Only three of the weather-worn burrows on the bank were left standing. The mounds of four more marked the peak of their savage existence, when meat was more plentiful and all had fled from the terror of the skern.

Inside the master’s burrow, however, time had not passed.

It was a cavernous space that descended into the sandy earth for thirty lengths. The skern had no taste for ornamentation, only the flesh of their victims, but the skulls and claw-scratched records embedded into the walls served to recall the fearsome career of their burrow-master. The later records, deeper within, glimmered with dyed shells, tiny shattered spears, and elaborate bunches of feathers of the many levin chiefs who had fallen before his might. If any skernish burrow was to thrive in scorn of their prey’s development, Venn thought in awe, it would be this one. They were surely safe in the shadow of one so grand.

The cavern had to be big. The master Skrenn was half as long again as Rukk and Gann the elders, and they were at least a hundred years old. He lay at the very rear of the expanse, unmarked by crown or raiment. The averted eyes of the others who shared his home were enough to show who was king.

Venn and Guff wriggled on their bellies through his dusty floor, begging forgiveness. Skrenn’s one visible eye regarded them coolly.

“You have returned,” he rumbled. The others along the hall dared a glance.

“We have returned,” Venn agreed. He felt tiny amongst these titans, those who would have obliterated the pathetic pack they had struggled so clumsily against yesterday.

“Why?” The master’s voice was ice.

Guff trembled in the sand. Venn was more prepared. “Because we have realised our mistake. We are unworthy of the hunting grounds. The levin are too strong for weaklings such as ourselves.”

“Idiot weaklings,” Guff stammered.

“And we have discovered something terrible.” Venn knew they must hurry things along to their information. Perhaps warning of this new development would ease their punishment. “The prey we encountered. They spoke to us about a union. Not in mewls and squeaks. In our own speech.”

He had expected some support, or at least surprise from the master’s burrow-mates. They watched silently, cautiously. Eyes flicked to their master.

“And we found this.” Venn reached slowly to the smaller spines on his chest. The leaf, its etchings barely visible in the darkness, fluttered to the floor. Skrenn dipped his enormous head towards it and eyed the diamond for a long time.

Then, he lumbered to his feet. The others shrank back into their alcoves along the tunnel. He rose until the blades upon his battle-notched back scraped the roof. Chalky dust rained down into the youngsters’ eyes.

Skrenn loomed over them and parted his jaws. His yellow teeth blazed inches from Guff’s snout, then Venn’s. “It is known,” he boomed. “You think my laws are for nothing?” He stepped back, returned to the place he had spent the past fifty thousand nights. “Never again shall you disobey me.” He let one claw slip outwards towards his kin with a bone-wrenching crack. “Never again.”