As the two camels collided, the Scorpion heard the popping of another shot. He couldn’t look. The impact had jarred his balance and he clung to the pommel for all he was worth. He heard a loud grunt somewhere ahead of him and was vaguely aware that a rider had gone down. An inhuman screaming gave him the sickening realization that the downed rider was being trampled by the on-rushing camels, even as he himself desperately struggled not to fall off Basbusa. The collision had broken her stride and she was bucking badly to stay up. The other she-camel had stumbled, and in so doing had saved his life by spoiling the Ruallai’s aim. The Ruallai had been forced to hang on with his whip in order to stay up.

That gave the Scorpion what he knew would be the only chance he would ever have. As the Ruallai drew abreast on his bucking she-camel and started to level the pistol, the Scorpion pulled his khanjar from his sheath and flung the blade across his body, as though throwing a frisbee. The blade flashed for an instant in the sun like a strobe, before burying itself in the Ruallai’s neck. The gun wavered as the Ruallai’s eyes turned red and empty and then it fell from the trembling hand. A bright red arc of blood spurted from the Ruallai’s neck even before he went down. As he slumped off the camel, his head began to flop to one side. The neck muscles on that side had been severed.

The Scorpion’s sleeve was splattered with the Ruallai’s blood; so close had they come. With a savage yank on the rein, he pulled Basbusa into a steadier gait and away from the now-riderless she-camel, who was running aimlessly across the line of oncoming riders, dragging the dead Ruallai behind her, his foot caught in a stirrup.

The Scorpion raised himself as high as he could and urgently scanned ahead for Bandar. He groaned inwardly when he spotted Bandar flying along the sideline; a good hundred meters ahead and gaining.

They had already passed the television platform at the halfway mark and the gap between him and Bandar was widening. Worse, he had lost his whip. He had to do something, or the king was certain to die. And Kelly too, a small voice whispered inside him.

Holding the reins in his teeth to keep Basbusa heading straight, the Scorpion tore at the fringed leather cartridge belt around his waist. Freeing it, he grabbed the reins with his left hand and veered Basbusa towards the sideline, cutting across the path of an onrushing Harb rider, his eyes wide with fear.

The Scorpion slashed at Basbusa’s flanks as hard as he could with the cartridge belt. Hitting her again and again, as he shouted “Al an, now, my beauty, my she-bitch,” into the camel’s ear and urged her into a flat-out gallop.