"China Mieville - Iron Council" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mieville China)

with scorching and blood. The man spread out his pack and blanket, a few books and clothes. He laid down something well-wrapped and heavy among loam and
centipedes.
Rudewood was cold. The man built a fire, and with it so close the darkness shut him quite out, but he stared into it as if he might see something emergent. Things came
close. There were constant bits of sound like the bronchial call of a nightbird or the breath and shucking of some unseen predator. The man was wary. He had pistol and
rifle, and one at least was always in his hand.
By flamelight he saw hours pass. Sleep took him and led him away again in little gusts. Each time he woke he breathed as if coming out of water. He was stricken.
Sadness and anger went across his face.
“I’ll come find you,” he said.
He did not notice the moment of dawn, only that time skidded again and he could see the edges of the clearing. He moved like he was made of twigs, as if he had stored
up the night’s damp cold. Chewing on dry meat, he listened to the forest’s shuffling and paced the dirt depression.
When finally he heard voices he flattened against the bank and looked out between the trunks. Three people approached on the paths of leaf-mould and forest debris.
The man watched them, his rifle steadied. When they trudged into thicker shanks of light, he saw them clearly and let his rifle fall.
“Here,” he shouted. They dropped foolishly and looked for him. He raised his hand above the earth rise.
They were a woman and two men, dressed in clothes more ill-suited to Rudewood than his own. They stood before him in the arena and smiled. “Cutter.” They gripped
arms and slapped his back.
“I heard you for yards. What if you was followed? Who else is coming?”
They did not know. “We got your message,” the smaller man said. He spoke fast and looked about him. “I went and seen. We were arguing. The others were saying,
you know, we should stay. You know what they said.”
“Yeah, Drey. Said I’m mad.”
“Not you. ”
They did not look at him. The woman sat, her skirt filling with air. She was breathing fast with anxiety. She bit her nails.
“Thank you. For coming.” They nodded or shook Cutter’s gratitude off: it sounded strange to him, and he was sure to them too. He tried not to make it sound like his
sardonic norm. “It means a lot.”
They waited in the sunken ground, scratched motifs in the earth or carved figures from dead wood. There was too much to say.
“So they told you not to come?”
The woman, Elsie, told him no, not so much, not in those words, but the Caucus had been dismissive of Cutter’s call. She looked up at him and down quickly as she
spoke. He nodded, and did not criticise.
“Are you sure about this?” he said, and would not accept their desultory nods. “Godsdammit are you sure? Turn your back on the Caucus? You ready to do that? For
him? It’s a long way we’ve got to go.”
“We already come miles in Rudewood,” said Pomeroy.
“There’s hundreds more. Hundreds. It’ll be bastard hard. A long time. I can’t swear we’ll come back.”
I can’t swear we’ll come back.
Pomeroy said, “Only tell me again your message was true. Tell me again he’s gone, and where he’s gone and what for. Tell me that’s true.” The big man glowered and
waited, and at Cutter’s brief nod and closed eyes, he said, “Well then.”
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.