The dark dream, the same as those before, was particularly vivid, though when day came I retained only an impression of a voice calling my name. Unsettling, but I thought it just a trick of my mind.
Somewhere, somehow, the night rewarded Narayan with bounty enough to provide everyone a meager breakfast.
I led the mob out at first light, as promised, amidst reports that enemy cavalry were approaching the hills. Discipline was a pleasant surprise, considering.
Chapter Eight
Dejagore is surrounded by a ring of hills. The plain is lower than the land beyond the hills. Only a dry climate keeps that basin from becoming a lake. Portions of two rivers have been diverted to supply irrigation to the hill farms and water for the city. I . kept the band near one of the canals.
The Shadowmasters were preoccupied with Dejagore. While they weren't pressing me I wasn't interested in covering a lot of ground. The future I'd chosen would be no easy conquest. The chance that the enemy might appear encouraged discipline. I hoped to keep that possibility alive till I instilled a few positive habits.
"Narayan, I need your advice."
"Mistress?"
"We'll have trouble holding them together once they feel safe." I always talked as though he, Ram, and Sindhu were extensions of myself. They never protested.
"I know, Mistress. They want to go home. The adventure is over." He grinned his grin. I was sick of it already. "We're trying to convince them they're part of something fated. But they have a lot to unlearn."
That they did. Taglian culture was a religious confusion I hadn't begun to fathom, tangled in caste systems which made no sense. I asked questions but no one understood. Things were as they were. It was the way they'd always been. I was tempted to declare the mess obsolete. But I didn't have the power. I hadn't had that much power in the north. Some things can't be swept away by dictate.