South of Dahod, the Dasyu camp
Bhima had insisted on minimal escort, over Arnoraja's considerable objection, and so it was only the two of them and four guards who rode the last stretch into the hills, following a path one of the scouts had marked weeks before.
The path narrowed as they climbed, disappearing beneath the shade of sal and teak trees whose branches knitted together overhead and left only broken strips of afternoon light upon the earth. The horses picked their way carefully over exposed roots and loose stone, their hooves muffled by damp leaves. There was complete silence and only noise was the rustling of the leaves by the breeze.
That silence was what unsettled Bhima most.
The scouts had told them the Dasyu lived somewhere in these hills, yet there was almost nothing to suggest that people occupied them at all.
