TRAVELLER (Book 1 in the Brass Pendant Trilogy) (21 page)

“Here, you’d better wear this,” he said, and he held a folded piece of woven cloth in his hand which looked suspiciously like it had come from the baskets of the mule we’d just passed. I didn’t say anything, but he grinned as he wound the cloth expertly around my hair. He tied the scarf at the nape of my neck before leaving the ends to fall down my back.

More people joined the crowd where another path met ours and, as the crowd thickened, the excitement level around us rose as well. When we entered the town itself, Morgan took my hand in his so we didn’t become separated as people jostled noisily against us. The road was lined with stalls now as the townsfolk took the opportunity to display and sell their wares. I saw stalls selling course, woven cloth and carved, rock figurines, and I caught a glimpse of some exquisite, coloured glass. I could smell fried meat, and fried cheese, and wide eyed local children pulled at my jacket and held out their cupped hands. I shook my head at them apologetically. I had nothing to give them today. Voices were all around me and they spoke in one of the most widespread eastern languages of the early Nomadic Era. When Morgan spoke to me, he had to speak loudly to be heard and he used the same language as those around us.

“They have race fever,” he said, and he rolled his eyes as he gestured to the overexcited people around us.

“Tell me who’s racing now,” I said, and I used the local language now too as we walked up some stone steps. We left the stalls behind us and, when the crowd thinned we were able to hear each other more clearly.

“You’ll see who’s racing as soon as we get high enough,” said Morgan, and he pointed up to the dwellings I could see at the top of the steps. People were sitting on the rooftops, and on steps and walls. We climbed past houses and their windows and balconies were covered in cloth to keep out the dust. There were less people around us here than there had been around the stalls but Morgan kept hold of my hand. We kept climbing through the town and soon some of the people who sat on walls and rooftops were not far above us. We were about a third of the way up the hill and, at the top of the next flight of stone steps, we reached a gate in a thick, rock wall. The gate was closed firmly and Morgan let go of my hand and used the carved wooden pattern in the gate to climb up to the top of the wall. I followed him and, when he reached down to help me up, he grinned and pointed below him to the other side of the wall.

I looked down at a wide, deserted road. The houses that lined it had boards placed over their windows and doors, and every inch of the road had been swept clean. People sat on the roof tops of the houses across the road from us too.

“This is the race track. This town was built all the way around this rocky hill top, and this wide road runs right through the middle of town, so it makes a loop around the hill. Anywhere along this road should give us a good view of the race, but it’d be best to be over that way, so we can see the start and the finish line which are one and the same,” Morgan said excitedly, and I grinned at him.

“What?” he asked me.

“You have race fever,” I said. He shook his head but he couldn’t stop his smile.

“You’ll have it soon too,” he said confidently, and he reached for my hand again before we hurried along the top of the wall towards the finish line.

Soon, we could see a brightly coloured banner strung over the top of the road. Many people were clustered on the roof tops around this banner and I got my first glimpse of the racers as we climbed out onto a rooftop that joined the end of the wall.

The racers were not what I’d expected at all and I stared at them in surprise.

Below me, five gleaming, horseless chariots hovered half the height of a man above the surface of the road. The air shimmered slightly beneath them and they all had the same shiny, metal frames. The chariots were long and thin, and they came to a blunt point at the front. Towards the back, there was a hole, big enough for a man to sit in, and, behind this hole, there were three waxed, fabric coated wings set at an angle. The whole craft looked remarkably like a Synthetic Era dart, except it was big enough for somebody to ride in.

“The chariots are usually used to haul heavy carts of water across the dessert,” said Morgan, as we sat down on the sloping roof top. “They’re self-propelled and, unlike animals, they don’t require rest so their advantage is obvious. When they haul a load, they’re fairly easy to control because their speed is kept in check and their flight is steadied by the load. Without their load though, they have two speeds only, and that’s lightning fast, or not moving at all, and they can be hard to manage because they roll easily. They’re difficult to steer without a load too and they’re known to break apart on impact. When they race eighteen laps around this hill, I doubt there’ll be five off them left at the end of the race,” said Morgan excitedly, and he definitely had race fever. I smiled as I glanced at him.

“So…..pick a winner,” he said, and I glanced at him again before I looked thoughtfully at the drivers below us. There was a middle aged man who fidgeted constantly and I watched him move his padded, leather helmet nervously from one hand to the other, and there was a young woman who was pacing around and around her craft. There were a couple of drivers who were running their hands over their chariots in such a way that it made me think they’d prefer to keep them in one piece if they could, and then, there was another man who looked like he was a fair bit younger than the others. He had dark hair and it was tightly braided in tiny braids. Each braid was finished with a white animal knuckle bone and I watched this man throw a rolled up flag to his friends who sat on a rooftop near the finish line. This driver looked more confident than the others and I watched him laugh as he held his hand up in a victory salute.

I suspected it was going to mostly come down to luck, but I figured it probably wouldn’t hurt to have a wild and confident attitude in this kind of race, so I pointed to the chariot driven by the young man with the braids. His chariot had a burnt red circular symbol painted on the front of it.

“Which one do you think will win?” I asked Morgan, and he pointed to the chariot driven by the middle aged man who was still nervously toying with his racing helmet. Morgan told me he recognised the man from the last time he was here, and he figured he might have the edge now in age and experience. This man’s chariot had a five pointed star marked in yellow earth coloured paint on the front of it.

More people were joining us on the roof and the roof tops on the other side of the track were already overcrowded.

“Stay here. I’ll put a wager on your chariot for you,” said Morgan, and he stood up. “And don’t talk to anyone while I’m gone; your accent is terrible,” he added, and he grinned as turned to walk back the way we’d come.

“My accent is fine,” I called after him, and he turned around and pretended he couldn’t understand what I was saying before he jumped down onto the rock wall. It was only after he’d disappeared, that I wondered how it was that he had Nomadic Era coins with which to lay a wager…….

Morgan was gone for a while, and I was starting to worry he’d miss the start of the race when he finally appeared on the roof. A few of the rowdy youths who’d been on the road had climbed up onto this rooftop while Morgan had been gone and they called out to the drivers who made final preparations to their craft. Morgan stepped around them and they watched him sit down beside me. I’d pulled the end of the cloth that covered my hair across my face as soon as they’d arrived. I didn’t want any trouble today and I wasn’t sure how the locals here would react if I had to throw five barely conscious, young men onto the race track just before the big race.

Morgan sat down beside me and glanced at the youths. They were about the same age as we were but they sat down too and it looked like they were going to watch the race and leave us alone.

“I have some water for you,” said Morgan. He took a small drinking skin from his jacket pocket and I took it from him gratefully because when you’d been sitting under the sun in the dry, desert air, water tasted extra sweet.

“Thank you,” I said, as a roar from the crowd signalled the drivers were preparing to race. Someone gave each of the drivers a leg up into their chariots and we could only see their heads and shoulders now as they positioned their goggles and tied their padded leather helmets securely onto their heads. A hush came over the crowd as the track cleared and I could hear the light hum the chariots made as they hovered in mid-air.

Somewhere, just behind us, a bell was struck and, as the hollow sound echoed around the track, a blast of hot air and dust hit us. As one, the five chariots tilted backwards for just a second before they all shot forward…..and the race began. The chariots disappeared from sight very quickly and the spectators were already eagerly watching for them to appear again as the whole crowd turned to look in the opposite direction.

Morgan and I leant forward too and it wasn’t long before we heard a roar from the crowd. The noses of the speeding chariots appeared around the bend and a dust cloud followed behind them. They were almost in a straight line as they flew towards us but one of them lost some ground when it rolled to one side before righting itself.

We shouted our encouragement as they passed us and a chariot painted with a black and white stripe was already edging its way to the front. There was quite a few laps to go though and, according to Morgan, anything could happen. The crowd shouted out the lap number around us.

By the third lap, the striped chariot was clearly ahead and the others flew in a straight line directly behind it.

By the tenth lap, the lead had changed and a chariot with a bright green cross on it was in front. The chariot Morgan had picked to win was falling behind and he wasn’t happy.

“Oh, come on; my mother’s mother could fly that thing better than you,” he shouted, as the chariots flew past us. I laughed, and he told me I could probably fly the chariot better than his driver too….he wasn’t joking.

On the fifteenth lap with only three laps to go, the striped chariot took the bend to our left poorly and his craft wobbled slightly before swaying sharply to one side. It crashed into the houses on the side of the track in spectacular fashion and it just missed taking the chariot marked with a red circle along with it. Morgan was right. The chariots broke apart on impact and pieces of shiny metal and strips of waxed covered canvas rolled and flew across the track, and up into the crowd around us. I ducked and covered my head, and I felt Morgan’s arm covering me too as pieces of metal spun through the air. There was a hush around us as the dust and pieces of flying debris settled and I raised my head to see the driver lying very still, face down on the dusty track. We stood up, along with the rest of the crowd, and there was a collective sigh of relief when the man moved. He rolled over carefully and got up awkwardly, but he rose to a triumphant roar from the watching crowd. He raised one arm with his fist closed and the crowd cheered even more loudly as he limped across the track. A door in the closest house was opened quickly to allow him to leave the track before the racers returned.

The crowd shouted the lap number again and they raised their voices and their hands too as the chariots appeared once more around the bend. There were only two laps to go now and Morgan’s chariot had overtaken the others one by one. It was now in the lead, but the chariot I’d chosen was only just behind it. Morgan shouted at his driver and the crowd shouted around us, and we almost fell off the roof as we moved closer and closer to the race track. When the chariots appeared for the final time, it was the chariot with the burnt red circular symbol which passed me first and it passed the finish line first as well. My chariot had won, and I shouted and cheered as I raised my fist in a victory salute…..I definitely had race fever now too. Morgan cheered as well and he was just as pleased as I was that I’d won, because apparently, I’d won us a whole bag of silver coins.

The winning chariot made a victory lap and a heavy, weighted cart on wheels was attached to the back of it so it could fly more slowly while the driver waved and the townsfolk cheered. 

When the driver and his chariot finally left the track, we climbed down off the roof and it was only then that we made our way back down the stone steps towards the stalls. The noise and excitement followed us though and I listened as the people around me discussed the drivers and their crafts, and the tactics they’d used in the race. While he went to claim my winnings, Morgan left me waiting in the shade beside a stall selling fried cheese on course bread. When he returned with a handful of silver coins tied up in a piece of cloth, we bought lunch from the stall vendor and sat above the crowd on a dry, sun baked wall to eat our food slowly.

“This belongs to you. It was your chariot that won.”

Morgan handed me the remainder of the silver coins and I examined one of them. They were unevenly shaped, silver discs and they were stamped with a simple, three pointed symbol that looked like it had been deliberately placed off centre. I put the coins in my jacket pocket and we talked about the race too as we ate under the harsh glare of the desert sun.

When we were done, we shared what was left of the water. I had no idea whose cart or stall Morgan had stolen it from, but it was clean and cool, and it quenched our thirst. We finished it as we wandered among the stalls slowly before making our way back towards our marker. We were so busy talking and laughing together we didn’t notice the youths who trailed along behind us, keeping us firmly within their sights.

To Morgan’s disgust, I gave away most of my coins to the wide eyed children who pulled on my jacket as I walked by their parent’s stalls. As soon as their hands closed around a coin, the children would run from me as fast as they could in case I changed my mind. I smiled at them and handed out more of my coins.