The camp of the League stretched like a creeping iron serpent across the lower valley of Shamballa. Rows of canvas tents flapped in the high mountain wind, guarded by sentries in dark uniforms with bayonets fixed. The smell of gun oil and horse dung mixed uneasily with the sweet, almost unnatural scent of the Shamballan breeze.
The valley had been quiet for centuries. Now, it echoed with marching boots and the clatter of metal.
Inside the largest tent-a grand pavilion more suited to a battlefield than paradise-five old men sat around a long polished table of imported teakwood, brought in pieces all the way from Calcutta. Lamps burned low, casting sharp shadows on their faces. Ashcroft, Vickers, Wainwright, and the others looked every bit the men who pulled at the world’s invisible string
