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Just out of college, young Mr. Franklyn takes a job as a bridger for the railroad -- and learns that his first assignment will take the nebbish pup well beyond his comfort zone, in the wilds of the inner continent!

Did you know that there was a time in this fair land when the railroad did not run? The first chapter of a short steampunk story I'm writing in the same universe as The Road to Mandalay_, and set a few years before with some of the same people. Eventually. For this, please blame mayfurr, who made me break out my Gordon Lightfoot albums ;) Just a good old frontier story!_

Released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. Share, modify, and redistribute -- as long as it's attributed and noncommercial, anything goes.

An iron road running, ** ** by ** Rob Baird**. Chapter 1: "Gotta take it like you find it"

* n.b. that this journal entry provides some background and a map!

---

The neatly typed telegram in the pocket of his vest had been folded and refolded until the crease was starting to wear apart. Orders, from the headquarters of his new employer. Report "with all haste" to the Carregan Transcontinental Railroad office in Tilladen, and find Dr. Allen Grensmann.

He'd spent the last two days traveling, on stagecoaches and trains, and although he hadn't slept the young dog was still full of energy. His nose had been pressed nearly up to the window on the ride along the shores of the great blue Ostermere, hoping to catch a glimpse of the city before they arrived.

"Tilladen," he'd told the conductor, when asked his final destination. It was a Carregan train, after all -- as the best were. "I'm starting work at our office there." And he'd put a keen emphasis on the word our, though the conductor hadn't noticed.

He was fresh from university, his diploma not yet a week old, and the assignment seemed to be one hell of an opportunity. Alighting from the train, he stopped to catch his bearings at a café. Paused, for a glass of water and a chance to check his reflection in the mirror. The dark fabric of his very best suit complimented his fur as well as anything. A young professional, he thought. That's who I am...

"The Carregan office on Curl, please?" he asked the owner of the café, and she pointed up the street. It was, she said, only a few blocks from their present location at the central station in Tilladen, a town of several hundred thousand people that commanded the Ostermere's eastern shore.

It would not do to skip. Instead, he walked briskly. Sure enough, he soon found a stately building with straight columns and shiny brass letters that said 'CTR.' Modest and modern, like the express carriage had been. Not too stern, nor too wild: the perfect blend of stateliness. Teo could only hope to be so dignified.

'Dignified' was not what people thought when they saw the dog. He could've been a collie, but the lines were blunted and he had no tail -- nobody in his family did. He tried to add a bit of class with the sharp lines of his suit, but his bright brown eyes and fuzzy, folded ears gave him a puppyish look that subtracted half a decade from his twenty-one years.

Not like the older-looking gentleman he found seated on a bench adjacent to the door, steadily working at a paper bag of tiny fish. This man was an otter, with a distinguished mustache and a paunch that made him look grandfatherly and quite approachable. Teo straightened his tie. "Excuse me, sir?"

"Eh?"

"I'm looking for a Dr. Allen Grensmann," Teo explained. "I'd be much obliged if you could tell me where I might find him."

Popping another fish into his mouth, the otter chewed slowly, looking the younger man over. "What do you want him for? Better be a bloody good reason -- who are you, anyway? You look like a schoolboy." He had a thick western accent, and Teo had some difficulty understanding it.

"Uh -- Teobas Franklyn, sir. I -- I'm a new engineer for the Railroad. I was told to report here by the home office -- I'm to be Dr. Grensmann's assistant."

"My assistant?" The otter grumbled his way through another bite. "We asked for you two bloody months ago..."

Teo blinked, and tried not to look too startled. "You're Dr. Grensmann?"

"Who else would I be? No, put your paw back, I'm not shaking it."

"Yes, sir." It was doubtless covered in grease anyway.

"Hm. Franklyn. Franklyn, Franklyn..." Dr. Grensmann ate a couple more of the little fish while he pondered the new arrival, and Teo had to suppress his own feelings that there was a time and a place for fish, and 'the office at 9 o'clock in the morning' was not one of them. They smelled rather strongly. "Bridger, right?"

"Yes, sir! My speciality at university was trestles and viaducts. Mostly in the Kennerdum school, but I did study under a Tiurishkan architect who was quite fond of the freestanding arch. He said that --"

"No, shut up," the otter waved his paw. "I don't care about freestanding bloody arches. You'll do. You said home office sent you right here?" He did not pronounce any of his 'h's, and made up for it by stretching the the 'r's into something grandiose. Rrrrright 'ere?

Increasingly taken aback, Teo nodded. "Yes, Dr. Grensmann. I got the cable at my graduation ceremony -- I've come straightaway. Arrived last night... I've arranged to have my trunks sent over on the next non-express train, as it was rather cheaper, but..."

Allen tipped the bag into his muzzle to get the rest of the fish, and then stood. "Mm-hmm. And have you been to Tilladen before, laddie?"

"No, sir. This is my first time seeing the Ostermere."

Dr. Grensmann pushed open the heavy door of the building, and ushered the young dog inside. Inside! More than the Ostermere, this was his first time seeing a proper CTR office, and it was everything he'd expected. Marbled floors, smoothly polished, and wood-paneled walls covered with maps and portraits and paintings... it was practically a gallery!

Had Teo possessed a tail, it would've been wagging in a most unseemly way for the hushed decorum of the office. But who could help it? Here was a bust of Dr. Stathley K'nRiddell -- there was a locomotive blueprint signed by Palen Farrier himself -- across the hall was a painting that looked to be a Cort Chamann original. He'd never seen anything like it.

And he wanted to pause and admire every single thing in the hall, but the soft glow of the gas lamps beckoned him and Allen Grensmann's stride did not give one time to dawdle. "H-have you worked here long, Dr. Grensmann?" He kept his voice reverently hushed, in deference to his surroundings.

"Twenty-four years," Grensmann answered, with no such compunction. "No, wait. Twenty-five. Gods, but it does go quick. Alright, now." He stopped before a wooden door with a real glass window, and pushed the lever to open it. "This is our office -- for now."

The office was cluttered with books and papers, and smelled of ink, and old maps. And fish. There were two desks in the place, although the one intended for Teo had acquired a thick armor of stacked paperwork. "Er -- for now, sir?"

Allen laughed, and the otter picked his way around books and models to drop into the chair behind his ancient desk. "Pull up a seat, Teobas."

Fortunately although the other desk was indisposed, Allen had yet to repurpose its chair for additional storage. It was a heavy oaken thing -- betokening fine craftsmanship, as did everything in the building. Teo lifted it, with some effort, and sat it before Allen's desk. "Yes, sir."

"They tell you why you're here?"

His orders had, in point of fact, been extremely scanty. He didn't need to pull the abused paper from his pocket, for he'd memorized every letter of its contents: Pleased to offer a position as draftsman assistant to Dr. Allen Grensmann at 11 cr. p.d. Report with all haste, main office, Curl St 3, Tilladen. He knew Grensmann's name, of course, from his studies, but... "Well... no, sir, actually... but I sort of guessed."

"Did you, then?"

Teo had a peculiar feeling that he was being set up. "Well... I imagine we'll be overseeing the line from Tilladen to Stanlira or Tinenfirth, won't we?" Stanlira was, in any case, the headquarters of the Railroad. "Plenty of bridges and the like along the Seffish that must need maintenance..."

"There are. But we're not going down the Seffish."

Teobas had committed the major routes of the Carregan Transcontinental Railroad to memory just like the telegram. "Around the Ostermere on the line to Nattenleigh?"

"To start with. We'll be building a new line, my young friend. A brand new railroad." The way he rolled his 'r's was quickly becoming endearing enough that Teobas very nearly forgave the fish.

Besides which, the prospect was fascinating. From Tinenfirth, on the coast, the CTR mainline ran along the river Sheyib into the desert. There was very little service to inland Aernia -- beyond the branch that ran from Stanlira to Tilladen, and then on to Nattenleigh and Salketh, there was in fact nothing at all. So much potential! The dog's fuzzy ears perked excitedly. "To Lake Peraford, I suppose?"

"No."

That had been the obvious choice. To the south-east, the territory of the Marches -- the wild border of the Empire -- was too sparsely populated to justify the expense. But maybe some March lord with influence had seen fit to demand it. "Rudkirk, then, sir? Chauserlin? Mallysbrook?"

"New Jarankyld."

Teo's muzzle opened, and stayed open. "But -- the Gull Cliffs are too steep..."

"Not goin' by the cliffs, laddie."

"But..."

But.

The alternative was unthinkable.

History was not Teo's forte; indeed, he rather disliked it. But he knew of Jarankyld, the old castle south of Salketh. Abandoned, when the forest had encroached centuries before. Overgrown now. Lost except to memory, its stony walls doubtless long consumed by the trees. Its successor, New Jarankyld, was a coastal enclave -- separated from the rest of the Iron Kingdom by the steep cliffs of the Caelish Ocean, and rocky valleys, and the terrifying dark wood that, in hushed whispers, border-folk called the Dalrath.

Teobas Franklyn had lived in cities and towns all his life. Arrengate, boy's school in Cotting Chase, and then the university at Marrahurst -- tall buildings and bustle and the clamoring shout of the marketplace. The scent of burning coal, and seven hundred thousand people all together at once -- the raw seething energy for which Aernians were so well known.

But the world beyond was wild. Aernia's frontiers were guarded by the lines of pickets and fortresses that they called the Pales. The Iron Pale, watching the deserts to the east, and the Silver Pale that held the forests at bay. Nobody crossed the Silver Pale. The Dalrath was impenetrable. So what in the name of the gods was Grensmann on about?

"But what, lad?" the otter asked, with a smile.

"Then... then how? Not through the woods, surely?"

"How else?"

He did not know what Dalrath meant -- it was a word in a foreign tongue, the language of the barbarians who inhabited the place. "They... they say that... that no light reaches the floor."

"We'll bring torches."

Teo stammered; shook his head. "They that the trees are a thousand feet tall."

Dr. Grensmann smiled wider. "Plenty of strong timber for your bridges, then."

"They say that the forests are full of wild animals."

"No need to bring our own food."

"They say that the savages are -- that they -- that they're vicious! Depraved! They burn their own fur off! They eat people!"

"Then we won't lack for excitement nor adventure, will we, laddie?"

It was a prank, Teobas decided. A hazing ritual for the new employees. Like on his first day at university, when the older boys had sent him scavenging for a 'snipe.' "Well, but you can't be serious," he said aloud, and hoped that it was true.

Just then a knocking sounded at the door, and when it opened a grey-muzzled wolf leaned his head in. "Allen. When you've a minute, I need the figures for how many feet we'll need to redo the Sion-Barhech trestles. Oh -- hello, are you new here?"

"T-Teobas Franklyn. I'm Dr. Grensmann's new apprentice."

The wolf laughed. "Ah. You're the one who's going to build us the line to Jarankyld, eh? Well, by Æmer, I wish you the best of luck. Allen?"

"End of the day, Gallish." The wolf nodded, and closed the door again. "Gallish Vashar. He won't be coming with us..."

Teo's increasing sense of dismay briefly clashed with his surprise. "That was Dr. Vashar? I've read all of his books..."

"Not his last one. He spent eighteen months inspecting the mines here -- only two copies of that book, and both of them are in the library upstairs. You should take a look: we won't be leaving for a few days, and it's not like you have anything better to do."

The young dog flattened out his ears. "You are serious, aren't you?"

"I've never been more serious. There's a continent out there for the taking, young Teo. All of Jarnshire, and the forest itself for that matter -- oh, laddie, there's riches for a dozen Iron Kings beneath those trunks. Not that it matters."

He quirked his head. "Not that it matters?"

"President Tokeli Carregan says we'll build a railroad. So damn it, lad, we'll build a railroad, if the gods themselves have to drive the spikes. From sea to bloody sea, that's what she wants."

"And we'll really do it?"

"Aye," he nodded. "Just you wait."

The railroad, Dr. Grensmann said, had never been stopped before -- not by the baking heat of the Menapset Wastes, nor the shining span of the River Sheyib. Not by the barbarian Sujetai and their predations, nor by the threats of Korlydan kushri archers. Not by the grumblings of the borderlanders and their obsessive backwards feudalism, not by the squabbling thanes of the Ellagdran Confederacy, not by the coal barons of Tilladen or the clannish tribes of the Shrouded Rocks. Not by blizzard, by thunderstorm, or by scouring desert wind.

They would not, Allen declared, be the first ones in Carregan history to fail.

And Teo believed him, so he did not tender his resignation. Instead he left a note with the train station, instructing them to have his belongings sent to the central office awaiting his return -- whenever that might be. There was scarcely time to get acquainted with the office building before the date of their departure was upon them. The library let him keep Dr. Vashar's On the use of iron structural members, which proved to be fascinating. Even as he read, the young dog found himself thinking up new ways in which a bridge could be constructed -- with suitable materials.

"You should take a look, laddie," Allen said. "The world's passing you by..."

Teobas glanced up from his notebook. Beyond the windows of the carriage, the Aernian countryside rolled in a gentle pattern. Here and there sheep clustered in the gentle swells of the Lake Country. Sunlight glinted off the waters of the ponds and the irrigation canals, and the shadows drawn by hedgerows fenced the land in dark green splendor. It was beautiful. "I never spent much time in the country..."

"You are a city boy, aren't you?"

"Yes, sir," Teo admitted. "I was born in Arrengate. They say my family's from Chenwyckshire, originally, but we moved from the countryside two hundred years ago. The only ones left east of the Seffish are... underground. I'm at home in cities. Around engines, and forges, and people..."

The otter grinned. "I am, too, lad, don't worry. I grew up in a fishing village on the Caelish. A hundred people in the south riding of Yolleffshire. I would've sold my soul to leave..."

"How did you, sir?"

"Luck. A brig foundered on the rocks, and my father's boat rescued some of the passengers -- some of the only ones to survive. One of them, she was the daughter of a Barric merchant. And when that man learned his daughter hadn't drowned with the rest of those poor wretched souls, he promised my father anything. So me and my siblings went to school."

"In Inverbar?"

"Barric Royal School of Mines and Metals," Allen nodded. "The day I got my doctorate, that was the day I sent word my father could retire -- never set foot on one of those damned tiny boats again..."

The more he thought about it, the more he believed in Allen Grensmann's passion. It was the Aernian way, Teobas decided. The Tiurishk were academics like no other; the Ellagdrans were fierce soldiers. The Otonichi birthed the finest craftsmen in the world -- but the Iron Kingdom, the Iron Kingdom had the strongest willed people anywhere on the continent. They were driven. They could do anything.

They could bring a railroad from the dockyards of Stanlira to the baking wastes of the Menapset Desert and the gleaming fortress city of Korlyda. They could carve mines that poured forth the warm black treasure of Tilladen anthracite. They could build up the great tall buildings of Marrahurst and Tabisthalia, and the steady thump of steam engines in the factories was the heartbeat of the greatest nation in history.

Teobas thought of the first time he had seen a factory -- he'd been eight years old, and his father had taken him to the chattering looms of a textile mill on the edges of Arrengate. A chaotic whirling shout of activity, and the smell of dyes and engine-grease, and the young dog had grinned and known even then that these were to be his temples, and that the steam engine was the only god worth praying to.

Watching the trains glide on iron rails from the yards of the city center off to places he could only dream of -- watching them return again, laden with Tiurishk cotton, and the clockwork of the Otonichi. Fish from Tinenfirth. Timber and coal from Tilladen. And now here he was, setting off to build another one. Like a surgeon, designing a new artery to carry the lifeblood of empire to long-dormant limbs...

"You think we can do it?" he asked, just to hear the otter's answer.

"You know what I think, laddie? I think we can do any bloody thing we want. We're the Carregan gods-damned Transcontinental Railroad."

This optimism buoyed him, and he no longer felt the need to seek solace in the engineering text. The blue waters of the Ostermere -- the largest lake in all Aernia -- glittered invitingly beyond the window of the train. Such power there, too -- irrigation that could turn the area into the most fertile lands of the continent. Running water to drive the most powerful of mills.

Anything they set their minds and muscle to was at hand... he daydreamed, and didn't notice the door opening, nor the approach of a new figure. A shadow fell across the table, and he turned to see a finely dressed deer -- neatly tailored vest, polished antlers and nails.

"New man?" Teo couldn't tell, at first, if he was asking for an introduction or an inspection.

Allen, though, just nodded. "Aye. This is Teobas Franklyn, draftsman and senior bridger for this project. Mr. Franklyn, may I please introduce Lord Dale Masseler, Fourth Baron Corwyck and Deputy Director of Railroad Operations for the Southern Branch." Once more the way the otter rolled his 'r's was immediately fetching.

The stag flicked his ear, and nodded lightly. "Tilladen, Salketh, and the western Marches. It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Franklyn."

He did not extend his hand, of course. Teo understood this; he smiled. "You as well, my lord."

"Ah, please. We don't do titles at the Railroad -- 'Mr. Masseler' will suffice."

"Very well, Mr. Masseler." Teo liked the stag immediately -- soft-spoken, with the quiet, confident demeanor of the aristocracy. And: "pardon me, sir, but are you from Arrenshire?" There was something of the area about him -- the old provinces, Teo's home among them, that made up the part of Aernia they called 'King's Reach'.

"No," Dale said. "But close. My family hails from Hæthcastershire. Corwyck itself is on the Afenpetch, just south of where it meets the Tabis. Are you an Arrengate man? I never did spend much time in the city itself. But I did," he added -- with a conspiratorial smile -- "attend school in Cotting Chase for some years."

Cotting Chase was a smaller town close to the border of Arrenshire and Hæthcastershire. Teo couldn't help the way his ears perked up: "By some strange coincidence, so did I, sir -- the Jana Temple School for Boys."

Dale smiled wider. "Red hot the iron,."

"Bright the coals glow," Teo nodded quickly.

And the older man began to sing, drawing a raised eyebrow and an increasingly amused expression from Allen Grensmann: "By the anvil of the crescent --"

"Where the hæthcorns grow," the dog sang along with him. "Strike, strike the hammer; white the sparks fell -- on the forge of the crescent that we knew so well!

"Good boy," Mr. Masseler declared, when they finished, and Teo got the sense that he would've been wagging a tail, too. "We're far from the Reach, now. I do hope that a Jana Temple man isn't letting a Barricker like old fishbreath here get him down?"

Teobas shook his head quickly. "No, sir. Dr. Grensmann is a fantastic colleague."

"Of course he is," Dale said. "He's the best we have. Allen, you wouldn't mind a spot of company, would you?"

The otter looked to the table, and folded away some of their papers to clear a space. "Of course not, Director Masseler."

The stag bowed his appreciation, and took a seat next to Teo. The dog caught a momentary flash of subtle perfume -- probably from some artisan in Tabisthalia, he thought, like a real gentleman -- as he opened his jacket and produced a flask. "A drink, perhaps?"

It was an hour or so past lunch, but Allen nodded anyway. "Certainly, sir." He paused until Dale had summoned over the attendant from the far edge of the car to procure three glasses, and then pointed to the papers. "We were just trying to see how much we'll need to do work on the Salketh branch line."

"Mm-hmm," Dale nodded, and poured a measure of dark bronze liquid into each of the glasses. "And?"

"The building equipment is sixty tons apiece," Allen said. "From here to Nattenleigh the rail is rated at sixty pounds. Past that, it's only ten. We'd have to put new track down ."

"That line was never meant to carry freight," Dale admitted, with a sigh. "The passenger service from Salketh barely pays for itself. This is an investment, of course. We'll reinforce the rails later, I suppose, for proper freight traffic. Mm. A toast -- to the Railroad!"

"To the Railroad," Allen echoed, and they all took a sip. The liquor had a prickly fire to it that caught Teo off guard, before he could enjoy the hint of sweetness to its glow. "Brandy?"

"Of course. Wauklausian brynt," Dale added, referring to the kingdom that lay well to their south, on the other side of the Dalrath. Two days' sailing in a good wind from New Jarankyld, and two or three times that from the nearest major port in Aernia proper. "I want you to think about it, both of you. This is bigger than New Jarankyld -- once the rail is laid there, we could go all the way south to Miispyrt or Tammervest. We could open up the whole of the Low Kingdom. No more... begging for a favorable wind or dreading the rocks at Tammerhaffn -- gods, men, we could do anything."

"If the rails hold," Allen Grensmann reminded him.

The well-dressed stag sipped at his whiskey in contemplation before shaking his head. "I'm not going to wait to put down new rail every day we want to move the shovels forward. We'll barge the equipment up from Nattenleigh and disassemble it there. Move it piecemeal to the railhead at Salketh. And from Salketh on, we'll put down forty five-pound rail. Learn as we go to Silcaster, I suppose, if that'll be enough..."

"This raises an interesting question, you know," Allen said. "One that young Teobas brought up, actually. Why don't you explain, Mr. Franklyn?"

Teo blinked, caught quite off guard. "Ah -- well -- it was just a discussion, Dr. Grensmann."

"Well, let's discuss it together, then," Dale suggested. "Have another drink if you're so nervous."

He did so. The Wauklausian brandy caught at the back of his tongue, and he stifled the urge to cough. "Well. Ah. Dr. Grensmann had said that the plan was to extend the rail from Salketh west to Silcaster."

"Correct," the deputy director nodded, and when Allen produced a map the stag's finger drew out the line. "We'll skim the shores of Lake Peraford."

"Yes. Well. Ah. But, ah, you see sir -- uh."

"Out with it, laddie."

"Yes, doctor. Um. Between here and the lake is a drop in elevation of nearly three thousand feet. The lake itself is... well, practically at sea level. Which, this would not ordinarily pose a point of difficulty except, ah, well. That... the survey maps we have of the..." He coughed again, and did not say Dalrath. "The... woods... implies that they are on the same plateau as Salketh and, uh, indeed, the entirety of Perashire."

"What the lad's saying is if we go down to the lake, we'll have to gain at least twenty-five hundred feet of grade again climbing back into the mountains. For freight rail, it's... cor blimey, Mr. Masseler, it'll be expensive. Mr. Franklyn had the idea that we could put the track down to Mirhall, instead."

"It's shorter," Dale mused, looking at the little figure that marked Castle Mirhall on the map -- close to the forests already, to the ominous blankness at the southern edge of the railroad map. "Probably less profitable than a line to the Lake would be, though. But I suppose... if they want it, they can pay for it themselves, can't they?" He finished the last of his brandy. "Good work, Mr. Franklyn. Draw up the plans, then, and I'll inform home office that Lake Peraford can wait for proper rail service."

He left, and Teo let out a sigh. It had not been so traumatic, after all. His first major challenge! His first bit of service for the railroad! He still had most of the brandy left, and he relished it as he watched the soft hills roll by beyond the window of the carriage.

The young dog did not yet have Allen's long years of experience, but even he could feel when they left the heavy rail behind and hit the jolting, poorly maintained track on the stretch of Transcontinental track between Nattenleigh and Salketh. Rails were graded by weight: heavier rail could carry larger trains at greater speed without self-destruction, but it was also far more expensive. The sixty-pound rail that ran from Tilladen to Nattenleigh was made for all but the heaviest of their freight locomotives, and while Nattenleigh's stockyards were enough to cover the added cost nothing else in the province was sufficiently profitable.

Twenty years back, when the line had been designed, the locomotives and the carriages were lighter and the ten-pound rail had been good enough for fast passenger service. Now, their express locomotive had to slow down to a crawl to avoid overtaxing the rails. Faster than a wagon, and far more comfortable -- but far from the seventy miles an hour of the Lodestone Meteor, flying eastward along the Sheyib River in the desert...

That, too, was for him to fix!

He'd heard that they were experimenting with steel rails, now, far stronger for the same weight. Of course steel was too expensive to use in large quantities, but someday he felt it would come down in price. Then they could run freight rail to the mines of Kennerdum-on-Laddach -- to the lumber mills of the Western Marches -- from the fertile farms of the the Gar plateau -- from the east, from the north, from --

"Steady, laddie," Allen said with a smile. "You're not a week on the job yet and you're already soundin' like you were born Carregan..."

Salketh was the largest town in the area, but with only sixty thousand souls it was not even really a proper city and Teobas was not particularly impressed with the poorly cobbled streets beyond the "main station" -- a shabby three-track affair, with one of the tracks occupied by the rusty locomotive of a local line. He watched in disgust as it grunted and wheezed to life, clattering off to... where? Probably some pig farm.

They didn't know what they were missing, of course.

At the Carregan office in town, they stopped for tea and looked over the maps of the province that lay beyond them. Mirhall was twenty miles to the south, and the forest was only another ten miles beyond that. Close enough that, he heard one of the workers say, you could see the trees towering on the horizon. He knew that he would find out soon enough, and shuddered at the thought.

"Can you ride?" Mr. Masseler asked him, from the back of a lovely looking mare. Teo was a city boy, though, and so the dog shook his head.

"Good choice," Allen grumbled, when the deputy director had gone. "Can't stand bloody horses..."

But there were no rails beyond Salketh, not even shoddy ones. They were obliged to switch to wagons. And while Dale Masseler, Baron Corwyck loped and circled about on his horse, they clattered along a rut-infested dirt road towards Castle Mirhall. That was the end of working on the move -- Teo knew that if he tried to bring out his pen, the jolting wagon would snap the nib clean off.

Instead he watched the countryside. It was much the same as Nattenleigh and the Ostermere had been: green hills, and stands of trees and orchards. But the houses were a little shabbier -- many of them with thatched roofs -- and the windmills ever more slightly run down. The road had been metaled... once. Decades of disrepair had all but removed the stones.

"Do you know the story of Jarankyld?" he asked Allen, and the otter shook his head. They had stopped for a lunch of stale sandwiches, and eventually the pair settled for drenching the bread in honey that a passing farmgirl offered for two shillings. Half what it would've cost in Marrahurst or Arrengate, Teo reflected, and probably better quality.

He kept asking around, and finally one of the engineers told him that if Teo shut up, he'd tell what he knew. The dog agreed, and introduced himself to the man -- a big, dark-furred bear who said that he was named Samhal Stockman, that his family came from Peraford, and that somewhere back in the dim recesses of history his ancestors had lived in Jarankyld.

A great city, he said. On a hill south of Salketh, back when the forests had not been so grand. Walls twenty feet thick, and as tall as the tallest buildings in Tilladen. A city that commanded the surrounding lands and brought them to heel from under the gaze of her great watchtowers. A city whose longbowmen were second to none in the land -- better even than the Tiurishkan kushri.

From his throne in Tabisthalia, King Chatherral IV ruled over the whole of Aernia -- in theory. But some lands were more equal than others. Five monarchies had made up the First Concord: Tabisthal, Arren, Ailaragh, Barland, and Hutwick. An Arrenshire man like Teo knew that, even six centuries later, Tabisthalia, Arrengate, Giral Moss, Inverbar and Harradon were still privileged towns -- that they commanded the King's attention in a way that the Marches simply did not.

But, Samhal said, it had not always been that way. Once, Jarankyld had been the sixth member of the First Concord, marking the furthest southern reach of the Iron Kingdom. The forests, as Samhal described them, had been subdued then -- tens of miles further away, and docile.

"Half a million people, there," Sam said -- in awe, like he'd been there himself once. Arrengate was not that big even today. "Rich gold mines, and gems too -- stones like would make an Otonichi trader cut his own tail off just to hold one. Farms with cabbages the size of a cooking pot."

"What happened?"

They were, to hear Sam tell it, a fiercely martial people. They held the forests at bay with their torches and their spears, hacking down the trees and burning the brush back. Challenging the forest folk in their own domain, and bloodying them well. But as time went on, they'd grown complacent. Comfortable. "Fat, and happy, like your boss." That slight drew a few chuckles from the workmen.

Year by year the forest encroached closer to the great walls, but the Jarankylders ignored it. There'd been no great cause for alarm. And besides, there was nothing of value to the south, where the forest lay. The north, and the stone-walled roads that led to the Aernian heartland, was unchallenged.

"Soon enough they found that the trees were up against the southern gate," Sam said. "They didn't have the men to cut them down, or to burn them away, so instead they barred the gate shut, and built the walls higher..."

His audience shook their heads. It was not the way of the Iron Race to surrender so. It bespoke a certain softness, and nobody was surprised when Samhal went on to chart the following years. The town slowly overgrown -- the population dwindling as trees and the threats of the natives closed the farms, and the great mines, and the watchtowers.

"And then one day, it was all over." A hundred thousand swarming barbarians storming the town, overwhelming the last of her defenders. Those who remained fled -- some to the north, a few beleaguered souls to the south. Struggling through the Dalrath until they found daylight again, leagues away. "Twenty thousand started out," Samhal Stockman intoned. "Only four thousand were left when they reached the shores of the Caelish."

That was New Jarankyld, in a wide clearing along the waters of the Caelish Sea. It had been founded, and still existed, because for all the terrors of the forest that surrounded it the land was rich -- some of the richest on the continent. Aernia had little proper farmland; the soil of the southern heath wasn't good for much.

Only in the west could you do much farming. So it was still worth it to put Jarnshire to the plow, and to ship her produce north in the fat-hulled ships that trundled round the cape to Harradon. The most fertile soil in all the Iron Kingdom, and they had to get at it by boat -- like itinerants, not like proud landholders.

It was indeed a profound indignity, and it put a renewed emphasis in his work. They scouted along the terrain of Perashire, plotting out where the rails would go. It needed to be solid ground, to bear the weight, and it needed to be straight enough to avoid giving the locomotives much trouble.

He recalled a story Professor Titchley had told, about a railroad in the west. They'd rerouted their track to shave a quarter of a degree of grade, and half a mile -- by building an expensive bridge. "Paid for itself in fourteen months," the old man had declared.

But it was better to make smart decisions early on, rather than having to tear things up later. That was why they were surveying.

"Can't run along the road here," Allen pointed, gesturing. The track was relatively straight, worming its way through shallow hills, and Teo tilted his head inquisitively. The otter bent down, and picked up a handful of loose stones. "Wash. Floods when it rains too hard. It's not going to be worth the trouble to maintain it if we can't handle the drainage."

"Up the hill, then?"

He nodded. "Aye, laddie, 'fraid so. We'll have to grade it."

By this he meant that they would have to carve a path for the train along the hillside, leveling it for the layers of bed that sat beneath the sleepers and the heavy iron rail. They had some time: the rail was not due to arrive for a week, and the first miles from Salketh were a straightforward engineering challenge. "I suppose that won't be too much difficulty, will it? It's not so steep, after all."

Allen looked at his map, and then up at the soft countryside the map depicted. "No, it's not. Go with Mr. Stockman and figure out the easiest route. It's his men that will be digging, after all, if they can't get the heavy equipment through."

He found Sam seated on a fallen log, arguing with one of his subordinates about which town in the borderlands had the most pliant farmgirls. Pliant or flexible; he wasn't really certain which truthfully applied. _Nah, the ones from Dalchauser, you can bend 'em over a -- _

"Hold up." At Teo's approach, the bear stopped, and crossed his arms over his chest. "Hello, newbie."

"Ah, hello, sir. I was --"

"What in Æmer's name do you want?" Sam grunted, before Teo could finish his rambling introduction.

The dog flicked his ears back. "Dr. Grensmann asked me to take you with me."

"You need a chaperone?"

"We're to survey, sir. He thinks your expert opinion would be... would be helpful."

Samhal rolled his eyes, and got up from the log. "Th' old shit finally realized that, eh?"

"Realized what?"

"That we'll have to regrade half the bloody course from the town to the castle. Heard Dale bloody Masseler say back in Tilladen he thought we could reuse the wagon trails down here, damn fool that he is. Alright, let's be on it, then. Come along, newbie."

Teobas checked to make certain that he had his survey maps, and his binoculars, and set off after the tall bear's long stride. Samhal made his way straight up the side of a hill, and paused at the top for the panting Teo to catch up.

"Don't do much hiking, eh?"

"Uh -- no sir. From the --" A few gasps followed. "From the city. Sir."

"Wouldn't have guessed. Lookin' for godsdamned ghost stories about Jaranklyd. Never guessed you'd not seen the outside of a town wall before. What are you here for, anyway?"

"Uh. Bridges, sir."

Samhal grunted. "Bridges. They do want to keep this one simple, don't they? Gods, you bloody college boys. Plan your damned roads from a map and then it's well, you figure out a way, Stockman. Bridges!"

"I'm out here now, aren't I?" Teo was a little miffed by the bear's coarse demeanor.

"So you are. So this'll be, what, forty-five pound rail?"

"Sixty."

Sam turned, and narrowed his eyes at the dog. "They want to lay sixty-pound rail through here?"

"Uh. No, sir. I believe Mr. Masseler is only expecting forty-five pounds, but I think they'll need to reconsider that sooner rather than later, if the freight loads turn out to be what they're expecting. And it'll be better to overbuild, won't it?"

The bear continued staring. Then he snorted. "Well. Smarter than you look, I guess. I agree. We can grade for sixty or seventy as easy as we can for forty-five. If they're willing to pay for the rail. Something tells me that will be the sticking point..."

"Dr. Grensmann and I are responsible for making the final recommendations."

"Hm. We'll see what fishbreath says, I guess. You need to take measurements?"

"I should, yes."

He nodded. "Be easier from that next little ridge down there. You'll be able to see from here to the well we stopped at early this morning. I want to take a closer look at the slope on the far side of this hill -- make sure we can trust it'll hold. Meet back here in two hours?"

By himself, Teobas made his way down the shallow hillside, into a little valley where collected water had rendered the ground soft and sticky. He saw what Dr. Grensmann had meant: if they didn't elevate the rails, they'd wash out with the first heavy rain. As it was he saw where some of the footprints left by the cows were plunged two feet into the yielding earth.

Picking his careful way across, he clambered up the far side until he could see clearly once more. And he flipped out his notebook, and his maps, and began to calculate -- finding the curves that would be gentle enough for the trains, lest their wheels grind the rails completely away.

Allen Grensmann had given him the assignment for practice, he knew; he'd done similar ones in school. This was an easy problem: it would be more difficult in... in the Dalrath, he told himself, and shuddered. There they wouldn't be able to see the horizon; there they would have to scout carefully, and make their own maps, and forge ahead mile by cautious mile.

Dr. Grensmann might have found the challenge invigorating, but for Teo it seemed terribly overwhelming, indeed. Even thinking of the responsibility he -- not twenty-one years old! -- had been given was enough to bring the dog to a quivering halt. Charting the course of a forty-ton locomotive...

Well, his father would have reason to be proud of him, at least!

Buoyed by this thought, Teo closed his notebook and looked around. The sun had moved at least an hour's worth in his meticulous notetaking, but that gave him enough time to gain the crest of the next hill, he supposed. Not that there would be much to see there... but still. Never guessed you'd not seen the outside of a town wall before, indeed!

He preferred the sound of machinery and the smell of grease and coal, but there was something to be said for the countryside. The quiet. The clear, crystal blue of the air above him, glimpsed through the branches of strong trees. Pastoral living. He caught sight of a rock, some distance ahead, and decided to take a quick breather.

Then the rock moved.

When it moved, Teo saw that it was an animal of some kind -- or rather, two. One of them was a cow, or had been a cow once. The other... the other looked a little like a cat, but it had long dagger fangs and it bared them in a vicious snarl aimed directly at the young dog. He leapt back, and jumped for the closest tree as the thing charged.

It seemed to him that he missed having his leg chomped off by a matter of inches, though it was actually several long seconds and he was well up the tree by the time the beast was at its base.

Now, though, it was properly terrifying. It could not have weighed less than a thousand pounds -- was the size of the cow it had felled, with saber teeth that curled a full foot from its snarling muzzle. It reared up, pawing at the tree, and Teo screamed. He had been on the job less than a week, and he was going to die. He was going to be eaten by some terrifying monstrous thing and they were not even into the forest.

Fortunately it was too heavy to climb the tree; its paw snagged one of the branches, and the whole of the limb bowed precipitously under its heavy weight. It gave way, and the cat fell heavily to the ground. Then it snarled, and tried again, and again Teo screamed.

He saw movement from the corner of his eye, and the big form of Samhal Stockman coming down the hill. The creature turned as well, and then the bear bellowed at the top of his lungs -- a great roar nearly as loud as the monster had been. It faltered, turning to face the newcomer, and Teo caught the sharp crack of a pistol. The cat flinched. Another shot. It looked up at him, then to Samhal.

Then turned, and loped easily off, paws the size of cart wheels leaving their massive tracks in the soil. When he was certain it was gone, and was not coming back, Teo dropped from the tree. Immediately his legs gave way; he buckled, and retched, doubled over and panting.

"Get up," Sam ordered. "Car'gal'th -- get to your bloody feet."

Trembling, he tried to, and on the third attempt he managed. Wiped at his mouth, and spat the worst of the taste away. "What -- what was that?"

"You've never seen a plains greatcat before, city boy?" Sam waited for Teo to halfheartedly brush the dirt from his pants. "Big kittens, really."

"Its teeth were the size of my arm!"

"Need bigger arms, then," Samhal said. "You can't let them scare you -- if they scare you, they pounce. They're not really all that threatening."

Many, many words sprang unbidden to Teobas' muzzle, and all of them were impolite. Instead, he swallowed his anger: "How do you possibly figure that?"

The bear rolled his eyes as if the answer were plainly obvious, although it was not. "They're too big to spend much energy in fighting. Mostly, they eat carrion -- cow was probably already dead, poor bastard. If you look like trouble, they'll leave you alone. Gods," he snorted. "You are going to love the woods..."

Back at their little camp, he related the story again, and the rest of the workmen seemed to find it just as amusing that he had been so terrified by "a little greatcat," which seemed to include a contradiction right in the name. "You just have to scratch it under the chin," one of them said, and they all roared with laughter.

By Mirhall, his unofficial name was kitten tamer.

The stone keep of Castle Mirhall was at least in better repair than the muddy road that led to the iron gate. Teo hopped down from the wagon to see Dale Masseler conversing with a reasonably well-dressed man who was introduced as Rulwen, Earl of Mirhall. "Lord Mirhall's family has been taking care of this castle for nearly three hundred years," Masseler said, clearly impressed. "Lord Mirhall, this is Dr. Grensmann and Mr. Franklyn -- our surveyors."

"An honor, my lord," Teo said with a bow. "This is my first time seeing the Marches."

Rulwen, a middle-aged lion, narrowed his eyes. "This is not a March province. We're civilized here, young man."

He flattened out his ears and wished he'd had a tail to tuck. "I -- I meant -- that --"

"We're headed for the Dalrath," Allen stepped in. "He meant to comment on the fine architecture of your castle. You've clearly kept it in good repair -- even if you're not part of the Pale."

The Silver Pale ran along the border of the Dalrath, and kept the worst of the forest folk at bay. "We don't have a bloody fence to hide behind," Rulwen said. "We fight them like men, and we kill them like men. But we are civilized -- why else would we have a railroad?"

"It was young Mr. Franklyn's idea," Dale Masseler added helpfully.

Rulwen grunted. "Good. Well, you're all welcome here, of course. I wish we'd had more time to prepare -- but there will, naturally, be a feast in your honor. A day or two, that's all we'll need. And we'll find quarters."

Quarters indeed they found, though with no heat beyond an old fireplace, and no running water at all. Nothing like being denied the comfort of a bath to remind one that they were no longer in Arrengate. He distracted himself in his work: the order for rail had gone in -- sixty pound rail, at that -- and soon they would begin building the new line from Salketh. He looked forward to seeing it -- fresh rail, and the first run of a locomotive on track that he had helped design.

The hills were not all that steep, and the grading work not particularly complicated. The railroad was sending another fifty men to augment the twenty workers of Samhal Stockman's crew, and Sam promised they could put down two miles of rail in a day. Dale Masseler looked skeptical, and after the stag had gone Teo heard Sam muttering curses under his breath. But the bear was clearly eager to begin work -- nearly as eager as Teobas himself was.

By the third day holed up in Mirhall, this eagerness was part stir craziness, and part desire to be out of the reeking, clammy walls of the castle. They still had no running water, and by the smell of it the Mirhallers wouldn't have known what to do with running water anyway. It was not inspiring; he mentioned this to Allen, and the otter grinned. "Wait until you're livin' in a proper camp, laddie, and this'll seem like heaven..."

Like 'little greatcat,' 'proper camp' seemed to have an oxymoron built into it. His Lake Scouts youth group had gone camping on an occasion or two, in the hills east of Cotting Chase. He had not particularly enjoyed the campfire, nor the cold. He definitely had not enjoyed searching for ticks and the other pleasantries of nature. What was so difficult about a nice warm den and keeping the fire confined to a hearth?

Rulwen's feast coincided with the announcement that Stockman's crew was being recalled to Salketh to begin work, using the maps that Allen and Teo had drawn up. Sam said that he was from the Marches, but the way he looked askance at the stone walls -- they were living in adjacent quarters, at the bottom of the keep -- told Teo the bear was a man of civilization at heart.

For being such a small castle, though, Mirhall -- or its lord, at least -- knew how to put on a feast. The residents had drawn out a few long tables, and these were laden with all the goods of the surrounding Perashire countryside: cheeses and breads of all variety, and fresh fruits from the orchards to the north. A few fat lambs had been slaughtered, and were being reduced to charcoal over an open fire.

But the meat was delicious, and so were the cheeses -- and the honey-dense pastries, each of which seemed destined to add an inch to the young dog's waistline. He eschewed the alcohol in favor of cold water, and this meant if nothing else that he was sober when Rulwen, Lord Mirhall punched him on the shoulder. "Dog!"

"Er -- yes, my lord?"

The lion waggled his finger. "Damn cheek of you, sayin' we're on the Pale 'ere."

"My -- my apologies, my lord, I didn't mean any offense."

The finger came down, rapping him hard on the nose. "I look like a Marcher?" Lord Mirhall slurred.

If Teobas was to be honest then yes, actually, the earl seemed rather like any of the men of the borderlands he'd met before. Drunk and disorderly. Thick-accented. Rude. "Of course not, sir."

Lord Mirhall grunted. "Damn cheek," he repeated. "But you railroad men..."

I'm a railroad man, Teo thought, and smiled -- salvaging the entire conversation. "Yes, sir?"

The lion gestured with his goblet, and pale wine splashed the canine's nose. Lord Mirhall did not seem to have noticed: "You're the future. You're going to own this country some day."

He had pronounced the last sentence all at once, yergieingt'owniscoundrys'mday. "You're coming with us, of course. The future comes to everyone, my lord."

Again the lion punched him, and Teo took it stoically. "Good. Man. Now you dance, an' you have a good fuck, and you build me a damned railroad, eh?"

Teo blinked, and stood in silence as the lion lurched off back into the crowd, calling out for more wine to replace what he had spilled. A few seconds later, Dale Masseler appeared. "He have something interesting to say?"

"Ah. Yes, sir, but... little of it repeatable."

Dale laughed heartily, patted his employee's shoulder, and slipped off as well -- he was decent enough to have been restrained in his drinking, Teobas thought, or at least he could hold his liquor.

The piercing shriek of a fiddle caught the air, and he glanced over to see two hares, one with said fiddle tucked under his chin and the other with a mandolin. Another long note, and then they swung into a bright reel. A few others looked over at the pair, trying to place the song even as they began to tap their feet in time to the music.

The one with the mandolin had a nice voice, at least. Southern, but nice. "Once was a shepherd by the name of Gurray, tended his flock down the K'nAlreth way, came up into town an' you could hear him say -- oh, my lords, stay an' listen!"

Not a song he recognized.

"Gurray O'Nar had a tale to tell: 'eard a voice comin' from 'is old stone well, cold as winter an' clear as a bell -- oh, my lords, stay an' listen!"

Teo felt a paw at his wrist and turned to find a young doe grasping it. His age, probably, a bit less perhaps. Cute face, and warm fingers. "Come on!"

"Come on --"

"Dance!" _Stay an' listen long, ye townfolk... _

"I don't... really..." Close the gate an' bar the door!

"You do now," she laughed, and tugged him into the seething crowd of dancers.

Teo had been telling the truth; the canine was not much for dancing, and not especially coordinated. By contrast the doe's solid frame belied the quick, lively grace of her movements. Her paws clasped his as she danced and spun and capered.

If he paid attention to the reel -- which appeared to be about a man haunted by an irritating ghost -- he lost control of his movements, stumbled, and had to catch himself. If he paid attention to his movements, though, he always seemed to be a step behind. Gurray woke up in the mornin' light, needle an' thread been workin' all night -- all of his socks were sewn up tight --

Oh my lords, stay and listen.

The doe grinned at his clumsy energy, and then spun him, shoving the dog into a blue-eyed fox who caught him awkwardly. "Hi!" she laughed.

"Help him," the doe shouted, over the music.

The vixen grinned widely, and pulled Teo in close to her warm body. It wasn't entirely unpleasant, but it was entirely unexpected, and he was about to ask what was going on when she made her intention clear by leaning up to find his ear -- it was easier than shouting. "Just follow me!"

Then she let him go, and they were dancing again, and he did his best not to trip on her, or himself, or anyone else. Through the end of 'Gurray's ghost,' and 'The yellow drake of Sarkminster Lake' and a number of silly dances that the vixen and the doe -- to say nothing of their fellow castlefolk -- seemed to find exceptionally amusing.

He was well out of breath, and so were they, when the two hares announced a pause to mend a broken string, and the doe pulled him from the crowd and over to one of the tables, piled high with Mirhallish pastries and baked goods.

"See? Fun!" she teased him.

"Fun," he nodded, panting. It beat being slugged by Lord Mirhall.

"He works for Carregan?" her friend, the vixen, asked. "He's too cute to be a ditch-digger."

"I know!"

Teobas glanced between them, and felt uncertain how to reply. "Well, I... I'm new there..."

"But you do work for the railroad, right?" the doe had her head tilted to one side, to bare a neck speckled with white spots. She looked as though she had been in the vicinity of a particularly sloppy painter, although it wasn't a bad aesthetic, all things considered. "What do you do?"

"I'm a bridger."

Her companion leaned in, and lifted black-tipped ears. "You build bridges?"

"Well. I... I design bridges," he clarified. "I went to school for it, anyway."

"That's very interesting," the doe chirped. She had soft, dark eyes, and he felt them searching him.

The canine stammered. "Y -- well -- yes, actually. It is! It's particularly interesting here, you know?"

"Why's that?"

That question had come from the vixen; he turned back to her, and in her interest divined that there was very little novelty to be had in Mirhall. "Uh. Well! You'd imagine compressive strength to be the limiting factor in bridge design, of course. But actually, uh -- well. Ah, here in the southern plateaus, the wind means that transverse loading is actually the critical determinant in ultimate bridge strength!"

The two farmgirls exchanged glances, and the doe tilted her head in the opposite direction now. "Transverse?"

"Mm," Teo said, and carefully slid back into his element. "Stress perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the structure. Take, uh..." He glanced around the table, and selected a cylindrical pastry -- some kind of sweet roll, with the honey baked into a lovely crunchiness. "Take this honey cake -- they're delicious, by the way -- you can see that it's relatively strong in compression." Here he pushed down from the top, to show that the pastry was not yielding. "But if you apply a relatively minor transverse force, the structure buckles." He pushed from the side, and the roll split.

Both halves tumbled to the table and, not wanting to waste an opportunity, the doe took one, with a nod and a giggle that pretended at understanding. "So you're saying the winds actually blow the bridges down?"

"Yes. Well, technically they amplify existing strain on the structural members in question. But, ah. Fortunately we don't use, ah, pastry. In construction."

"Interesting," the vixen said, slowly, and seeing that Teo was not interested in the other half of the roll she carefully picked it up. "I didn't know the wind was so strong."

"We didn't either! Science has learned this over decades. There's all kinds of situations you wouldn't really expect. Take, for example... well, the length of the sections of rail. We ship rail by traincar, so when we started, it made sense to cut it the exact length of the car. But it turns out that if you do that -- with the rail at exact car length -- then the passage of the train over the track creates a resonance that greatly increases the wear! So now we try to stagger them. I think steel rail will really improve a lot of these things, but..."

It was a lot easier than dancing, and he rambled on at the pair until, sufficiently educated, they allowed that it was time to leave. The hour was rather late -- later than Teo would've stayed up, left to his own devices. He hadn't been terribly enthusiastic about the feast, in any case: too much noise, and too much awkward conversation. The girls had, after all, merely been humoring him. He assumed.

Back in his room, he read through a few more of Dr. Vashar's examples, highlighting the use of iron supports in reinforcing the coal mines at Tilladen. Outside the music had stopped, but he still heard shouts of merriment that were well at odds with the lateness of the hour. He flattened his ears and tried to ignore them, putting away the book and turning in to bed. It had to have been past midnight.

The sounds did not abate and, eventually, he decided that for the love of sleep he was going to have to find someplace else to do it. He roused himself from his bed and shrugged on his coat -- it was important to look at least a bit presentable. He was rummaging in the adjoining room for his canteen and a quick drink of water when the heavy wooden door burst open, and Samhal Stockman thundered in, accompanied by -- or dragging along -- a badger woman he recognized from the castle bakery.

Teo raised a protest when the bear's strong foot kicked the door shut again. "Hey --"

They ignored him. And when he tried again, it was clear that Sam was two parts whiskey to every part blood, and the badger was not really in much better shape. Her eyes, in the pale moonlight, held a keen focus -- but that focus was only on Sam, and the canine's attempts at intervention fell on deaf ears.

The bear pushed his companion further into the room, up against the ratty tapestry that insulated the stone wall. His calloused fingers were undoing the laces of her corset now, tugging it off her. When she tried to help him, Sam growled, and swatted her paws away. Pushed the corset from her, so that her generous endowment spilled from her castle-maid's dress. Squeezed them in his strong workman's grasp, eliciting a sharp gasp from his partner.

Sam did not move like a man of better than twenty stone, with paws that could circle a railway sleeper. He moved with urgent purpose -- groping at the squirming badger woman to find the edges of her dress and tug it roughly away. Then he shoved her down onto the bed -- she went with a giddy laugh, though. All in good fun.

With her sprawling naked on his bed, Teo had a chance to take a good look. Quite different -- her thick, dense-furred body was all curves and soft flesh, and the slate-colored pelt that covered her sizable breasts gave them the same pastoral appearance as the low hills of his homeland.

It had a certain appeal, this... this 'woman' thing -- he guessed. All the same it was his bed, and he opened his mouth again. "Excuse me, do you --" Wood on stone squealed loudly as Sam pounced onto the bed, knocking it back and trapping Teo between it and the wall. Damn the bear and his strength -- he would have to climb over the pair, now, and neither seemed inclined to listen. "Er -- would you mind if --"

"Gods above -- bloody gorgeous," Sam grunted. "Country girls..."

So he was not speaking to Teo, evidently. The badger woman giggled, the laughter fuzzy with wine and dance, and encircled the bear -- just -- in stocky arms. "I just bet you -- you railway men know a -- a few things --"

"Hmf! Half a mind to lay you harder'n ninety-pound rail."

"Well I'm not stopping you -- c'mon, show me that railroad spike of yours..."

The dialogue was ridiculous. And she was not the only one being shown things, for Sam was tearing off his shirt, and his heavy, coarse pants. Boots clunked heavily to the floor. Teo caught a glimpse of slick, stiff flesh jutting from the bear's dark-furred crotch. Big around as the dog's arm, it looked.

Samhal pushed the badger's legs wide and he heard the woman gasp -- once, and then more sharply. "Oh -- car'gal'th -- Æmer's breath you're huge -- careful --"

"Later," the bear managed, and drove home with a groan and a lewd squelch. Their hips were mashed together -- brown fur on silver, with the badger's thick thighs spread obscenely wide around the heft of the big ursine's frame.

Her eyes were screwed shut tightly now, but her muzzle opened with a moan as Sam jerked his hips back. His back arched as he thrust into her again -- and again -- and again. It was quick and heated, and it made Teo think uncomfortably of the time he'd seen two feral pigs rutting on a farm outside Cotting Chase.

Not that either of them seemed to mind. Sam's claws were dug into the sheets, giving him some purchase as he pistoned swiftly between the badger woman's stocky legs. She whimpered every time he entered her, heated cries of such intensity that he might have feared for her were her face not twisted into a grinning, panting mask of pleasure.

As the bear bucked harder, deeper into his squealing lover she lifted her legs up, clamping them around his thighs to keep him from pulling out. Sam grunted deeply, and shifted his pace into shorter thrusts that seemed to bring a renewed frenzy of moans from the badger. Claws meant for digging fastened themselves into the bear's shaggy pelt, tugging greedily.

For their sake Teo wanted to look away but he... couldn't. Nor could he help the building tautness in his trousers as he watched their pace build to its rapid conclusion. It made him blush, but there was no way to ignore their obvious pleasure -- her shouts and his husky panting groans mixing in the small room with the building scent of exertion and the thick musky aroma of their frantic coupling.

Ecstasy writ all over her striped face, the badger woman locked up and quivered and wailed -- a piercing cry that brought a fevered groan from her partner. Samhal hilted himself desperately, and when he pulled back it was with a slick, wet slurp that made Teo fear for the dryness of his bedding. The shuddering, shaky way he moved made it clear that his own end was quickly coming...

And it was -- Sam thrust sharply a few more times and then shuddered to a halt, giving a sated growl that tore itself from the big man's throat in a coarse-edged roar. Teo watched as his hips jerked in short, jabbing thrusts, a sharp rhythm that lasted only a few seconds until it faltered... slowed... halted altogether.

Sam collapsed heavily, and Teo heard a muffled giggle from the badger, lost in the heavy fur of the bear's chest. He was motionless, save for his heaving chest. And they stayed that way for a good few minutes. So did Teobas, awkwardly pinned to the wall of his own bedroom.

Finally Sam pushed himself up, groaning. His eyes opened, and he caught bleary sight of the dog. To Teo's surprise, he didn't seem angry. "Oh -- hi, Kitten."

Uncertain of what else to do, he raised his paw, and waved. "H-hi."

"This is... Kella?"

Kella, if that was indeed her name, mumbled something that would've been incoherent even without three hundred pounds of muscle and fur between her voice and the dog's folded ears.

"I think she's ready to go again," Sam slurred. "If you want 'er."

"I don't... uh. I don't think that would be --"

"I lied," the bear grumbled, and collapsed again. "You can't have her. I'm gonna..." And he said something else, but it too was incomprehensible. Teo blinked, and waited. And waited. And waited.

Finally he sighed, and carefully crawled over the pair to make his escape. There were still a few revelers in the courtyard -- but, in any event, Samhal Stockman's room was unoccupied. He settled onto the bear's bed, which was redolent with the man's cloying, alien smell, and tried to put what he'd seen out of his mind.

It was a very unfortunate sort of complication. His father Thynrald had always made it clear that the factories and the mills came first, and the women and children came second. If that. It had not prepared Teo for life beyond the university -- nor had it endeared Thyn Franklyn to his wife, Teo's mother.

He was given to believe that the procreative act was quite unpleasant, and perfunctory, which seemed at odds with how Samhal and Kella had behaved, and at odds with the eagerness with which his classmates had sought it out. Nor was this the sort of thing he could very well ask Allen Grensmann about -- helpful and mentoring as the good doctor was.

With his knees drawn up and his arms clasped about them, it took a long time for the young dog to fall finally asleep.

He awoke late, and found that he was one of the first awake all the same. There was a great deal of food left over, from the night before, and he broke his fast on pastry. The vixen and the doe were nowhere to be seen; neither was the badger.

He drew idly in his notebook, waiting for Allen to come 'round, but it was Sam who appeared first -- lurching a bit unsteadily, but otherwise looking none the worse for wear. "Oi, Kitten."

"Sir."

"I seem to have woken up this morning in your room."

"Yes, sir."

"With a... companion."

"Yes, sir."

"Did I disturb you?"

Teo flicked his ears back by reflex. "Let's say it... it was not how I intended to be awoken."

Sam laughed, and sat heavily next to the dog. He reached out, and tore a loaf of bread in half. "You find some nice Mirhall lass yourself?"

"No."

"Shame."

"What were you doing?"

"What'd it sound like?" Samhal grinned lewdly. "Puttin' the castle folk to good use, that's what. Railroad always takes advantage of local labor, when they can... think she was pretty good, too."

"Why... well -- what was your -- er..."

"Why'd I want to get laid, Kitten? Gods, you western boys are strange in the head. 'Cause that's what life's about, my friend." Friend seemed to be... overpromising, but Teo let it slide. "I tell you something. You know who runs the railroad?"

"Tokeli Carregan."

"'S right. You know who heads the Iron Corps?"

"Dunathar Carregan."

"Mm-hmm," Samhal nodded, and took a big bite of bread. "The Shrouded Rocks is Shanyl Carregan. The Western Branch is Marray Carregan. The Southern Branch is Ciswalth Carregan -- you notice a connection?"

"They're all --"

"All gods-damned Carregans, that's right. All about the blood. Now me, when it comes my time, I figure I got three score sons and daughters all the way from Tinenfirth to ruddy Korlyda. That's my clan. Just don't know it yet," he said, and then he grinned again. "You best get started, Kitten. Dynasties don't fuck themselves into existence."

This was not an especially helpful lesson, but Sam clapped him on the shoulder -- something about Teo's shoulder apparently invited abuse -- and departed with only another laugh as remark. The dog sighed, pecked at his honey roll, and then left it abandoned for the birds.

It was a confusing world, beyond the outside of the town walls.

He climbed the ladder of the tallest keep, and joined one of the watchmen. To the north he could see the soft hills, and the sparkling of the river. To the east, the faintest trace of smoke from what must've been a fortress of the Silver Pale. To the west, the wagon trail that led to Salketh, soon to be joined by a sturdy iron companion.

To the south, an ominous deep green covered the horizon like a heavy fog. And there he was bound.

No choice in the matter. Greatcats and ghouls and gods alone knew what else lay before him. He would have to confront it. Like he would have to confront the Sam Stockmans of the world. Like he would have to confront everything else he had yet to do in his young life...

"You're going there, aren't you?" the watchman asked. Teo recognized him as one of the musicians from last night. Up close, the hare couldn't have been older than fifteen. "To the Dalrath."

"Yes."

"I'd be scared to do that," the Mirhallite said quietly. "To go into that place. You aren't, though, are you? You're a man of the Railroad..."

Hearing someone else say it once again put a little thrill in the dog's heart. He was, wasn't he? Of course he was. And he wasn't going into the woods alone. He'd be with Mr. Masseler, and Dr. Grensmann, and even that big lump Stockman -- who had his flaws but wouldn't be scared by anything. "That's right," Teo heard himself say. "They're just trees, lad."

"Just trees..." The hare didn't sound convinced.

Teo would not have been, either, except that he needed to be -- for the boy's sake. For Mirhall's sake, and his country's sake. "That's right. And somewhere out there..." He pointed, making his best guess. "Somewhere out there is New Jarankyld, and a frontier waiting to be tamed... from sea to sea, lad, that's what 'transcontinental' means. Some day you'll take a train to the Caelish -- by Galith, someday you'll take a train to Issenrik!"

"You'll really do it?"

Teobas Franklyn, twenty-one years old and Senior Bridger of the New Jarankyld Line, smiled. "Just you wait."