Free Iron Winter (Northland 3) by Stephen Baxter

name of this place came from
what the people who had founded it called themselves, in their own tribal tongue; they were ‘The People Who Worked’ or ‘The Busy People’, and looking around their city
Avatak could well believe it. The place was nothing like the orderly, rigidly laid out, sparsely populated communities of lower Northland, or indeed like the tiny fishing villages of Avatak’s
homeland. His only comparison was with the crowded communities of the Wall itself. It was as if a District had been cut from that great structure and emptied out, a heap of stone and wriggling
people. But the Wall, of course, would have utterly overwhelmed this cramped, smoky, shabby place.
    And even here, far to the south of Northland, Avatak saw the mark of winter and the long drought: frosts every clear morning, the late potato crops struggling in the parched fields outside the
city.
    But Parisa, for all its detail and curiosities and wonders, was only the start of their true journey. Pyxeas warned him not to be too impressed. ‘You’ll forget this ant-hill when you
see the mighty cities of Cathay.’
    Rina, coldly disapproving of the whole enterprise, said nothing.
    The day before their departure they walked down to the line terminus on the city’s eastern side, with hastily hired servants bringing their luggage after them.
    Avatak had ridden steam caravans before. In Northland their gleaming iron trails criss-crossed the countryside, north to south, east to west. And then there was the famous Iron Way, the line
that ran along the crest of the Wall itself, uniting the far-flung Districts of the Wall and their peoples.
    But the great caravan to Hantilios was a different beast. Of course it was like a Northland steam caravan in its fundamentals; much of it was built and maintained by Northland engineers. But it
was so much bigger than any caravan Avatak had ever seen. Not one but two engines would haul passenger carriages studded in a chain of rusty trucks full of Albian coal for fuel, and freight
carriages, and specialised coaches that looked like engineering shops on wheels. Pyxeas said that though the southern Continent was a crowded and civilised place (‘Somewhat civilised,’
Rina corrected him), and though the Parisa–Hantilios line was a marvel of Northlander engineering, the technical support in these southern lands was sparse, and on the road the engineers
would have to rely on their own resources.
    The point of the caravan line was of course trade. The Parisa–Hantilios line, the longest in the world to date, had been laid at huge expense to connect two great trading centres: Parisa,
a hub for goods passing to and from Northland, Albia, Gaira, and even far Scand; and Hantilios, central to the Continent, which lay on trading routes connecting north and south, west and east. So
the bulk of the caravan was freight carriages laden with lumber and coal and tin and gold from Albia, furs and amber from Scand, and barrels of Kirike-fish from Northland itself, all bound for the
needy markets of the east.
    It was the passenger carriages, though, that caught Avatak’s eye. In Northland such carriages were plain but functional boxes of steel and wood with sturdy windowpanes. They were even
heated in winter (and increasingly in the summer too) by pipes through which steam was bled from the engine. The carriages here in Parisa, though, were topped by what looked like dome-shaped tents,
covered for now by sooty leathers which boys were cleaning of grime as the passengers arrived. Avatak found the carriage they had been assigned, and clambered through a doorway, pushing aside a
heavy flap. The tent was a frame of bent wooden slats heaped with vividly coloured velvet. The floor was covered with a thick carpet, and there were couches to lie on, and trunks to store your
luggage and food and drink. The windows were holes in the wall covered with leather panels scraped so thin you could see through them.
    Pyxeas smiled