Jake faced the others. “Then what are we waiting for?”

They’d been marching from the wreckage for close to a half hour and only crossed a mile of the desert. Boot-sucking sand slowed their pace to a crawl.

As they hiked, the sun baked any exposed skin. By now, Ra sat on the western horizon, taunting them by refusing to set. Jake’s body streamed with sweat. His legs ached from struggling with the loose sand.

At least they had plenty of water, salvaged from the crashed ship. Along with weapons, a handful of desert survival gear had also been collected: cloaks, tents, tools for hunting and cooking. Who knew how long they’d be out here?

As Jake marched up yet another dune, the texture of the sand changed, firming up, making it easier to hike. The constant crunch-crunch of grains became more of a crackle, as if he were walking through shells on a beach.

Squinting against the glare, he bent and scooped a handful of sand and let it sift through his fingers. The grains were no larger than fine powder. Brittle chunks and bits of varying sizes and shapes filled his palm.

“Bones,” Nefertiti said, noting his attention. “Ground by the winds and churning sands.”

Appalled, he dropped the bone shards and wiped his palm on his shirt. Then as he crested the dune, he saw the broken black cliffs of the Crackles rising about a hundred yards ahead.

As they headed down the last dune, sun-bleached skulls, some as large as boulders, stared back at them from their empty sockets. They were crossing a massive boneyard. All around, giant rib cages formed arched cathedrals or smaller prison cells. Lengths of neck bones snaked across their path. The place would have been a gold mine for any Paleolithic-period fossil hunter, but Jake only found it chilling.

“Why are there so many?” Marika asked.

Nefertiti shrugged. “Some of the creatures were dragged here by the smaller hunters who dwell within the Crackles. But the carcasses were too large to squeeze into the narrow passages of the cliffs, so they were left to rot.” She waved to encompass the field of bones. “Most other creatures came on their own and died, unable to climb the cliffs.”

“Why come here?” Jake frowned at the intact skeleton of a pterodactyl, its bony wings stretched and perfectly preserved. “What drove them?”

Shaduf stepped forward, eavesdropping on their conversation. “No one knows for sure. Most believe they are drawn to the ruins of Ankh Tawy. Like I said before, the shadow cast by that dead city is powerful and strange.”

At last, they reached the edge of the cliffs. The black rock rose in a sheer face broken by crevices and shadowy canyons. From the ground, it seemed an impassable barrier.

“You say there’s a way through there?” Pindor asked, the doubt plain on his face.

“If we can find it,” Nefertiti said. “Inside, the canyons twist and cross, climb and fall. Blind ends and sudden drops betray the unwary.”