The wind that came down from the Himalayas was sharp enough to cut through skin, but the men trudging up the icy slopes barely noticed. They were rough, sun-scorched men, their faces hardened by salt and gunpowder -pirates, though they no longer sailed any sea. Their ship was long gone, their plunder spent, their hopes reduced to one final obsession: the treasure that their former leader, Raza, had gone after and never returned with.
Now, under a new banner, they climbed the white hills with revenge and greed in equal measure.
At the front rode Ali, the self-appointed new master of this band. He wore a heavy wool cloak over his tattered naval jacket, his turban tied tight around his bald head. A thick moustache curled under his nose, giving him an air of comic villainy that vanished when
