Krus calmed down and ate his dhurra. When Nefer led them forward he tried to turn sideways and balk but Nefer slapped him sternly across the haunch. He straightened up and fell in line with Dov, but he was shirking. Another slap and he put his shoulder into the traces and took his fair share. The sensation must have pleased him for soon he was hauling with a will. The only difficulty was to make him stop.

Meren threw open the gate of the paddock and jumped up on to the footplate as the chariot rolled past. They took the trade road and swept up the hills in a cloud of their own red dust.

It was the route they took at dawn every day over the months that followed. Each evening when they returned to Gallala the horses were quicker and ran truer, shoulder to shoulder like a single beast with two heads and eight legs. The two young warriors on the footplate were harder and tougher, burned dark by the desert sun.

Mintaka learned how it must feel to be a widow.

--

There were only five warriors of the Red Road in the fortress city of Gallala: Hilto, Shabako, Socco, Timus and Toran. Many others had tried but had lost their hair braids in the attempt. Hilto and Shabako were adepts of the third and highest degree of the order, worshippers of the nameless god, the Bull of Heaven, the Sumerian god of war. Only his adepts knew his true name; from all others he was concealed behind the covert name of the Red God. He had no temple or shrine dedicated to him. He came when two or more of his adepts invoked his name upon any field where men had died in battle. Such a place was Gallala, for here Lord Tanus had vanquished the enemies of Egypt and piled their severed heads in the plaza of the city.

Secret catacombs honeycombed the limestone beneath the central square, making it a most suitable temple for the worship of the nameless one.

After midnight, while the rest of the city slept above, Hilto led a prime white bullock down the narrow tunnel that was the entrance to the catacombs, and he sacrificed it upon the stone altar they had built in the dark recesses of the main cistern. In the wavering torchlight the blood spurted and puddled on the paved floor. Then the five warriors of the order dipped their swords in the blood and prayed for the blessing of the secret god on their deliberations and implored him to help them choose wisely. Then they considered the ordeal to be set for Pharaoh Nefer Seti and his companion.

There must be no concession made to Pharaoh. He must be tested as relentlessly as any other novice,' said Hilto.

'To do otherwise would be to give offence to the mighty and warlike one.' Even in this distinguished company he hesitated to use the god's true name. 'It would degrade the honour of those warriors who have ridden the Red Road before Nefer Seti,' Shabako agreed.

Their conclave lasted most of that night and, wrapped in their woollen cloaks, the two novices waited outside the entrance to the tunnel that led down to the catacombs. They spoke little for they were intensely aware that their very lives would be decided by the five warriors in the dark cave beneath where they sat. The light of the dawning day had not yet washed out the pinprick of the morning star from the eastern horizon when Shabako came to summon them before the conclave.

They followed him along the stone-lined tunnel. The torch he carried shone into the niches in which lay the painted mummy cases of men and women dead five hundred years and more. The air was dry and cool. It smelt of earth and mushrooms, decay and antiquity. Their footsteps echoed eerily, and there were faint whispers in the air, perhaps the voices of the dead or the rustle of bats' wings.

Then they smelt fresh blood, which splashed under their feet as they passed the carcass of the sacrificial bullock. There were torches in the brackets upon the walls of the echoing cavern where the warriors waited for them.

'Who approaches the mysteries?' called the voice of Hilto, but his face was hidden in the folds of his cloak.

'I am Nefer Seti.'

'And I am Meren Cambyses.'

'Do you wish to attempt the Red Road?'

'We do.'

'Are you both natural men, entire in body and mind?'

'We are.'

'Have you killed your first man in fair combat?'

'We have.'

'Is there a warrior who sponsors you, Nefer Seti?'

'I am the sponsor.' Shabako spoke up for him.

'Is there a warrior who sponsors you, Meren Cambyses?'

'I am the sponsor,' replied Socco.

When the catechism had been completed, Nefer and Meren were inducted into the first grade of the order. 'In the blood of the Bull, and the fire of his might, you are accepted by the god as his novices. You are not yet entitled to sit in conclave with the anointed warriors of the second and third grades, nor to worship the Red God, nor even to learn his hidden name. You have only the right to attempt the road that the god lays out for you. Knowing that it might mean death, do you accept this challenge?'

'We do.'

Then know that there are five stages along the road and the first of these is..."

Each of the anointed warriors spoke in turn, explaining the ordeal Nefer and Meren faced and setting out the rules to which they must adhere. The five stages were designated as the javelin, the wrestler, the bow, the chariot and the sword. The two novices felt their spirits quail.

In the end Hilto spoke again. 'You have heard what the god has ordained. Are you determined to embark upon this endeavour?'

'We are.' Their voices were unnaturally loud, the tone cracked with false bravado, for now they knew the full extent of what lay ahead of them.

'Then from this point onwards there is no turning back,' said Hilto.

--

The chariot is the main discipline,' Taita told them. 'Remember that it is a race. There will be ten chariots pursuing you. Speed is all. You must learn to get the very best out of your team.' They worked relentlessly. By the time the new moon of Osiris was a sliver of bronze on the horizon, Dov and Krus had learned all that Nefer and Meren could teach them. They ran like one horse, leading with the same stride, aware of the balance and stability of the chariot behind them, using their weight and strength to hold true in the tightest turns, bringing it down from full gallop to dead stop in its own length, responding to the most subtle commands instantly.

Mintaka brought Merykara out into the desert, driving her own chariot, to watch them in training. At noon when they halted to water and rest the pair, Mintaka called out spontaneously, 'Perfection! Surely there is nothing more you can teach them. Nothing more for them to learn.'

Nefer gulped from the water jug then wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and looked up at the crest of the black rock hills.

'There is one who would not agree with you.'

The girls shaded their eyes and followed the direction of his gaze. They saw the figure perched up there, sitting so still that he might have been part of the rock.

'Taita. How long has he been watching?'

'Sometimes it seems that he has been watching for ever.'

'Is there something more he can show you?' Mintaka demanded. 'If there is, then why has he not already done so?'

'He is waiting for me to ask him,' Nefer said.

'Go to him at once,' Mintaka ordered. 'If you don't I will.'

Nefer climbed the hill and sat down beside Taita. They were silent for a while, and then Nefer said, 'I need you again, Old Father.'

Taita did not respond at once, except to blink like an owl caught out of his nest by the rising sun. He would never have a son, and no man had ever called him father before.

'You can help me. What must I still do?'

After a long pause Taita spoke softly. 'Krus senses when you are going to loose the javelin or shoot the arrow. He steps high at the moment, chopping with his right fore. Dov feels it and flinches.'

Nefer thought about it. 'Yes! I have felt the break in their stride at the moment of release.'

'It can throw your aim by a thumb's breadth.'

'What can I do?'

'You must teach them the fifth gait.'

'There are only four. Walk, trot, canter and gallop.'

'There is another. I call it the glide, but it must be taught Most horses will never learn.'

'Help me teach them.'

They took the horses out of the harness, and Nefer went up on Dov's back. He took her for a short canter then brought her back to where Taita stood. The old man made her lift her right front hoof and tied a leather thong around her fetlock. Attached to the thong was a perfectly round, water-worn pebble wrapped in leather. Dov put her head down and sniffed it curiously. Take her round again,' said Taita.

Nefer prodded his toes behind her shoulder and she started forward. The pebble dangled on her leading foot, and instinctively she tried to rid herself of the nuisance, flipping her leading hoof with each pace. It changed her whole motion. Her back no longer came up to slap into his buttocks, there was no longer that rocking movement, that lunge. 'She flows like a river under me!' Nefer shouted with delight. 'Like the Nile herself!'

Within two days he was able to take off the bobber, and she would change from the canter or gallop into the glide at his command. The word of command was 'Nile'.

When they first brought it to him, Krus behaved as though the bobber was a venomous cobra. He reared and pawed the air. When he saw it coming in Nefer's hands, he rolled his eyes and quivered all over.

For three days he and Nefer pitted their wills against each other, and then suddenly, on the fourth day, he flicked out his right hoof and glided away. The next day he was gliding on command as readily as Dov.

On the tenth day Taita watched from his hilltop as they came galloping down on the line of targets, Nefer with the javelin thong wrapped around his wrist. Krus was watching the painted wooden circles on their tripods, his ears pricked forward nervously, but before he could break and chop Nefer called, 'Nile!'

Dov and Krus changed gait simultaneously, the chariot steadied and glided forward like a fighting galley under sail. Nefer's first javelin slapped into the red central ring of the target.

--

Taita observed Nefer nock, draw and hold his aim. He was watching the yellow flag on its staff behind the row of targets that were set up two hundred paces in front of them. The flag stirred and flapped, filled for a moment then sagged limply as the hot breeze died away. Nefer loosed and the arrow rose on its lazy parabola of flight. It reached its zenith and as it started to drop the breeze puffed again on Taita's cheek.

The arrow felt the breeze also and veered perceptibly in flight. It dropped towards the target, and struck three hands' breadth to the leeward side of the red bullseye.

'Seth vomit on this treacherous wind!' Nefer swore.

'The light arrow feels it more,' Taita said, and walked back to the little cart that carried the spare bows and the quivers. He came back with a long bundle wrapped in a leather sheath.

'No!' Nefer said, as he unwrapped Trok's great war bow. 'It outdoes me!'

'When did you last attempt to draw it?' Taita asked.

'On the day we unearthed it,' Nefer replied. 'You should know. You were there.'

'That was six months ago.' Taita said, and glanced significantly at Nefer's bare chest and arms. The muscles had grown hard as carved cedarwood. He handed the bow to him.

Reluctantly Nefer took it and turned it in his hands. He saw that the stock had been rebound recently with fine electrum wire and lacquered. The bowstring was new - the sinews of a lion's forelegs, cured and twisted until they were hard and unyielding as bronze.

The refusal rose to his lips again but did not pass them for Taita was watching him. He lifted the bow and, without an arrow in place, raised it and tried to draw. It came back half a cubit, then his arms locked and although the muscles flattened and hardened across his chest it would move no further. Carefully Nefer released the pressure and the bow stock returned to rest.

'Let me have it back.' Taita reached out to take the weapon from him. 'You have neither the strength nor the determination.'

Nefer jerked it away from him, and his lips went thin and white, his eyes blazed.

'You don't know everything, old man, even though you think you do.'

He reached into the cart and snatched one of the long heavy arrows from the quiver that carried the cartouche of Trok embossed in the polished leather. Like the bow it had been salvaged from the buried chariot. He strode back to the firing-line and took his stance. He nocked the arrow. His chest swelled as he sucked in a full breath. His jaw clenched and he began the draw. It came back slowly at first and reached the median line. He grunted and his breath hissed out through his throat, the muscles in his arms stood proud and hard and he came back to the full draw, kissing the bowstring like a lover. In the same movement he loosed, and the heavy arrow leaped away, singing against the blue, made its noon and dropped, flying high over the line of targets, going on and on, twice the distance. Then the flint head struck a bright spur of sparks from a distant rock and the shaft snapped with the terrible power of the strike.

Nefer stared after the arrow in astonishment, and Taita murmured, 'Perhaps you are right.'

Nefer dropped the bow and embraced him. 'You know enough, Old Father,' he said. 'Enough for all of us.'

--

Taita took Nefer and Meren into the desert, three days' travel through the harsh and beautiful land. He led them to the hidden valley where the black liquid oozed to the surface through a deep cleft in the rock. This was the same thick, tarry substance that they had used to set alight the jackals' fur on the night raid at Thane.

They filled the clay pots they had brought with them and returned to the workshop at Gallala. Taita refined the black liquid, boiling it down over a slow fire until it felt slippery as fine silk between the fingers. 'It will lubricate the wheel hubs smoother and longer than clarified pigs lard, or any other concoction. It will give you an advantage of fifty paces in a thousand. Perhaps the difference between success or failure, or even life and death.'

Nefer was inclined to run the royal chariot on the Red Road, but Taita asked, 'Do you really want to ride in a golden sarcophagus?'

'The goldwork weighs only two taels. You weighed it yourself.'

'It might just as well be two hundred when you go out there.'

Taita went over every one of the one hundred and five chariots they had exhumed from the sands, selected ten and stripped them down. He weighed the chassis and tested the strength of the joints in the carriagework. He spun the wheels on their hubs, judging by eye the slightest wobble in their rotation. At last he made his final choice.

He modified the hub assembly on the chosen vehicle so that the wheels were held by a single bronze pin that could be removed with a mallet blow. When he reassembled the chariot he discarded the dashboard and side panels, ridding it of every last tael of superfluous weight. Without the support of the struts and panels the riders would have to rely on their own sense of balance and a single loop of rope spliced to the footplate to steady themselves over the roughest ground. Finally he lubricated the wheel hubs with the black grease from the desert well.

Under Taita's supervision, they went over the harness an inch at a time, and Mintaka, Merykara and their maids sat up late into the night stitching and double stitching the joins and seams.

Then they chose the weapons they would carry, rolling the javelins and the arrows to detect any imperfection, suspending them on the special balance board Taita had designed, adding a bead of lead at haft or head until they were perfect. They sharpened the points so they would bite and hold in the targets. They resoled their sandals and filed the bronze cleats into spikes. They shaped new leather guards to protect their forearms from the whip of the bowstring and the javelin thong. They selected three swords each, for the bronze blades often snapped in the heat of combat. They sharpened the edges then burnished them with powdered pumice stone until they could shave the hair from their own forearms.

They cured and twisted spare bowstrings, to be carried as belts tied around their waists. Other than leather helmets and jerkins, they would wear no armour on the road, to lighten the load that Dov and Krus must draw. They worked behind the locked doors of the workshop, so that no others would learn of their preparations.

But above all else they trained and practised, built up their strength and stamina, and the trust of the horses.

For Dov and Krus the fire would be the worst of the ordeal. They built their own fires out in the desert, stacking faggots of wood and bundles of dry straw. They let the horses see the flames and smell the smoke, then blindfolded them. Though at first Krus balked and whinnied with terror, in the end he would run blind, trusting the man upon his back, so close to the crackling flames that they singed his mane.

Mintaka and Merykara spent long hours during the waiting days in the newly renovated temple of Hathor, sacrificing for their men and praying for the protection and intervention of the goddess on their behalf.

--

Thirty-five days before the full of the moon of Horus a strange caravan arrived in Gallala. It had come up from the coast, from the port of Safaga. It was led by a one-eyed and one-armed giant of a man named Aartla. The five warriors of the Red Road went out to meet him when he was still three leagues outside the city walls. They carried him back to Gallala in honour, for he was a brother warrior of the third degree who had run the Red Road almost thirty years before. Twenty years ago an arrow had pierced his eye during the Libyan campaign of Pharaoh Tamose, and five years later a Nubian axeman had sheared his arm with a single stroke below the elbow.

Aartla was a wealthy man now. He owned a travelling company of entertainers, men and women of special talents and skills. One of his troupe was reputed to be the strongest woman in the world. She could lift two horses into the air, one with each hand, and she could bite the end off a bronze rod and then bend the metal stump with the grip of her vagina. Another of his women was famed as the most beautiful in the world, though few had set eyes on her face. She came from a land so far to the north that at certain seasons of the year the rivers turned to white stone and ceased to flow. Aartla charged ten taels of silver for the privilege of seeing her face unveiled. They said she had golden hair that hung to the ground, and eyes of different colours, one golden and the other blue. The price that Aartla charged for viewing the rest of her charms was in proportion, and only a rich man might sample all her delights.

In addition Aartla possessed a black slave girl who ate fire, covered herself from head to foot with a cloak of live scorpions, and draped a great python around her neck. At the climax of her performance she enticed the serpent to crawl into the secret opening of her body until all its length had disappeared into her womb.

These wonders were intended merely to whet the appetite of the audience for the main attractions of Aartla's circus, which were his champions: a company of fighting men, wrestlers and swordsmen who stood to meet all contenders in combat. Aartla offered a purse of a hundred taels of pure gold to any man who could defeat one of his champions. The side wagers made on these contests were legendary and were the source of Aartla's immense wealth. Though nowadays he never fought, he was still a warrior at heart and a devotee of the Red God.

When word reached him that a pharaoh of the Tamosian dynasty was determined to run the Red Road, he brought his champions across half the world to oppose him. He loved the game so well that he made no charge for this service.

His brother warriors had prepared one of the ancient palaces of the city to house Aartla and his troupe. On the night after his arrival they held for him a great welcome banquet, to which only Nefer and Meren were not invited. 'We could not have accepted,' Nefer explained to Mintaka. 'We are not brothers of the order. Besides, to sit down with the men who will oppose us would be flying in the face of convention and tradition.'

The day after the welcoming banquet the champions resumed their never-ending practice and training, under the sharp eye of Aartla. They worked in the courtyard of the ancient palace, and all strangers were excluded. Aartla was too shrewd to let other gamblers assess the form and style of his champions without paying good gold for the privilege.

However, Taita was no stranger. When Aartla had lost his arm Taita had trimmed and sewn up the stump, and saved him from the gas gangrene that had infected the wound and threatened Aartla's life. Aartla welcomed him to the practice courtyard and sat him on a pile of cushions on the side of his good eye. The most beautiful woman in the world served him honey-flavoured sherbet in a golden bowl, and smiled at him with those haunting mismatched eyes from behind her veil.

First, Aartla gave Taita the latest news of the Egyptian campaign in Mesopotamia, whence he had come. It seemed that King Sargon, with his armies broken and scattered, had retreated behind the walls of Babylon, his capital city. The final outcome could not be in doubt. The armies of the false pharaohs would soon be free to return to Egypt and deal with the other threat posed to their monarchy by the little army of Gallala. When he said this his look was significant, a timely warning to an old friend.

While they sat on the cushions and discussed many other things, politics, power and war, medicine, magic and the gods, Taita seemed engrossed in their discussion, hardly glancing at the athletes who struggled and sweated in the sunlight. But his pale ancient eyes missed not a single throw or swordstroke.

The champions lived by their murderous skills. They were devotees of the Red God, and their endeavours were a form of worship. When Taita returned to his cell that evening, where Nefer and Meren waited for him, he was grave. 'I have watched your adversaries at practice, and I warn you that there is still much work for us to do,' he said, 'and only days left to us.'

Tell us, Old Father,' Nefer said.

'First there is Polios, the wrestler ...' Taita began, and he outlined the character and strength of each champion, his style of combat and his particular strengths. Then he discussed any weakness he had discerned in them, and how that might best be exploited.

--

The five warriors of the order, assisted by Aartla, began to lay out the course to be run. They spent day after day in the wilderness, surveying a wide circular track that began in the central forum of Gallala, went up into the hills and the broken lands, then three leagues later came back down the long valley past the fountain of Taita, and through the city gates to finish back in the forum. Once they had laid out the course, they sent parties of workman to build the obstacles along the way.

Ten days before the contest, Hilto and Shabako read out the proclamation to the populace of the city. They described the course in detail, and the rules governing the trial. Then they named the champions who would oppose the novices.

'In the ordeal of wrestling, Pharaoh Nefer Seti will be matched against Polios of Ur.' The crowd sighed for Polios was a famous fighter. His nickname was the Backbreaker. Recently he had killed a man in Damascus, his seventeenth victim in the ring.

'Meren Cambyses will be matched against Sigassa of Nubia.' They knew him almost as well. He was called the Crocodile, for some strange disease had made his skin as hard, lumpy and black as that of one of the great reptiles.

'In the ordeal by sword, Pharaoh Nefer Seti will meet Khama of Taurine.'

'Meren Cambyses will meet Drossa of Indus.'

That night Mintaka and Merykara sacrificed a white lamb to the goddess, and wept as they pleaded for her protection over the men they loved.

--

For seven days before the running of the Red Road the five warriors held trials to select the chasers. There were no shortage of contenders for the honour. Any man who plucked the hair braid of a king could expect immortality. Hilto promised that there would be a carved stele five cubits high raised in the temple of his preferred god or goddess to commemorate his feat. He would receive a thousand taels of gold, sufficient to purchase a fine estate when at last they returned to the motherland. In addition he would take as trophies all the weapons and accoutrements of the novice he succeeded in running down.

The five warriors made the final selection by a process of elimination, and proclaimed it from the stone platform in the centre of the forum. They have chosen the ten best and most experienced men available, and given them their pick of chariots and horses. There will be great danger both behind and in front,' Taita warned the pair, as he went over the list again. 'Consider this one, Daimios. He is a captain of chariots. He knows how to get the best out of a pair of horses.'

'It will all depend on the start,' Nefer said. 'And that will be decided by the Red God alone.'

--

For a seven-night before the trial Mintaka denied Nefer her couch. 'My love will weaken your resolve, and drain your strength. But I will miss you a hundred times more than you will me,' she told him as together they braided Krus' long mane.

The day before the full moon of Horus, Taita ordered them all to rest. Dov and Krus grazed quietly together in the field below the fountain. Merykara made up a basket of figs and oranges and dhurra cakes, and she and Meren sat beside the fountainhead watching the horses on the green grass below them. When they had eaten the simple meal, Merykara knelt behind him and plaited his hair into a rope that hung halfway down his back. 'It is so thick and lustrous,' she murmured, and buried her face in it. 'It smells so good. Let no other take it from you, but bring your braid back to me.'

'How will you reward me if I do?' He turned his head to smile at her.

'I will give you such a reward as you have never dreamed of.' She blushed as she said it.

'I have dreamed of it,' he assured her fervently. 'I dream of it every night of my life.'

--

In the morning Taita came to wake Nefer. He found him asleep, with one arm thrown over his face. At Taita's touch he sat up, stretched and yawned. The thick braid of his hair, which Mintaka had plaited, hung down his back. As he looked at Taita his eyes focused and hardened, as he remembered what the day would bring forth.

While Nefer drank a bowl of sour milk and ate a handful of figs, Taita went to the window and looked out over the rooftops to the grove of young palm trees they had planted above the wells. He saw the topmost fronds sway and nod to the breeze. They had all prayed for a still day, but this breeze carried with it the threat of failure. Now Nefer would have to rely more than ever on the great war bow to counter it.

Taita said nothing to Nefer of his misgivings. Instead, he turned and cast his eyes down the avenue. The sun was not yet risen, but it seemed that half the populace of Gallala was streaming out of the city gates.

They are anxious to secure vantage-points along the course, and to watch as much of the run as possible,' he told Nefer. 'No one except the participants and the judges are allowed to ride. All others must follow the chase on foot. Some argue that it might be possible to watch the javelin and the wrestling, then cut across the hills to look down on the swordplay from close at hand. Those who are less fleet of foot will climb to the summit of Eagle Mount and watch the crossing of the chasm below them then run back here to see the finish.'

Despite the great exodus from the city many hundreds of others had chosen to watch the start and crowded into the forum. Others had climbed high above the square and were perched on the walls and balconies. Even so early in the day the air was festive and the mood feverishly excited. Some of those on the walls had brought their breakfast and chewed bones and scraps showered on to those below. Others shouted their wagers to Aartla and his scribes. Aartla was offering even money that Nefer and Meren would cross the chasm, two to one against them passing the swordsmen and four to one against them finishing the course without being overtaken by the pursuit.

As the sun rose above the walls the ten chariots of the pursuers filed into the forum. The gongs beat, the drums rolled and the sistrum rattled, women squealed and threw flowers, and children danced around them, but the charioteers were grim and intent as they lined up along the starting barrier.

There was an interval now of tense expectation and then the sound of cheering from the cavalry lines, swelling and coming closer. Then, to an explosion of 'Bak-her!', the stripped-down chariot of the novices entered between the eroded columns at the entrance to the forum.

Dov and Krus had been groomed until their coats shone like burnished metal in the early sunlight. Their manes were plaited, coloured ribbons twisted into the strands, their tails were clubbed.

Nefer and Meren wore only light leather armour, and their bodies were oiled for the wrestling. They stepped down from the footplate of the chariot and went down on their knees, with their hands resting on the hilts of their swords. Taita came forward and stood over them. He recited a prayer to Horus and the Red God, asking for their blessing and protection. Finally, he took an amulet from around his own neck and placed it over Nefer's bowed head.

Nefer looked down at the object as it dangled on his chest and felt a tingle of shock, almost as though a strange current of power flowed from it. It was the golden Periapt of Lostris, the locket of his grandmother, which nobody but Taita had ever touched.

Then Hilto, wearing the red cape of the third degree of the order, mounted to the stone platform in the centre of the forum. He read aloud the rules. When he had finished he asked, in a stern voice, 'Do you understand and undertake to abide by the rules of the order of the Red Road?'

'In the name of the Red God!' Nefer affirmed.

'Who will cut the hair braids?' Hilto asked, and Mintaka and Merykara stepped up behind the kneeling warriors. Mintaka's eyes were heavily underscored with purple, for she had not slept the previous night. They were both pale and tense with anxiety. Nefer and Meren bowed their heads, and lovingly the women lifted the braids and sheared them away. They handed them to Hilto, who attached them to the tips of the tall pennant rods on each side of the footplate of their chariot. These were the trophies that the pursuers must attempt to snatch, and which Nefer and Meren must defend with their lives.

'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.'

They came down fast on the last target, and the men were tense as drawn bow stocks, every muscle rigid and every nerve stretched tautly. Krus sensed it, felt it in the reins from Meren's right hand, with his right eye he saw the target come up, knew precisely the instant at which Nefer would throw and instinctively fell into his wicked old habit and broke step. The carriage lurched and swayed just as Nefer released. Even then it might have scored, were it not for the wind. A hot gust swept over them, strong enough to flog the heavy hair braids on the flag staffs. The javelin was already slightly off-line, but the wind aggravated the error. It drifted even further to the right and missed the red inner by the width of two fingers and quivered in the outer ring. Shabako held raised the black flag high above his head and waved it from side to side so that folds of cloth volleyed and flogged loudly, the signal of failure.

Their first run had been disqualified. They must retrieve the javelins and run the butts again.

Grimly silent, Nefer snatched the reins back from Meren and spun the chariot into a tight turn around the end of the thorn fence and they started back. He pushed the horses to the top of their speed - there was no thought of husbanding their strength now. For all Nefer knew, one of the fighting cocks was already slain and ten chariots had begun the chase.

They flew back along the line of targets, passing them so closely that Meren was able to pluck the javelins from the packed straw bodies without having to bring the chariot to a complete stop. The fourth javelin that had missed the target completely lay in the open, but even from a distance Nefer saw that the impact with the rocky ground had snapped the shaft in two. They were left with only four missiles to score four red flags. A single miss would mean that they would have to make their stand here, two against ten picked warriors: they would have to capitulate or fight to the death.

With only four javelins in the bin, they reached the start of the line and Nefer halted the chariot and jumped down to the ground. He ran to Krus' head and stroked his forehead. 'Run true now, my darling.

Don't fail me again.'

From a great distance came the sound of a long, sustained cheering.

This time it did not fade away.

'One of the birds is dead!' Meren called. The chase has begun.' Nefer knew it was true. One of the cocks had succumbed and the chasers were released to follow them. They had lost their starting advantage. The pursuing chariots did not have to run the test of the javelins. They would race past the butts without a check. Even if this time they managed a clean pass of the butts with four red flags, ahead of Nefer and Meren waited the wrestlers.

--

Mintaka and Merykara stood side by side, looking down into the cockpit. Though stools had been placed for them they could not sit for their blood was afire with anxiety as they watched the closing stages of the bloody conflict below them.

The two fighting cocks had been carefully matched, veterans of many epic battles, both had proved their courage and stamina. They were long-legged but their thighs were compact and balled with muscle. They could drive their wicked black spurs deeply through flesh to an adversary's bone. With serpentine necks and massive hooked beaks they could reach out to rip away feathers and flesh, and when they had bled and weakened their opponent, they would seize the death-hold, pinning him while they stabbed into his vitals.

The older bird had feathers of gold and copper, bright as the sunrise. His tail was a proud cascade shot with sapphire lights. The other bird was black, but lustrous sparkling black, and his bare head was purple red.

They circled each other now. They had fought hard and long, loose feathers strewed the sand and drifted in the hot puffs of the west wind. Both birds were bleeding, fat heavy drops that sparkled on their plumage. Their strength was draining away, and they were slightly unsteady on their feet. However, their eyes were bright and fierce as they had been at the beginning of the conflict.

'Please, adored and worshipful Hathor, give them both strength to survive,' whispered Merykara, as she clung tightly to Mintaka's hand. 'Let them fight until the setting of the sun.' Even she knew how vain was her appeal. 'And keep Meren and Nefer from harm.'

Suddenly the black bird flew up head high, and then with a powerful wingbeat shot forward with both legs fully extended. The red bird rose to meet him, but he was almost exhausted and his riposte lacked fire. He was slow to lift his legs to counter the thrust. They collided in a burst of feathers, rolled together and when they separated the red cock was dragging a wing. It was very close to the end now.

Merykara sobbed aloud, 'Oh, Hathor, do not let him die!' She seized Mintaka's arm and sank her fingernails into the flesh, leaving bright red half-moons on the skin, but Mintaka hardly felt it. She was watching with horror as the red bird staggered weakly and the crowd howled savagely.

The black bird knew he had won, and his strength revived. He went high again, springing on those long, hard legs, his wings wide and brightly glittering. He dropped and hit the red cock before he could recover his balance and knocked him flat and fluttering. He pecked murderously for the eye, caught a fold of the wattled cheek and hung on.

The red bird regained his feet, but the black was locked into him. The red bird ran painfully, carrying his opponent's weight, and the girls screamed in the uproar: 'Let him go, black shade of Seth. Let him live!'

A full circuit of the cockpit the red carried him, but every stride was weaker, and at last he collapsed just below where they stood at the barrier.

'He is dead!' somebody yelled. 'The fight is over. Let the chasers go.'

'No! He lives yet,' screamed Mintaka fiercely.

The black bird released his grip on the other's head, and stood over him. With the last of his strength and courage the red bird forced himself to his feet and stood swaying, with both wings dragging in the sand and the blood pouring from the gash in his cheek.

The black bird seemed to be measuring the distance between them, then once more he leaped high and for a moment towered over his victim. Then he fell upon him and drove both spurs in to their full length, through heart and lungs. The red rooster crumpled under him and lay upon his back, his beak wide open in a silent death cry and his wings shivering convulsively.

The black rooster stood over the carcass, threw back his head and gave vent to a raucous crow of triumph that seemed to rip down Mintaka's spine, and made her shudder.

'The god has spoken! It is finished.' Hilto lifted the torn and bloody carcass by the neck, and the flag on the tower of Bes dropped. He turned to the charioteers, who crouched behind their teams of horses.

'You are free to take the Red Road!' he cried. 'Ride to death or glory!' The long whips cracked, the horses threw their heads, tossed their manes, and the ten fighting chariots swept together once around the forum, while the crowds scattered from under their wheels, women screamed and men cheered. Then they burst through the city gates and tore away into the hills, following the line of flags.

--

Nefer took a moment longer to pamper and reassure the horses; he stood with an arm around each of their necks and whispered to them. Then he ran back and jumped on to the footplate. He started them at a walk then brought them gently to a canter. Only when they were running in perfect unison, leading together, did he change their gait with the command, 'Nile!'

Smoothly they swept down on the targets for the second attempt and he passed the reins to Meren. He gave him no admonition, for he knew that Meren was still smarting from the their first blundered attempt.

While he wrapped the thong around his wrist Nefer watched Krus' ears for any sign that he would break stride again, but he held them pricked forward and ran true. He held the line perfectly as they came level with the first target, and the javelin smacked into the red inner. It seemed that almost immediately the second target came up and he threw smoothly with just that final application of power in the stroke and the point sank deeply into the inner ring. Beside him Meren was silent, steering the team with his very breath and soul.

The third javelin twinkled like a beam of sunlight as it flew across the range and Shabako waved the red flag for another hit.

The last javelin was in Nefer's hand, the thong clinched firmly around his wrist, and he crooned to the horses, making his tone firm but reassuring. 'One more. Just one more for me!'

Krus seemed to gather himself and tuck in his chin and he held the line sweetly and as Nefer threw he knew it was going to strike in the very centre of the red. He shouted to them while it was still in flight.

'Ha! Ha! Come away.' And they surged forward, breaking from the glide into full gallop so strongly that Nefer had to brace his legs and clutch at the grab rope to prevent himself being thrown over backwards.

Shabako waved the red flag over his head and his voice carried clearly, 'Bak-her, Majesty! You are through and clear!'

But Nefer knew they could never make up the ground they had lost, and the chasers were already coming up swift and hard behind them.

--

The line of flags led them in a wide circle to the north along the edge of a deep chasm with sheer sides, and on up a series of natural terraces where the bare earth was a soft peachy colour that belied its harsh and barren nature.

The step of the third and final terrace was lined with over fifty of the more hardy spectators who had climbed up from Gallala. As Nefer's chariot raced up towards them they cheered them onwards, and opened their ranks to let them through. The summit of the terrace was flat and level. In the centre of this open space the wrestlers waited.

Each stood in his own circle of white painted stones. Nefer steered down towards them, with the crowds running after them cheering and laughing with excitement. Just short of the stone rings, Nefer brought the horses to a halt, and two grooms who were standing ready ran forward to take their heads.

'See they drink only one bucket each,' Nefer ordered, as he jumped down. This was the first point at which they were permitted to water the horses, but Nefer did not want their bellies blown up with liquid.

Swiftly Nefer and Meren stripped off their leather armour and the short chitons beneath until they stood stark naked in the sunlight. The crowd hummed with admiration when their hard young bodies, trained to athletic perfection, were revealed, and some of the women of low status and dubious morality ululated and cavorted lewdly with excitement.

Now every second that passed brought the pursuing chariots closer. Nefer did not even glance at the dancing women but he and Meren strode forward, each towards the ring where his allotted opponent waited. Nefer paused outside the ring of white stones and looked at Polios of Ur who stood in the centre.

He was not exceptionally big or tall, no larger or heavier then Nefer, for the judges had matched them carefully and fairly. However, there was no fat or superfluous flesh on Polios. It was obvious that he had been limbering up, for he shone with sweat and oil and his muscles were engorged and flushed with blood. Everything about him was hard. His shoulders were in perfect proportion to his waist, his belly flat, his limbs long and supple. He stood with his arms folded over his chest and watched Nefer with a hard flat stare.

Nefer took one long breath and heard again Taita's words in his ear, as clearly as if he had spoken again in his ear, 'The left knee. That is his only weakness.'

He dropped his eyes to the limb but Polios' left knee seemed as sturdy as the right. Hard and impregnable as the main stem of an olive tree.

Nefer touched the golden charm at his throat, and stepped into the ring of stones. The crowd howled and yelped and shouted. Polios placed his hands on his knees and hunched his shoulders, and watched him with the flat implacable stare of a serpent. Nefer knew that he must make the first advance, for Polios was in no hurry. His task was to delay Nefer here until the pursuing chariots could catch up with him. Nefer circled him once, and Polios turned slowly to keep facing him.

'Yes,' Nefer told himself, 'there it is. He drags his left toe.' But it was so tiny a flaw that he would never have picked it out without Taita's advice.

'An old injury,' Taita had told him. 'Here!' and he had pressed his thumb into Nefer's knee to mark the exact site of it. But then Taita had gone on, 'Even so, do not rate him lightly. He is a man-killer. This is his favourite throw, and it is well nigh irresistible.' Taita had demonstrated it.

Nefer circled back the other way and Polios turned with him. He saw it now, a faint unnatural hollow below the bulge of the kneecap. He could not afford another moment and he closed.

Each of them fell into the classical prelude, grabbing at each other with both hands, seeking the throwing grip, changing the holds, shifting weight, pushing and then giving, feeling the other man's balance. Then suddenly Polios leaped forward, coming in low, under Nefer's guard, and though Nefer had been expecting it he could not prevent one long arm whipping around his waist. Suddenly he was lifted high so only the tips of his toes touched the earth, and Polios spun with him in his arms, turning him backwards so that he could not keep his balance. Then suddenly Polios dropped on his right knee, and brought Nefer down with him. His other leg was braced solid, left thigh parallel to the ground like a carpenter's bench, Nefer came down across it and it caught him in the small of his back, at the level of his kidneys. It should have snapped his spine, but Nefer had practised the counter a hundred times with Meren. He arched his back to take the strain and at the same time slammed both his heels in the ground to break the force of it. Even so he felt his spine creak as his vertebrae were strained to the very limit.

Polios came down on him with the full weight of his upper torso, but Nefer reached under his back and clamped his right hand on Polios' knee. Taita had made him spend hours hardening his right thumb, squeezing a ball of leather until he could leave a deep indentation in the surface. Even then Taita had not been satisfied. He had made Nefer continue these exercises until he could crack a cowrie shell between thumb and forefinger. Then time and again Taita demonstrated the exact point under the kneecap where the injury lay, and the direction of pressure he must apply to sunder it. Nefer found it now, and drove his thumb into the hollow between the head of the tibia and the unattached kneecap.

Every muscle in Nefer's right arm stood out with the effort and his eyes seemed to bulge from their sockets. Then suddenly he felt something give under the point of his thumb, and he made one final effort. His thumb went in deeper, the weakened cartilage and sinew crackling and popping as they tore, the kneecap lifted in Nefer's grip, ripped from its seat.

Polios screamed, a sound of such extreme agony that it hushed the roar of the spectators that crowded the edge of the ring. Polios released his own hold and tried to push Nefer away from him, but Nefer rolled easily with the throw, never releasing his grip on the mangled kneecap, tearing it further open. Suddenly, rendered helpless as an infant, Polios sobbed and choked on the pain of it.

Nefer came up on top of him and forced his face into the earth. He twisted his left leg up behind him, and Polios could not resist. Nefer bent the shattered knee back until the heel touched Polios' buttocks, and put all his weight upon it. The terrible cry that Polios gave out sounded not human.

'Yield!' Nefer commanded, but Polios was dumb and paralysed with agony. The umpire ran forward to touch Nefer's shoulder and signal his victory.

Nefer sprang to his feet and left Polios writhing and blubbering in the dirt. The spectators parted silently in front of him, stunned by the swiftness and completeness of his victory.

Nefer heard someone in the crowd say, 'He will never walk on that leg again,' but he never looked back as he ran to the other ring and pushed out of his way the men that surrounded it.

Meren and Sigassa, the Crocodile, were locked chest to chest. They rolled across the ring, first one on top then the other. Nefer saw at a glance that Meren was injured. Sigassa's diseased skin was thick and horny, impervious to pain, and he used it now like a weapon, rubbing himself against him, tearing Meren's flesh so the blood oozed up from the shallow lacerations across his chest and arms. Taita had warned them of that, but it was impossible to avoid his loathsome embrace, and Meren was being overpowered. Nefer had arrived only just in time.

The rules of the Red Road were deliberately stacked against the novices. However, they allowed one novice to come to the aid of the other, but only after he had defeated his own opponent. This was one of the few concessions they were granted. Nefer took full advantage of it.

The moment he was into the ring Nefer stooped and picked up a white pebble the size and shape of a dove's egg. As he ran to Meren's aid, he placed the stone in the centre of his palm, wrapped his fingers and thumb around it and clasped it so firmly that his knuckles whitened with the pressure. He had turned his fist into a weapon as effective as a carpenter's mallet.

The crowd shouted a warning to the Crocodile, and he released Meren and came to his feet in one swift movement. Head down he charged at Nefer. Taita had warned them that his bald and knobbly skull was a deadly battering ram. Sigassa had already cracked two of Meren's ribs with his first charge, and now he strove to do the same to Nefer.

Nefer let him come on, judging his moment, placing his feet firmly and then he swung his clenched right fist into the side of Sigassa's jaw, at the precise point that Taita had shown him. The weight and speed of Sigassa's own rush met the full power of Nefer's shoulders behind the blow. The great scaly head snapped back and Sigassa's legs turned soft as porridge under him. But his momentum carried him on, he sprawled full length over the line of marker stones.

No one in the crowd had ever seen a bare fist used as a weapon. They gaped in amazement. Even Nefer was startled by the result, for Sigassa lay without twitching. Nefer recovered in a moment and yelled at the umpire, 'Sigassa has left the ring! He must forfeit!'

The umpire shouted his agreement, 'Nefer Seti is the victor. Sigassa forfeits the bout. You are through and clear, Nefer Seti!'

Nefer ran to Meren and hauled him to his feet. 'Are you hurt?'

'My ribs! The swine butted like a bull,' he gasped.

'We must go on.'

'Of course.' Meren straightened and squared his shoulders. His face was grey as ashes with the pain. 'It is nothing.' But he clutched the side of his chest as they ran back to the chariot. Hastily they pulled on their discarded chitons and strapped on the leather armour.

'That took too long. We are losing ground every second.' As they scrambled up on to the footplate of the chariot they both looked back down the terraced slope of the hills towards the javelin butts on the plain below.

'There they are,' Meren grunted, and they saw the dustcloud boiling up pale and ethereal in the sunlight. The pursuing vehicles were still only dark specks beneath the hovering dust, but seemed to grow in size , even as they watched them.

There was nothing to say. The pursuers would not be tested by the wrestlers. They would ride straight past the rings of stones. Nefer and Meren knew how meagre was their lead, and how swiftly they could lose even that small advantage. It needed only one more wrong step or miscalculation on their part.

Nefer shook out the reins and called to the team. Dov and Krus had rested while they had been wrestling. Now they were refreshed, they leaned their full weight into the harness and sped away. Ahead, the line of flags marking the course began the wide turn back into the south, in the direction from which they had come.

'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 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.

They were so close now that they felt the heat blazing out to meet them, and Krus broke step and began to balk at the barrier of leaping flame that confronted him.

'Mount up!' Nefer ordered, and still at the gallop they ran out along the shaft between the horses and swung up on to their backs, riding astride. Nefer stretched out along Krus' neck and spoke to him calmly. 'It's all right, my darling. You know the blindfold. You know I will not hurt you. Trust me, Krus! Trust me!' And he covered his eyes with the thick woollen cloth, and steered him with his knees at the narrow gap in the burning wall. The heat poured over them in a wave. Their wet clothing steamed and Nefer felt the skin on the back of his hands blistering. The tips of Krus' mane blackened and crisped. But both horses ran on strongly.

They struck the wall of blazing grass, and it exploded around them. Nefer felt his eyes frying in his head and he closed them tightly and urged Krus on. They burst out of the far side, trailing sparks and fire.

Nefer looked back under his arm and saw Daimios aiming his chariot at the gap they had broached in the burning wall. Daimios horses were not blindfolded, and they saw the flames and shied off the line and began to rear and plunge, fighting to avoid the horror they saw ahead of them.

'Daimios' horses have refused!' Nefer shouted across at Meren on Dov's back. 'We have a chance now.'

They charged up to the bridgehead, reined the horses down and halted them just short.

'Keep them blindfolded!' Nefer ordered. 'Don't let them see the drop.'

The catwalk of the bridge had been built deliberately too narrow for a chariot to drive across, and it would not carry the weight. They would have to break the vehicle down and carry it across piecemeal. While Meren unbuckled the harness and hobbled the horses, Nefer seized the mallet and knocked the bronze retaining pins out of the hubs. Then he pulled off the wheels. He picked up one of them and Meren took the other. They ran to the head of the bridge.

The bridge swung gently and undulated to the impulse of the wind. It was not wide enough for the two of them to cross shoulder to shoulder. Nefer did not hesitate but ran out on to the narrow way, and Meren followed close behind him. The bridge moved under their feet like the deck of a ship at sea, but they balanced the motion and fixed their eyes on the far bank, never looked down at the terrible void beneath them and the gut of the gorge lined with jagged rock.

They reached the far side, dropped the wheels and ran back. At the burning fence, the flames were still too high and fierce to let Daimios pass, though they saw him flogging his team and screaming abuse at them.

They discarded the waterskin, the last of the arrows and every other piece of redundant equipment, and picked up the chassis of the chariot between them. They carried it out on to the bridge, where the wind caught their hair braids on the ends of the long staffs and whipped them jubilantly. Each careful step they took seemed to take a lifetime, but at last they reached the far side, dropped the chassis and ran back. Nefer picked up the shaft and balanced its weight across his shoulders. Meren carried the harness and the swords and they crossed again. Now only the horses remained to bring over.

When they started back they saw that the flames were dying, but where the fence had collapsed it had formed a thick bed of ash that still glowed with oven-like heat. Rastafa, one of the pursuers, forced his horses into it with whip and threatening shouts, but within a few paces the hide was burned from their legs and the raw red flesh showed through. They turned back despite their driver, screaming and kicking at the pain.

Nefer led Meren back at a run with the bridge swaying under them. They reached the horses. Dov and Krus stood patiently, hobbled and blindfolded. They unbuckled the knee hobbles.

Take Dov across first,' Nefer ordered. 'She is the steady one.'

While Nefer waited on the near side, with his arm around Krus' neck, Meren led Dov out on to the catwalk of the bridge. She felt it move under her, lifted her head and snorted with alarm. Meren talked softly to her. Gingerly she took another pace and stopped again.

'Don't rush her,' Nefer called. 'Let her set her own pace.' A step at a time Dov moved out on to the high bridge. When she reached the middle she froze, and stood with all four legs splayed and trembling. Meren stroked her forehead and whispered to her and she went on. She reached the far side, stepped off the catwalk, felt the solid earth under her hoofs, whinnied and shook her head with relief.

Still blocked by the burning barrier Daimios shouted, They have got one of their team across. We have to stop them now. Rastafa, give me your horses. They are crippled already. I will ride them through, even if it kills them.'

Nefer glanced back and saw Daimios ride into the glowing bed of ash. It reached as high as his mount's knees, and the maimed animal stumbled and almost fell but Daimios drove it on in a torrent of sparks and the stench of burning hair and flesh. The terribly injured creature carried him through then collapsed as soon as it reached open ground. Daimios jumped from its back, drew his sword and rushed towards Nefer.

Nefer drew his own sword, and called to Meren across the chasm, 'Come back and take Krus over. I will hold this bastard in play.' He stepped forward to meet Daimios as he charged in. He met his cut high in the natural line, and the blades jarred and scraped their full length. Daimios reversed and cut again at his head. Nefer caught the stroke, then riposted, forcing him to jump back.

Nefer had one moment to glance back and saw that Meren was already leading Krus out on to the swaying catwalk. Krus felt it move under his hoofs, tossed his head and tried to back away.

'Come away, Krus!' Nefer shouted at him sternly, and at the sound of his voice the colt steadied and stepped gingerly on to the planking.

Daimios came in again and Nefer had to concentrate everything on him. He aimed a rapid series of thrusts at Nefer's throat and chest and when Nefer blocked and parried he reversed and cut low at his ankles. Nefer jumped over the glittering circle of the blade and went for his exposed shoulder. He touched him and saw the blood spring brightly on the tanned and oiled muscles.