Iron Council by China Miéville Read Free Book Online Page B

resignation that seemed scoured-on; they did not expect or even want quarter, only to be acknowledged before they died.
    The dogs still screamed and circled. Drogon corralled three
of the weird-skulled things, herding them with his big horse. He calmed the frantic animals with inaudible commands.
    “Why’s he helping?” Elsie said. “What does he want?”
    Pomeroy was for killing him, or at least constraining him and leaving him behind.
    “Dammit, I don’t know,” said Cutter. “Says he heard what was happening. That he’s out for the Council, too. I don’t
know.
But look what he’s done—he could’ve killed us by now. He saved my life—took out the man who’d sighted me. You saw how he used them guns. And you said yourself, Pom, he’s a thaumaturge.”
    “He’s a susurrator,” said Pomeroy with scorn. “He’s just a whispersmith.”
    “I been whispered to by him, brother. Remember? This ain’t a little susurrus to make a dog lie down. He sounded across
miles,
put me and that fReemade highwayman in thrall.”
    It was a petty field, subvocalurgy: the science of furtive suggestions, a rude footpad technique. But this man had made it something more.
    The dogs were Remade. The olfactory centres of their brains had been hugely enlarged. Their crania were doughy and distended, as if their unshaped brains bubbled over. Their eyes were tiny, and at the end of their jaws their nostrils were dilated and set in flared and mobile flesh like pigs’. Their wrinkled snouts wore wires and they carried batteries, making thaumaturgic circuits. Each had a rag in its collar.
    “Oh Jabber, those are his damn clothes,” said Cutter.
    “These’ll track across continents,”
whispered Drogon.
“That’s how they were following him.”
             
    They did not kill the militia left alive, nor spit in their faces nor give them water, only left them stone ignored. Drogon concentrated
on the dogs. He was whispering, and they were calming. They were eager to trust him.
    “Them dogs is ours,” Pomeroy said. Drogon shrugged and held out the leash, and the distorted animal looked at Pomeroy and showed its teeth. “What’s your story?” Pomeroy said.
    Drogon pointed at Elsie, whispered, and she walked toward him. He took her hands and put them on his forehead, and she went into her hexing state. He kept speaking, enunciating something only she could hear.
    When he was done she opened her eyes. “He told me to read him. He told me to verity-gauge. And he said, ‘I want what you want, I want to find the Council.’ He said he’s from the city, but he sure isn’t bloody Parliament, and he isn’t militia. Says he’s a vaquero, a horseman. Lived nomad for twenty years.
    “He says there are too many stories for the Council not to be real. And it’s precious to wilderness-men. Iron Council. Like a promised place. So when he got word what was happening—when he heard who’d gone to protect it—he had to come after him to help. To find it. He followed us. Till he was sure he could trust us.”
    “You ain’t a truesayer,” Pomeroy said. “This don’t mean shit.”
    “No I ain’t, but I’ve got something.” Elsie glowered. “I can feel. I was verity-gauging.”
    The whispersmith replaced his hat and turned back to the dogs, subvocalising till they skittered for his affection among the bodies of their handlers.
    “She ain’t got the puissance to be sure, Cutter,” Pomeroy said.
    Why am I supposed to fucking decide?
thought Cutter.
    Drogon held the cloths to the dogs’ absurd noses, and the animals slobbered and wheeled north.
“We have to go.”
Drogon spoke to Cutter.
“We’re still being followed. We’re close, now, we’re close.”
    Elsie tried to thank the tardy, with no reaction. “You have to go,” she shouted. “Handlingers are coming.” But the
ge’ain
did not answer. They stood among their revenge and waited for nothing. The humans could only shout their thanks and leave the