The Crobuzoners waved their hats and scarves. Run come home, one shouted. Some were crying. They threw dried petals on the tracks. But there were some stood and waved their arms No, shouted, No they’ll kill you, and others who wore a kind of sad pride.

They ran and leapt onto the Council. They threw winter flowers and food to the Councillors and their children, exchanged shouted words with them, dropped back. Those on the train had become stern and taciturn with history and mission, and it was their followers on foot who met the escapees and embraced them, merged.

People ran by the train, keeping pace with it, and shouted names. Bereft families.

"Nathaniel! Is he there? Nathaniel Besholm, Remade man, arms of wood. Went into the wilds with the lost train."

"Split Nose! My father. Never came back. Where is he?"

Names and snips of histories breathed out by those for whom the return of Iron Council was not only a myth come to be real but was a family hope redivivus. Letters addressed to those long-disappeared in exile now suddenly perhaps come back were thrown into the windows. Most were for the dead or those who had simply deserted: these were read and became messages to everyone.

It was day now-the day that the Iron Council would reach the end of the line. It was slowing, the drivers wanting every moment of the journey.

"Low the Golem-man!" one woman shouted in her old voice as they went past. "He’s been prowling around, getting everything ready for you! Come faster!"

What? Cutter looked back. Up from inside him was a suspicion. What?

"Don’t fear," someone shouted. "Listen, we’re only hiding, us Collectivists, we’re waiting, we’re behind the militia lines waiting for you," but Cutter was looking for the woman who had spoken of Judah.

There isn’t far. They would be there by noon perhaps, at the end of the line, to the ranks of military in the sidings. Only a few miles left. "I’ve a plan," Judah said. Gods. Gods. He’s here.

Overhead the Iron Council wyrmen flew in both directions. Their outflyers would soon be at the city.

Cutter was on horseback, the easy long gallop he had learnt over the months he’d become a wilderness man. He could almost keep up with Ann-Hari, who rode Rahul the Remade.

Rahul’s strides pounded, and he ran below the scree and pebble litter with the risen wall of the roadbed a windbreak beside him, dandelions and weeds in its slanted flank. Cutter rode where the wind was most resentful, throwing dust in his eyes. He ignored it. He pushed on under clouds that moved with sudden urgency and sowed rain nearby. He looked to the tracks, he looked ahead. He was beside the rail.