Iron Council - China Mieville [2]
Others arrived then. First another woman, Ihona; and then as they welcomed her they heard stick-litter being destroyed in heavy leaps, and a vodyanoi came through the brush. He squatted in the froggish way of his race and raised webbed hands. When he jumped from the bank, his body—head and trunk all one fat sac—rippled with impact. Fejhechrillen was besmirched and tired, his motion ill-suited to woodland.
They were anxious, not knowing how long they should wait, if any others would come. Cutter kept asking how they had heard his message. He made them unhappy. They did not want to consider their decision to join him: they knew there were many who would think it a betrayal.
“He’ll be grateful,” Cutter said. “He’s a funny bugger and might be he’ll not show it, but this’ll mean a lot, to me and to him.”
After silence Elsie said: “You don’t know that. He didn’t ask us, Cutter. He just got some message, you said. He might be angry that we’ve come.”
Cutter could not tell her she was wrong. Instead he said: “I don’t see you leaving, though. We’re here for us, maybe, as well as for him.”
He began to tell them what might be ahead, emphasising dangers. It seemed as if he wanted to dissuade them though they knew he did not. Drey argued with him in a rapid and nervy voice. He assured Cutter they understood. Cutter saw him persuading himself, and was silent. Drey said repeatedly that his mind was made up.
“We best move,” said Elsie, when noon went. “We can’t wait forever. Anyone else is coming, they’ve obviously got lost. They’ll have to go back to the Caucus, do what’s needed in the city.” Someone gave a little cry and the company turned.
At the hollow’s edge a hotchi rider was watching them, astride his gallus. The big war-cockerel plumped its breastfeathers and raised one spurred claw-foot in curious pose. The hotchi, squat and tough hedgehog man, stroked his mount’s red comb.
“Militia coming.” His accent was strong and snarling. “Two men militia coming, a minute, two.” He sat forward in the ornate saddle and turned his bird around. With very little sound, with no metal to jangle on wood-and-leather straps and stirrups, it picked away high-clawed and belligerent, and was hidden by the forest.
“Was that—?” “What—?” “Did you fucking—?”
But Cutter and his companions were shushed by the sound of approach. They looked in unsaid panic, too late to hide.
Two men came stepping over fungused stumps into view. They were masked and uniformed in the militia’s dark grey. Each had a mirrored shield and ungainly pepperpot revolver slack at his side. As they came into the clearing they faltered and were still, taking in the men and women waiting for them.
There was a dragged-out second when no one moved, when befuddled and silent conference was held—are you, are they, what, should we, should we—?—till someone shot. Then there were a spate of sounds, screams and the percussion of shots. People fell. Cutter could not follow who was where and was gut-terrified that he had been hit and not yet felt it. When the guns’ heinous syncopation stopped, he unclenched his jaw.
Someone was calling Oh gods oh fucking gods. It was a militiaman, sitting bleeding from a belly-wound beside his dead friend and trying to hold his heavy pistol up. Cutter heard the curt torn-cloth sound of archery and the militia man lay back with an arrow in him and stopped his noise.
Again a beat of silence then “Jabber—” “Are you, is everyone—?” “Drey? Pomeroy?”
First Cutter thought none of his own were hit. Then he saw how Drey was white and held his shoulder, and that blood dyed his palsying hands.
“Sweet Jabber, man.” Cutter made Drey sit (Is it all right? the little man kept saying.) Bullet had taken muscle. Cutter tore strips from Drey’s shirt, and wound those cleanest around the hole. The pain made Drey fight, and Pomeroy and Fejh had to hold him. They gave him a thumb-thick branch to bite while they bandaged him.
“They must’ve fucking followed you, you halfwit bastards.” Cutter was raging