Having escaped the Yaga queen, Esau Cairn finds himself, via misadventure, standing between two warring clans of apemen, one of them his adopted people, pleading for an alliance against the evil that assails them all:

“I was never much of a talker, and as I strode between those hostile hordes I felt my fire die out in a cold ague of helplessness. A million ages of traditional war and feud rose up to confound me. one man against the accumulated ideas, inhibitions, and customs of a whole world, built up through countless millenniums—the thought crushed and paralyzed me.”

What follows is a regicidal spasm rooted in the loyalty between men, cemented in combat, rising up against the authority of a tribal king, which, not vested in heredity, but in prowess, is open to challenge.

As a narrative device, this chapter gives the reader a breathing space between the previous chapter and the concluding insanity, as the white apemen seek revenge from the winged black demon-men and their cruel queen.