Bred for swiftness, the legs of hiddraxi were notoriously fragile. Shod and braced by metal, plied by whip and encroaching fire, they floundered and pranced. Even as the smashed car gave way under them and began to burn, they broke out through it, maddened—whole—slewed around, recovered themselves—coursed on.
A colossal shout was lifted for the Corhlan throughout the stadium, and those with his colors shook them joyfully. He was the youngest driver in the race, a handsome boy, and courage and wits were seldom vaunted without applause in Saardsinmey.
(Trapped on the platform, the yellow Shalian lamented. His chariot burned in great clots of smoke, his team lying broken with it to be consumed.)
The Lydian, glancing over his shoulder, saw beyond the Shansar and the blue-yellow Shalian, the Corhlan pelting after them, silhouetted on the blaze, racing last now, but alive in the palm of his goddess.
When they took the east turn for the third time, elements in the crowd were already yelling: Doors! Doors! Commanding that the southern exitway be opened in readiness on the street. As if such a matter might be overlooked.
For the south gate, the benign position was now reversed, being on the outer right-hand side.
Approaching the west turn, the adventurous Ott struck out for the right, premature, and running headlong across the noses of the Jowan and Thaddrian. This foolhardy and clumsily developed measure, not to be mistaken for bravura or dexterity by the seasoned crowd, gained the Ott a precarious minute. The Thaddrian, enraged by the tactic and judging the Jow was about to try something similar, rammed the red and black sidelong, to an overture of hissing and railing from the stands.
The Jowan chariot shuddered but held her course. The Jow, aristocrat or not, might be beheld shouting oaths at the bandit, while the two teams rushed stride for stride. Then the Thaddric chariot seemed to rein up, giving over any hope of advantage. Inevitably, when the Jowan started to pull for the right-hand, the Thaddrian rammed him again. This time, leaning for the crossways cut, the red-black car tilted, skidded on one wheel, curved slowly over and went down. The stands were howling for Alisaarian vengeance. In the dust and spitting crush of light the Jowan seemed gone, ripped away under the hoofs—then he appeared again and the roar of the terraces redoubled. In the Thaddrian’s chariot with the Thaddrian, the nephew of the Guardian of Jow was explaining stadium etiquette with his fists. The red and black chariot lay heaped on the track; the brown and ocher car careered across the straight, (the Kand, Zakorian and Lydian breaking to avoid it), to smash against the terrace barrier, where both men dropped out fighting, and girl-high the hiddraxi screamed.
The Ott was on the west turn, far right, where the Zakorian, speed-lifted at the proper instant, passed him, followed in a graceful in-curling arc by the Kand, the Lydian, the Shansar. Surprised, the Ott scrambled in their wake, only the leftover Shalian and the Corhl all at once behind him.
The southern exit on to Five Mile Street stood properly panting wide. Beyond, the great boulevard, jeweled either side by a watching city—
To a paean of ecstatic frustration the stadium saw each brilliant fire-strung car complete the turn, hurl along the ultimate strip of straight, dive in the gateway—and longed for a means to follow.
The yellow Shalian, the Thaddrian, the Jow were out, three slaughtered vehicles, slain beasts, living, bruised, unloving men. On the terraces there were already wailings and gnashed teeth, and luckless gamblers’ talk of suicide in the morning.
The blue-yellow Shalian had twice crowded him on the track, a thing of no great moment, and mostly lost on the spectators in the flamboyance of other catastrophes. Now, the Shalian was back behind with the Corhl; it was the Shansar in his gold and white enamels who came on, and on.
Rehger spared no second glance for these, or for the merchanteering Ott, who should have stayed home with the bales and baskets.
Before, the Kand and the tricky Zakorian leapt down the road, their dust, with the sparks of his own fire, in his face.
Five Mile Street was walled by a tall hemmed stitchery of lights and outcry. The banners and flags poured past, everything streaming in the gale of the race. This idle promenade of an hour was a chariot-run of minutes, no more, for the speed was building now, from the powerhouse of vehicle and team, from the beating hearts of the animals and the beating heart and brain of a man, and all the rushing torrent of the night.
The street curved slightly, east to west, an accident—its straightness had been meant to be the pride of Saardsinmey. Already, up ahead, there was the dim straddle of the huge dockside gate, garlanded with flares. And soon after it, one met the fierce turn to the right, for on this stretch every turn was set contrary to the left-hand turnings of the stadium.
The Lydian ran now for Gods’ High Gate, letting the first true escalation mount toward an upsurge of speed that might slough the Shansar from his shoulder.
And he felt the Shansar fall from him, but not totally. For the Otherlander, too, had come armed with knowledge to this fight.
Then the gate rolled over, rang like a giant bell, and was gone.
The hiddraxi pulled, straining to reach the stars. The Kandish chariot seemed to flow back toward them. Vague ghost voices were calling miles away: The Lydian! The Lydian!
Beyond the gate it was darker, a wider mouth of night, despite the winking windows and the lamps on the rigging of every ship in the bay. Stiff reek rose from the shut fish market down below, and the breathing salt of the sea.
The Zakorian folded sideways, a blur of torchfire, taking the turn, a quarter of a mile ahead now, and next the Kand went into it and lilted through it beautifully. Rehger met and possessed the turn like a lover, more beautiful yet, and the disembodied voices laved him again from their distances. Win for your city. Go with me in your heart.
They were on the Coast Road. Blindfolded, you would know it, going uphill, all gliding gone, now the chariot caught the action of steepness, of ruts and stones, jumping and clacketing. Nor was it a broad path. Enough room for one chariot to pass another.
The flaming prow-torch spat back at him, flinders of fire, touching his neck and jaw.
On the stepped heights above and to the right, the skeins of lamps and beacons continued. But to the left hand now, for the most part only a frame of ground pegged with watch towers, that slipped downward to the ocean. A lit ship or two blazed out on the water as if she burned, only more motes of arson to one who ran.
The Kand sank backward into Rehger’s arms. A fume of red and rose, the jingling hustle as one team briefly companioned and then deserted the other, and the blare of the second torch whirled behind into the dark. Up on the heights, the balconies and roofs, came a screaming of the city’s name now, as personified in one charioteer. And there was the sound of the Kand, too, trying to regain, to grip and pass—but that speed, though well judged, not a match for this. Rehger’s hiddraxi, that he had for two years nurtured, they were in flight, nor were they done flying yet.
The ground, having risen, leveled. The surface of the road did not.
Only the Zakorian now, in front of him.
(And maybe a mile behind, a bubble crashing as it burst. The Ott, finally fouled. The Shalian was on his tail, and had perhaps helped him to it.)
But the fading noise of the Kandish car had expanded. No, it could never be the Kand coming in again. It was the Shansar, rising now out of the dark as the Lydian did.
Ahead, the Zakorian looked back. Rehger, closing the gap, was easily near enough to see the grim flash of the shadowy face, and the long tongue of the whip that followed it. To hear the old charioteering shout—“Ayh! Ayh!”
The Zakor’s animals were straining now, not to catch stars but only in labor. A breakneck swiftness tugged the black chariot away and away, and Rehger unfolded the wings of power, unleashed the coiled spring, held all this while within the hiddraxi, their hearts, his. “Fly now, my soul—” And though they had seemed to fly before, now they flew—