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Back Iron Council Save as PDF
Chapters (48)
  1. Prologue
  2. Part One: Trappings
  3. Chapter One
  4. Chapter Two
  5. Chapter Three
  6. Chapter Four
  7. Chapter Five
  8. Part Two: Returns
  9. Chapter Six
  10. Chapter Seven
  11. Chapter Eight
  12. Chapter Nine
  13. Part Three: Wine Land
  14. Chapter Ten
  15. Chapter Eleven
  16. Chapter Twelve
  17. Chapter Thirteen
  18. Anamnesis: The Perpetual Train
  19. Part Four: The Hainting
  20. Chapter Fourteen
  21. Chapter Fifteen
  22. Chapter Sixteen
  23. Part Five: Retread
  24. Chapter Seventeen
  25. Chapter Eighteen
  26. Chapter Nineteen
  27. Part Six: The Causus Race
  28. Chapter Twenty
  29. Chapter Twenty-One
  30. Chapter Twenty-Two
  31. Part Seven: Stain
  32. Chapter Twenty-Three
  33. Chapter Twenty-Four
  34. Part Eight: The Remarking
  35. Chapter Twenty-Five
  36. Chapter Twenty-Six
  37. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  38. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  39. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  40. Chapter Thirty
  41. Part Nine: Sound and Light
  42. Chapter Thirty-One
  43. Chapter Thirty-Two
  44. Chapter Thirty-Three
  45. Part Ten: The Monument
  46. Chapter Thirty-Four
  47. Chapter Thirty-Five
  48. RUNAGATE RAMPANT. LUNUARY 1806.

"Listen, friend, someone can vouch for you? Because without that there’s no in, no out. You’re in no-man’s-land, and that ain’t a safe place to be. You’d best bugger off back to the Old Town, unless you give me a name. Give me a name, and we’ll check you out." More heads were rising now; the man was being joined. An armed band, humans and other races, weapons hefted below snapping flags.

"Because you’re on the threshold now, mate, and you’re either on one side or the other. It ain’t like we just got here. Been two powers in the city for days, boy. You’ve had days to make up your mind. You’re either north"-and there were pantomime boos-"back in the old days and old ways: or you’re in here, Kelltree and Echomire and Dog fucking Fenn, in the future, which is now.

"Walk toward me slow, and keep your hands like that. Let’s have a look at you, you gormless fool." It was almost kindly. A bottle smashed. "Come a bit closer. Welcome to the Free Territories, mate. Welcome to the New Crobuzon Collective."

Part Seven: Stain

Part Seven: Stain

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Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Three

"I hate that we run from them."

"You heard, though. You heard how it was. We have to play safe. They’re armed to take us out."

"But if we have to run from them, why by gods are we heading back to the city? It’ll be way worse."

"It doesn’t work like that, though, does it? That’s not the idea. We send out word. By coming back, we change things. By the time we get back, it won’t be them waiting for us. It’ll be a different city."

Cutter and the man lounged against a wall after another dance, in a cab reconfigured. It was a punitive journey, and night after night the Iron Councillors kicked against the darkness to improvised rhythms.

There had been deaths, of course, to footholds lost, to viruses and bacteria of the hinterland, and to the depredations of the inland predators, animals that unfolded in claws, teeth, cirri, and killed. Drogon went hunting with the Council’s forces, came back with the heads of strange predators, with new wounds and stories. That one phases, so we trapped it when it went icy and I took it through the heart. That one sees with its teeth.