Iron Council - China Mieville [100]
There are scores of the striders, a fighting band. Riding among them is the Remade scout on the lizard’s body, sent from the train and ordered to reach New Crobuzon.
The gendarmes are pulling back, killed and wounded in grotesque ways by the striders’ spectral maces. Judah cannot see Weather Wrightby. The Remade scout moves with the highstep of the plains lizard. The striders jostle him and mutter with their stringy mouths, and he laughs and slaps them and shouts, —Ann-Hari, I done it. They come with me. They done like you said they would. I found them.
When did she have time? Judah cannot imagine. When did she have time, when did she know, when did she go to those who might be chosen as scouts, when did she know she had another agenda, when did she suspect the gendarmes would attack, and send for reinforcements? How did she know where to send him?
The lizard-mount scout has not been on the mission he was given; he has been on a different task, on Ann-Hari’s instructions. He has saved the train.
—See, see? Ann-Hari is delighted. —I knew them strider hate the rails, the TRT.
—I told them like you said, the lizard-man says. —I told them what TRT was doing, begged help.
—You went against the council, Uzman says to her. She holds his look and waits until the silence is discomfiting, and then in her accented Ragamoll she says, —We go.
—You went against the council.
—Saved us.
People are gathering.
—This ain’t your queendom.
Ann-Hari blinks. She looks wonderingly at him, How stupid are you? her face says, but she waits a moment and speaks again slowly. —We, go, now.
—You went against the council.
Judah speaks. His own voice shocks him. Everyone looks at him. The legs of a golem in earth shift behind him and drum their unfinished heels in mild tantrum. —Uzman, he says. —You’re right, but listen.
—Without the council, what are we? Uzman says.
Judah nods. —Without it what are we? I know, I know. She shouldn’t have gone against it. But Uzman, you seen what they done. They ain’t going to hold back. They’ve come to end us, Uzman. What we going to do?
—We needed others, Uzman says. —We needed the city guilds. We could have had them . . .
—It’s too late now, Judah says. —We won’t know, will we? We won’t find out. We have to go. We can’t beat them now.
—You want us to go fReemade? Uzman says. He is loud. —I’m a fucking insurrectionist, Judah. You want me to run like a bandit? He is raging. Shooting still sounds. —You want us to take off into the damn hills like we’re afraid? That what you want? Fuck you, and you, Ann-Hari . . . Everything we have—
—We have nothing, says Judah.
—We have everything, says Ann-Hari.
They look at each other.
—We don’t give up what we have, says Ann-Hari. Judah’s golem’s legs shudder. —We give up nothing. All our blood and muscle. All the dead. Every hammer blow, the stone, every mouthful we eat. Every bullet from every gun. Each whipping. The sea of sweat that come from us. Every piece of coal in the Remade boilers and the boiler of the engine, each drop of come between my legs and my sisters’ legs, all of it, all of it is in that train.
She points into the darkness of the tunnel where the work continues. —All of it. We unrolled history. We made history. We cast history in iron and the train shat it out behind it. Now we’ve ploughed that up. We’ll go on, and we’ll take our history with us. Remake. It’s all our wealth, it’s everything, it’s all we have. We’ll take it.
The strikers of the iron council join her. Even Uzman can do nothing else.
Waving many-planed hands, the striders go. —Thank you thank you, Judah