by Wilbur Smith
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 ringbolt 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 Hilto’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 counseled. “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 onto 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 offense to the mighty and warlike one.” Even in this distinguished company he hesitated to use the god’s true name. “It would degrade the honor 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 woolen 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 endeavor?”
“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 onward 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 forever.”
“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 toward 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 farther. 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 s
ame 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.