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With the New Jarankyld Line stalled at the edge of a foreboding canyon, Teo gets his magic on. We see our foe for the first time, and some technology is put to good use, by which I mean explosions. The vixen Rescat Carregan proves she is, in fact, Tall Enough to Ride... dogs.

Teo, you're way behind time! The penultimate chapter of What if Atlas Shrugged was furry? pits our heroes against the worst of the frontier! Restless natives? Mysterious wizards? Whatever will we do? Double down, open up the throttle, and shovel on a little more coal!_ Your reward is pornography~ Thanks__ to Spudz and Max Coyote for working the firebox on this one!_

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 4: "Shovel on a little more coal"

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"Made of iron, after all?" Dale Masseler asked. "I thought you said it wasn't going to be strong enough?"

Rescat Carregan and Teobas had spent the better part of the day going over his idea, and testing what she claimed to be elementary spells on the little model he'd constructed in the clay replica of the canyon. An identical model that was not enchanted sat right next to it. "Not by itself," Teo explained, and pointed to the one they'd left uncharmed. "Take this bridge here. Push down on it?"

The stag did so, and the bridge swayed and flexed. "Yes?"

"And now the other..."

Teo could see a little of the skepticism in Mr. Masseler's eyes. And then, he could see the puzzlement as he pressed against the span of the charmed bridge. It remained motionless -- rigid under his fingers, and unyielding. He pushed harder: the muscles of his forearm knotted, and flexed. "It's not moving."

"It's not," the dog grinned. He was still not particularly enthusiastic about the use of magic, but Rescat had made an interesting case for treating it like any other building material. Perhaps wooden bridge-builders hadn't liked granite, for example; perhaps granite bridge-builders had questioned the wisdom of building with concrete. He invited Allen Grensmann to try his hand, and when the otter was also unable to move the bridge he found himself practically beaming. "Do you see?"

"No, laddie, I don't..."

"Miss Carregan says that it's a simple matter to link any two objects, even if they're not physically connected. This --"

"With magic," Dale interrupted.

"Elementary thaumaturgy, yes," Rescat Carregan corrected. The vixen had provided all of the thaumaturgy in question -- Teo had a reasonable sense of what she was talking about, now, but he could no more cast a spell than he could pour iron into a casting mold.

"Carry on..."

"Thank you, sir. The entire bridge is basically held in constant tension. The structural members are all linked to their opposing counterparts thaumaturgically, so the pressure on any point is checked and countered by the unloaded parts of the structure. In effect..."

"In effect the entire bridge is one completely stiff object..." Allen nodded slowly. "So..."

"So we can transmit the entire strain directly to the supports on one wall, yes," Teo nodded enthusiastically. The bridge he'd designed was of the cantilever type, with iron pillars on the near side of the canyon. He put his paw flat on the span and leaned into the model, putting all of his weight into it -- until at last the clay itself started to crack, and splinter. "So it can be as strong as the underlying rock, and we know already that the rock will take the weight of anything we put on it..."

"Magic, though..." Grensmann frowned. "I appreciate what you're doing, lad, but it seems a bit... rash."

"It is, sir," Teo admitted. "I would describe it as... experimental."

"But it will work," Rescat said -- quite firmly. "And it's your only option."

"Very well," Dale Masseler finally decided. "Go ahead with it. Put in the order for the iron as soon as you know what you need."

"Thank you," Teo bowed, and made a mental note to tally up the materials.

Rescat Carregan clasped her paws behind her back, and straightened. "Good, if we're agreed on that, I have one more matter to settle. Mr. Masseler?"

"Yes, colonel?" The dog blinked. Colonel? Then he had been very rash, indeed. But Dale was not given to misspeaking, and Rescat didn't look like she was about to refute him.

"There was some confusion from the message that you sent -- or, at least," she allowed with a smile, "the message I received. Is this a construction operation, or a pacification one? For you, I mean, director."

The stag froze for the slimmest, barest fraction of a second. It was just long enough to tell Teo that he was missing some subtext. "Both. The primary goal of the New Jarankyld Line is -- and continues to be -- the one implied by its mandate. We're to connect New Jarankyld to Marrahurst by rail, through the Dalrath. Now..."

"Now, yes..." the vixen prodded.

"It turns out that there are some complications."

Rescat smiled again, and Teo came to understand that there were certain smiles that were friendly, and certain smiles that were not. This one, which showed a great deal of very white teeth, was not. "Is that so. By complications, you mean that you require escort. But there's a difference between escort and pacification, isn't there? And you used the latter word."

Dale frowned. "Yes. But in my honest opinion, colonel, I don't know that the Iron Corps needs to take over this operation."

"Who's heading it now?"

"Southern. Ciswalth Carregan is paying for it, I'm signing off on final decisions; Dr. Grensmann is leading engineering efforts and Mr. Titthitch is taking care of operations."

Rescat cocked an eyebrow. The vixen's brushy tail was... wagging? "Mr. Stockman reports to Allen, then?"

"Yes."

"And Miss Layleigh reports to Allen?"

Dale splayed his fingers. His voice was quite level: "After a fashion."

"And Mr. Garmery reports to Carol Titthitch, who sort of reports to you."

"I'm not certain I understand the line of inquiry, Colonel Carregan."

She tilted her head, as if to ask: really? "You said that the Iron Corps didn't need to take over the operation; I'm just trying to understand who is taking it over. Walth spoke to me before I left; it was clear that he is... less than enthusiastic about the degree of progress we're making."

Allen Grensmann spoke up. "Being shot at doesn't help that, lass; we were doing fine before then."

"I agree. What have you done to fix that?"

"To fix it?"

Unhappy with Allen's non-answer, she turned back to the stag. "Director Masseler?"

"We asked for reinforcements..."

"And you have them! You have most of a battalion here -- combat engineers, two Lightning Companies; oh, hells, Director Masseler, I even brought down a Wismere battery for support. So what would you like me to do with them?" Seeing that nobody was going to tell her, the vixen narrowed her eyes. "That's what I thought."

Dale Masseler settled for bluntness: "You don't know what you're getting yourself into."

"I don't think I do, no," Rescat admitted. "But if you want the Iron Corps to fight for you, I have to be able to do what I can to level the goddamned ground. Your logistics are haphazard, your men are disorganized, and your railroad is sitting at the edge of a canyon waiting for somebody to get Mr. Franklyn here his bridge. Do you have another solution?"

"I intend to retain final decision-making authority."

"Of course," the vixen shrugged. "It's your line."

"Mr. Titthitch?"

Carol, sensing that something was about to be taken away from him, did not seem all that unhappy. "Can she do it?"

This was the wrong question; Carregan glared sharply -- her eyes lit from within almost like Lace of Jana -- and to prevent blood from being spilled Masseler raised his voice. "You can have your operational control, then. As long as we start making progress."

"Right!" No sooner had permission been given than the vixen was animated again. "We're going to start clearing out the forest to either side of the line. That's where we're taking fire from, and I'm damned if I'm going to work in the dark. We can start that while we're waiting for iron for the bridge -- by the way, Mr. Franklyn, you'll have a report for me on what you need no later than two days from now. Understood?"

"Yes, ma'am." The dog nodded, although anyway he wasn't certain he would've been able to say no. It was the same thing Dale wanted.

"Good. God, it'll be nice to bring those trees down. I'll have Stockman train the military engineers with how they're doing it -- Mr. Titthitch, how are we on blasting powder?"

Carol pulled out his notebook, and flipped it open. "Three days worth in supply. We're using half a ton a day just to knock down the trees, ma'am."

"That won't cut it." Rescat's voice was sharp. "We'll need four times that. I'm tripling the width of the area we're clearing, remember?"

"Er. Understood, ma'am," Carol said. "But we're already taking everything the Railroad has orders for, and that's practically every powder manufactory on the Plateau. They might be able to increase their production, but..."

"There's a powder maker west of Peraford," she pointed out. "Supplies the King's Own Army's garrisons all along the South Coast."

Carol Titthitch shook his head. "No, ma'am."

"The King's Own Army wasn't very good about paying their bills," Dale explained. The look that the two shared implied that the Railroad, too, had felt that sort of pressure from the crown. "They still produce niter in Perashire, for the farms and all, but no powder."

"The factory closed last year," Carol added.

"Even better. Buy it."

Carol was clearly being out-thought, and it took a moment for him to process what he'd been told. "What?"

"I'm speaking in plain language, Mr. Titthitch; do try to keep up. Buy the factory. Round up as many of the original workers as you can -- pay wages and a half if you need to." While the fox was blinking his way through trying to understand what had been asked of him, Rescat moved to the wall, and pulled the map down. "That leaves transport..."

"Barges," Dale said.

The vixen grunted her agreement. Bent over the table, she scanned the map curiously. "Fine for now, but it's slow and expensive. Mr. Titthitch, are you taking notes? Powder goes by wagon to Peraford, then by barge from Peraford to Silcaster. Wagon again to the line at Salketh, and then by rail to here. Although..."

This time Allen was the one to break the silence that followed as the vixen stared at the map. "'Although,' lass?"

"Somebody pulled Kaen Wulyth off the Cebberside spur line, I see. Can that line wait, Dale?"

"For?"

"For us to finish this one."

The stag considered it, and nodded. "Of course. I don't think anyone would deny this is the more important of the two..."

"Good! Mr. Titthitch, more notes: tell Walth I'm putting the Cebberside spur on hold for the next two months. Move all those men and equipment to Salketh and put down rail to Silcaster. If they have to reinforce the rails from Nattenleigh to do it, so much the better -- that rail's criminal anyway."

"Old," Allen said.

"Sure, but if one of my trains derails it's not going to care what the reason was. That'll be all for now, Mr. Titthitch, get that written up and sent out before..." She looked to the blackness outside their wagon window. "Nightfall."

Still looking bewildered, Carol Titthitch left, and Rescat Carregan followed him muttering something about the trees. Dale took a deep breath. "There's a saying in the Reach," he finally said.

"What's that?" Allen wanted to know.

"'Be careful what you wish for,'" Dale muttered. "She's a difficult one."

"She has a reputation," the otter nodded. He pulled out a flask, and took a nip from it -- then a second. "But part of that reputation is, they say she gets things done."

"It's complicated." Dale held his hand out for the flask, and Grensmann obliged. "You've heard of her, apparently, Mr. Franklyn? You seemed a little starstruck."

"Er. No, sir; I hadn't met her -- I thought she was just a soldier who knew something about bridges..."

The stag snorted at that one. "No. She's not in the line for succession -- that's why she's gone for the Corps instead -- but mark my words, Teo, that one's going to run the Railroad some day. If she doesn't stage a coup in the Coral Valley first..."

"She said 'god,' didn't she? Singular?"

"Aye," Allen said dismally. "They're monotheists. Don't mean she wouldn't try."

"Rescat joined the Iron Corps when she was fifteen. They let her go through officer training -- oh, yes, Teo, she had a degree by then. Her first command was as a favor to her father. Then she took over the detachment for the Thallad Ardeen line. Now she's a branch commander of the garrison forces for Sirnland. In six years."

"Nepotism?"

Dale grinned but, to Teo's relief, shook his head. "She has an uncanny habit of refusing to let anyone stand in her way. For anything. Before she came on, Sirnland was three years behind in converting to a proper garrison from its old ad hoc organization. Major Carregan -- well, brevet lieutenant colonel now -- had half the officers transferred and the battalion reorganized in four months. If it was any other soldier telling me they could get this railroad finished, I would've laughed at them. Her... well..."

Allen was not quite in such a sunny mood. "But they've all got reputations, all the Iron Corps Carregans. You hear lots of nasty things 'bout the way they act. I heard up in the Shrouded Rocks, even the King finally had enough of..."

"Shanyl." Dale softened his voice. "I heard that, too. But you see what we're up against, don't you? What choice are we supposed to have?"

The problem, as Teo well knew, was that a locomotive didn't argue with anything except results. A freight train did not care whether its rail had been created by good intent or ill intent, only that it had been laid, and that it was of good quality. If Colonel Carregan had an unsavory past, she did not show it -- but her will was singleminded and inarguable.

A week later Carol returned from Salketh with telegraphed answers implying that the New Jarankyld Line now owned a powder works, and with a promise from Ciswalth Carregan that a new branch line would be surveyed and built from Salketh to Silcaster. Rescat Carregan added a faint line to the map. The line hinted that the rail was coming, and the way the vixen drew it seemed to give the impression of a promise.

And the forest began to open. Half a dozen trees went down, and now they could see a patch of clear blue sky above them. The attacks at night grew louder, and fiercer -- but so did the reply. In any case there were no further casualties, and when during his training Teo asked Jik Eezensmitt about their new commander the badger grinned a wide, feral grin: "oh, those little forest bastards, ya, they know she'll show them."

Teobas received a firsthand demonstration of what it meant, more or less, to be "shown" on the following day, when he went looking for Allen Grensmann and found the otter attempting to defuse yet another situation that had emerged with the bear Samhal Stockman. Sam, who towered over Allen, was staring past him alternately at Rescat Carregan and at a dark-furred feline standing next to her.

"It's not something we do ordinarily, lass," Allen said.

"I didn't ask if it was something you did ordinarily," the vixen shot back. "I said it was something you're going to start doing. Karri will help you. Mr. Franklyn!"

The dog's fuzzy ears flickered, and thought about flattening. "Yes, ma'am?"

"We talked about the value of thaumaturgy, didn't we?"

At first Teo had feared he was going to be asked to take sides. Fortunately, it seemed that the side had already been picked for him. "We did, yes, with the bridge..."

"Which was already going quite far," Allen reminded the pair. "Dale made that clear."

Rescat rolled her eyes. "Mr. Franklyn, this is Karri Ervakarri. He's a saman -- he's of the Pala; have you ever met one of them?"

"No," the dog said. Karri did not offer a paw to shake. The panther's fur was jet, the same color as the Dalrath, and his eyes had the curiously distant look that Teo tended to associate with the thaumaturgically inclined. "I think I've heard of them... the Vesan order, isn't that so?"

"That is one of them." Karri's muzzle didn't move enough when he spoke: the words came out cleanly, but there was something eerie in the sound. "The Vesans are... story collectors. I am a Korban." His accent was thick, and guttural, and he hissed his esses. Teo disliked listening to the feline. "Our monastery was founded with... a different mission..."

"The Korban Order is an order of doers," Rescat interrupted him cheerily. "The Railroad employs a few of them."

"He's licensed?"

"Not as such," she shrugged.

Karri's long, thick tail lashed. "I am not a scryer," he hissed. "Not a... teller of tales and a reader of sacrificed chickens..."

"He blows things up," Sam Stockman said darkly. "Apparently."

"We were just discussing, Mr. Stockman and I, the possibility for employing Karri's assistance. And how we're going to start using symbiotic powder in our blasting work."

"Rather," the bear explained further, "how we're going to do nothing of the bloody sort."

Teo flicked his ears and tried to appear impassive. The use of magic was controversial in the Iron Kingdom, as it was in many countries. Scrying was permissible -- partly because most people assumed it was also ridiculous. But combining magic and technology... that was very nearly beyond the pale. Technology had its place, thaumaturgy had its own, and two were not to meet.

Was it not, after all, accepted that recklessly ignoring this advice had been what ended the World Before? Thaumaturgists, twisting ordinary weapons into something grotesque and world-rending -- Teo knew that a skilled magic-worker could make a fire burn ten times hotter, or a charge of powder explode with ten times the force. It was so tempting, but the consequences...

"Never to warp the works of man, is that not the very first commandment?" Teobas asked.

"Of?"

Caught off guard, the dog tilted his head, and looked curiously at the vixen who had asked it. "Of..."

"Of railroads? Of structural engineering? Chemistry?"

With every question, Teo's ears drooped further. He had never studied theology, assuch; his father had never put much of an emphasis on attending the temple ceremonies. "Well, of the books..."

"Of superstition, you mean," the vixen grinned. "Karri, how many times have you enchanted blasting powder for us?"

"Too many to count," the saman said. He grinned, too, and Teo immediately wished that he had not. The panther's teeth were stained an eerie, luminescent blue, and his fangs were longer than they should've been.

It seemed to have unsettled Dr. Grensmann, too; he was not looking at the feline. "Safely, I presume, lad."

"Always, yes."

"So that's it settled, then," Rescat declared firmly. "Strictly speaking, it was settled beforehand. This is an operational question; I'm not going to have you wasting my powder on superstitious obstinacy. We'll start with the trees, because there are so very many of the ugly things -- also it seems we don't have much rail to be laid right now, do we?"

"Until that bridge goes up, no, we don't have much rail to be laid..." the otter agreed.

"Right! Well, and I can appreciate that's more sensitive than taking down some old timber. Karri, work with the foreman to develop new procedures for clearing the trees. What are we doing with the wood? Selling it? Carol made it sound like that was being done practically at a loss. You can render those, can't you Karri?"

"Not without an alembic..."

Rescat grimaced. "I was afraid of that. Have it sent for -- but Karri?"

"Mistress?"

"If anything happens, I will not die before I cut your throat."

Nothing in the way that she had spoken suggested levity, and nothing in the way Karri Ervakarri bowed suggested amusement. "Of course."

Teo caught Sam and Allen exchanging a nervous look, and the dog admitted to being slightly unsettled himself. Rescat, though, was already brightening. "Dr. Grensmann, Mr. Franklyn here will prepare an assessment of the changes implied by using symbiotic powder in your railbed preparation."

"Will he, then?"

Teobas had the same question, and thought it worth repeating. "Will I?"

"Yes. Come with me, Mr. Franklyn." And she headed off, towards the gate of the palisade. Teo looked to Allen; the otter shrugged. "Mr. Franklyn," he heard the vixen bark.

"Keep an eye on her," was all Allen said for guidance.

When he fell in step next to Rescat, she turned to look at him and he saw that her smile hadn't yet faded. "You don't seriously believe all that nonsense, do you?"

"About the books?"

"About god visiting divine retribution on anyone who dares to mix technology and the warping arts," she nodded.

"I..."

"Don't say 'I don't know,'" the vixen cut him off, before he could. "Don't give me a non-answer. Don't be lazy. Think about it."

"But I never have before."

Just before the gate, the train was parked -- empty. Rescat paused alongside the locomotive. She leaned in to brush a bit of dirt off one of the wheels, and then looked up at the engineer's cab. "You sound like you're from the west somewhere. Tabis? Is that where your name comes from? Are you from the Tabis Valley?"

"Arrengate." He had no family in the Tabisthal, and no idea where his name came from. "The name was my uncle's; he came from Arrengate, too."

"Arrenshire is a pretty place," the vixen said. "But backwards. Have you been to Marrahurst?"

"I went to school there, actually." He didn't respond to the slight to his birthplace; honestly, he wasn't certain he disagreed.

Carregan was still looking at the cab. "Did you ever cross the King's Crown Bridge?"

He had -- a hundred times? A thousand? The King's Crown Bridge was the newest over the Round River, directly in the heart of Marrahurst. The rails crossed it, and so did the wagons and foot traffic. An iron bridge, a proper bridge -- King Chatherral IV had visited it on its completion, and by the stag's assessment it was as lovely a crown as ever was made. "Of course."

Finally the vixen turned around to look at him. "Do you recall the shape of the trusses?"

"I suppose..."

"The trusses are twenty feet deep. I don't know why I know that -- why are they built that way, anyhow?"

The dog was having a hard time following the flow of the conversation. "You mean, so deep? Just the... the needs of the design..."

"So you know! You won't bore me," she promised.

Teobas had his doubts, after the girls at Castle Mirhall. All the same... "It's made of Brascea iron. I suppose they picked it that way because wrought Brascea is weather resistant, and because the original Brascea Ironworks is there -- I spent a few days there, actually... very modern place."

"Iron is iron, I would've thought?"

"Iron is never just iron. Otherwise steel would merely be dirty iron -- it depends on what you mix into it, and how it's cooled, and a great many other things. Original Brascea iron was made with wood from the Risaunt forest -- it has an abnormally high concentration of Steri's White. Now they use bone ash, I believe... for some reason, it helps to keep it from weathering."

"Better for the rains. I suppose you remember them, from your schooling."

Gods, but the rainy season! Teo, who had a thick and not terribly waterproof coat, shuddered, and Rescat laughed. "Yes, that. But, all iron has its particular personalities. Brascea iron, formed into beams of the Cesh type at standard width, experiences the maximum efficient combination of strength and stiffness at around thirty feet. Longer than that, and it begins to bend under its weight; shorter, and you're just overbuilding and wasting material."

Rescat looked past the dog, thinking, and then shook her head with an understanding chuckle. "And the vertical member of a triangle with a long edge of thirty feet would be twenty feet. I see! Thank you, Mr. Franklyn. Dare I ask how you know this? Is it just a rule of thumb?"

"Just rules of thumb. They publish a lot of things like that in Rædra Tetrusci's Handbook, if you're genuinely interested. Cesh beams of Brascea should be thirty feet long at standard width; beams of Spal iron can be up to forty-five before they begin to deform. There's a rule of thumb for estimating those distances at non-standard width, too."

"Tetrusci's son worked for Carregan, you know? A hundred years ago, he helped design some of the first bridges in the Menapset. Now, I want you to think of something, Mr. Franklyn. Imagine you were the architect of the King's Crown Bridge. You're going to be the architect of many of ours, so you might as well start small." She winked at him cheekily. "Are you imagining?"

After a fashion. It was a strange hypothetical, but he nodded anyway. "Very well..."

"Good! Alright. Now, Dr. Franklyn, I'm afraid we'll need those beams to be no more than twenty one and a half feet long."

He tilted his head. "The truss girders?"

"Yes. I know you said that they should be thirty feet, but they can't be more than twenty one and a half. What does that change, Dr. Franklyn?"

"Well... the bridge will be weaker..."

"I don't want that. It needs to carry the same weight."

Teobas frowned. "It will have to be redesigned, then. It probably won't look the same. I suppose you're giving me this as an exercise for the Dalrath, hmm?" The King's Crown Bridge was longer than the one that would be needed to cross the canyon, but the problem was broadly similar -- the bridge in Marrahurst, too, could not be supported with central pilings, for fear of obstructing river traffic. "But why twenty one and a half?"

"The ironworks won't make them any longer than that."

"I don't know that I understand why -- I haven't heard that so far. It should be easy to make them longer. It's still shorter than a flatcar -- even one of your Iron Corps cars. We'll just order them at thirty feet..."

"They won't make them. Didn't I just tell you that?"

He blinked. "Yes, but why? It doesn't make any sense."

"Because if the ironworks produces a structural girder longer than twenty and a half feet long, they'll be cursed. By the gods."

Teo, who suddenly apprehended the situation he had worked himself into, dropped his shoulders and rolled his eyes. "Oh."

"You're saying they won't be?"

"They haven't been so far," he grumbled. "It's different, anyway."

"Different how?" The vixen's amber eyes had a mischievous and pointed spark to them. "Come on, I want to know. I wanted to know about the iron, didn't I? Different how, Mr. Franklyn? You asked me 'why' something was, and I gave you a silly answer. What's yours?"

He fell silent. He supposed the genuine answer was that he did not really know. It made him uneasy, it was true, but then it was also true that many things did that, and that many things that had once made him uneasy no longer did so. Allen Grensmann didn't like the idea of enchanting anything; nor did Stockman, and he trusted them both. Was that good enough? "Dr. Grensmann feels it --"

Rescat pounced. "Feels what? How many feels?"

"What?"

"How many feels? What do you measure a feeling in? What unit? With what device?"

"That --"

"You two are men of science! Tell me, Teo -- when you designed the bridge over the Amaraan, and proposed it to Dale, did you tell him how it made you feel? Or did you tell him how much weight it would bear, and how much concrete it would take?"

"Well..."

"Should I strip out the gauges in this damned locomotive and order the engineer to run it by feel?"

"No."

"And if I told the engineer to, he'd rightly throw me out on my ear. Did you know that if we enchant the anthracite in our locomotives -- just with a simple spell to help it break down easier -- it burns twice as hot and we need only a quarter as much of it?"

He shook his head. "Not the exact numbers."

"Did you know that if I order Karri to enchant the black powder you use, he can do something to it so it goes up all at once -- by our calculations it releases six and a half times the energy. Or that he can put some kind of calming enchantment on Engar's Compound so that it can't possibly be set off until you want it to be?"

Engar's Compound, or cellulose nitrate, was a creation of the Ellagdrans -- as notorious for its explosive power as it was for its volatility. "I didn't know that, no," the dog was forced to concede: nitrocellulose could not be stabilized by normal means, at least.

"Do you know what happens if you put a spell on an iron furnace so it can burn five hundred degrees hotter?"

"No."

"Neither do I," Rescat grinned.

"Could you even do that?"

"As far as I know it's never been tried. But aren't you the least bit curious?"

Indeed, he had to admit that the interest was there. Considering it, he felt the same thrill he had when they worked on the bridge -- that some universe of possibilities was being unlocked. "Well, I am..."

"What if we enchanted the iron rails so that they repelled the wheels of a traincar like a magnet? I know they can do that -- I saw a pulley on a ship once that they'd enchanted to reduce the friction between the rope and the wheel. We've never actually done something like that, but think how much wear we could save on the track."

"I suppose. Although that way, you'd have to enchant hundreds of linear miles of rail. Wouldn't it be easier to -- well... actually..." He turned an idea over in his head. "Wouldn't it be easier to just put a spell on the journals?"

"The what?"

"The journal bearings, for the wheel axles. If you removed the friction there, the bearings could last forever -- or -- or you could do the opposite, and find some way to switch it off so every wheel on the consist acted like a brake..."

"There you go!" Pushing herself away from the locomotive, Rescat started walking again. "Do you know what I like about you, Teo?"

"No."

Clad all in grey, the vixen's uniform made her look far more serious than the gay smile she flashed at him. "That I asked you to think about it, and you did, and you changed your mind. You don't believe in a god, do you?"

Teo stared towards his feet, and watched his footsteps moving in and out of his vision. One, two, five, ten... "It's complicated. I'm not certain you'd understand."

"Try me."

"My father was never partial to the temple. That was my mother's interest... all the gods and stories. There are places that I think of as... holy... not in the sense that I think of them as religious sites, but in the sense that I... I respect them. And when I'm there I feel a sense of purpose..."

The vixen smiled, and looked around carefully as they stepped past the gate. She paused a moment to return the salute of the guard there, and then turned back to Teo. "Colleges."

Teo nodded. "Factories."

"Railyards. Harbors."

"Ironworks. Forges. Mills. Smithies..."

"You thought I wouldn't understand," she grinned. "Why should a temple be so boring? Sprinkling rose petals on sanctified water; old men, losing themselves in older books. Give me a furnace -- give me a grindstone. An anvil. A training ground. Teo," she laughed, and he realized that she had begun referring to him by his first name without asking. "The world is out there for the taking -- but it's not for the timid, or the ignorant, or the obstinate. Commandments!"

"I've... felt that way before," he admitted, feeling that the admission was safe. "I'd never pray that a bridge holds when I cross it."

"Or design it?"

"Or design it."

"And damn the man who would! This is lovely country, Teo, do you know? It must've been the site of something quite catastrophic, in the World Before. The earth here is thick with energy -- charmed down to the roots. It's in the soil, the water -- watch this..."

They were standing next to one of the great trees -- about which, judging by her expression, Rescat had more respect than scorn. She stretched out her arm, and when the grey sleeve of her uniform pulled back he could see a silver bracelet encircling her right wrist. She hummed quietly, and the bracelet began to glow; soft, white-purple lines of feathery light wreathed her slim fingers. Then, reaching out, she pressed her fingers to the trunk.

As he watched thin lines of light spread from every point of contact: the tree glowed softly from within, as cold fire spilled from around cracks in the rough, ancient bark. It worked its way upwards, and Teo discovered that he could see a pattern in the beating of the light. Steady, pulsing -- and then he saw it in Rescat's fingers, too, and he realized he was watching the vixen's heartbeat.

"What are you doing?"

"It's reacting to my touch. This is just a way of making it visible -- an easy spell, converting charm to light. The brighter it is, the greater the energy." Her paw was still pressed to the tree, and she seemed... captivated by it; her eyes reflected its purple glow. "Their roots run deep. They're bonded to the very essence of this planet. It's why they're so tall -- so tough. They've tapped into something; found something -- something below us is deeply warped. Have you seen a thaum tempest before? A Chaos?"

"No." He did not even know what such a thing might be.

Carefully, she removed her hand; the glow did not fade, at first, and it left her half-illuminated. "Do you have the feeling in a thunderstorm that the fury of the storm just builds and builds until it snaps convulsively, and that's what a bolt of lightning is? Karri says that a Chaos is when the thaumaturgic energy builds up until it snaps, just the same way, and releases itself. I saw one in the desert, in the ruins. We were camped, and... everything seemed odd. The animals were restless. I was pouring some water when it suddenly started flowing the wrong way -- then everything broke loose. Sandstorms -- the sky going purple and green and sometimes disappearing altogether -- a bolt of lightning that curled into a ball and lasted for nearly a minute..."

He had only heard of such things happening in the pages of his adventure novels. "Really? Gods..."

"When the storm broke, we found one of the pack horses dead. Half of it had aged backwards; the other half was... mummified. Things begin to break down there."

"You'll excuse me if this whole thing seems..." Teo trailed off, and tried to put his feelings into words. "It seems almost frightening. Like that's almost too much power for somebody to have."

"It isn't. And it shouldn't be frightening," she told him. "It should be inspiring. Like standing atop a waterfall... a great display of power that we should want to understand -- shouldn't we?"

"And do you?"

"No," the vixen admitted, with a milder grin. "Sometimes I think I'm getting pretty close. If there's a place, or a thing like this tree filled with magical energy I can almost always make it do... well, this," she said, and nodded to the slowly ebbing light. As it died, Teo saw that it was not uniform -- that it had picked out the little veins and channels that ran through the tree's flesh. "More than that, I don't know. Sometimes they don't seem to respond to my touch. Sometimes -- well, once, at the ruins at Kessea, I felt a whole pillar lift when I ordered it to. Karri teaches me things, but he's been studying it for sixty years, and we iron folk don't seem to have their natural affinity."

"You think I could... do something like that?"

Rescat stretched out her arm again, and carefully unfastened her bracelet before handing it over to him. It was deceptively lightweight, and warm with the heat of her body. He put it on his right wrist; nothing felt different, but she nodded to the tree. "Put your hand on it." He did -- there was a slight... tingling, in his fingers, lifting the fur of his lower arm up like he stood in an electrical storm.

"And now I..." he tried to think of how one might accomplish something. He tried to order it to glow, as she had; nothing. "I do what?"

"You tell me how deep the roots go. Feel for them. Imagine being able to see them."

Teo narrowed his eyes at the tree, watching the bark where his fingers met it. If he watched too long, too closely, it seemed almost that his claws were sinking into the wood -- becoming part of it. At first he resisted the sensation. But what if that was what he was after? He let himself go -- then there was a flash, a jolt of energy rocking through him and he felt himself suddenly very small, very insignificant, before a towering, glittering crystal that traced the outlines of the tree and its branches. And its roots -- miles of them, it seemed, thick, piercing down to the very core of the planet.

How deep, she had asked, but he found that he could not think in distances, only in lifetimes. The trees of the Dalrath grew and aged and died on the span of empires, not of men. "A thousand years," he muttered. "The roots are a thousand years deep..."

From very far away, he heard the vixen's voice. "Go there," she told him.

And indeed if he thought about it he found that he could move along the great tree's life as easily as he could walk around it. He could see it growing, over centuries; he could see it as a sapling, when it had been on the edge of the forest and a great burning blue yawned above and yearned to be tamed by the long fingers of sturdy wood. He could see it reaching up, and up, towards the clouds and the stars -- and then two figures, tiny and radiant, standing at its base. He pulled his fingers away, and the vision disappeared. "Fascinating..."

"Isn't it? So perhaps you have some promise at magic, after all. My bracelet, please? We need to talk about explosives, now, and I'm not about to let a novice do that..."

Towards the end of the day, she finally let him go and he returned to his office, trying to write down everything he had learned, and done, and seen. She'd promised Allen Grensmann a report, after all, and by the end of the following day he thought that he could see what she wanted to do. They had been using black powder to take out the worst of the boulders and stumps in the railbuilder Adara's path -- but that took quite a lot of black powder, and the return was quite minimal.

If they charmed it, though, they could direct its power carefully. They could shatter the rocks into pieces with a fraction of the effort, and leave the Adara to do the heavy labor of removing the debris. By Teo's estimation, having watched Stockman and Lara Layleigh at work, and knowing the promises Rescat made of her enchanted black powder, they could cut their usage down by two-thirds.

"And you think it's a good idea?" Dr. Grensmann asked.

"I think it's worth an experiment. The basic idea is quite simple, at least. We'll charm a powder charge to carefully control the way it deflagrates, so that none of the energy is wasted. And we can boost the explosive yield, as well -- it turns out you can make it so that it consumes almost everything. Almost no smoke, even." He had no idea how Rescat did it, and the vixen admitted that she herself was practicing something she had learned by rote from Karri Ervakarri.

"Ach, laddie, I don't know." The otter sighed heavily. "It doesn't seem quite right."

"If we don't start finding some way to stretch out supplies, we won't have enough for the railroad and the bridges and clearing out the trees. Even with the powder from the works in Peraford -- whenever that starts to appear." Teo set his papers before the man. "Here are three options I investigated. One with using no enchantment, one with enchanting only to clear boulders and tree roots above a certain size, and one using nothing but thaumaturgically enhanced blasting charges. On the final page is a table of experimental data."

Dr. Grensmann read the papers carefully, and Teo wondered why he didn't feel a sense of apprehension as the otter examined his work. Shouldn't he be nervously awaiting the verdict? Shouldn't he be on the edge of his seat? No. No, because he believed in what he had put to the page; because the figures argued for themselves, without the need for flowery language or defense. "Did they teach you anything about this in school?"

"No. I'm learning as we go."

"This is very thorough," the otter nodded. "Where did you get these numbers from?"

"Me," he answered. "I spent today experimenting. Colonel Carregan wanted me to start writing this up immediately, but I demanded that we put hard numbers to it." And actually, once he had made that case the vixen had not wanted to argue. "It also seems to me, Dr. Grensmann, if I might speak freely..."

"Been doing a lot more than speaking freely, laddie," the otter smiled. "What is it?"

"As we get deeper into the forest, I think we'll have to start using something like this, and it might be good to have the experience now, when it doesn't matter quite so much."

"Fair point." He turned the pages over again, skimming this time for something he might have missed. "What do Layleigh and Stockman think?"

"I haven't asked them. It shouldn't matter to Layleigh, and Sam..."

Allen chuckled. "You'll have to talk sense into him. If you want to do this, lad, I won't stop you; I'm not sure I would want to, but maybe I'm old. Old and conservative and cautious -- I've had my fill of gambling. Oh, don't look at me like that -- I wasn't always old and fat, Teo; I've been in your shoes before. I suppose somebody has to be the one to take a chance. How are you and the colonel getting along?"

"Well, sir! For being a soldier, she has a good sense of engineering."

"An' of course, she's a bit of a chance-taker herself, isn't she? Strange lass."

Teo had to admit the truth of this assessment. A soldier with an eye towards physics; an Aernian with an affinity for magic. A Carregan who had taken to the Iron Corps, and a woman at that. "Maybe, but in a way I think we need people like her. I enjoy working with Colonel Carregan."

"As long as you keep your wits about you," Allen said. "Probably best if her uniform stays on. 'Least 'til we're over that bridge."

Teo's eyes widened, and he let out a little choked bark. "Oh! I didn't mean that, sir." He did not really think of Rescat in those terms, and he had absolutely no doubt that she felt likewise. "It's quite professional."

"For now." A wink, and Allen set the paperwork aside. "You're young. And I heard rumors about what happened down at Fitch's farm. No, no, it's none of my business what you get up to. Better to have good relationships than bad ones, anyhow."

Still slightly flustered, Teo coughed, and nodded. "Yes, sir. Have you... have you spoken to Kaen Wulyth, of late?"

The old man's smile faded, or at least became less grandfatherly. "No. We're not much on speaking terms."

"I gathered that, sir." He'd tried to raise the topic with the otter woman, two or three times; she refused to discuss it, and he let the matter settle. "But she was willing to come down here, so..."

"For Dale, not for me. Don't expect that one's going to heal."

"Can I..."

"Nobody's told you?" Teo shook his head. Allen aged as the dog watched, his shoulders and whiskers drooping. Just when Teo was going to abandon the line of inquiry, he reached for his flask and uncorked it, taking a mild sip. "Accident on the railroad. Simple as that."

"A rockslide?"

"Aye. Bad weather and a bad grade. She and her husband were working it. Maybe should've waited for the storm to pass -- rains get awful intense, in the Seffish Valley in spring. But, the supervisor said 'go' and they did. Two days of bad rain, and there was a big slide. Took out the camp. Never found her husband's body, nor six others from that team."

"You were the supervisor," Teo guessed, "and she blames you."

He took another drink, this one longer. "She's not the only one," Allen said. "It's in the record and everything."

"But weather is an act of the gods..."

"I know, laddie. And sometimes the gods tell us things, and we don't listen. Four years and not a day goes by I don't think of that. So I don't blame the lass for hating me, and you shouldn't either."

Teo didn't really understand the circumstances, despite Allen's explanation, although nor did he want to pry. "But we're still all in this together, sir. We have to get over our past. We have to be there for one another..."

"That's true." The otter sighed heavily. "Speaking of. I should get back to work -- your new friend wants some assessments done. But speaking of being there for one another -- will you do me a favor, lad?"

"Sir?"

"Check on Carol for me."

The fox had all but disappeared; finally, Teo found him in his wagon, his paw resting on a pen that commanded a blank page. "Hello, Mr. Franklyn," he said quietly.

"Hello. I've not seen much of you. Are you ill, Mr. Titthitch?"

Carol shook his head. "Not exactly. Just waiting to hear from Uncle Carregan. I'm not certain this line is really for me."

"You didn't seem that concerned when Colonel Carregan -- er, Rescat Carregan, that is -- took over. I was a little surprised." Teo cleared off a seat and settled down to face Carol across his little table.

"Nobody told me it would take soldiers to finish this branch -- certainly not that it would take so many of them..."

"But it's a bit exciting, isn't it?"

Carol shuddered. "How can you even say that? Those things out there all the time, shooting at us -- poisoned arrows! Setting the camp on fire... and now we've got some Pala enchanting our explosives, and have you seen him? His teeth glow, Teo -- that's not right!"

"Well, you wouldn't see something like that back on the Plateau, that's for certain. How else do you think the Railroad gets built? It wasn't easy in the Menapset, either."

The fox looked, if anything, even more glum. His ears lay back, and he fidgeted with his pen. "I think it takes special kinds to do that, and I'm not them. I heard you were being trained, right, with your musket?"

"I'm still not very good at it," Teo reassured him. This was true.

"That first night, when they attacked us..."

He tilted his head. "Yes?"

"I thought that they were going to kill us all. And when they broke the window, and there was glass everywhere and... and fire, and..."

"And?"

Carol looked away. "I couldn't help it. I started screaming and I... soiled myself." He coughed in embarrassment, and lowered his muzzle. "Mr. Masseler said it was nothing to be ashamed of, but..."

Teo nodded, as sympathetically as he could. "It was very stressful, Carol. I think we were all terrified."

"But you got over it. I can't sleep anymore. I know this is some adventure to you but I... every time they send me away, back to Marrahurst or Salketh, I'm so happy just to be away from this horrid place. I can't do it anymore -- I told Uncle Walth that. I'm sure he thinks I'm a coward, too."

That was not, exactly, how Teo would've phrased it, and so he avoided answering entirely. "Where would you go?"

"Perhaps some little branch office. There are lots of depots and stations that need managing. I think I'm pretty good with numbers. I just... I don't have your spirit, Teo. You don't think that makes me a bad person, do you?"

"Of course not." And, when Carol smiled, he patted the fox's shoulder.

Spirit. Did he have spirit? Well, yes, he did, didn't he? Whatever it was that made someone willing to descend into that canyon, or to want to learn magic. The more Carol and even Allen Grensmann doubted, the more the young dog felt that he needed to make up the difference, to compensate for their weakness at such a moment.

The next locomotive that came in was pulling flatcars full of iron girders, and Teo's heart skipped a beat when he saw them. Spal iron, just like he'd asked for, in the 'H' shape of a Cesh design. He ran his fingers down the dark metal, warm from the sun it had absorbed on its journey, and wagged a nonexistent tail.

"Good iron?"

"Well, I trust the works," he told Rescat, who had appeared next to him with Karri Ervakarri.

"May I see?" the panther asked. Teo glanced to Rescat, and then shrugged. Karri put his fingers to the iron, as Teo had done, except that his fingers were nearly the same color as the metal, and when he held his grip there Teo could see ripples of faint red light working into the beams. The feline twitched, and licked his cerulean fangs. Finally, with a guttural hiss, he drew his fingers away. "Good iron," he echoed.

"What does that mean?"

Karri said nothing.

"Answer him," Rescat snapped.

"Yes, mistress." His eyes, glittering and cold and dead like broken glass, swept from Teo to the girders again, and again he brushed his fingers over them. "Metal forged well. Strong. Has no contaminations; has no weaknesses."

"Better," Rescat shook her head. They were walking towards the caboose, and Teo followed for want of anything better to do. The vixen rapped sharply on the door. "Carregan!"

It opened, and a sharp-featured canine leaned out. "Hello, ma'am." He was not wearing the uniform of the Iron Corps; he had, instead, a black suit and a hat with a shiny, lacquered brim. He had not raised his paw in salute, but the stiffness of his bearing gave the same effect.

"At ease," Rescat told him. "You were given something to carry?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"I'll take that now."

The canine turned to look into the caboose, and a moment later he was joined by a companion wearing similar attire. This one held a metal box, and he held it very gingerly. "Do you know what this is, ma'am?" he asked.

"Yes," she said. "You do not need to know."

They opened the door all the way and descended the steps; now that he could see all of them, Teo could also see the pistols strapped to thick leather belts that encircled their long black jackets. The newer of the two handed over the box, and as soon as it was in Rescat's hands his shoulders drooped in relief. "They almost didn't let us from the building..."

"I'm not surprised," Carregan said. "The key?"

"The key is with Sergeant Anguld, in the locomotive. Dr. Margirt made it clear that the key and the box were not to be within one car of each other, ever."

"And you listened to her?"

"Yes, ma'am," the first of the two dark-uniformed men said. "One of us always held on to the box. Slept with it, we did, even in these uncomfortable chairs. I... I think it started making noises. You can't say what it is?"

"I can," Rescat said. "I won't. Who's your supervisor? Lieutenant Granjan?"

"Lieutenant Korydd."

She nodded. "You're not to work in the archives anymore. Tell Lieutenant Korydd that I've personally ordered your discharge, and four years' pay."

The pair exchanged glances, and the newer one spoke. "We're being fired?"

"Would you like to keep working?"

"Well..."

"Name your post, then." Teo had not seen the vixen this way before; her voice was crisp, and functional; she was not smiling. "Not at the archives, not at Kessea, and not in the Valley of Bones. I recommend the lighthouse at Elwin Point. Think on it, and tell me before the train leaves."

"Yes, ma'am..."

By the way Rescat's ears were flattened, she was not in the mood to carry on conversation, and her strides were long as she walked towards the locomotive. Next to the engineer, a soft-furred ermine was watching the camp; her uniform was the same as the men in the caboose had been. Sinister. "Sergeant Anguld."

"Ma'am." This one did salute.

"Don't do that, Greta. You have a key."

"Yes ma'am." She reached into her pocket, and retrieved a small brass key. It was unadorned, save for a trio of holes set into the metal: two of them were filled with what looked to be sapphires, cut into perfect circles; the third was empty.

"Did either of the others ever talk to you about what you were carrying?"

"No, ma'am."

"Do you know?"

"No, ma'am."

Satisfied, Rescat slipped the key into her own pocket. "If they try to talk to you about it, tell them to be quiet. If they persist, open and execute the orders Dr. Margirt gave you at Marrahurst."

"Yes, ma'am," the stoat said, and her hat twitched as her ears flattened.

"Thank you for your work."

"It is our way," Sergeant Anguld nodded. "Anur æft netduellen."_ _

And Teo's eyes went wide. Rescat and Karri left, with the panther trotting quickly to match the vixen's pace, but the dog hung back. He waited until the engineer, too, had gone back into the cab. "Are you... a Raven?"

Sergeant Anguld smiled. "There are no such things."

"So if I quoted an old poem... if I said... dæden syngan ym syndut wyngen..."

The ermine's smile darkened, although it persisted. "You're a friend of Rescat's?"

"I don't know. She seems to like me."

"Do you like her?"

He nodded. "I do."

"Well, little one, I would say that a friend of Rescat's is a friend of mine, but she doesn't keep many of those. All the same, I don't think she would like it if I killed you. The night words are not for your tongue, pup."

Teo flicked his ears. "Then you are one."

As though they were sharing a secret, and although she had not just threatened his life, the ermine leaned towards him. "Next time, you should not quote Asod Græch. You should say this, instead: ic ufenken hwet seon thridd eegen. Then will your friend ask, an deorc el an let? And you must be quick with the answer."

"Which is?"

"Thynden deorc, thynden hylfis trewtten greffan."

"What does that mean?"

The ermine straightened, and adjusted her long coat so that it hung smartly from her white shoulders. "It means that they will, at least, make it quick for you. Don't say it lightly, young one. But say it once, so I know I haven't doomed you."

"Thynden deorc, thynden hylfis trewtten greffan," he dutifully repeated, although he did not speak Old Aernian. "I've always known just enough to get myself into trouble... thank you, sergeant."

"Anur æft netduellen," she said again. She was no longer looking at him, although when he started to leave she spoke again: "Keep an eye on Rescat for me."

She was the second person to have told him this, although since the two women were on a first-name basis he supposed Greta Anguld's concern was more friendly. Still! A Raven! How often did you see one of those? The Ravens were not part of the Iron Corps; they were the secret police of the Railroad, they reported directly to Tokeli Carregan, and they were not to be crossed.

In his adventure stories, the Ravens were almost mythical. Like the Artem-Jana Guild, those silent thieves and messengers who could travel anywhere and do anything. They guarded the most sensitive research offices and the most valuable people; they spoke in a strange argot and lived in a world of secrets. And then, while he turned over the phrase he'd been taught in his head, he stopped --

If it was being guarded by the Ravens -- if Rescat had given two of them an early retirement and, he supposed, ordered them killed if they talked... What was in the box?

Rescat and Karri were most of the way back to Rescat's carriage when he caught up to them. The panther turned, and shook his head in a jerk. "Back."

"He can stay, Karri." Rescat didn't slow, or turn to look at him. "He ought to know, anyway."

"Know what?"

Teo did not know what to expect from the interior of Rescat's carriage, although when he saw it he found that it didn't surprise him. It was spartan, much like his own; like his own there was a bookshelf, although hers was filled with military texts rather than engineering ones. A map of the railroad's lines dominated the far wall, covering up the window and facing a bench half-covered with yet more books.

Another map was spread across a wooden table; this one was much more sparse. "Miss Wulyth's surveying," Rescat explained. "And some of my own."

"You've mapped the canyon?" Teo asked, pointing to a jagged line that cut along the paper. "How?"

"Karri has been talking to the trees. I assume that where the roots end suddenly he's found the canyon wall. Does that seem right?"

"I suppose so, yes," the dog said with a nod, and thought back to what he'd seen in the canyon, and the gnarled roots grasping at the edges of exposed granite.

"I'd like to see it with my own eyes -- sit, Karri, you're making me nervous -- but not more than I'd like to stay in one piece."

Karri Ervakarri sat, as ordered; his sharp claw wandered over the map, and the pencil-marks glowed when he touched them. "We fix soon, mistress," the feline purred. His tail curled around the leg of his chair like a snake. "Know more. See more."

"Yes, of course," she said. Carefully, she set the metal box down on the map, and then retrieved the key from her pocket. When it touched the lock, the two gemstones flickered to life. Rescat reached into the collar of her uniform, and pulled from around her neck a thin iron chain. At the end hung another sapphire, the same size and shape as the others: she pressed it into the key, the lights died, and the lock snapped open crisply.

The box, which looked otherwise stark and military, was lined with red velvet. Sitting on the velvet was a dark object that at first Teo took to be a simple stone. He had never seen anything so black; light fell into it and did not escape. It reflected neither the gaslamp on the carriage wall, nor the soft crimson of its velvet bed, and it held Teo's gaze like he wished that it would not.

But the longer that he looked upon it, the clearer its shape became. It was a carving, a sculpture of a tortoise half the size of his palm. Something about its curves seemed bizarre: if he stared at the velvet, then the shadowy outlines of the animal were plain; if he looked at the sculpture itself they warped and rippled and pulsed in strange dimensions.

"What in the name of the gods..."

"Tavak," Karri whispered. "Ekkeittam oupiri, Tavakkalla. Ourastaari mentta ekkeittam..."

Rescat watched the distracted panther closely. "It's a wailing stone," she told Teo -- at least, the dog presumed that she was talking to him. "Its name is Tavak. It's from Izkadi, across the desert."

"And what... is... it?"

"Magic is just another way of explaining the metaphysical relationship of two objects." She still kept an eye on Karri, who was enraptured. "Magical energy is generally bound to a physical object. But it can be... manipulated. And captured. And stored. To a point, men like Karri can do that naturally. Beyond that... the warped alembic is a way of gathering magical energy into one place. Like a spring under tension. The energy of... a running stream, or of a plant..."

"Or of a person."

The vixen did not look uncomfortable, precisely, but nor was she happy with having to continue. "Yes. Or that. The warped alembic is an ancient tool. The Hakasi invented them, perhaps. They did not use them for... kindly ends. So their use is... let us say that it is proscribed, in many corners. It's assumed that the Nakarians took many of them during their exodus to the Dead City. Most of what remained were tracked down and destroyed in the purges that followed. I only know of six in all of the western world."

"Can you use it?"

"No," Karri interjected sharply. "Cannot."

"No," Rescat agreed gamely. "I tend to think that I'm more openminded than most of our countrymen, Teo. But the way of warped alembics puts even me on edge. I'll leave it to Karri -- and very, very carefully at that."

Even after speaking, he had remained motionless, staring at the black stone. Finally, swallowing heavily a few times -- his tail twitching in unsteady jerks -- he reached into the box and took it. For the briefest of moments Teo saw that the sculpture was textured after all -- fine glowing lines threaded through it, tracing patterns on the shell, and scales, and the pits of the turtle's eyes. Then it went dark again, and Karri was keening softly.

"You're well, Karri?"

"Yes, mistress." The panther's broad paw had folded around the warped alembic until it disappeared completely. "Well. Tavak also is well. Not seen the light in years; not since it was imprisoned."

"Be careful, Karri," she reminded him. "You have the alembic to extract what you can from the trees, that's all."

Karri licked at his fangs.

"Very well. Are we going to have to do this together?"

Karri said that they would not, but Rescat -- if not outright mistrusting him -- seemed to feel that it would be in her best interests to supervise. Stockman's gang had felled a fresh tree, a few hundred feet to the north of the palisade: above them, the thin line of broken light in the canopy had widened into a thickening crack through which the blue of a summer Teo had nearly forgotten poured down to greet them.

Karri licked his fangs again, when he approached the tree, and the way he stalked towards the massive trunk had put the workmen on edge as well, for they gave him a wide berth. With his fingers still wrapped around the alembic -- Teo had a hard time thinking of it as having a name, like a person -- he placed his paw to the wood.

At first nothing seemed to be happening. Gradually Teo became aware of a low hiss, and then that it was not coming from the feline but from the tree itself. Steam rose in ghostly wisps from the shattered bark; then the wood began to glow, softly, concentrated at first where Karri's shadowy, skeletal fingers touched it. It grew stronger -- clearer -- until it seemed like the fallen tree was afire, as painful to look at as sunset.

Then, quick as the drop of a guillotine, the light vanished. When the afterimage cleared and he could see again, the tree had been reduced to a white, ghostly husk. Karri dragged his claws through it and it crumbled into powdery dust, a fine ash that drifted lazily in the shafts of afternoon sunlight.

"That," Rescat explained -- Karri was indisposed in giddy, reeling glee -- "is why so many put so much effort into banning them."

"Selat..." Teo muttered. "He... burned it, didn't he? Like a steam engine burns coal... and that thing is storing the energy it had..."

"Apt!" The vixen grinned, and turned on her heel. She had taken most of a step towards the palisade when they heard it: the same sound as on their first venture into the Dalrath. A piercing scream -- grating, and unearthly. The silence that followed, like the shadow of an eclipse, served as remark on the utter, alien wrongness of what had come before. "Ah... hmm."

Rescat had stopped, but the soldier did not seem nearly as unsettled as Teobas felt would be wise -- indeed, as unsettled as he himself felt. "Do you know what that is?"

"I can make guesses," she shrugged. "Karri, you might want to pull yourself together and get back to work."

"Will you? Guess, I mean?"

"Use of the warped alembic has a way of unsettling the order of things. Not everyone likes that. It's also very, very obvious when they're used -- so now our friends out there know that we're here, and what we've brought with us."

"So..."

"I expect they'll step up their attacks, if nothing else. We'll be ready, don't worry. Teo, I'd like you to make certain the foundations are finished today for the bridge supports. It doesn't serve us to... dally."

And with that the vixen was gone, raising her voice to summon a few of the other soldiers into conference. Sam was at work on the foundations, as ordered, and he nodded to acknowledge the dog's approach. "You heard that, right, Kitten?"

"Yes," Teo said.

"Bloody catastrophe in the making here."

Unlike before, however, they were talking in sunlight: enough trees had been cleared that full daylight fell on the camp, and the fortifications, and spilled down into the canyon aways -- not enough to touch the bottom, but enough to make plain the granite walls on the near side. "Perhaps."

"What was it?"

Teo had the curious sense that Stockman genuinely believed that Teo had an answer -- and that, even if he did not, he would trust whatever the dog said. It was an odd position of responsibility. "The wilderness, Mr. Stockman. Just the wilderness. We've beat it before."

"Not much wilderness makes sounds like that," the bear grunted.

"Not much wilderness has trees like this, either," Teo pointed out. "Or canyons, or anything else. We've got sunlight, and a battalion of the finest soldiers on the continent, and your men -- and I daresay they aren't afraid of a little wilderness. Or they shouldn't be."

Stockman looked at him for a long time; then he laughed, his coarse-edged, genuine laugh that all but dissolved the tension. "Come a long way since that greatcat, eh, Kitten? Ain't afraid of a little wilderness?"

"I don't see that we have a choice..." Although when the dog thought about it, it did seem a very long time since those early days, and the soft hills of the Mirhall countryside. What would he do if he saw such a thing now? Not scramble up a tree in a panic, that was for certain.

He watched Stockman's crew work for the rest of the afternoon; by the evening -- and gods, but it was nice to have proper evenings again -- the foundations had been completely finished. Then it would only be a matter of driving the iron girders in, and setting them -- Karri had promised to help with this, or at least Rescat had promised that he had. As much as he enjoyed the vixen's company, and as much as he was growing to accept the thaumaturgic arts, he was comfortable to spend as little time as possible around the panther.

Rescat, explaining that it was easiest to have a means of focusing one's thoughts, had given the dog a silver ring that she claimed would allow him to channel his magical abilities -- if he had any. She had also given him a small, unremarkable stone from the forest floor. Like nearly everything in the Dalrath it was charmed. She said.

He turned it over in his fingers. The rock, which was grey and flecked with tiny bits of quartz, could've come from any riverbed in southern Aernia. He put the ring on, placed the rock in his other paw, and touched his fingerpad to the stone. A soft, electric buzz ran up his claw. Such a strange thing, that feeling -- like he was connected in some way to the lifeless chunk of granite.

It was just a stone, though. Twelve ounces. Perhaps seventy degrees in temperature. A pinkish grey. One sharp edge where it had been broken, many years ago.

Only...

Only it was not that simple. Teo's ears flattened, and his finger stayed pressed to the granite as if drawn by magnetism. It came at him in a rush -- nothing about the rock made it twelve ounces any more than anything about the dog made him Teobas Franklyn. It was just a statement of relationship -- he was related to his family by the figure of a shared name, and the rock was related to the earth below him by the figure of twelve ounces.

What if it was... thirteen?

Had something changed? It felt heavier, yes, but... Teo narrowed his eyes, and tried again. It was his will that the rock weigh precisely twenty ounces, instead -- and suddenly his paw was pinned to the table. Six ounces? Six ounces and forty degrees? Minus twelve ounces and ninety?

He yelped as the rock tumbled upwards, he lost his grasp on it, and it fell back to the table, still warm. Giddy, he prepared to try again -- but as he sat down his concentration was disturbed by shouting from outside. The shouts were short, crisp and military: he opened the door of his wagon just in time to hear a thick, coughing roar and to catch a blaze of light from off to the west.

And the sound of bugles rang out.

The Iron Corps had impressed upon them the importance of their swift response to a call to arms. The civilians were supposed to take cover; Pembæra, though, had decided that the armed ones -- Teo included -- were to muster with the other soldiers, and Colonel Carregan had never changed that order. He made his way to the armored railcar that the Corps had adopted for a command post.

Arrows were beginning to land in the camp, for the first time in days. Another roar erupted from behind him, and in the flash of light that followed he caught sight of the stark edges of his shadow. Rescat, whom he missed at first, was standing atop the car with a looking-glass pressed to her eye.

Then she hopped down, landing lightly between two older soldiers, an otter and what Teobas almost took to be a tiger. "Well?"

"We're taking fire from the west and the north, colonel."

"I'd noticed that. Tell me something I don't know, Maristhea."

Major Maristhea -- the insignia on his epaulettes suggested the striped feline's rank -- flicked his right ear. "The greatest volume of fire is coming from the north. Across the canyon they just seem to be..." A brightening flare preceded the rolling boom of another impact. "Doing that."

"Catapults?"

"Ballistic, anyway," the other soldier -- also a major -- confirmed. "It's too dark to see."

"Well, I'm not going to sit in here and let them do that. Where can we engage the far side from? Can we put Ostleigh where the bridge foundations are?"

"The bridge worksite is on fire, colonel," the otter said, with a shake of his head. "And not going out easily."

"Then we need another option. I don't like being trapped in here. Mr. Franklyn, you mapped this area. What's the closest we can get to the far wall?"

Teo shut his eyes, and tried to recall his maps -- his surveying with Kaen Wulyth, and the studies that Carregan herself seemed to have done. "A rise north of here about four hundred feet, along the eastern wall. There's a tree a little further on; it's the furthest we've surveyed."

"That'll be where we're taking fire from, sir," the otter pointed out. "They like to hide in those damned trees."

Lieutenant Pembæra appeared, and stiffened up in salute. "Major; colonel."

"Report."

"They have men on the ground. They're... mounted. Somehow. Not on horses -- something... else. At least four dozen riders, and my scouts say a hundred more on foot. Gathering on a hill to our north, perhaps four hundred feet? More of them in a tree just beyond."

Rescat gritted her teeth. "Lovely."

"I believe they're making ready to attack, sir."

Carregan tapped her boot against the ground, and then whirled to the side. "Corporal, get me Karri." A young hare, pressed up against the wall of the wagon, saluted sharply and took off at a run. The vixen turned back; her eyes were still narrowed in thought. "Major Silvaarch, we're going to take that hill."

"Now?"

"Yes, now. Ostleigh's battery will need a good firing angle, and unless you have a better idea I'm inclined to agree with our engineering expert here." She tugged a notebook from her pocket, and began to write quickly. "Use your three Lightning platoons and secure the hill. Leave the repeaters here, and your engineers. Unless -- do you think you'll need to dig in?"

The otter frowned deeply. "At the moment, sir, the palisade is --"

"We are Iron Corps, Major Silvaarch, and we do not cower like caged beasts. Don't mention the palisade again."

An explosion from off to their west lent sharp punctuation to the urgency of the moment; when Teo looked, fire was spilling over the top of the palisade. Major Silvaarch watched for a second or two. "If they can be suppressed, we can hook around from the east. But I have no way of addressing cavalry..."

"They're not cavalry, sir," Garda Pembæra corrected. "Bigger."

Rescat ripped off the paper she was scrawling on, wadding it up and stuffing it into her pocket. Immediately she was on to the next page, scribbling almost faster than he could follow. "Major Maristhea, take Major Silvaarch's repeaters and get them up on the walls along with two of your platoons. Hold the repeaters' fire until my signal." The runner had returned, with Karri Ervakarri in tow, and without pausing Carregan tore the sheet of paper from her notebook and passed it to him. "To Captain Ostleigh. Alright. Major Silvaarch, get your men to the north-east and take cover."

"Sir?"

"I'm taking command of Major Maristhea's E and L platoons. We're going to harass them until they attack us, and then you're going to hit them on the flank and push them into the damned canyon."

The otter, having overcome his reservations -- or at least having realized their futility -- nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Get moving. Karri, my friend."

The panther was an eerie shadow, and when he spoke the soft glow of his teeth was particularly unsettling. "What can I do for you?"

"There's a tree. That way," she pointed. "You remember?"

"Yes, mistress?"

"Take care of it. Teo, watch him. Major Maristhea, signal me when you're ready on the wall. Lieutenant Pembæra, let's go."

She took off with the lieutenant in tow, and Maristhea departed in the other direction. Teo looked to the panther, who grinned even wider. "Shall we, young one?"

Carregan had, at one point, told Teo that Karri had been practicing at magic for sixty years. Nothing in his form or fur would've suggested this: there was not a trace of white on his muzzle, or the faintest hesitation in his movements. Teo followed him as they headed towards the wall, and up the ladder to the walkway that circled the inside of the palisade, and then to the tallest watchtower. "Do you know what she means by 'take care of it'?"

"Of course," the saman smirked. He did not seem perturbed by the arrows that fell in burning arcs amongst the camp -- one hissed past them, no more than ten feet away, and while Teobas started Karri merely smiled wider. "Ah, these fools..."

"Fools?"

"Fools," Karri snickered. "This --" fast as a striking snake, his arm whipped out, and when he brought it back he was holding an arrow, the pitch of its point still aflame. "What is this?" With a derisive snort, he tossed it over the wall, and Teo heard it sizzle as it landed in the damp earth. "Savages..."

"How did..."

"... Lurking in the trees, squabbling and squawking like crows..." the panther continued, ignoring him. He brought his left paw up, and Teo saw that it grasped the warped alembic Tavak. "Enchanting their arrows, ha!"

"Do they?"

Karri grinned slyly. "Yes, of course. Certainly they think this very clever."

He lifted his paw up, palm outward. Sparks animated the alembic, racing down the turtle's stocky limbs and tracing the edges of its scales. Then he heard a soft, keening moan -- a barking exclamation from the ebony feline -- his attention was drawn to the tree, out in the distance, which was beginning to glow a pale red. Shouts of alarm rolled across the distance, and heavy shadows dropped from the tree's spread limbs.

A sharp flash like a lightning bolt blinded him, and when he could see again the tree was entirely aflame. Bright orange tongues licked along its trunk, racing up to where the branches and leaves had become a blazing inferno, brighter than the sun. It put the entire forest into sharp, clear relief as bright as midday. He could see the yawning black of the canyon to their west, and the shapes of Carregan's Iron Corps mustered just beyond the palisade.

And, on the hill... what?

The forest-dwellers were small, by his reckoning -- but numerous. Hundreds of them, and as he watched he could see the next volley of arrows arc towards the Railroad's camp -- thick and swarming like insects. Every one of the savages seemed to hold a bow. But now they were exposed to the rifle fire of the Iron Corps, and it came as a pounding, rippling staccato. Above the din he could hear Rescat Carregan shouting orders to the two platoons she commanded.

The mass of natives rippled and surged. The next round of arrows switched from targeting the fortifications to targeting the Railroad soldiers -- but they were aiming downhill, against small targets, and it seemed to have little effect. From his vantage point in the watchtower Teobas saw the Iron Corps strategy that Corporal Arstois had described unfolding: Rescat ordered her men forward forty or fifty yards at a time -- probing for weaknesses in the native army.

Baiting them, that was what she had said. The rifles were beginning to take their toll -- he could see dozen or more motionless bodies, and when the savages ebbed and flowed they left a more than a few of their number behind. Karri grunted and hissed an order to the alembic, and Teo saw one of the branches of the great tree tumble in slow motion, trailing flames behind it, to land directly in the mass of shouting archers.

And then they came.

Synchronized, rolling forward as one the forest-dwellers raced down the hill -- and at first Teo thought that the hill was coming with them. It was only after looking twice that he saw the huge forms of strange beasts -- five times the size of a cow, with massive jaws and stripes that circled their muscled flanks. Atop each a native held the reins and they plunged swiftly towards the scant fifty men of Rescat's command.

Their muzzles opened wide, and that terrible wailing screech poured forth from fifty yawning maws. Faced with its source even Karri flinched. His paw snapped downwards -- a pit opened up in the earth, and two of the huge beasts stumbled and disappeared into it, yelping in surprise. He did it again -- but then the distance was closed -- Teo saw one of the Iron Corps soldiers seized in those huge jaws, tossed like so much rubbish. He did not rise.

At close range the riflemen were next to useless, and the shot of the grenadiers' fowling pieces barely fazed the native cavalry. The charge of the strange creatures had bought time for the mass of archers to draw near, and Teobas had a sudden panicked image of being overrun.

The call of a bugle rang out, from beyond the palisade, and the walls of the fortress became sharply animated. Major Maristhea had put two platoons of riflemen along the edge, and the savagery of the first volley brought the natives up short. More shouted orders, and then those orders disappeared under a stuttering tumult of fire.

Teobas had never seen a Darveleigh gun in action. Jik Eezensmitt had explained that every Lightning company packed a section of the things, but there had never been a reason to take them out on patrol. They were too heavy; Teo saw that they had been braced into the walkway, with blocks of wood nailed down to anchor their tripods.

In his adventure stories, a Darveleigh repeater could fire a hundred and sixty rounds a minute. Now Teo felt certain that it was more. Each circular magazine held sixteen rounds. A man snapped it into place, and the gunner turned a crank like a peppermill; each turn cocked and fired and rotated the magazine to the next round. No sooner had the hammer fallen on an empty chamber than the loader was shoving a new magazine in place, tossing the old one to a trio of men who had no other job but to reload them.

Each company had three of these terrible guns, and there were three companies in total. Under the withering volume of fire the cavalry charge faltered -- three and then four and then five of the monstrous things went down in kicking heaps and the riders of the others hung back, their mounts rearing. They loosed another scream, but this one was far more muted.

In the reeling chaos little bursts of smoke and light erupted -- grenades, tossed by the remaining men of the Iron Corps. The thirty or so remaining cavalry sagged back -- where they met the incoming archers, throwing the attack into confusion. Not satisfied, Karri snapped his paw again, opening a few new cracks in the floor of the Dalrath.

One more bugle call, and Teo heard the order to cease fire being passed along the Darveleigh guns. Five seconds of near complete silence -- then ten -- then a shouting war cry nearly as feral as the native cavalry had been, as the hundred men of Major Silvaarch's company entered the fray from the eastern flank where they had been concealed.

The native line broke nearly immediately -- the huge beasts trampling their own as they sought to escape. Most of the riders made it, and many of the archers besides, before the pressure of the Iron Corps' riflemen cut off the retreat of the remainder. Silvaarch forced them back, towards the edge of the canyon --

And then over.

The torrent of gunfire slowed to a trickle, and then merely a few conversational barks. The blazing tree had faded to the glowing red of sunset, but it still cast enough light to highlight the soldiers of the Iron Corps returning to the gate. Rescat Carregan's uniform was streaked with dirt, but she looked to be in relatively good spirits. "Checked, for now," she told Dale Masseler, who met her just inside. "I don't think they'll be back tomorrow night, or the night after."

"Licking their wounds?"

"Planning their next move, rather," Carregan said. "You have injured inside the camp?"

"No," Dale said. "Thank the gods. Your men?"

"Six dead. Eleven injured, so far -- take a note," she nodded to a soldier next to her. "We need to find a way to deal with those... things."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Horses?"

"Hyaenas -- or they were, before they wound up in the Dalrath. I think." The vixen shook her head. "That part was closer than I would've liked. Good job, though, Karri." Behind them the towering form of the tree was now only a dull outline. "And we'll see the damage to the foundations in the morning..."

In the morning they policed the battlefield, as well. Carregan had ordered a pyre built, but before that Teo got his first look at the natives. They looked a little like squirrels, except that their eyes were massive, and their leaf-shaped ears came to broad points. They had long, knobby fingers, and Teo's first thought was that they did not seem so terribly threatening, after all.

There was the matter of the arrows to deal with, though, and of their mounts. These they did not have the fuel to burn, and Carregan let Karri take care of them in his own way. They were the size of a freight locomotive, with teeth as large as Teo's legs. For hours after he made his way back to the foundations of the bridge, he could not banish their stench from his muzzle.

They had won the battle, at least eventually, but not fast enough to save the bridge. The foundations they had dug had been utterly destroyed by the impacts and the fire. They would need to start from scratch; Samhal Stockman put his paws behind his neck and groaned. "Ah, bloody 'ell, Kitten..."

"How long will it take?"

"Rest of the day just to clear the bloody debris," the bear grumped.

But they did not get that far. Just after lunch he heard a panicked cry from one of the workers in the half-second before the entire worksite was aflame again. Drops of sticky pitch were flung everywhere -- a few screams of pain announced where they had hit home. A second landed just after the first. "Goddamnit -- get back, all of you!" Teo looked up to see Rescat Carregan shouting before she jumped down the hill to grab one of the workman, pulling him roughly to his feet.

Back in the wagon that served as the headquarters for the New Jarankyld Line, Allen Grensmann was shaking his head. "What now?"

"They're very accurate," Rescat said. "We were lucky not to lose anyone."

"You mean, more than the six from last night?"

"Yes, Dale," the vixen snapped. "I mean that. Don't condescend to me."

"This is becoming extremely... complicated," the stag sighed. "I wasn't expecting casualties on this project."

"Really? Putting a railroad through forty leagues of forest no civilized person has crossed in five hundred years, and you weren't expecting opposition? Good god, Dale, we're the Railroad, of course there's opposition from the savages."

"All the same..."

She leaned towards him, her eyes flashing. "I hope you're not suggesting what I think you're suggesting."

"No," Dale waved his paw to ward the suggestion away. "I'm not saying we should give up. I'm just saying that... we should consider how important the New Jarankyld Line is, in the grand scheme of the Railroad..."

Teobas Franklyn, who did not have the right to speak up, did so anyway. "Yes, sir. We should. This is not just a branch line of the Transcontinental, sir. This is a statement -- this is a shout of defiance. This line is our way of reminding the world that civilization will triumph, that we will prevail against the pull of savagery. This line is how the Iron Kingdom reminds the continent that we are the masters of this earth, not those trees out there. How could you think otherwise?"

"Big words, my boy," the stag said. His voice was not unkind, despite the lack of decorum in the dog's speech. "But how do you propose to put rail under them?"

"We can solve that... somehow. But it begins by not giving up. Sir. When your train faces a steep grade, what do you do? You open the firebox, you shovel on more coal, and you keep going."

"Why?" Rescat asked. She was grinning.

"Because we're right, ma'am. And they," he pointed outside the still-broken window. "Are not."

"Dale," the vixen drawled. "If your junior employees can recognize that, surely you can, too. We stay the course."

"How, lass?"

"Well. It's going to start with a bridge."

Teobas found himself in a conference with Jarvr Wädaward, whom Rescat introduced as a captain in the Iron Corps. Captain Wädaward was an immigrant from the Ellagdran city-state of Boyerrunrig, and his accent was thick and guttural. "What you do, pup?"

"Mr. Franklyn," Rescat corrected.

"What Franklyn do?"

"I design bridges," Teo said.

Jarvr, a wolf whose silver fur was flecked with charcoal-black points, barked a laugh. "Good so hearing. Same."

"You also design bridges?"

"Captain Wädaward is the head of the bridging section in Major Gereo's sapper company," Rescat introduced him. "We don't do a whole lot with iron and concrete. Mr. Franklyn is a graduate of the university in Marrahurst; he's responsible for train bridges. And now that we're all met, let's understand the dimensions of the problem."

"Not knowing this word," the wolf smirked.

"Teo doesn't either," Rescat assured him. "I need to get across that canyon."

"What." Despite her statement, his voice was flat. "What do you mean?"

"I need to put two platoons of riflemen on the far side of the river, so we can secure it. No way to get the rail bridge built otherwise, so we'll start on foot. Can you put a temporary bridge over it?"

"How far?"

"Two hundred feet," Teo said. "I think a little bit over, but we don't have a good sense of what it really looks like."

"Hmm."

"Rope bridge?" Rescat prodded the wolf.

"Ya, sure. But tough. Get a line across. Secure, if you can. Then the main cable. Under fire, maybe not so easy, this."

The plan, as Jarvr explained it, was to fire a rope across the canyon and hoped that it snagged something strong enough to hold a man in place who could scurry across with a heavier cable that would anchor the bridge itself. Teo had to agree that it did not seem like something that was particularly safe under the arrow and catapult fire of the forest natives.

On request, Jarvr showed him the rope cannon, as well. Teo scratched behind an ear. It fired what appeared to be an iron spear, fletched for stabilization and trailing a stout rope that Jarvr assured him could hold a man's weight -- if the spear found purchase at its destination. "No guarantee. Might take more than one."

"And then you'll use this to support another cable that will carry the bridge itself..."

"Exact."

"Why can't this rope itself support the bridge?"

"Not strong enough."

He tapped his foot, glancing at Carregan. The vixen understood. "But it could be. We could have Karri manage that. Enhance the tensile strength of this rope -- I don't think it would hold forever, but I'm sure it would last long enough to get a platoon or two over the river..."

"Even if it was strong enough," Jarvr cautioned, "it wouldn't matter. You need to secure this on the far side somehow. The harpoon only designed to support the rope and a few hundred pounds more -- not a bridge."

"Link it to the underlying rock the same way we're linking the bridge supports," Teobas suggested. "That wouldn't require a physical connection. You could fire this across, and when it came to rest, bind it to the rock -- or a tree -- or anything."

"With magic," Jarvr asked. "Spend time with Major Carregan, eh?"

"Colonel," Rescat grinned. "I like the idea, though. Would it work, Captain Wädaward?"

"Try?"

They tested it in the safety of the daylight, back along the existing rail. Jarvr fired the cannon as precisely as he could, two hundred feet into the side of one of the tree stumps that still remained. The spear had embedded itself only a few inches into the wood, but to Teo's great pleasure Karri's spell had fixed it as though firmly welded -- nothing they did would dislodge the iron bolt until the panther's muttering undid the charms.

The next morning, the colonel brought two platoons together, and the wagons of a Captain Alfesh Ostleigh. On the dog's inspection, Ostleigh proved to be commanding a battery of Wismere rockets, and he vaguely remembered Carregan ordering their deployment during the battle a few nights prior -- to no great effect.

"Captain Ostleigh is going to saturate the far canyon," Rescat explained to the gathered soldiers. "And then we're going to cross. And we're going to show those damned natives what the Iron Corps is made of. Do you know why? Because --" she grinned wickedly in Teo's direction. "Because we are the masters of this earth. Don't you forget it."

The Wismere rockets were not, he was to understand, a practical weapon. They were mostly unguided, with little wooden fins, and mostly designed to terrify. Touched off all at once -- dozens of the rockets screaming their way across the canyon -- Teo decided that they accomplished this handily. By the second volley, the earth on the other side was smoldering -- it made a good target for Jarvr Wädaward's bridging cannon.

Everything that followed was done smartly, as if choreographed. The rope, sailing off into the distance -- coming sharply to rest. Karri's paw touching it, and sparks of energy working their way down along its length. The panther stepped back as Jarvr's men secured the near edge, and then began to unroll the prefabricated rope bridge, section by section -- ten feet at a time, fixing it to the charmed rope above so that it would stay in place. One of the engineers had to go on ahead, to guide its progress, but the rifles of the Iron Corps were right behind him.

"It's done," Jarvr nodded to Teo; Rescat and her soldiers were already vanished into the darkness. Together the wolf and the dog waited to hear the sounds of gunfire -- but there was nothing. An hour later, with a hundred soldiers on the far side of the river, Rescat returned.

"Retreated, I think. Captain, I want a more permanent solution in as soon as you can. Where's Major Gereo? We'll need defensive works in by nightfall."

Teo realized that nothing Carregan ever said implied -- or permitted -- doubt or disagreement. She wanted a bridge across the river, and it had happened. She expected that a new palisade was to be built, and Teo felt certain that it would be done. He took heart in this certainty, and when she asked him to come with her he did so without questioning.

This was not to say that the rope bridge was particularly pleasant to cross; it swayed precipitously beneath his feet. But cross they did, and on the other side Rescat laughed, and helped him from the bridge up and onto the soft earth. "I knew it wouldn't be so difficult. Looks pretty much like the Aernian side of the river, doesn't it?"

"They're both Aernian sides," Teo responded, and that drew a wider grin. "It does, though, yes..."

Soldiers were busy putting up torches, staking out a neat perimeter and plotting where the walls would go. "Make certain that your bridge will still work. I don't see any reason it shouldn't, but as long as we're over here we might as well be certain, don't you think?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Please," she snickered. "I should be 'Rescat' by now, shouldn't I? Or 'Ellea.' That's my middle name -- don't say it where the men can hear. Ah, Teo, I think we're going to get this done! As soon as you're finished over here, cross back over and start the work again -- get Sam excited, why don't you?"

"Excited?"

"Oh, god, I don't know. What excites that man? Tell him you found whores over here; maybe that will do it."

Whatever could be said of Sam, her excitement was infectious. Teo took as careful notes as he could, and then made his way back across the rope bridge -- ignoring the three hundred foot drop below him.

Stockman did not need to be motivated with prostitutes; when Teo explained that they had secured the far wall, and when the night passed without incident, they were more than happy enough to resume work. After weeks of idleness -- and with the sun blazing above them, just like in the Aernian countryside -- they set back to it quickly.

The whole affair was quite different from the Amaraan bridge; there was no need for concrete, and no need to wait for anything to set. Lara Layleigh used the Adara to lower the iron beams into place, and when they were precisely positioned Karri fixed the pillars to the bedrock with a glowing-fanged smile that Teo was willing to accept, in the daylight.

Girder by girder the bridge stretched out into the gaping black canyon below them. Alongside, the rope bridge had been replaced by something sturdier -- though they had yet to need it. No attacks came; the nights were blissfully quiet, and now when Teo stood on the watchtower of the palisade he could see the glowing torches of its counterpart on the other side.

Rescat stood, watching, when they lowered the final girders into place and fastened it to the trusses of the existing bridgework. Now a solid iron span connected one wall to the other, wide enough for two trains to pass at once. It was a strange-looking thing -- the thaumaturgic links that gave it strength were invisible, of course, and they gave the sense that the structure was not properly supported. But it was not possible to argue with the results: they put down the rail swiftly, and within the week the heavy bulk of the Adara was resting on the half-finished bridge, floating without complaint above the river far below.

"Damned odd thing," Grensmann remarked. "It'll hold, laddie?"

"It'll hold," Teo nodded.

"Long time coming, then. But gods, it's nice to be on the move again..."

After two months, they were finally dismantling the camp -- moving it across the river, plank by plank. They were all glad to see it go; Stockman spat on the foundations of the storehouse when they removed the last of the food. "Good bloody riddance, Kitten. I heard your otter friend say she's going to start surveying?"

"Tomorrow," Teo grinned. They had laid in more powder to begin tackling the trees, and the Adara was already across the river, ready to begin tearing up the earth. The Railroad was not to be stopped -- and really, how had they ever thought that it would be? Not by trees, not by rivers, not by arrows or fire.

They put the last of the supplies on the flatbed cars of the freight train, rather than carrying them by hand. Rescat Carregan decided to supervise the crossing from the cab of the locomotive, and at her urging Teo joined her. The engineer, an Iron Corps soldier, did not question their presence. Teo watched the steam gauges as the pressure built, licking his muzzle in anticipation.

Two bloody months! The engineer released the brakes, and the train began to move. Slowly, rolling forwards, past the remains of the palisade, past the sturdy iron pillars that cantilevered the bridge. Onto the smooth metal of the span itself, with the trusses slipping past to either side. Almost without ceremony the freight train slid forward, until they were on solid earth and the engineer began to brake again, pulling them smoothly to a halt in the new temporary camp.

"Well!" Rescat said. "There we are."

"What now?"

"Come along, come along... we have work to do."

The vixen did not bother with ladders; she hopped straight down, and made her way back towards the armored carriage that served as her office and quarters. Teo followed, and ducked in the open door. She had, he noticed, already penciled in the New Jarankyld line to her map of the Carregan Transcontinental System. "So -- oof!" Before he could finish, she had shoved him -- hard! -- down and into the bench. "Work?"

She rolled her eyes and leaned down to nip at his nose. "Don't play dumb, Teo." Her paws worked down his chest to where the buttons of his increasingly well-worn vest were still closed -- then popped them open quickly, like she might've torn open a musket cartridge. "Don't have time for you. To play. Dumb." By for you her fingers were threading the buttons of his trousers; by to play the fly was open, and by the last word her warm paw was fondling his crotch.

Teo had -- honestly at that -- told Allen Grensmann that his relationship with Rescat was entirely professional. This meant, chiefly, that he was forced to perform a new evaluation on the spur of the moment, and with the distraction of her slim fingers stroking the short, silky fur of his sheath. Their noses were touching, her amber eyes were focused with a hunter's precision on his own -- then she squeezed him, firmly, and he lost his focus.

Had to start again. Rescat's slim body pressed closer, forcing him back and into a bench that had not been designed for relaxation in the first place. Her breath was warm, and her lips were warmer still. She growled playfully when he kissed her, and the glint in her eye deepened. "Better," she drawled, and then locked her muzzle back to his, hungrily. Her fingers vanished; he felt her moving, shifting, and when his paws felt for her hips he found the coarse fabric of her uniform curiously absent.

The fur of her rear was soft over taut muscles, flexing under his fingers. Long months on the New Jarankyld Line had burned off most of the dog's baby fat, and his clothes no longer fit terribly well -- but he had nothing on the lanky Rescat, who was all lean muscle and well-kept fur over it. She might've weighed a hundred and ten pounds, soaking wet, and when she straddled him it was not a terribly uncomfortable weight to bear.

Her spread thighs pushed his stiff length up and through the downy, plush pelt -- then briefly ground him against a soft, inviting warmth that had them both growling. "Soaking wet," the dog decided, was not altogether an inaccurate description. The vixen pushed her hips into his, as her thick, brushy tail swayed against his paws. Their bodies met again and the tail jerked in a heavy wag. She was not wasting any time -- she never did. With a tooth-bared grin she dropped her hips down and they groaned together as he entered her, sinking smoothly into the hot embrace of her body.

A long second later she pulled herself from him, and then settled down once more, very slowly, letting him feel every slow inch pushing up and inside her. She squeezed about him, her muscles rippling over his throbbing shaft, and when he groaned again she grinned wider. Nosing past his cheek, she giggled into the dog's fuzzy ear, her voice light and teasing. "That was for helping Jarvr..."

Another smooth, easy revolution of her hips stroked his cock through the soft, heated pressure of the vixen's folds and he felt her shivering breath against his sensitive fur when she claimed him, filling herself with the rigid girth of the canine's length and breathing a satisfied sigh into the dog's folded ear. "And -- that?"

"That." She squirmed in his lap, nudging his cock up and inside her as she ground into his crotch. Then she bit down on his ear, which lent her moan a muffled urgency, and let it pass before continuing. "That was for your bridge..." And she began to ride him steadily, pumping her hips on the dog's cock in a steady pace that had her gasping with every penetration.

"And --"

"Shut up," she panted into his ear. "This is just -- because I've -- wanted to fuck you for a week now."

He managed a grunt in reply -- didn't count as talking -- and let her. His paws grasped the vixen's slender hips, guiding her onto him as she moved faster, her panting becoming shallower as she worked herself on him. She was tighter than Mey had been -- more athletic than the polecat, her every movement decisive and strong. The slippery walls of her cunny fluttered and pulsed around him as her quickening pace plunged him deep inside, enveloping the swelling bulge of his knot with a wet slurp that grew more pronounced every time she did it.

Her short, sharp claws fastened on his shoulders. He shuddered with that dangerous, predatory teasing and when he began to move with her, thrusting up to meet the vixen's insistent bucking he was answered with a sharper clench of her strong paws. She groaned his name under her breath, the sound of her voice all strained and thin. And again -- and again -- until it sounded like she was half pleading for him to take her. The vixen shivered, her tempo growing uneven as her legs tensed up. "Teo..."

Colonel -- Rescat -- "Ellea," he panted. Thin, feathery bursts of very raw, very carnal delight were starting to tense and tease the dog's brain. His thrusting became sharper as the need to knot his new lover grew stronger and it took more mental effort than all four years of university had to fight the urge back. "Ellea I -- careful -- going to -- tie if you --"

Her answer was a moan that immediately rendered further protests futile. Rescat's back arched and she rolled herself against his crotch, shifting the thick flesh as it grated against her tightening folds. She was built... differently than the polecat had been; the way her body squeezed and grasped at his canine length felt so much more natural. Teo growled and jerked his hips up, holding the vixen perched on his cock with that short thrust. He heard her gasp, and then a whimper close to his ear. Another thrust dragged another whimper from her and her thighs spasmed and quivered, trapping his hips between them.

He couldn't move. The vixen had him fast. He bucked upwards -- two or three times, no more before he heard her keening yelp, and her snug folds tightened further. The pressure on his knot was too much -- like it was forcing the release from him, the sweet, aching pleasure that radiated in pounding waves as he groaned and flooded her with his warm seed.

Rescat was out of focus as she lay panting on his chest, her ears flattened back and her tail finally coming to rest. "Teo," she muttered. "Hey?"

"Mmf?"

"Did you need that as much as I did?"

"Maybe." He was still fighting for his breath.

The vixen's giggle was lighthearted and a little surprising, coming from her. Not a sound he expected. "You know, the same busybodies who try to keep you from using magic tell you this is a sin, too..." Her claws, which were no longer piercing his shoulder, toyed with his thick pelt instead. "Gotta show 'em wrong..."

It was not entirely lost on him that his father had, in fact, done both. Clearly it was time to reevaluate such things. "Did we?"

"We got off to a good start." He felt something wet on his neck, and glanced from the corner of his eye. Rescat was lapping at him, grooming the dog's fur tenderly. "They call you Kitten, don't they?"

"Yeah..."

The licking halted, and was followed by an abrupt nip. "You're a dog, though. Collie?"

Not really. No tail. Ears slightly wrong. But who knew? "Somewhere back in my... my lineage..."

"Close enough. My dog..." She worked her hips in a slow, circling grind that reminded Teo pointedly of his still swollen knot. "My nice, big dog..." He sucked his breath in sharply as a jolt of heated pleasure plucked at his overstimulated shaft. "Yes? You like that?"

Teo could only groan, and since she faced no objections the vixen started in earnest, working him slowly until the dog began to thrust in gentle strokes to meet her. Their hips clashed wetly, and his knot tugged heavily against clenching, warm pressure -- still swollen and, it seemed, not going anywhere.

"You're still so hard," she snickered, wonderingly. "I bet we could get you off again if we tried, huh? Think you didn't get enough in me the first time..." And as she spoke her voice faltered, and he could feel the unsteadiness as her lithe body asserted its own urges. They worked together slowly towards that goal. His length slid and shifted and pushed up at her from deep inside, squelching through the mess they'd already made. The first time.

He couldn't resist her. She was so nice and hot around him, such a perfect, tight fit. He nipped right back at her, biting down on the vixen's raven-black ears and his arching, insistent thrusts grew sharper. Her paws stroked his sides and she moaned quietly as a perfectly matched counterpoint to his movements. Sin? What the hell was that. It was glorious, every heated second of it, beckoning him to lose control...

The dog's knot was hot and pulsing as he thrust his trapped cock into her with a maddening urgency. As his hips rose, lifting her from the bench the sensitive bulb bore most of her weight and shocks of smoldering delight seized his hips. There was a growing pressure, demanding -- he could see it rise like the twisting dial of a steam gauge. Close -- so close -- his paws quivering as he grabbed for the vixen's hips to hold her close.

Warmth in his ear. She was trying to speak. It took her a couple of attempts. "Are you going to fill me up again, Teo? I can feel how close you are..." she purred to him. His paws gripped harder and he hitched his hips desperately, letting her ride his final, giddy moments. "Go on... oh, that's it -- do it, Teo -- do it now! Teo!" she gasped a raspy bark to him as he shoved himself into her a final time and began pumping her full again. The vixen was wailing, biting fiercely at his shoulder to quiet herself as she squirmed in his lap, her rocking grinds forcing him deeper as his seed flowed into her in strong, hot spurts.

Her fur was knotted and bunched between his fingers; their bodies were locked together intimately and utterly. He forced himself to let her go, smoothed down her pelt. "Ah, Ellea..."

"More like it? God, Teo, you don't hold back, do you?"

"I... well... if you want the job done right..."

"Do you know..." She rolled her shoulders, and then looked up at him with a smirk. "We are going to make a very good team."