They had not crossed from Argzoon to Karnala by land at all but had spent over a year travelling by sea and river. They had gone round the coast, thousands of miles out of their way—for Varnal lay many thousands of miles inland—and then sailed down the Haal River, the largest of the rivers on the continent. They had assembled in a place called the Crimson Plain and then gone in small groups from there, moving at night all the time, until they reached Karnala undetected. We learned that one or two parties of Karnala warriors had discovered detachments of Argzoon, but the Karnala had been wiped out.

"Simple," Darnad mused after hearing this. "And yet we never credited the Argzoon with such ingenuity or patience. It just isn't in their nature to spend so much time and thought on a raid. It is good that you slew Ranak Mard, Michael Kane. He must have been a strange sort of Argzoon."

"Now," I said, "let us try to discover where Shizala has been taken."

But the Argzoon could not help beyond telling us that as far as he knew all the Argzoon were fleeing north. It seemed instinctive for them to go north, back to their mountains, in defeat.

"I think he is right," said Darnad. "Our best chance would be to try the north."

"North," I said—"that takes in a lot of territory."

Darnad sighed.

"True—but . . ." He looked at me directly and there was a misery in his eyes that was only half hidden.

I reached out and grasped his shoulder. "But all we can do is search on," I said. "We will make more prisoners soon and with luck we shall be able to get a better indication of where they have taken Shizala."

Our prisoners were tied securely and one of our number undertook to escort them back to Varnal.

Now we rode across a vast plateau of short, waving crimson fern. It was the Crimson Plain. It was like a great sea of bright blood, stretching in all directions, and I began to feel hopeless of ever finding Shizala.

Night fell and we camped, building no fires for fear of ambush from Argzoon or from the marauding bandits who apparently roamed these plains, nomadic bands made up from the riff-raff of all the nearby nations. The Crimson Plain was a kind of no-man's land hardly touched by law of any sortsave the savage dog-eat-dog, weakest-to-the-wall law of the lawless.

I slept little. I was beginning to feel frustrated, wanting to find more Argzoon to question.

We moved off early, almost before dawn. It was no longer fine and the sky was full of grey clouds, a light drizzle falling.

We saw nothing of bandits or Argzoon until the next afternoon when suddenly in front of us some fifty Blue Giants rose up in our path. They looked ready for a fight—ready for vengeance on us for their defeat!