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Ahn-Kha didn't make any obvious comments about the difficulty of killing a warlord in his own headquarters. "Even if that happens, as long as the order my people made their agreement with exists, they will be bound to it."
"No discontent at all."
"Well, some grumbling. Those born since the surrender are not bound to its terms, and may leave at maturity if they wish. The men are recruiting them to be in athletic contests and pretend marches and that sort of thing, handing out many toys and prizes. Their elders do not care to see the young ones seduced into being little more than prouder versions of the Deathring Tribe."
"I need to get going," Valentine said. "Try and set up a communication system with the ratbits. They should be able to get into the camp at night without much difficulty. If there are any dogs other than strays living off scraps, I haven't seen them."
"If you get into difficulty, try to set a smoky fire. Chieftain can arrange a diversion, and you should be able to escape."
"No heroics this time," Valentine said. "If I get stuck in here, I'll just follow orders and bide my time."
There was another benefit, as Valentine found out when they brought him out of the hole on a warm, three-quarter-moon night.
At first they walked in silence, but as the cavernous headquarters building receded, they started joking about Valentine spending the night on stud detail.
"Don't worry, buck. With a woman," the older of the two said.
They brought him to a small trailer house at the base of the hill behind headquarters. It was one of several in a little, politely fenced grove. Valentine heard a woman singing through an open window, and a pair of lusty young voices, wailing away into the night.
They stepped up to an aluminum door. Little Gray One fetishes were tacked three-deep all around it, offerings of teeth and fingers again. "Time to do your duty, Arms," one of them called through the screen door, rapping.
"'Bout time she earned a pink or blue star," his comrade said. He'd had some sort of dreadful wound to his cheek, running from the corner of his mouth almost up to the ear.
No one answered the call, or the rapping. Valentine smelled new paint and stale tobacco coming from inside the trailer home. He noticed that the electrical system for this cluster of trailers consisted of what looked like extension cords running on poles back to a concrete platform.
"Bet she's out dancing in the moonlight, again."
They took Valentine out around the trailer and up along a little creek. The cool evening air poured into him like a fizzy tonic after spreading shit all day, washing up with a cake of soap seemingly as invulnerable to water and lather as aluminum.
They traced the creek back to a natural spring, or perhaps a natural pool that collected water from the hills. It lay in a little, thickly wooded dimple on the hillside.
A woman splashed in the water there. It took Valentine a moment to realize she was dancing in the ankle-deep pool. She did a routine displaying a rope around her arm.
No, the darkness had fooled him. It was a snake.
She was a diminutive little thing, smaller even than Ediyak. One of his escorts whistled.
"Hey, showgirl. Biological duty time."
She turned her head just enough to take a glance.
"Biological each other, why don't you. I'm busy. It's Warmoon Feast in three days, if you didn't know. Gotta dance for Danger Close."
"This comes from the Baron himself, sweetie," the one with the scar-lengthened mouth said.
"Don't bend her too hard, buck," the other said quietly. "She's little, but she's like one of them snakes."
She stopped her dance, lowered her head, and took a deep breath. After a moment, she turned.
She was wearing an oversized undershirt and as far as Valentine could see through the wet clasp of damp cotton, nothing else. She waded up, making no effort to hide her body.
"I don't know you," she said to Valentine.
"You will soon," scar-mouth sniggered.
"Forced labor? Really? What, amI a last request? He gonna get shot at sunrise?" If she showed any resentment at being ordered to service someone at a moment's notice, she was hiding it well.
"Nothing like that. The Baron just liked the cut of his genes."
