His flies showed him, in disjointed fashion, that the ghoul had briefly clutched and beaten at its own head, then run off into the deeper desert. That was it.

Perhaps it – he - was insane. Anomus had no clue how the creature thought or why it acted the way it did, and after a moment, he decided to waste no more time pondering the mystery. Either the ghoul would return, or it would not. But he believed it would.

He turned his attention to the jeweled geckos. He wanted to breed a large quantity of the little creatures, with which to test the wasp venom. But he was mindful of upsetting the delicate balance of life in the garden. Perhaps he should not have cared, but he did, and merely accepted the fact.

There was a total of seven geckos in the garden. With the various species of harmless, ornamental insects he had introduced there, they had enough prey to survive. More would cause problems, but over the many months he had labored to make the garden self-sustaining, he had observed that the geckos regulated their own numbers brutally, but efficiently. Small they might be, but they were fierce. They fought each other when food became to scarce, and those battles would leave the participants with missing limbs, or tails, or dead. And then the corpse of the insects’ predator would become a feast for them.

Such was the nature of nature.

To Anomus’s delight, one of the three females was gravid, and ready to lay a clutch of three eggs. He called the tiny creature down to the undertomb and carved out a little space for her to lay her clutch part-way down the stairs.

Anomus was not as intimately familiar with the lizard’s body as he was with insects. He immediately set about rectifying that deficiency. He deep study of flies and spiders proved to be a boon, and he quickly made himself as knowledgeable about reptiles as he was of insects.

The internal architecture of the gecko’s body was quite different, of course, having an internal skeleton rather than an exoskeleton. There were a thousand other differences, large and small, but deep down, on the level of the double helix, all was written, and he began to fathom even more of that secret script when he compared it to what he had learned from the fly and the wasp. Part of him – the part that was not consumed with the thirst for retribution, was struck with fascination at the wonder and complexities of life.

He was an architect, and an engineer, after all. How could he not be taken with the secrets of the construction of life itself? If his situation had been different, he might have spent an age learning, experimenting, building life in new and never before seen configurations.

But always the flame of his purpose brought him back from such fancies. His rage. His thirst for retribution. For a time, he could float above it, as it were; when he was focused on a task he had set himself, when he was contemplating how best to use his limited resources. For a time. But the rage was a burning brand in whatever it was that was him. It would only be quenched with Irobus’s death, or his own annihilation.

He would delve into the secrets of life, but the motivation for doing so was death. He might forget for a minute or an hour, lost in discovery, but always his grim purpose and speeding time drew him back.

The geckos, tiny and beautiful, were a means to test venom. He learned the secrets of their anatomy and their reproductive cycle to that end, so that he could breed more, and faster. Their beauty, external and internal, was unimportant.

But Anomus still felt relief when a sand scorpion found its way into the tunnel. He claimed it at once. Far deadlier than the common brown scorpion, it meant that he could study it and increase the potency of his wasps without having to sacrifice the geckos to experiment.

He told himself that he had avoided wasting one of his resources. He told himself that the geckos, with their ability to scale walls and ceilings silently, would make excellent spies, and if he could envenom their bite, excellent assassins.

He told himself these things. And they were true.

But it was also true that he did not wish to see them die. Not just so he could learn to create a deadlier toxin.

The gecko mother laid her eggs, and then settled into her niche to incubate them. Flies were an abundant source of food. Not the larger, enhanced ones of course. They were far too large. But there were thousands of mundane flies for her to eat. Anomus tinkered with the embryos in the eggs – two male and one female – to make them larger, slightly more intelligent, and faster to mature and reproduce. And then he turned his intellect to the newest addition to the Tomb.

~ ~ ~

Krrsh needed something to reach beyond his reach. Like an arm. But not an arm. Something he could hold in his hand, something long. To reach the meat in the place with no bones. It was a hard thing to think on.

Ghouls did not use tools. Ghoul pups would sometimes play with rocks, bash each other with them or bash a bone to get to the marrow before their claws hardened. But adult ghouls? No. Ghouls had claws. Everything a ghoul needed to do could be done with claws. If claws could not do it, then it was not a thing for ghouls to do.

If Krrsh had still been an Ironclaw, maybe he would not have thought of a longer arm. But Krrsh was clever, and now he was an Outcast, and it made a difference.

It made all the difference.

There was no pack to help him, and no pack to heap scorn on him for doing something not-ghoul. There was only Krrsh. He would not scorn himself, and he must help himself.

He stood and shook off the sand of his day-burrow as the sun bled away at the edge of the desert, and loped towards the river. The desert offered only sand and rocks. The river had its reeds, which were long enough, but not strong enough to do what he wanted. Bu the place of death had many things that he could use. He had seen them. They littered the sand. Things of wood and iron, small and large. Men things. Krrsh did not know what the men had used them for, but he knew what he would use one for. To reach into the place of no bones, and snag meat.

He only hoped he would not die getting a thing of wood an iron. Krrsh smiled to himself, and barked a short laugh. His mind had come up with a very ghoulish jest - the possibility that he might die at the claws of the pack, trying to get something that would help him not die in the place with no bones. Ghouls did not have a word for irony, but what little sense of humor they possessed was based on it. That, and death.

Krrsh was clever. He knew that the pack, lazy though they might be, would still be alert for intruders. Their sight would be keen, their hearing keener, and their sense of smell keenest of all. He would have to use all the stealth he possessed if he wished to survive his raid on the place of death. But one thing he had in his favor – Ngrum and the others would expect him to try and steal meat. Not a wood and iron Man thing.

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Krrsh travelled far upstream before crossing the river, far enough that he knew none of the pack would see or hear him cross the river. He travelled upstream to do it because tonight, upstream was also downwind from the camp. So the Ironclaws would not see him or hear him, or smell him. And Krrsh travelled far because he was looking for something. Something dangerous. A place where the river horses slept.

Krrsh was clever, yes. Perhaps clever enough to survive the night. Mother Moon would watch, and by dawn She would know if Krrsh was truly clever, or if he only thought he was.

Ghouls knew stealth, yes. Even the stupidest could move like a shadow. Every scavenger had some ability to skulk, after all. But rarely did ghouls think tactically. Their method for approaching dangerous situations amounted to sneak, take, don’t get caught, run away. When defending themselves or their territory, they fought as a mob. They were pack creatures, but Krrsh had observed other pack creatures that acted with more coordination – jackals, desert wolves. He had watched how they approached larger predators, stole their kills, some individuals rushing in to snap and snarl while others made off with meat. He admired such cunning. If he had been pack leader, he would have taught the Ironclaws to do the same.

Ngrum had no interest in such things. He saw no point in watching jackals. Their only worth was in death as lesser carrion, after all. Krrsh growled silently at the memory of Ngrum belittling him for watching jackals instead of searching for food.

“Not dead. Watch for what? After dead, watch for what?” That was the beginning and end of Ngrum’s reasoning.

Krrsh would show them this night for what.

With all the stealth he had, Krrsh approached the place of the dead on his belly, slowly and silently. Ngrum, however stupid, had taught him patience.

Even Ngrum was not so stupid as to post no watchers. He expected Krrsh to make a raid, or if not Krrsh, the desert had many other dangers. But he was stupid enough to post the least useful member of the pack – old Wrna, nearly toothless and lame of arm, his eyesight not so strong. He was a bad watcher. Krrsh silently shook his head. He understood Ngrum’s reasoning. Wrna contributed little, and so if he died, the pack would suffer little. His death howl would still alert the pack. But Krrsh knew the reasoning was wrong. Wrna knew many things, many dangers of the desert. When Wrna died, the pack would be more stupid still. Why let him die faster?

Krrsh moved slow, slow as the brown beetle, and his fur blended in with the moonlit sand. Wrna was little more than a silhouette in the distance, and saw nothing.

Ahead, between Wrna and the river, the place of death.

Many Men had lived there, not so long ago. Their smell still lingered, and many Man things were still scattered around the wide stretch of desert across the river from the cliff. There had been many Man burrows of cloth and wood; someone had put them all in a great pile and burned them, but enough remained to tell what they had been. Men had killed other Men there in great numbers; the smell of blood lingered still, but was growing faint. Then, a great pit had been dug, and the bodies had been thrown in, and covered over. Krrsh had never seen in all his life so many bodies, so much food. None of the Ironclaws had.

They were good trackers – they knew more dead had been taken into the Man place in the cliffs. But it did not matter much to the ghouls, not when so much food lay in the desert sands for the taking. The Man place in the cliffs was also a place for the dead, yes, and sometimes ghouls would take such a place for a burrow if it was old enough, and far enough away from living Men. But none of the ghouls had approached the place as far as Krrsh knew.

The Ironclaws were scattered all around the place of death. Many were dozing, bellies bloated with food. Some were grooming themselves, or others. Krrsh saw one ghoul, Grik, trying to mate with another, Chrrk. She scored his nose with her claws. No one wanted to mate with Grik, male or female. Too many lice.

And there was Ngrum. He squatted at the edge of the partially cleared pit, idly gnawing on a foot that still wore a sandal. He was looking at the cliffs.

Krrsh turned his eyes away from Ngrum, suppressing a growl, and searched the desert floor for what he had come to take. A Man thing.

He saw it lying in the sand. Well, he saw many of them lying in the sand, with many different shapes and sizes. But the one he wanted, the one he remembered, it was almost exactly where he remembered seeing it days before. A long piece of wood, almost as long as his arm. And on one end, at right angles, a long claw of iron. It was a pickaxe, though Krrsh did not know the word, or its intended function. He only knew it would allow him to reach into the place of no bones without risking himself.

He thought about how close he could sneak to it before being spotted. Then he thought about how fast he could run to get the Man claw, and if it would be fast enough. He looked at where the Ironclaws were, and decided he could not get what he wanted before at least two of his former pack would be on him, biting and clawing.

He thought about jackals, and how they would distract much larger foes to get what they wanted.

Krrsh was clever, oh yes. He picked up a stone. He threw it towards Wrna, as hard as he could. He had no skill in throwing – what ghoul did? He only wanted Wrna to hear a clattering or a thump in the desert near him, and yelp in surprise. He hoped it would draw some of the pack to Wrna.

Krrsh bared his teeth in delight when the flying stone smacked Wrna in the back of the head, and the old ghoul let out a startled howl of sudden surprise.

Krrsh was clever. And tonight, under Mother Moon, Krrsh was lucky. So far.

Ironclaws sprang up at Wrna’s alarm. Many rushed to him. Enough, Krrsh decided. He waited a few moments, until he thought all were far enough away, and then burst up from the desert floor and sprinted for the Man tool.

At first, for a few precious heartbeats, none noticed him. But as he neared his prize, He heard Ngrum’s unmistakable howl – intruder!

Krrsh did not bother to look around. The time for looking was done. He had eyes only for the Man tool. Only when he grabbed it and clutched it to his chest did he seen Ngrum bearing down on him, and in the corner of his eye, the other Ironclaws rushing back from Wrna’s position.

Krrsh gave a short bark of triumph – but he did not stop to do so. He was running back the way he had come as fast as he could, his heart beating madly in his chest.

Krrsh was strong and fierce and clever. Krrsh was fast, as well – but he was not the fastest of the Ironclaws, and he was weighed down by his prize. Even as he sprinted across the sand to the place he had crossed the river, several other ghouls slowly but inexorably began to narrow the distance.

Krrsh searched the riverbank with increasingly desperate eyes, looking for the place near where he had crossed. He had deliberately bent a reed to mark the spot, but he didn’t see it. He didn’t see it anywhere, and now the Ironclaws were nearly upon him. He didn’t turn back to see how close, but all his other senses told him they were very close, too close. Where was the bent reed?

A ghoul lunged at his back, and claws scored his flesh. Krrsh grunted and found a tiny burst of speed somewhere in his body, born of desperation. Where was the bent reed? Where-

There.

Krrsh flung himself into the stand of river reeds, the pack hot on his heels.

This was where the river horses slept. True monsters of the river, five or six times larger than any ghoul or man. They ate plants, they were not predators. But they were easy to anger, and they were deadly.

Krrsh burst through the screen of reeds that hid their sleeping place and leapt onto the back of one. It looked like a rounded black boulder sticking out of the river. There were half a dozen other boulders surrounding it.

Krrsh leapt onto the river horse’s back, howling, and raked the back with the claws of one hand. And then he flung himself into the current, towards the river’s far bank.

Behind him all was chaos. Bellowing, and thrashing from the river behemoths, howls of surprise and fear and agony from the Ironclaws. Krrsh did not stop to watch – the river was always dangerous, but just now it was deadly. Safety was ahead. He swam as hard as he could, hampered by his prize.

Finally, he reached the shore. Only then did he allow himself to look back. He saw nothing except the river horses bellowing and stomping amongst the reeds. The ghouls, whoever had survived, had already retreated.

All except for one.

Krrsh almost missed Ngrum, where he crouched amongst the reeds a little distance away from the ambush. But ghoul eyes were keen. Ngrum hid in the reeds. He was not looking at the river horses. He was looking at Krrsh. And his eyes were filled with hate.

Krrsh raised the Man tool and gave a bark of contempt. And then he loped away into the desert – but away from the cliffs.

Ghouls were excellent trackers.