They could only be those fierce, northern raiders Shizala had mentioned. The Blue Giants—the Argzoon!

Why had the city had no warning of the horde's approach?

How had they managed to come this far undetected?

These questions rose in my mind as I watched, but I dismissed them as useless. The fact was that a mounted force of warriors—thousands of them it seemed—were riding towards Varnal!

Quickly, I turned my beast, all thoughts of my grief now forgotten. I was obsessed by the emergency. I must warn the city. At least they would have a little time!

I checked my position from the sun and guided the swiftly-moving dahara back the way I had come.

But I had not reckoned with the Argzoon outriders. Though I had observed the main horde, the scouts sent ahead had evidently observed me!

As I ducked low to avoid the low branches of the slim trees and emerged into a wide glade, I heard a huge snort and a strange, wild, gusty laugh.

Then I was staring at a mounted giant towering above me on his great beast. In one hand he held an enormous sword and in the other an ovalheaded mace of some land.

I was unarmed—save for the slender lances that still reposed in the holster at my side.

Chapter Four

THE ATTACK

MY MIND raced. For a moment I felt completely overwhelmed, staring up into the face of a being that was to me as impossible as the unicorn or the hippogriff.

His skin was a dark, mottled blue. Like the folk of Varnal, he did not wear what we should think of as clothing. His body was a mass of padded leather armor and on his seemingly hairless head was a tough cap, also of padded leather, but reinforced with metal.

His face was broad yet tapering, with slitted eyes and a great gash of a mouth that was open now in laughing anticipation of my rapid demise. A mouth full of black teeth, uneven and jagged. The ears were pointed and large, sweeping back from the skull. The arms were bare, save for wristguards, and strongly muscled on a fantastic scale. The fingers were covered—encrusted would be a better description—with crudely-cut precious stones.

His dahara was not the quiet beast that I rode. It seemed as fierce as its rider, pawing at the delicate green moss of the glade, its head sporting a metal spike and its body partially protected by the same dark brown, padded leather armor.

The Argzoon warrior uttered a few guttural words which I could not understand, though they were clearly in the same language that I now spoke so fluently.

Fatalistically feeling that if I must die I would die fighting, I reached for one of the lances in the holster.

The warrior laughed again jeeringly and waved his sword, clapping his massive legs to his mount's side and goading it forward.