“I’ve been through before,” Shaduf reassured them. “When I was hunting crystals and stones cast out from Ankh Tawy by the storm.”

He led the entire party to the largest canyon between the rocks. An elephant could have walked into it, though the canyon quickly narrowed, leaving only a thin line of sky above. Shaduf pinched up some grains and let them fall from his fingertips, noting how they drifted on a thin breeze sighing out of the chute.

“We must follow the breath of the Great Wind,” he explained. “It blows straight through the Crackles. It will show us the right path.”

With the matter settled, the group headed down a dry wash between towering cliff walls. The party had dwindled to thirty men and women, a mix of sailors, and a handful of Djer’s rebels. Many limped; others sported bandages. They all had weapons in hand.

“Take care to follow closely and stay together,” Shaduf warned. “If you drift even a few steps, you can get lost quickly. The lurkers in the Crackle will shy from our numbers, but if you’re caught off alone …”

He didn’t have to finish that sentence. Jake still had bits of bone stuck in the treads of his boots.

As they marched, the group was forced to move in pairs as the walls pinched together. The open sky squeezed to a slit far overhead. Shadows fell heavily. It was almost chilly after the open desert; but rather than refreshing, it felt menacing, like the cold clamminess of an open grave. The casual chatter among the group died away.

As they continued to go deeper, the canyon branched out. Nefertiti’s uncle would stop at each crossroad, test the way with a sprinkle of sand, and lead them onward. Soon other canyons tangled with theirs; some climbed up, others sank away and became tunnels.

As the sun sank away, it became night in the canyons. Several of the group had scavenged long bones from the graveyard and turned them into torches by stabbing fire gourds onto their ends. Jake took one, studying how the torch crafters had bored small holes in the gourds near the stems to channel the flames.

He held his torch aloft and followed Shaduf, Politor, and Horus. His friends stuck to his side.

“Can’t be much farther,” Shaduf said, though he sounded unsure as he stopped at the crossroads of five canyons.

A bustling commotion rose behind them. Nefertiti scooted her way from the rear of their party. Breathless, she shoved back the hood of her hunting outfit.

“We’re being tracked,” she announced. “I heard hissing, the scrape of rock. Coming from many directions.”

Confirming this, a rattle of falling rock echoed from one of the canyons ahead of them. A bestial cough from another.

“I thought you said the lurkers wouldn’t bother us in a group,” Pindor said.

Shaduf shrugged. “They usually don’t. Something must have them agitated. That, or they’re very hungry.”

Not the words Pindor wanted to hear.