"Even so," Valentine said.

Ahn-Kha's ears pointed forward, listening.

"The whole balance would change. I could get the draw. Depending on the white bishop, I might be able to squeeze a victory."

"If you got enough arms to the Golden Ones, in the ghetto, on the base, that lonely pawn could become a terrible weapon."

"No. I won't put my house's future in jeopardy."

Ahn-Kha's ears drooped as he stood. "Thank you for the sandwiches. I am glad we have put the past behind."

The Big Man nodded. "Good luck with your own future."

"What there is of it," Valentine said. "Thank you for your time."

"Thank you for the game. I haven't been beaten in years."

Valentine and Ahn-Kha went to the door. As they opened it, the Big Man spoke again. "David, a bit of advice: Practice the tried and true. You'll win more often. The intuitive player can be brilliant. Once in a while even beat the best. But most of the time, you'll lose."

The Cat nodded. The Big Man returned to his board. Valentine left a crack in the door and looked back through it. The Big Man wrinkled his brow in thought, then pushed his golden pawn forward.

"So much for explosives," Valentine said when they were in the street again.

Ahn-Kha looked at the sky. "There's one other place we could try. It's only a few blocks away."

"A different trading house?"

"None of the others deal in anything but hunting rifles."

"Then what?"

"The General's building where Khay-Hefle now rules. It lies behind the walls that imprison my people."

From what might have been a corner office within the skeleton of a high-rise, Valentine looked across central Omaha at the ghetto of the Golden Ones.

Flat on his stomach, he leisurely surveyed the quarter of the city's ruins allocated to them. Behind the old library, now the residence of their usurping chief and his Twisted Cross shield, were the twin buildings Valentine knew to be home to the dank farms of heartroot of which Ahn-Kha rhapsodized and home to Omaha's captive Golden Ones. Ahn-Kha said the lower floors and stairways of the buildings were sound, though the walls and windows had been blasted out by the overpressure of nuclear explosions. Many Golden Ones lived on the structurally intact floors in a warren of partitions and rebuilt rooms, complete with a gravity plumbing system that Ahn-Kha claimed to be the wonder of Omaha.

The Twisted Cross added on some changes. Piles of rubble topped with cemented-in broken glass formed walls all around the Golden Ones' quarter. Their new Principal Elder insisted on this measure for the safety of his people. Ahn-Kha maintained that the wall did a better job of keeping Golden Ones in than their enemies out, a belief supported by the slapped-together wooden guard towers that stood both inside and outside the wall.

Valentine guessed the whole area to be well over a square mile, in what was once downtown Omaha. As Ahn-Kha described, there had been a thriving population of Grogs controlling the heart of the city, but even in their reduced space behind the walls, the ghetto appeared far from crowded.

"I don't see many of your people. A few working in the gardens, some more clearing that field of rubble to the northwest."

"Every day a train comes through the rail-gate in the south. My clan is great builders; your Twisted Cross need them in the old base south of the city. Those who wish to eat adequately get on the train. They serve soup and bread for those who work. They even keep some of my people in pens on his base."

"Hostage taking. The General likes the tried-and-true as much as the Big Man."

"Once the Golden One who traded profitably, or spun the best poem-chant, or threw the sook most accurately at sport was considered a Great One. Now it is the back that moves the most dirt."

"Have you been back inside since all this happened?"

"Yes, brief trips. It is dangerous. But I have met many times with those who sneak out for trade and to hunt. My people are good engineers; they open a new hole as soon as another is blocked. It is a dangerous business, especially at night. The Hooded Ones of the Twisted Cross see through walls, sometimes under the ground."

"Seeing isn't the right word. An energy that a sentient being creates, called an aura, is something they sense."

The Grog nodded. "I heard of this, but I thought it was a tale to frighten us. The General's men roam outside the walls at night. During the day, my people are under the eyes of the guards in the towers. Some are men, some are Gray Ones, some are Khay-Hefle's lickspittles."

Valentine, his eyes still to the binoculars, broke into a smile. "You are well read, Ahn-Kha. I don't think I've ever heard the word lickspittle spoken in my life."

Tags: E.E. Knight Vampire Earth Fantasy
Source: readsnovelonline.net