"Nay, Mother, none so dangerous as they, thank Jarg! But a foe dangerous enough. It is the animals of the forests who storm our citadel with wicked force and fury. The filthy male creatures of the outland, O Mother. The Wild Ones!"
CHAPTER IV
Revelation
Chuck Lafferty yelped, "Oh, boy! Fun!" and started from the room. Steve halted him with a word.
"Chuck! Where do you think you're going?"
"Why—why, I dunno. Topside, I suppose. There's a scrap going on somewhere around here, ain't they?"
"A fight," said Steve. "But not our fight. I don't exactly understand—" To the Mother he said—"Just who are these 'Wild Ones,' O Mother? Fierce beasts?"
"Beasts, yes, O Dwain," replied the matriarch. "But of the two-legged variety. They are the foul males who some say are a brutish branch of our own human race—though it is hard to credit that theory. Matted, hairy creatures dwelling in the junglelands of Tizathy. They have no females of their own, as we have drone-men to impregnate our breeding-mothers, so when need and nature tightens their loins, they make raids upon our encampments to capture Women, that they may replenish their race."
The priestess Beth was standing before Steve, eagerness brightening the steel-blue of her eyes.