Anomus resisted the day-torpor in order to make progress on the living quarters of the ghouls. While he was not quite as sharp, as clear-headed in the day, he was still more than able to design and begin implementing such a project. In fact, he found that he was eager to do so. The Faceless One called him Architect, and so he was. He took great pleasure in such tasks, and always had. Dying had not changed that.

He was not content to simply carve out a number of burrows for the pack. Monsters they might be, but if they were, it was through no fault of their own. And once their debilitating condition was ameliorated, they had every chance of climbing towards a higher culture, a greater civilization. Anomus knew more than most – perhaps more than anyone – that architecture, that the physical space a person inhabited could have deep effects on the emotions and personalities of its inhabitants.

He did not intend for the ghouls to carry around the mentalities of cave-dwellers, if he could help it. And he could.

Form predicated function. The function of what he intended to build was much more than just to house his new allies – it was to uplift them from their savagery. They higher they could climb, the more useful they would be to him, after all. How far they could advance before his confrontation with the emperor was highly questionable, it was true. But Anomus was still human enough, or rather humane enough, to wish the creatures well even after his use for them was at an end. To his mind, setting the ghouls on the path to recovering what they could of their former status was what his part of their bargain entailed, and he would not short-change them.

With all of this in mind, Anomus began to shape and hollow out claimed stone beneath the catacombs.

What he had seen of ghouls suggested they were by nature hunched, skulking creatures – but that was learned behavior. Nothing in their physiognomy forced them to walk crouched. They could stand as tall and straight as any human, if they so chose. To Anomus’s mind, the physical carriage of an individual often indicated their mental state. He also believed that it could influence that state. Why else would soldiers be trained, often painfully, to stand tall rather than slouch?

Anomus believed architecture could entice, where the brutal methods of martial training demanded. Accordingly, he built for the ghouls as if they were still a proud race, rather than a fallen one.

He started with a central, cylindrical communal space, a hundred feet wide and fifty tall. Then he further modified it to include a wide stone ramp that spiraled up from this central chamber’s floor to the ceiling, where he intended to connect it to the rest of the Tomb via the catacombs, as well as the tunnel that led out into the desert. He also made the central chamber’s ceiling into a dome. He had further plans for the dome, if he could secure the proper materials.

Along the walls of the central chamber, at floor level, he began to rough out several passageways. He did the same along the sloping incline of the ramp. Some would become personal dwellings, while others would be used, in time, as spaces for things he suspected the ghouls currently had no notion of or need for. Spaces like kitchens, nurseries, storage rooms and baths – the last assuming he could solve his limited water issue. In time, he hoped he could provide them with a space to raise livestock, if he could find a creature they were content to breed, and one that he was able to alter sufficiently to thrive underground.

Anomus was doing far more than creating a living space for a pack of ghouls. He was forming the seed of a civilization. It was the most content he had been since his death.

No room he constructed had a ceiling less than twenty feet high. No wall was left rough or unfinished; every surface was smooth to the touch. At the same time, Anomus did not wish to merely ape human designs, and indeed he was not limited to human construction techniques. He rounded every corner, giving each space a somewhat organic feel.

But he did not include any adornment in the new ghoul home, save one thing. He did not want to force upon them his notions of art or beauty – he hoped they would, in time, develop their own aesthetics. The single exception he allowed himself was a frieze on the common room’s wall. It was of a ghoul, twenty feet tall, and this ghoul stood tall, back straight. Anomus spent extra care in giving its expression a strong suggestion of both intelligence and resolve. And contrary to the aesthetics of the empire, Anomus did not depict the jackal-headed creature in profile. It looked forward, directly at any who looked at it through a trick of perspective.

This is who you are, it said. Or at least that was what Anomus hoped it would impart.

He dressed it in a shendyt, belted and pleated. That was the simple, common dress that preserved a man’s modesty in the empire.

He gave this idealized ghoul claws of iron in place of stone. Krrsh had said that the pack he had been outcast from, and would soon endeavor to become leader of, called themselves the Ironclaws; Anomus wanted them to identify with this representation of what they could be.

He would have liked to include a female ghoul as well, but he had not seen enough of the creatures to accurately depict one. Too, he worried that they would be reminded of the leader whose actions had brought them low.

So much had Anomus accomplished when night returned and Krrsh awoke once more.

~ ~ ~

Krrsh woke clear-eyed and feeling good. Very good. Healthy, strong. And knowing exactly what he would do that night. Yes.

He would take Ngrum’s head, swim across the river, and throw it down on the sand in front of the Ironclaws. Tell them he was pack leader. And then see if he had to fight for it.

Krrsh didn’t know and didn’t try to guess who among the Ironclaws would fight him. Krrsh was strong and fierce. If challenged, he would win. Ngrum had been cunning, Ngrum was dead, and no other Ironclaw was cunning like Ngrum.

If all the Ironclaws attacked him, then yes, Krrsh would lose. And die. And the whole pack would probably attack an Outcast, especially if that Outcast had already… done things to the pack. Like return to the pack’s territory to take a Man tool. And cause them to be attacked by water horses.

But that was why he would bring Ngrum’s head. Krrsh was clever, after all.

He rose, and stretched, and went to the place with no bones. He picked at a few morsels of meat, but noted that soon there would be very little meat, and more... meat-mud. The place with no bones also had no Burning Eye to dry the meat, and no wind either. Krrsh shrugged. Ghouls could drink the meat-mud as easily as they could chew on dried meat. But it was less tasty. And more maggoty. Which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Eating maggots or other small bugs didn’t count as breaking the Law, as long as ghouls did not hunt them to eat. If they were in the meat, then they were in the meat. It didn’t matter. Sometimes it was a nice change. Krrsh liked them better than eating the skin and fur of lesser carrion, anyway. They wriggled unpleasantly and didn’t taste like much of anything except a slight bitterness, but they also didn’t get stuck in his throat like fur did.

When Krrsh had broken his fast, he walked up the tunnel towards the desert.

“It’s time, then?” Builder asked.

Krrsh nodded and grunted his assent. “Get Ngrum’s head, then go to Ironclaws.”

“Will you return tonight?”

Krrsh considered. “Maybe? Maybe die. Maybe become pack leader. Maybe mate tonight.” It was tradition, when a new pack leader was chosen, that he or she chose a mate. And, ghouls being straightforward about things, they rarely forbore to immediately do the things that mates did, once a mating pair had formed. Krrsh was strong and fierce, but Krrsh had never mated. He knew who he would choose, though, if he became pack leader – Chrrk. Her fur was nearly black, and shone in the moonlight, and her eyes were wide and shone too, like the moon reflected in the river. And she had very few lice.

And her claws were very sharp, yes – as every ghoul who had sought to mate with her had found out, even Ngrum.

Krrsh would choose Chrrk if he could. But that did not mean she had to choose him. He paused in the tunnel, remembering all the times Chrrk had told Grik ‘no’ with those claws, and what Grik’s face looked like because of it.

Maybe he would wait to choose a mate. Until he thought Chrrk might say yes. Or until he thought she would definitely say yes.

“Well,” said Builder, “I wish you luck. And when you return, I will have a place for your pack. Or the beginnings of one.”

“Is good, Builder.”

When Krrsh exited the tunnel, he noticed that many of the large blue flies also flew out, but thought nothing of it. He immediately went to Ngrum’s corpse and, with his sharp claws, tore at the meat of the already open throat until the bones of the spine were exposed. With effort, he broke them so that they were no longer attached to the rest of the body, and then finished tearing at the meat of the neck.

It was the work of less than a minute. Ghouls were experts at the dismemberment of corpses, after all.

Krrsh got a firm grasp on Ngrum’s head, digging the claws of one hand into the remaining meat of the neck, and loped north away from the cliff and then towards the river.

He hoped that Ngrum’s blood in the water would not attract crocodiles, but reminded himself that he was clever and lucky. Being eaten by a crocodile just before he became pack leader would be the opposite of clever and lucky. So it would not happen. Probably not. But still, he swam across the river as quick as he was able. Just in case.

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The current bore him even further north from the pack’s territory, the place of death, which was Krrsh’s intent. He wanted to be able to approach unnoticed, to see how the pack was reacting to Ngrum having gone missing. To see what they did without a pack leader watching them, ordering them. He crept, silent and unnoticed upon them, and discovered that the answer was… nothing much.

Ghouls were not the most disciplined of creatures at the best of times. When not actively searching for sustenance, at least. But the Ironclaws, sitting on top of so much food and without Ngrum’s bark to heed, had abandoned even the most basic precautions. No one kept watch, except old Wrna. They lazed, they mated, they slept, they ate, they groomed each other, they played with pups – as if there were no threats present in the desert. As if their pack leader had not gone missing. Krrsh gave a low growl and shook his head. If it weren’t for Old Wrna, anything at all could come upon them, and they would not know until it was too late. And Old Wrna had neither sharp eyes, nor sharp ears, nor sharp nose.

Krrsh crept up on the old ghoul, who was sitting on the sand a little distance from the main camp. It was not difficult to do. Wrna was paying more attention to the sand at his feet than anything else. A ghoul’s face was not as full of expression as a Man’s, but it was still plain to see that Wrna was unhappy, by the set of his shoulders and the slumping of his back.

“Old one look sad,” Krrsh said quietly, and Wrna nearly jumped out of his fur at the sound.

“Krrsh,” said Wrna, scowling. “Still bad. Scare old Wrna, yes.”

Krrsh shrugged and squatted down next to the old ghoul. “Should look out at desert. Not in at… stupid.”

It was Wrna’s turn to shrug. “No pack leader, no… purpose. Ngrum gone.”

“I know,” Krrsh replied, and held up the head.

Wrna squinted at it, recognized Ngrum, and then immediately turned his own head to the side, baring his neck.

“Pack leader,” he murmured.

Krrsh leaned forward and gave Wrna’s neck a light squeeze with his powerful jaws. Enough to be felt, but nothing like enough to hurt. It was a sign of respect towards the old ghoul, just as Wrna had given him the sign of submission.

“What will Krrsh do now?” Wrna asked, and Krrsh shrugged.

“Show head. Say I am pack leader. Ask for challenger. See how after that.”

“Good,” Wrna replied. ‘Must talk, pack leader. Soon. Tonight. If Krrsh not die.”

Krrsh grunted his assent. “First, Krrsh has a question, old one. Big question. Very big.”

Wrna bobbed his muzzle, which was the ghoulish way of inviting someone to continue talking.

“Wrna think Chrrk will mate with Krrsh or not?”

Wrna rolled his old, rheumy eyes.

Krrsh bared his teeth in a ghoulish grin and stood. “Stay here, old one,” he said, then walked forward towards the rest of the pack.

As soon as he began to be noticed, he tossed Ngrum’s head towards the Ironclaws. It bounced twice and then rolled through the sand a little distance, drawing every eye. When it came to rest, he made his announcement.

“Ngrum fought Krrsh. Ngrum died. Krrsh is pack leader. Any ghoul also want to die, come here.”

The only one to move was stupid, ugly, stubborn Grik. The ghoul was shorter than Krrsh, but his chest was more broad. And Grik could take much pain. Krrsh did not want to fight him.

“Ngrum piss on Krrsh,” Grik growled. “How to follow piss-Outcast?”

Krrsh bared his teeth at Grik. It was not a smile. “One thing take Ngrum’s piss smell away. Grik know what?”

Grik frowned at the question, confused. “Water?” he finally guessed, and the whuffing sound of laughing ghouls suddenly surrounded him.

“Blood,” replied Krrsh. “Blood of Ngrum. Grik sit down now. Is there another?”

Grik sat, or rather was forced to sit by the ghouls around him. He was still confused. He had lost. He could sense that. But he didn’t understand how he had lost. They hadn’t even fought.

~ ~ ~

There were no other challengers. All the Ironclaws bared their necks to Krrsh. Chrrk gave him a long, serious look before she bared her long, soft-furred neck to him. Krrsh did not know what that meant. Grik bared his neck, confusion still dominating his face. Several of the pups, held up by their mothers to receive their bite, used Krrsh’s muzzle to sharpen their still-soft claws. Some were softer than others.

Next would come choosing of mate. That was ghoul way. But Chrrk was still staring at Krrsh in a strange way. Not happy. Not not-happy. Just staring. Krrsh looked at her claws, reminding himself how sharp they were. And his muzzle still stung from pups. If Chrrk decided to use her claws…

“Must talk, pack leader,” Wrna said to him, rescuing him from indecision.

“Wrna,” Krrsh replied, breaking eye contact with Chrrk, with not a little relief. “What say?”

“Krrsh not like Ngrum. From pup, Krrsh bad. But smart. Krrsh listen when Wrna tell things. Ngrum never listen, so Wrna stop telling.”

Krrsh bobbed his head, telling Wrna to continue.

“Wrna tell Krrsh now: Bad thing coming.”

“What bad thing?”

“Wrna not know.”

“When?”

“Soon. Wrna not know when, only soon.”

“How Wrna know?”

The old ghoul scratched at his armpit. “Wrna just know. Wrna always know. Since pup.”

Krrsh thought about that. Wrna had always known much, but Krrsh thought that was just because he was old, and had seen much. He had never heard Wrna warn of danger without explaining what the danger was. He said as much to the old ghoul.

Wrna shrugged again. “Said already. Ngrum no listen, so Wrna no say. Got tired of Ngrum hitting, yes.”

It was a very ghoul way to think. Krrsh did not doubt Wrna. But did he believe Wrna could tell when bad things were coming? Wrna was old. Old ghouls sometimes thought and said cannot things. And there was no ghoul older than Wrna.

“Told Ngrum not to hunt Krrsh,” Wrna said. “Ngrum no listen. Last time Ngrum no listen.”

Krrsh nodded. It was acknowledgement that he had heard, not necessarily agreement with Wrna’s warning.

He looked around at the pack. Now that the excitement of a new pack leader was done, they had gone back to doing what they had been at before, which was essentially nothing. Except for Chrrk. She was still staring at Krrsh. And he still did not know why.

Krrsh was strong, and fierce, and clever, and lucky. He decided to be brave. He waved Chrrk over to where he and Wrna squatted on the sand. Chrrk stood and crossed to them, graceful but… stiff.

“Chrrk,” Krrsh said.

“Pack leader,” she replied, her tone betraying no emotion. She obviously expected him to say he wanted her as mate. But that was not what Krrsh had in mind.

“Wrna say bad thing coming. Tell Krrsh what Chrrk think Ironclaws do now.”

Chrrk’s wide, enticing eyes grew wider. But she shook her head.

“Pack leader will decide.”

“Yes. But pack leader will hear Chrrk first.”

Chrrk’s eyes searched his. Krrsh wished he could hear what she thought. Finally she came to some kind of decision, and some of the stiffness in her frame relaxed.

“Chrrk thinks pack leader should listen to Old Wrna.”

Krrsh nodded. “Why?” He wanted to know what she thought, but he also wanted to know why she thought it.

“If Wrna right, Ironclaws ready for bad thing that happens. If Wrna wrong, Ironclaws ready for bad thing that doesn’t happen.” Chrrk shrugged. “Ready is better than not ready.”

Krrsh could find no fault with her thinking. He stood and gave a short howl that carried across the place of death, the pack leader’s call for attention. All activity stopped, save for the tumbling struggles of pups.

“Pack in danger.”

“What danger?” Nchik asked, gathering her pups to her.

“Not sure yet. Krrsh tell pack what to do now. Listen.”

Krrsh’s instructions were not complicated, but still caused confusion. They were not like anything ghouls ever did when danger threatened. But then, Krrsh was not like any other ghoul. He never had been, really. And now he was even less so.

~ ~ ~

Just before noon on the fifth day of their journey, Nighteyes’ Fifty had nearly reached the Tomb. It lay perhaps three miles ahead. Nighteyes gave two signals, and the Fifty dismounted. Five unstringed their bows and wrapped their quivers well in oilcloth, in preparation for swimming across the river. It was the work of a few moments. They would approach the Tomb from the west. Another five ran eastward in the relaxed, ground-eating jog that was one of the hallmarks of the Eternal Guard. They were lost to view before they changed course to the south, and the Tomb.

When both groups had disappeared on their scouting mission, Nighteyes waited an hour, and then ordered the rest of the Fifty to continue forward on foot, leading the horses at a slow walk. In times of war, or in hostile country, he would not have moved at all until hearing back from the two scout groups. Both would report back before the main force had the Tomb in sight.

If they did not, well, that was a report of another kind, and appropriate measures would be taken.

The Targus Cliff was a hazy, distant blur when the eastern scouting group returned.

“Report,” Nighteyes signed, and Thorn made a quick bob with his head.

“One body. Corpse eater. Beheaded.”

Nighteyes frowned. Ghouls were rare and unpleasant, but not much of a threat. Killing them or driving them off with bowshot was the recommended course. They could cause problems if it came to close-in fighting. And where one ghoul was, there would be others. He had never seen a pack that numbered more than eight or so, though, and was not concerned. He was concerned about whatever had decapitated the corpse eater his scouts had found.

“What killed it?” he signed.

“Unclear. But the wound was ragged. Probably not sword-stroke.”

“Anything else?”

“Yes. Cave entrance near the corpse.”

Nighteyes knew everything there was to know about the Tomb and its environs. He had been briefed by Little Tooth, one of the Greatest of Two Hundred that had been stationed there for a decade. Little Tooth had drawn a map of the environs and the Tomb and given it to him.

There should be no cave, or anything else save sand and rock in the eastern environs of the Tomb.

Nighteyes signaled the men to rejoin the main force, and called a halt. He would wait for the western scouts to report before proceeding. The situation at the Tomb was apparently not what he had expected.

Hummingbird walked his horse up next to Nighteyes. “Told you they should have left a guard force,” he signed.

Nighteyes made a grunt. “Telling me is pointless. I don’t make those kinds of decisions, fool.”

“Not pointless. It makes me feel better.” Hummingbird smiled.

“Go away before I stab you.”

Hummingbird bobbed his head. “Yes, Greatest of Fifty.”

Nearly half an hour passed before the second scouting group returned, wet from their crossing and recrossing of the river. Shiver, their leader, got right to the point.

“Ghoul sign. Tracks everywhere. Lots of burrows.”

“How many?”

“Hard to make an exact count. There’s a mass grave and some may be burrowing directly in it. But I counted at least a dozen burrows on the periphery.” The corpse eaters burrowed in the sand to escape the light of day, but they rarely burrowed so deep that the telltale lumps could not be spotted by those who knew to look.

Nighteyes knew exactly where the workmen’s grave was, so there was no need to ask Shiver to sketch out the terrain.

“What of the Tomb itself?”

“The doors are closed and sealed. Nothing seems amiss.”

“Anything else?”

“Flies.”

“What about flies?” They were a fact of life in the desert, and more so around corpses.

Shiver shook his head. “Biggest fucking flies I’ve ever seen in my life. Huge blue fucks.”

“How big?”

Shiver put his two fists together.

Nighteyes almost asked if the man were joking. But Eternal Guard did not, as a rule, make jokes. Except Hummingbird. But not even he would do so in such a situation.

Giant blue flies, however improbable, were not a threat. Corpse eaters were. Nighteyes had a decision to make.

He could order an immediate attack. The monsters were at their most vulnerable in the day. Their vision was impaired by sunlight, and they had an instinctual fear, or hatred of the day. But rooting them out of their burrows meant close combat. Nighteyes had no doubt that his force would slaughter the scavengers, but even the slightest nick from their claws would fester, and in most instances kill. His Fifty carried no cure for wounds inflicted by the filthy, disease-bearing claws of a ghoul.

His men waited patiently while he weighed their options. They knew as well as he the pros and cons of each of his choices.

Nighteyes tested the wind. It was blowing steadily from the east, and not likely to change for hours. He made his decision and gave his orders. They crossed the river and then continued west across the desert before turning east-southeast a couple of hours before nightfall.

They would be in position and waiting for the ghouls to rise from their burrows. They would cut the monsters down with arrow fire, at a safe distance. Once the nest was cleared, they could investigate this mysterious new cave without fear of their scent alerting the corpse eaters.