Nick Sloan's hard practical mind swung them back to immediate problems. "We still don't know the strategic setup in this valley," he rapped. "How much of the valley do you Humanites hold?"
Hoik rumbled answer. "Only the southern quarter of the valley, including this city Anshan and a few smaller places."
Shan Kar added, "Vruun is the great metropolis of the Brotherhood, humans and beast-clans alike. So far there's been armed truce between them and us Humanites. But the fight last night means war!
"Kree must have suspected my purpose in going to the outer world, and sent his daughter Nsharra with Tark and Hatha and Ei to block me. They failed and the Brotherhood failed again last night. But our capture of Tark and Kree's son begins open conflict now."
Eric Nelson asked quick questions. The answers of the Humanite leaders gave him a discouraging picture. The Humanites, with their fanatic desire to establish human authority, were a minority in the valley. They could not put more than two thousand warriors into the field.
"The Brotherhood has twice that many men and five times that many intelligent beasts of the clans," Shan Kar admitted.
"Pretty stiff odds — but we hold a joker in our machine-guns and grenades," said Nick Sloan.
Nelson nodded. "If there are only swords and bows and spears and the claws and fangs of the brutes against us we should be able to discount the advantage of numbers."
He continued decisively. "We ought to hit them with everything we've got before they get used to our new weapons — smash hard at the heart of this Brotherhood, at Vruun."
Sloan voiced agreement. But the big warrior Hoik shook his head doubtfully.