“Hold! Hold!” I heard Valdur scream, dragging on the bays’ wide mouths. The wheel was fouled, tangled, and abruptly stopped, the other wheel, spinning furiously, dragged the chariot sideways. Spokes snapped. In a kind of slow motion, the chariot keeled, spun leftward, and pitched over. The Sogothan and the Renshan running behind, split to either side to avoid them, misjudging the gates, and pulled back to avoid collision. My back to Darak, my shield in front of me, I felt us take that terrible turn, free, between the oaken thews of the third opening, Barl of Andum a fraction ahead through the second, Essandar already beyond the first.
Three birds, free of earth to fly among water. Blue Coppain, yellow Andum, scarlet Sigko. Barl’s team were running at full, very fast, close to Essandar now, but the grays were skittish, one could tell it. The blacks were going fast, but not yet at their limit. Darak was letting them out, bit by bit.
Through the gate behind rushed the Renshan and the Sogothan, and after them purple Neron—and last—white Soils. Lascallum was gone. I had heard the groan of the terraces, and now boys had pulled down the eighth marker with its gray-flighted arrows, and taken it away. Only seven now.
The water was a silver roar. Already the fume spat in our faces. The blacks lowered their heads in disgusted pride. We were a target now indeed, vulnerable; judging the water, with four behind us who did not need to think of it quite yet, only of us. A rain of arrows came flashing down from the Sogothan and the Renshan. Some struck the plates, and one loosened and dropped off, leaving the metal struts of the chariot bare. Already we were going between the water, on that second curving turn. It was a clean ride, perfectly judged. And now. The Renshan was first to follow—some distance behind. I fired high, very high, for it must go far. The arrow with its scarlet tail flew fast, and plumeted directly before the racing grays as they took the turn. Startled, unstable as I had assessed them, they flung up, prancing. The back wheels slid to the right, and they were all under the torrent of the third falling pillar. The horses neighed, floundered, and swung backward, forward, and then right around to threaten the Sogothan coming up behind. The black chariot swerved, and the black archer fired some shaft among the wheels that finished the green. I saw it jump and go over, the boy on the back scramble clear and race toward the safety of the Skora, across the track of the Neronian and Soilish teams.
But we were free again now, a chariot length behind Andum, both of us some way now behind Essandar. The boy archer in the back of the blue lounged, haughty, not bothering to aim at us. You could hear them from the terraces now, the frenzied shout, “Coppain! Coppain!” And under this the cry for Andum. There was another cry too, lower, less distinct—not for Sigko, but for a name: “Darros! Scarlet Darros!”
There was no bunching on this Straight; we took the gaping black nostrils of the Pillars of Air courteously, and swung around that first lap toward the fire.
Watch the Neronian. The speed was building there as it was with us, from slow, powerful engines.
Already gaining on the Sogothan, who in turn gained on us. Acrid smoke was curdling around us. Difficult to see clearly. The horses coughed. Around the brink of the turn, and the three blazing torches flared at us. You may train a horse how you will, he will never like fire. Barl’s grays tossed and teetered even in their speed, and the chariot dropped back a pace. Ahead, Essandar’s bays were slowing slightly too. Yet the blacks gained. I heard Darak singing love words to them over the gush and crackle of the flames.
Frightened droppings slid from the nervous grays in front. Barl glanced over his shoulder swiftly. He saw how it would be. We would have him cheek to jowl, the Sogothan, the Neronian too, perhaps, in a huddle beside us. In a frantic decision his long lash curled out over the grays, drawing blood. Startled out of terror, they leaped forward, to join Essandar in an impossible burst of speed. Through the blazing net of sparks the blue and yellow tore, emerging neck and neck. Barl had snatched his speed. He could not keep it.
Into the black smoke. In the cover of it, inches from the pillars, the Sogothan came beside us. The archer, grinning, fired at Darak, breaking one of the few laws of the Sagare. I deflected the arrow, took a second in my left arm. This was the boy with the pearls. First flames licked at us. He was clinging now to the rattling chariot. Stench of tar, of smoldering horse-hair. I ignored the shaft buried in me. I drew three plain arrows and dipped their flights in the leaping tongues. Not scarlet flights now but yellow. The Sogothan had veered away to take the other side beyond the middle pillar. They emerged first, ahead of us, and I aimed all three burning shafts after them. Luck. One fell short. The other two struck home in the axle—that wooden axle which caught so beautifully. Now it was blazing. Under the Sogothan’s bare feet the metal floor plates snapped open and flames licked through. Along the shafts it went, caught reins and harness. So quick; now they too wore the scarlet of the vine. I did not look at them again, but broke the arrow shaft, leaving only the head in my arm. Not so bad. I put it from my mind.
We were around the turn, nearing the Warden’s gallery. The first lap was over.
I looked up at the Skora. Three markers were gone now, gray, green, and black; and of the blue, yellow, purple, white, and scarlet flights one lap gone also.
We had set the pattern for the race, we five. Bellan had said this would be so. Essandar the leader, Barl on his neck, not for long, but with a skillful archer who kept Essandar’s disdainful youth at a distance.
Darak third, the unpredictable third of any race—the one who may leap on to win, or drop back to nothing. Just behind us, Neron, gaining on us, and then Soils, who seemed to have no race at all left, and to be running just for the exercise. In this formation, then, we took the second and third laps. They are the dead laps of the race, and often the fourth, too. It is the first, the fifth, and the sixth generally which are the kingpins of the game.
But the fourth lap brought a fluke of chance that broke the pattern once and for all. They do not remove the chariot wrecks from the stadium, only the men, or what is left of them. Thus the wrecks become yet further obstacles. Lascallum had fallen at the third gate of the Pillars of Earth, blocking it; there were now only three openings instead of four, and theoretically only two, because the fourth and farthest out gave such a loss of speed that every chariot that could avoided it. Andum and Coppain were still together, nearing the first and second openings when a stray metal plate from the wreck jolted the blue, and Andum swerved across it. At the same instant the yellow archer got a corded flight into Essandar’s wheel. Essandar, a master of his team, pulled them back and held them, and the chariot kept upright while the blue archer slashed the foul from the spokes with the tiny knife allowed in the arena. But it was a pause. Andum was through the Skora gate and ahead, and Essandar, starting up again, found we had joined him, Neron at back.
Darak, at this stage, would have given Essandar the first opening, but Essandar stared back at us, and there was a look in his face, not for us but for Bellan. He would shame the broken charioteer further if his trained pupils fell. So he swung back, ignoring the advantageous first opening, and headed straight toward the second, where we, with Neron a fraction after us, were headed. Darak hauled on the reins; the blacks, unused to this roughness and unable to check, leaped upward in the air. The car went with them, up, and then down, crashing hard on the Straight. I thought I had broken my back against the bar, and all the chariot was broken with me, but somehow we were whole, flung to the side by our own impetus, yet upright. Essandar was through the gate, but Neron, striving to avoid both of us, had gone at full reach into the Lascallum wreck. It was a double tangle of metal, the grays kicking feebly in death throes, both charioteer and archer flung out onto the sand, the driver dead, the boy shrilly screaming in agony. As Darak righted us, I fired a shaft into his brain—no more could be done for him.