the book begins with fero and skirmix searching for prey out in the desert. fero is about to leave when skirmix indicates there is prey around. fero spots a caravan, protected by gelu, heading toward tajun, and decides to pursue. gelu reflects how the skrall have slowly become more and more aggressive, finally attacking atero. gelu's sand stalker rears at the sight of a destroyed caravan, the site of a bone hunter raid. gelu tells the agori he is escorting that it is nothing to worry about. he then spots a bone hunter riding towards him and orders the agori to flee and hide in a sandstorm. gelu rides up to meet fero, and the two engage in battle. the ice tribe glatorian is able to knock fero off of his steed, but the bone hunter quickly recovers and aims his thornax launcher at gelu, ordering him to get off his sand stalker and toss his thornax launcher away. the glatorian does so, and, after a brief sword fight, gelu gains the upper hand and defeats fero, discovering a map of modern vulcanus in the bone hunter's possession. gelu asks what it is, but fero refuses to talk, even when the glatorian threatens to kill skirmix. gelu leaves and catches up with the caravan, which had been raided by zesk. once the group resumes its journey, gelu studies the map and realizes that it details the defenses of vulcanus, even ones that were not there even a week ago, and that the map is not written in the bone hunter's language, but instead agori. when gelu and the agori reach tajun, the glatorian meets up with metus, who talks about tajun and its glatorian, and asks gelu if he would be interested in fighting for the village. when gelu declines, metus says that he is on his way to vulcanus with gresh to fight against ackar, and gelu decides to travel to vulcanus with them.