This looked pretty cool, so I figured I'd drop a review. Don't take my critiques too seriously.

1) Kinda word-blob-ish at first glance. I think this might be a ficpress error, but the story could still use a little bit of being broken up into smaller paragraphs.

2)"For all the respect these people of the desert gave to fire: they worshiped it as something akin to a lesser God, there wasn't very much interest in it this evening." That's a good, strong sentence. It tells the reader something bizzare and invites them to press on and have it explained. Absolutely essential in the opening to any story.

3)"Encircling the pyre, crouching, with their elbows on their knees," doesn't really need a comma after pyre. It just effects the rhythm of the sentence.

4)"a rabbit killed or a rabbit lost governed the hunger of a wily desert fox," your writing is really rich, and you have a knack for coming at otherwise ordinary sentences from unusual angles.

5) I like the African myths that you've sorta woven in here. Nowadays everyone seems to toss out Greek and Norse references, so this is refreshing. Also, you've got the tone of the myth pretty much spot on.

6)"he sighed, and reached out, running a hand over his tiger-skin cloak, letting the smile linger on his lips as he lay down and went to sleep." Not an absolutely flooring ending to the story, but not a bad one either. And it did make this piece more than just a frame for the myth it contained, which is nice. All in all, I enjoyed reading this. Thanks for writing it.

-SC

By the way, I glanced at your profile and was kinda surprised. I think I'm in sorta the same boat as you, writing-wise. I don't turn out stories nearly as often as I'd like, even though I find it crazy-easy to write for RPG characters. I'm also trying to fix that (through NaNoWriMo,) and hopefully I'll be posting on-site more often.

Basically, what I'm tryin' to say here is that I sympathize. Good luck with your 2008 writing-surge, and don't give up.