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The final leg of the New Jarankyld Line brings with it their most daunting challenge yet. Will they persevere? What will the young pup Teo do when he's forced to step up to the plate? Mysteries are answered and nature is tackled in the last chapter of our railroading epic!

_Foooooor theeey looked in the future, and what did they see? They saw an iron road running from the sea to the sea~ _

It's the final chapter of our railroad-building epic and everything comes to a head! Strange discoveries, stranger people, and always that forest there... Well! I'm damned if I'm not gonna finish a novel this year, so! Bring in the workers, and bring up the rails; we gotta lay down the tracks and tear up the trails! Thanks for sticking with me and, as always, thanks to Spudz and Max Coyote, on whom Casey Jones has nothing :3

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 5: "From the sea to the sea!"

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Long weeks of idleness and practice had, Teo discovered, produced another consequence for the workers of the New Jarankyld Line: they knew how to deal with the forest. Before the arrival of the Iron Corps engineers, and before Karri Ervakarri had begun to enchant their blasting powder, it had taken the better part of two hours to take a single tree down.

Now, as Teo watched, Major Gereo's engineers fanned out and tackled the trees two at a time -- working with expert precision to topple them and leaving Karri to convert them in his unsettling way to raw energy for his warped alembic.

"Report?"

"Er. Two miles," Teo told Dale Masseler, and was a little surprised by it himself. "Our third straight day of that."

The New Jarankyld Line was moving arrow-straight towards the far edge of the Dalrath. Behind them, the track was already laid, and the tall trees formed a dark green canyon that framed a sharp expanse of blue sky. Dale laughed with relief; the stag was in noticeably better spirits. "Not quite enough to count as making up time, is it?"

"Well, we're making it up, Mr. Masseler," corrected Allen Grensmann. "Just not yet on track."

"Yet!" Teo said. "The last train brought word that the first shipment of new powder should come down next week."

"Aye, the lad's right. An' according to Rescat -- well. Colonel? The Silcaster branch?"

The vixen frequently seemed bored by their meetings; now, she raised her eyes tiredly, and gestured to the map. A new line had been added, and thickened in black ink. "Done. We're waiting for rolling stock from the depot at Tinenfirth."

"Not Marrahurst?"

This, at least, got a smirk. "Have you seen your locomotives, Dale? I wouldn't trust them to pull children at a Tæn's Day festival, let alone proper freight rail. I've ordered new 885s from the Geovia Works. As soon as they get here we'll put them on the mainline, and send the old Olmors up to Silcaster."

"Is that so?"

She rolled her eyes, and stood. "Yes, Dale. It's 'so.' If you want to run a railroad, run a bloody railroad. You can't have it both ways. If you'll excuse me, I have actual work to do."

Dale Masseler watched her go, and groaned. "What are we getting ourselves into? I haven't seen the price for a new model 885 but it's not going to be cheap... I don't think they're even using those on the Meteor yet..." The Lodestone Meteor, which ran from Aernia's northwest peninsula all the way to Korlyda across the desert, was the pride of Carregan Transcontinental -- and always used their fastest engines.

"Well, if she can get them..." Allen trailed off; the otter seemed to have his doubts. "We'd been talking about ordering from Geovia for a long time -- the engineering is supposed to be top-notch."

"Yes... yes, I suppose so. And the... the rail? What do they call them? Ætorics? They're not exactly... small. Will the rail carry an 885?"

Teo nodded. "The rails will, yes. At least, south of Nattenleigh -- I would not want to run an Ætoric at speed on the older rail from Marrahurst. Everything we've done should be fine, though... fortunately the grades aren't so bad, and anyway Dr. Grensmann and I had already planned to overbuild slightly."

The stag snorted quietly. "Of course."

"You wanted her," Allen reminded him.

"I wanted soldiers," Dale Masseler countered. "I don't even want to know what our run rate is at this point. New locomotives -- sixty-pound rail! -- to say nothing of the consumables. Gods, Allen, the line owns a bloody powder factory now! Whose idea was that?"

The otter laughed, and gestured to their map. "Is the line getting built or not, director?"

"I suppose." His bottle of brandy had been refreshed, Teo noted, by a larger one -- and this was already a quarter empty. "She's dangerous, though. I think she's only happy at the head of a column. At least we won't need a new head of operations."

"Shame to lose Carol, all the same," Allen suggested. "Good lad."

"Good," Dale grunted, and poured himself a generous glass. "But ineffective. This wasn't a good first assignment for him -- bloody Ciswalth bloody Carregan, sending me his damned nephews..."

"Could've asked for somebody else."

"Hell I could." The stag sighed, and put a great effort into sipping his brandy slowly. "It wasn't as though anybody was about to volunteer for this line. Did you? Did Mr. Franklyn here? Ah, I'll just be happy when it's done; I suppose you're right, Allen, I shouldn't complain."

Teobas, for his part, was quite excited. On the far side of the canyon -- they still had no idea where the river went -- the terrain had smoothed out appreciably. The surveying work was easier; between the two, Kaen and Teo were charting a full mile ahead of Stockman and the Adara.

The otter had even begun permitting him to use the distance measurer; Teo did not think of himself as especially proficient, but he was getting better. The tool, with its intricate gears and beautiful lacquerwork, fascinated him. It had traveled many leagues from the Ishonko Mountains where the Otonichi made their home -- the Railroad did not yet run to that range.

Holding the warm metal in his paw, he could see that journey unfolding -- trade caravans and the reed boats that plied the river Sheyib; merchant ships from the Dominion of Tiurishk carrying their precious cargo to the fortress city of Korlyda and the Carregan Transcontinental terminus...

The continent was only as large, the dog thought, as the extent of its transportation, and only as weak as the strength of its motive power. The Railroad was its skeleton and its circulatory system together, giving the Iron Kingdom form -- broadening its reach to the far horizons of the desert and the rolling green Dalrath. Once, Castle Mirhall had been a month from Tabisthalia. Now it was only a week's journey, by rail to Marrahurst and Stanlira and then north-west along the coast of the White Sea.

What of tomorrow?

One careful step at a time they were bringing the earth to heel. He watched for the glint of Kaen's measuring stick through the sight of the clockwork measurer -- and then his head tilted curiously, for the dog was almost certain he had seen something else flickering in the polished glass. A hint of daylight, in the thick forest canopy...

Surely they could not be at the edge of the Dalrath already? "Two hundred thirty-one feet," he reported to Kaen, when he caught up to the otter. "Will you do me a favor? Am I imagining something, or is there a break in the trees to our south?"

Kaen looked rather skeptical, but she took the device back from him and held it up to her short muzzle. The magnification was not so great, but it must've been enough -- he could see her ears twitch softly. "You know. I rather think you're right, Teo..."

Colonel Carregan pursed her lips, when informed, and looked at her map skeptically. "There shouldn't be anything there. We're still a good long way from the plains. Unless..."

"Unless?"

She did not answer him. "Well, there's only one way to find out, isn't there?"

This way, as he might've anticipated, involved mustering a platoon of the Iron Corps. Between the well-armed soldiers, and the daylight both before and behind them, and the rhythmic sounds of work from the demolition crews at the railhead, Teo no longer found the woods particularly imposing.

A mile into the trees, and it was clear that they were facing an end to the unbroken forest cover. The patch of sky was significantly wider than the one the rail crews had forged -- but they could not see a horizon, only more green trees. They kept going, as the light brightened steadily, until they no longer needed the lanterns of the Iron Corps to see by. One more ridge greeted them, at a shallow slope; they climbed it without difficulty.

"Well," Teo said. "Kaen?"

"It's not on the map," the otter said, although this was hardly a surprise.

In front of them, broad daylight poured down on still, blue-green waters. The lake was of good size -- at least a mile across, where they faced it -- and it was still not anywhere on their charts. "What do we do now?"

"Find out what we're up against, I suppose," Kaen shrugged.

The lake seemed to be filling what had once been a valley. Steep banks sloped down to the rocky shore, at which waves lapped with a deceptively idyllic calm. It could've been anywhere in the Reach or the Gar Plateau. Reflecting, Teo supposed this was not as surprising as all that: the Dalrath was still Aernia, after all, and with the trees removed there was no reason that the underlying geology should be alien to them.

"Pretty," the dog said. The waters were remarkably clear; the sunlight of high noon pierced deep, leaving little shafts of light that wandered and danced. "Is this what Lake Peraford is like, I suppose?"

"Probably it was, before the city was founded -- awfully dirty, now. I suppose a South Coaster would be right at home here."

Teo grinned, and tried on his best South Coast accent. "Build little cabin, ya, and a boat for to do fishing."

"'Make,'" Kaen laughed. "'Boat for to make fishing.' Almost makes me wish I could swim. It's so clear..."

They followed the lake three miles upstream, to where it was fed by a calm river whose source lay somewhere back in the darkness. The river was too wide to be crossed safely; in any case, if they tarried much longer, they would lose the light before returning to the railhead camp.

By preliminary survey, though, the lake ran northeast to southwest, following the course of the valley and the river that carved it. It did not seem impossible that this, rather than the canyon they had bridged, was the Chirel's Tooth that led all the way to the city of New Jarankyld.

"Might as well follow it?" Teo suggested, as they walked back towards the camp.

"Might as well," Kaen agreed. "What's the worst that could happen?"

"We'll need to grade the valley, but..." the dog chuckled as he realized the absurdity of the situation. "That's going to be a lot faster than digging up more of those bloody trees, anyway."

It was slightly perturbing, that there was no trace of the lake in any of their old maps, but then the Dalrath was largely unsurveyed, and they were in uncharted territory. Its presence meant they could work in sunlight, at least, and when they visited it the next morning Karri pronounced the water to be clean and drinkable.

"Watering station!" Teo made a mark on their map; this, too, made their lives easier. Without the lake, they would've needed to find some way of transporting water up from the river -- and as interesting an engineering challenge as a three hundred foot vertical pump might've been, they were all just as happy to avoid the undertaking.

"Such an optimist," Kaen Wulyth smiled. "You've been in a good mood ever since we got over that canyon."

"You'd rather I not be?"

"No. It's refreshing. I guess I need someone to remind me every once in awhile. Nobody's like that up north."

"In Cebberside?"

The otter nodded. "It's just a short extension of the mainline, anyway. I've never had the chance to work on a big new project. I'll admit I..." She looked back, the way they had come, where the dark forest loomed. "When I first got here, I was pretty sure Lord Corwyck had tricked me. And... well. No offense, Teo, but..."

"But what?" He was still in a good mood; practically hopped from one stone to the next as they picked their way along the banks of the cold lake.

"Well. I know they were saying it was important at the branch office in Marrahurst, but it wasn't exactly like they had their best crew on this. Carol -- I mean... he's a nice boy, but he'd be out of his depth in a puddle of spilled milk. Director of operations? Gods. Cravern Garmery never met a bottle of wine he didn't like. Isn't Stockman heading the work crew? He got transferred away from my old branch."

"For?"

"There was some friction with the lord of the town nearest the rail depot. They caught him in bed with the lord's daughter."

"That's... not surprising..."

"And his wife. Minor scandal. Lady Keloch denied it, of course, but the child did not look like the lord."

That, really, was also not particularly surprising. "Which is why he's here?"

"That or prison," Kaen rolled her eyes. "And Allen is the head of railroad engineering?"

"He told me what happened..."

"Did he," she grunted. "Bastard should've been put on trial. Except I guess they felt sorry for him."

Teobas paused, turning and tilting his head at the otter. "For him?"

"Well." Kaen busied herself with scrawling a few notes, although the dog suspected this was not, actually, what was occupying her thoughts. "He's been estranged from his wife ever since Eberth died."

"Eberth?"

The otter shot him a dark look. "My husband. Eberth Grensmann. 'Told you what happened,' I see."

"Ah..." Teo flattened his ears back, and sighed. "Right."

"He didn't get the message when they reassigned him to a desk in Marrahurst. I think the miserable son of a..." trailing off, the otter took a deep breath and gritted her teeth. "Sorry. I think he... views this as some sort of opportunity for redemption. I guess. However that works."

"Perhaps. Maybe he didn't tell me as much as I think. It's difficult for him."

"Bloody well ought to be," she scowled. "Ah, I'm sorry -- it isn't your fault. I'm sure he's a good mentor for you."

She refused to continue the conversation, and although Teo was still slightly curious it didn't seem to be a productive use of his time to force her. Besides, they had other work to do -- prodding along the edges of the lake, where they intended to put the rail down. The earth seemed solid enough, and it would make the work much simpler.

In the deep Dalrath, the absence of light at the forest floor kept any vegetation at bay. Towards the edges of the forest, though, it grew thickly -- aided, Karri muttered, by the thaumaturgic energy soaking the rich earth. Making their way forward and towards the end of the lake, then, involved clearing the trail before them, and Rescat decided that this was a job for the Iron Corps.

A worn track -- probably a game trail, though Teo shuddered to think of what game was about -- wound its way deeper into the woods. As they followed it, they became aware of a dull roar like pounding surf. "Water," Kaen suggested. "A falls."

"Put a wheel on it?"

"Maybe a little too much optimism," the otter cautioned Teo. The noise grew louder and louder; soon, they had to shout to be heard for more than a few yards. Teo kept close to Rescat Carregan, matching her footsteps, until the vegetation abruptly thinned and they could see light again. Light, from the lake that was only a few hundred yards away -- for they had been circling. Light, shining hot and golden down --

"My god." It was the first time he had seen Rescat truly awed by something. Curious, Teo stepped up next to her -- and his jaw dropped.

Before them was a thick green valley, broken at intervals on the far side by sharp stone outcroppings. He thought at first of the river canyon they had explored by torchlight, but no -- these were not natural. The stone had obviously been carved. Carved, and set carefully in place by skilled hands.

It was abandoned, clearly, and overgrown; trees had begun to sink their roots into the masonry. But as he stared, the outlines became apparent. The stone took the form of a great wall, bounding the valley, disappearing off into the darkness of the woods further downriver. It was massive, greater than anything he had seen in Marrahurst or Arrengate.

"Corporal K'nErta," Rescat murmured. "You're from the March, aren't you?"

"Aye..." The corporal, too, was hushed, and Teo had to strain to hear him over the roar of falling water. "Er... yes, ma'am..."

"How tall is the Iron Pale?"

"Forty feet, south of Balsilfer," the collie answered. Like Teo he was staring at the monumental works that lay before them. The Iron Pale, which guarded against the desert wastes to the east, formed the most imposing fortifications anywhere in the Empire. It was a thing of legend -- a massive bulwark, its size unmatched.

What they now saw was taller three or four times over. Half in shadow, at the valley floor, Teo could just make out a gate -- its iron forced open and rusting. It must've been twenty feet high, and it was dwarfed by stonework above it. Even now, even in ruin, the dog could imagine it in its heyday: the greatest city in the West, rivaling all but Tabisthalia -- and maybe that, too.

"Jarankyld," Rescat Carregan breathed. "This is Jarankyld..."

"Eltar Jaran," K'nErta echoed. "Ons Steynstethur. This was ours, once..."

They gazed on what had been the pride of the borderlanders, the martial clans who had staked their claim to the heath and the valleys well beyond the reach of the Iron Throne. It was why they saw themselves as equals to the Aultlands; its loss, Teo recalled from his history lessons, had provoked the war of the Second Concord that had secured the independence of the March.

Even now they had not let its memory go. Teo knew of the K'nShaffer marching song from stories set on the Pale. Tol Jar'n an Tavistal, they sang -- to Jaran and Tabisthalia, we pledge ourselves -- though there had been no Jarankyld to pledge to for centuries. "Are there maps of it?" the dog asked.

"No. It's nearly all legend." K'nErta swallowed heavily, and when Teo glanced over he could see that the collie's eyes were damp. "When the Jarnkylders fled, they didn't take much with them. In the songs, it's... walls the size of the Gull Cliffs, and streets forty feet wide, paved in marble... but I never thought..."

"Hell with the Gull Cliffs," Rescat shook her head. "Men built those walls, corporal. Your ancestors..."

When they descended a little, they could see the source of the deafening tumult: a huge dam, taller than the stone of the city walls, impounded the lake. Its bulk had been supplemented by a thick tangle of trees and debris, and water charged through the felled logs to tumble in great, gushing arcs two hundred feet to the floor below.

"We could cross, I think," Rescat said, turning back to the party. "But not without reinforcements. Miss Wulyth; Teo -- get as much information as you can. We'll need to find a way to get the rail down to the valley floor, I guess. I don't want to rush you, but..."

But the city, despite the light that filtered down and picked out the carvings and towers of its abandoned walls, had an eerie quiet that none of them trusted. Teo was grateful for Corporal K'nErta's presence at his side as he paced the game trail, taking hasty estimates of the grade with Kaen Wulyth's help.

"Never seen anything like that..." She had added five full pages of sketches to her notebook, and she showed them to Teo on the walk back to the railhead. "Did you see the towers?"

"I think..."

Her thumb tapped one of her drawings. "At least another forty feet over the walls. You forget how long the borderlanders have been practicing fortifications."

"Strange to realize it was so long ago. When they left the city behind, nobody even had any idea what a railroad would be..."

"I think that game trail follows the old wagon tracks. There's that sharp turn we found. Switchback, I believe. They must've used it to get up to the river's level. It's not much use for us, though..."

That was true. They would have to lose all two hundred feet of elevation by the time they cleared the Dalrath. The lake stood at the foothills that commanded a broad valley with sloping, gentler walls. The river was sedate, and slow; Teo recalled that Sam Stockman had described Jarankyld as having farms to rival anything in modern Aernia. "I'm not so terribly worried. Trestlework, at worst, but we can probably reinforce these walls."

"I've heard that before. And look, Dr. Grensmann's back at camp; there's a surprise."

He quirked an ear at her bitterness. "You mean..."

"Useless old man," she snorted.

"When the accident happened, he wasn't even there?"

"Wasn't even bloody there." The otter scowled deeply. "Should've been; we both should've been. I was in the next town, trying to negotiate for supplies. Eberth was managing the camp. First job of his own. But... car'gal'th, Teo..."

There was nothing the dog could do to comfort her; with her eyes dark and her ears pinned, she stalked her way back into the camp. He went to the wagon that served as their office, to make his report to Masseler and Grensmann; Rescat was already there.

"-- soon as possible," the vixen was saying. "But it's secondary for us. First has to be getting the rail down."

Masseler nodded. The stag's interest was keen. "By the end of the week, perhaps? I suppose it's not likely we'd find anything, colonel?"

"No," she told him. "Not really."

"All the same, we can't pass up the opportunity. Mr. Franklyn, you agree it's worth exploring the city, don't you?"

He glanced back and forth between the two. "There's certainly some history, I suppose, although... to be honest, sir, it's well overgrown and I expect whatever there was of value there was looted a long, long time ago."

"Not like the savages seem to know much of value," the stag countered. "In any case, you won't know until you find out. I appreciate that you're going to call it a military decision, colonel, but I'm certain Walth would agree that, having discovered Jarankyld..."

"Yes," she growled unhappily. "I am inclined to grant your supposition. But the railroad first. Teo?"

"By our estimates, it's two hundred and seven feet of elevation change from the lakeshore to the valley. We won't know until we scout further how quickly we can descend, but... we can grade it the same as we did the hills back at Mirhall. To be honest, sir, it's going to be easier than the work we've done already."

"I like hearing that," Dale chuckled. "We seem to be in a good rhythm."

By the week's end the railhead had reached the shore of the lake, curving gently to follow the course of the water. While Stockman's gangs set about clearing the trees before them, Carregan ordered the Iron Corps to put up a new palisade adjoining the dam. From it, they could see down to the valley below, and back along the still waters of what they had come to think of as Lake Jaran.

Day by day, as they brought the trees down, light spread further into the old city. Now they could see the remains of its buildings: the towering arch of a great temple, with the carvings to the goddess Seolva still legible along its edge. A half-collapsed belltower that K'nErta declared must have been from the city rathaus, and Stockman agreed. "Family lore says, Kitten," Samhal reminded him, "my ancestors 'ave bones buried there."

"That's a pretty remarkable legacy."

"Don't you forget it," the bear said. As with Corporal K'nErta it seemed to be more solemn than a prideful boast; they were all reminded that, as great as Jarankyld had once been, the town had still fallen. Its legacy was not the din of busy smithies, or the studious hush of learned men in stately universities, or the shouting clamor of a full marketplace -- it was thick green trees, steadily reclaiming a city's hubris, and the ruins of abandoned machinery.

Finally, when they'd blasted a track a quarter of the way down the slope of the hillside, Rescat Carregan decided they could spare the men to investigate further. While the Iron Corps moved the railroad camp forward, she led a party over the gnarled trees of the dam and down the slopes of the far side to the moss-matted river bottom. Now the dog could see that the dam was made of huge granite blocks, fitted together absolutely perfectly -- along its whole height he found only two visible seams, and even one of these he doubted.

Fallen trees had stopped the floodgate on the city's side of the dam, but through the overgrowth he could still make out the outlines. It had been twenty feet across; beneath it were the ruins of a complicated set of waterwheels and gears. Two hundred feet of falling water -- driving the city's forges, and its grindstones, and who knew what else? He was aware of nothing like it anywhere else in the Empire.

Up close, the city walls were at least as staggering as the dam -- maybe more so, for they were much longer. Standing next to the stone, Teo found his vision filled and his voice muffled. It was like nothing he had ever seen -- nearly a religious experience, to think of the effort that had gone into its construction. "It's hard to believe that anyone could build this..."

"No." Rescat ran her paw along the stone, smoothing down the moss with the pads of her long fingers. "It's hard to believe that anyone could give it up." But her black ears, too, had swiveled back, and Teobas thought that she also found the dead city close to overwhelming.

To their surprise, whatever had befallen the city had left it largely unmolested. The hinges of the wooden doors were long since rusted, and the doors were rotting -- but most of them were closed. It did not matter; nothing had spared the buildings their decay. Through cracked and broken windows Teo saw overgrown furniture, and shelves of books reduced to moldy ruin.

Officially, they were trying to create a map of Jarankyld. Teo and Kaen paced it as well as they could. The streets were not forty feet wide, nor of marble -- yet they had been living streets, once, and the clammy emptiness sent chills down the dog's spine as his booted feet trod the cracked and broken stone.

The center of the city was dominated by what remained of the rathaus. Its belltower had split and half-collapsed; the bronze-covered spire had fallen through the roof and the bell, overgrown with thick vines, would clearly never ring again. But by the rows of windows they could count the floors: five stories, the great hall had once risen over the town. He thought of how he had placed his fingers on the tree in the Dalrath, and seen its history unveiling itself before him.

Resting his paw on the wall of the rathaus, he could feel the same electric tingling -- the same sense that his fingers grasped a story that was centuries in the telling. He could hear the great bell tolling, summoning the townspeople to hear the address of the king, or to the temple, or to the market on a soft fall morning when the crops were coming in...

It must've rung for the last time, he realized, when the city fell. One final, desperate clamor as they were overcome. Perhaps the bellringer had stayed until the end; perhaps that was when the tower had collapsed. Teobas did not think of himself as particularly superstitious, but he decided that Jarankyld was a place of ghosts -- and best left to them.

"Look at this..." Kaen called softly. They all spoke with the quiet of visitors to a temple. The city walls had muffled its waterfall to background noise.

Before the rathaus stood a bronze statue. Judging by its crown, the figure must've been the city's ruler, or its patron god. The feline's features were softened and mute beneath the verdigris; only the golden crown, and the silver blade of the sword it grasped, were untouched.

On its pedestal, some artisan long ago had carved a message. Teo could make out only enough of the letters to decide that it was in Low Aernian, which he could not read. He ran his fingers along the weathered granite, and sighed heavily.

"Vendar dash unta tegemal isk, Arthel, fals stethur har tedinachs." The dog turned to see Corporal K'nErta standing behind him. "'Until the end of time I, Arthel, defend this city.'"

"Arthel?"

"A... an old deity." The collie sighed as well. Swallowing, he stepped forward, and he stretched out his arm to lay a gloved paw on the statue's knee. "I think that he is what you would call Yrrdal. God of the woods."

"But that's in Low Aernian, right?"

"Yes. They still teach it, in schools in the borderlands. So we don't forget."

The sword was half-drawn from its bronze scabbard: the green patina seemed to add its own coda to the story. I was not drawn in time, it said; bear witness. Teo shook his head, although it was hard to banish the statue entirely from his site as they resumed their surveying.

What bothered him most, he thought, was the crown. It was intricately worked, just like any proper king's crown would've been. And in the centuries since its residents had fled Jarankyld, there had been no one to appreciate it; no one to reflect on the skill that had gone into its manufacture and craft. Arthel had watched, mute, the slow creep of decay that denied utterly the mind and ability of civilization.

"A warning," Rescat agreed. "This whole thing is a damned memorial. Sorry, corporal, but I'll be glad to get out of here."

"We'll come back one day, ma'am," the collie promised. "We've never, ever forgotten."

Kaen and Teo were taking notes on what looked to have been a grain mill when they both heard a muted sound from the hills to their east. "Was that --"

"Everyone get back here, right bloody now!" Rescat's voice sounded urgent; Teo nearly left his notebook behind in his haste. They were the last of the surveying party to join her, back at the town square -- they were also the only ones unarmed, and the soldiers with them all had their rifles unslung.

"That was a bugle, wasn't it?" Teo asked.

"Yes. We're going back. You all stay damned close -- corporal, if you see anything I want it dead, immediately. We're not making friends, here." They heard the bugle again, and then the unmistakeable sound of distant gunfire. "Move!"

The sounds were overwhelmed by the roar of the waterfall, but the dog strained his ears for anything -- the barest trace that could provide a clue as to what had happened. Rescat leapt from ledge to ledge with the skill of a mountain goat and the haste of wildfire; it was all the others could do to keep up, and twice Teo had to put out his paw to grasp Kaen and keep her from sliding back down the hill.

On the far side she came to a sudden stop, and held up her paw to bring the rest of the Iron Corps to a halt as well. The gunfire, so near as any of them could tell, had ceased. Her ears were on a constant, alert swivel though, and Teo tried to do the same.

Nothing.

"Colonel Carregan!"

"Major?"

Major Maristhea emerged from the underbrush, shaking his head. "We've got it under control now, sir." The tiger brushed the dirt from his grey uniform. "I think."

"I presume you're going to tell me what 'it,' is," Carregan asked, in a dangerous growl.

"An ambush. Sir. They hit the civilian supply wagons."

The vixen's brushy tail twitched, and Teo watched her eyes narrow as she bit back an oath he was very grateful not to be on the receiving end of. "How? This area is supposed to be secure."

"They came out of the trees, sir. We returned fire, but -- they just -- they were only here for a few seconds. Unleashed a barrage of arrows, and disappeared again."

"Casualties?"

The tiger frowned, and gestured back towards the way he had come. Teo and Kaen brought up the rear -- thus it was that he heard the vixen mutter an extremely profane word beneath her breath some long seconds before he could see the reason for it.

Dale Masseler, Fourth Baron Corwyck, was slumped against the wall of the wagon that served as the line's headquarters. In the more tawdry of the novels that he had read, Teo occasionally saw the dead described as though they were sleeping -- here, there could be no doubt. The stag had been pinned by the arrow that was punched through his chest; his neatly tailored vest was stained crimson, and his eyes were open, staring blankly.

"Eight of the workers, as well," Major Maristhea added. "Three more are... badly injured. As is Dr. Grensmann."

Teo froze. "How -- what --"

"Steady, Teo," Rescat murmured. "What happened?"

"Arrows -- those bloody arrows. Grensmann... got on the wrong side of a mule they shot. The doctors are tending to all of them, but..."

"Will he live?" Teo asked.

"I don't know."

"It's a simple question. 'Yes' or 'no,'" the dog shot back. "You have to have some idea."

"As I said, the doctors are tending to them..."

They would not let Teo into the medical tent; he was left to pace outside, his ears back and a growl bubbling low in his throat. Kaen Wulyth approached, although she stayed out of his path. "Teo?"

"I don't even -- how could -- not that you bloody mind..."

"It's not that simple," the otter tried. "I..."

Pausing, he whirled on his heel. "How 'not simple' is it? You hate the damned man."

"Well, it... it is a bit of cosmic justice," she admitted. "When he finally takes responsibility and comes to where the work's actually being done..."

Teo gritted his teeth. It was true that Allen had been rather hands-off; mostly, he had allowed the dog to do what he wanted, and to roam where he pleased. Before Kaen's appearance Teo had been responsible for most of the surveying, while Allen stayed behind to organize their maps and to plan out their route from the highest level.

But he had been a voice of wisdom, and an invaluable resource. Teo thought back to seeing him for the first time -- the paunchy otter popping his fried fish into his mouth, looking over the untested dog with a keen engineer's eye. I don't care about freestanding bloody arches, laddie...

So what if he didn't...

The dog stopped in mid-pace.

Allen Grensmann was only half-conscious when they finally let Teo into the tent. The doctor shrugged, when Teo asked for the man's prognosis. "I've done what I can. He's full of Tæb's Compound; at least he's not in any pain."

"'Ell I'm not," the otter mumbled. "'Ello, lad."

"Dr. Grensmann..." Teo squeezed his eyes shut, to keep the tears at bay. It was impossible for him to look too long on the old man, aged decades more by the medicine that had sapped his strength. "I'm sorry I wasn't here..."

"Shouldn't be," Allen managed a wan smile. "Ach, but it didn't seem to go well for anybody who was..."

"Mr. Masseler is..."

"I know. Telcur Albenard, too, from Stockman's crew... Ægengil Gara... saw it with my own eyes an' cor, laddie, but I wish I hadn't..." He took a deep breath. "Bound to happen..."

"It shouldn't be as bad as all that, sir," Teo tried to reassure him. "They'll be able to help you, I'm sure."

The otter shut his eyes. "Maybe," he sighed. "I don't suppose it matters. Might as well be here as any place..."

"Dr. Grensmann?" the dog asked, gently. Allen didn't look as bad as Teo had feared, but he worried, still, for the man's sake. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Aye, of course..."

"I... I spoke to Kaen about... what happened. To her husband. I... I didn't know that... well... who he was..."

"Didn't matter." Allen had opened his eyes again; they looked with drained weariness on the young dog. "Still doesn't..."

"It was an accident. A slide, in bad weather." When the otter nodded, Teo flicked his ears and forced himself to continue. "But you weren't there. You couldn't have made any decisions about positioning their camp. That would've been the responsibility of the worksite supervisor."

"That doesn't matter, either," he said -- insistent; fighting the weakness in his voice.

"It would've been the responsibility of the worksite supervisor," Teo repeated. "Eberth, not you. A board of inquiry would've agreed. You were managing the whole line -- his crew, and I'm sure there were others. You couldn't have known. But the man on site should've. He never should've put his men where they could be vulnerable like that -- if not a slide than a flash flood, or Æmer only knows what... even I know not to set up camp on low ground."

"Then what?" Allen's voice was so soft that Teo had to bend to hear him, and to quirk his ears to filter out any other sounds. "See the blame fall on my own son? With a new wife... widowed..."

And as the son of one of the Railroad's leading engineers there would've been questions raised about how Eberth Grensmann had been given authority at such a young age. Teo could not imagine the torment Allen had faced. "You let everyone think it was your fault. For his memory... for Kaen... but... but Dr. Grensmann, it's not fair -- the things people say about you..."

"I managed. And now it... it's been too long. It doesn't matter..."

"Does anyone... know?"

"Dale. He let me cancel the inquiry. He let me take the office in Marrahurst. Mr. Franklyn -- Teo, laddie... gods, but I'm tired... and if I take this to the grave... well, so... so be it..."

"But your wife... your daughter-in-law..."

"It's..." For a long, uncomfortable time he pondered his words. "It's easier for Kaen this way."

Teo shook his head fiercely, although the otter's eyes had closed again. "It's not. She hasn't gotten past it. She hates you, Dr. Grensmann, and it's not fair to either of you -- one of these days she'll guess the truth -- it's not hard -- and then what? You have to tell her."

"She wouldn't listen anyway. Headstrong... always was... ah, Teo... Teo I need to... to rest... for a spell, laddie. I..." His next breath was slow, and shuddering. "It should've been easier for us..."

"Easier?"

"I wanted to go to... to be... I... I thought that he..."

"What do you mean? Sir?"

But Grensmann did not answer.

Teo sat at the otter's side in vigil for the better part of two hours; when he finally decided that Allen was not going to wake, he left to find the Iron Corps doing what they did best -- putting up wooden palisades and staking out a reinforced perimeter. Rescat was in council with her direct reports; they looked profoundly glum.

"Not to kill," the vixen growled, finishing whatever order she had been giving. "Am I clear?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Scouting," Rescat explained to Teo, as she rolled up her map. "Find out where in the five hells they came from. And wherever it is, burn the goddamned thing to the ground. How is Dr. Grensmann?"

"Sleeping. I... I don't know. He's not dead yet."

"With luck, he'll stay that way. He's a strong man -- stronger than the others give him credit for."

"I know." For he did, in a way that even Rescat did not.

"With Dr. Grensmann indisposed, Carol gone and Dale... well. The civilian side of this project needs a new head. I'd ask Layleigh or Stockman, but Lara's a bit of a technician and Stockman..."

"Has his hands full," Teo offered.

"Yes. So you're it. Ready?"

No, in all probability, he was not -- but he could not very well decline. "I... suppose. Yes."

"Good. Now, until we have a better idea of where they are, we'll have to make our stand here. Tell Sam I need his help reinforcing the perimeter."

The bear was drunk, and angry -- both in quantities proportional to his huge frame. Rescat repeated her desire, which did absolutely nothing to calm him down. "Fuck you," he spat. "Where was your bloody Iron Corps? What are they up to? You and your bloody perimeters. I've had it up to --"

"We'll take care of this, Sam, I promise you," Rescat tried a tactful approach that did not seem destined for much success. "All the same, I --"

"I said fuck you, railroad bitch. Kitten, I swear to the gods..."

"What do you want to do, then?" Teo's question bordered on the rhetorical -- Sam had no sense of strategy, no more than the dog did.

"Kill every last bloody one of them -- an' that doesn't happen behind a fucking ditch." He shouted the last four words right in Rescat's face, rising to the worst of an ursine roar by the oath that ended it; the vixen set her jaw, and brushed her muzzle clean. "Colonel," he spat, at a more tempered volume. "Eight of my men are dead. Kasser Paria -- Steri have mercy! If we showed men half the decency we show horses they'd let me put Kasser down -- and you think..."

"I think that if I could bring you their pelts, I'd skin them for you myself, Sam, but we don't know where they are and we won't know until the scouts come back. If they attack us again, what are we going to do? What's to keep them at bay?"

His anger notwithstanding, Rescat's logic was unassailable, and Sam backed down -- hesitantly. "But you will go after them?"

"Yes."

"You'll make them pay?"

"Nothing less."

"I won't wait forever," he warned, and then shoved his canteen into Teo's paw. "Make sure she keeps her word, Kitten."

He slung it over his shoulder, and watched the bear amble off to rally what was left of his crew. "Will you?"

"The Railroad does not give up or give in," she reminded him of what he already knew; already believed. "Certainly not to savages. We just need a bit of luck..."

The bit of luck came the next morning. Attacks in the night had not injured anyone, but no one had been able to sleep. Rescat and Teo walked the edge of the palisade; there were not many places where it could easily be strengthened, but they would have to try. Sam Stockman glowered -- clearly, it had already been too long for his tastes.

Teo was in the midst of explaining what would need to be done when shouting announced the arrival of a scouting party. He would not have noticed otherwise; the soldiers trod with the softness of grey ghosts. As they approached, though, he saw that they were burdened: the leading grenadier had one of the natives slung over his shoulder, and the man behind him had his rifle leveled at the creature's head.

Her muzzle was bound tightly, as were her wrists. The soldier carrying her dumped the thing unceremoniously to the ground, where she struggled and fought her way to a seated position. Her huge eyes glared daggers at them. "Got lucky."

"Lucky, hmm?" Rescat walked around the girl in a slow circle, and Teo took the opportunity to observe as well. She had lustrous, tawny fur -- shielded by a poorly tailored hide tunic and a hide skirt tied loosely about her waist. By the stripes, Teo suspected that the hide had come from one of the natives' terrifying mounts. "Who got lucky? You or her?"

"Both, sir. Clipped a branch with our rifle and she lost her balance. We pinned her before she could get away."

"Armed?"

One of the other soldiers stepped forward, holding up a bow and a sharp bone dagger. When Rescat took the knife to examine it, the native girl kicked sharply and growled back in her slim throat. Rescat turned the knife over and over in her paws, and then handed it to Teo.

This did not make their captive any happier; rather uncomfortably, he felt her eyes boring a hole in him. The dagger was sharp, and came to a needle point; he would not have been surprised to find it tipped with some sort of poison. Carvings worked their way all along the hilt -- he couldn't tell what. But as he turned the weapon over, the silver ring on his finger brushed it, and he felt a sharp jolt. "Huh. It's charmed..."

"Is it, then?" Rescat asked, and held out her paw. He handed it back to her. "Well, well... so it is. What do you have going on with this, little one?" she bent down to stare into the native girl's eyes, and received a hateful glare in return. "Probably a rudimentary enchantment, but you never can tell. I'll have Karri take a look. For now, I suppose we need to find out what to do with this one. Do we have a spare car we can outfit as a cell?"

"Perhaps, sir," the soldier turned, looking toward the camp. "Maybe one of the supply wagons."

"Could give her to me," Stockman drawled. "Me and my men would take very good care of her."

Rescat shot the bear a look. "The hell you would."

"Only one way to find out." His voice was very dark. "Just hand it over."

"I don't think so. Corporal, she stays in my wagon -- bound, and under guard. Sergeant Anguld will oversee that -- not you or your men. Nobody is to touch her -- nobody is to look at her without my authorization. Is that clear?"

"At least we'd put her to good use."

"Shut up, Stockman," the vixen snapped. "Corporal -- is that clear?"

"Yes, sir."

Sergeant Anguld, her fur still a startling white and her uniform still impossibly black, arrived at Rescat's carriage fifteen minutes later; Karri Ervakarri followed shortly thereafter. The ermine looked at their captive, and then turned to Rescat, her head tilting. "What's this?"

"One of the forest folk," the vixen answered. She, too, was still investigating the native girl, whose feistiness had not ebbed. Eyes narrowed -- they blazed with such fire that Teo thought, at times, that it was physically painful. Was that possible? Could that be done magically? "Karri, have a look at this..."

The panther took the knife with a grunt. "I see."

"Charmed?"

"Indeed. Blade is..." he trailed off, trying to recall some word while his thick tail swayed and jerked. "Haanaparuva sumanin jovik huistaari?"

"If I spoke Pala, I wouldn't need you, dear," Rescat reminded him.

"Yes, mistress," the ebony feline agreed. "Meaning is... mm. Metal or glass, yes? Is normal." He pressed the blade up against the windowpane, dragging it down with a grating screech. "But to living things, or once-living, then is he paravik sumanin." When he touched the knife to the wooden table it sank in smoothly, with no resistance.

"Lovely," she grumbled. Watching her weapon so abused, the native was kicking against her restraints, hissing and yowling from behind the gag that had her silenced. "Karri, you'll do us another favor, won't you?"

"Of course, mistress," he said with a bow, and handed the knife back to her. "Anything."

"Teach this one the Iron Tongue, will you?"

Karri smiled, his lips parting just enough to show a hint of his glowing fangs. The forest girl's eyes widened as the panther approached, although the bindings kept her from escaping him. Even behind the fabric that muzzled her Teo could hear the girl's scream as the saman's paw grasped her cheek. Karri hissed, and keened a quiet spell in his native tongue; there was a sizzling flash that ran down along his fingers and traced the outlines of the girl's ears -- then she jerked, and her head lolled aimlessly.

"You haven't killed her, have you?"

"No, mistress..."

"Then what in the name of the gods..."

Karri Ervarkarri turned to look at Sergeant Anguld, who had spoken. The contrast between his fur and hers was as stark as the difference in their voices. The panther laughed; his purr was guttural and coarse. "Not good it is, to have a secret tongue," he teased the ermine. "No secrets here..."

"Of course not."

"Weyren thi hwet be æft hultoppe sen," the panther hissed. Anguld's eyes went wide, and she took a step back, away from the mage. "She wakes again soon, mistress," Karri turned his attention back to Rescat. "I remove this?" With permission, he untied the strip of fabric that had the native's muzzle sealed.

"Hello," the vixen drawled, when the girl's eyes had opened again. In its calm fashion the voice was almost as terrifying as Karri's had been. "Welcome to the headquarters of the New Jarankyld Line. I know that you can understand me. What is your name?"

"How do you... how do you know my tongue?"

With exaggerated patience, Rescat squatted before the strange-looking creature, whose huge round ears abruptly flattened. "Your name is not 'How do you know my tongue.' What is it?"

"But -- how --"

"Do you need an example? What's your name?" She looked over her shoulder at the dog.

"Teobas Franklyn?"

"See, look at that. Maybe another? I am Rescat Carregan, daughter of Gea Sergid, Lady Altarc and Aryst Carregan. I am a Lieutenant Colonel in the Iron Corps, which means that if it isn't me who kills you, it will be one of my men. Am I clearer now? What is your name?"

"Kilahirmassalpinga Aumih. Daughter of Sungwirraban Juthravaruket, of the Lengalabar tribe."

"That's a good first step. Now, I don't have time to call you that. Pick a new one."

"Aum Ung..."

"Good. So you can be cooperative. Now, Aum Ung, I suppose you'll also tell us what's going on, hmm?" When this didn't draw an immediate answer, the vixen curled her lip slightly, like a feral dog. "You natives aren't very intelligent, are you? I'm going to have to explain everything? Fine. Why did you kill eight of my men? Civilians, I should add -- unarmed civilians. What exactly was that about?"

Aum Ung swallowed nervously. "You..."

This word was followed by several seconds of silence, which proved to be several seconds too long for Rescat. "Yes. Me. I'm glad you've mastered pronouns. Karri is a good teacher. Does he have to teach you another lesson?" She cast a glance back at the panther, who smiled thinly, and unsheathed his claws.

"You come into the woods... you tear up the trees with your metal animals... disturb the balance of the worldsong... you have something with you, something terrible -- we can hear it shrieking in our dreams..."

"And arrows are... a productive means of dealing with this, for your kind?"

"We want you to go..."

"That's more like it." Rescat stood up. "At least you're being honest. Now, the problem for you is that we're not going to go. I don't have a problem with you barbarians. Not in principle, at least. Do you, Sergeant Anguld?" The ermine shook her head. "Teo?"

"No..."

"Karri?"

"Simple-minded fools," the panther rumbled. "Two-legged animals. Not know what they do. Not know what they can do. Their blood is sweet. Better to eat than to --"

"Ignore Karri," Rescat cut him off, when she decided that the saman had gone on long enough. "He's Pala. Do you know the Pala? They're from the woods, too."

"Better woods," he amended. "Our woods. Not to live like beasts, in filthy dens. Ouvasepäri nëvikana honovissa. Ouva --"

"He has strong feelings about this," the vixen allowed. "Stronger than mine. But you see, the rest of us don't mind you. We'd be very happy to leave you in peace -- but that's not good enough for you, is it?"

The native looked between Karri, whose smile had yet to vanish, and Rescat. "It's not yours..."

"Of course it is. It was our kind who founded that city out there -- you know, the one you destroyed?"

"Sick place," Aum Ung spat hotly. "They dug things out of the ground... cut the earth with their blades... we punished them. They didn't belong -- you don't belong. The gods will not forgive you. The trees will not forgive you. You're going to be made to pay. You... you..."

Rescat was glaring. "I, I," she echoed, "will be the judge of that -- thank you. We are going to put a railroad through these trees. It is not good to come between me and my goals. So what do you suppose? Will you leave us be, or is there going to have to be more bloodshed?"

"If you leave..."

"Oh, for god's sake. When I said we are going to put a railroad, did you hear that phrased as a bloody conditional? Did you hear me say we're going to put a railroad, if I beg permission from every rotten tree in the Dalrath?"

"Don't insult them. They hear. They know. They --"

"Burn very well, is what they do. Would you care to recall how the last battle went, between your people and mine? Battle, I mean -- not massacring a wagon full of unarmed people -- do you recall how it went? Shall I tell you a story about what happened?"

"There are more of us," Aum Ung said. She had a long tail, and she curved it around her front protectively. It waved, like the swaying of a cobra. "More of us than you know."

"Sergeant Anguld... did that sound like a threat, to you?"

"Perhaps, ma'am."

"So you won't be cooperating. That's a little unfortunate. I thought after that last lesson..." She took a deep breath, and shrugged, as though nothing of particular consequence had happened. "Very well. Very well, miss Aum Ung. I suppose it's time for us to move to the next stage of our relationship, isn't it?"

"Next... stage?"

"In which you tell me what your tribe is planning, and in return I spare your life."

"Why... why would I care about that? I'll be avenged -- even if you kill me, I'll be avenged. And be reborn -- or... or didn't you know that, sunlover? The trees protect us. They will always protect us."

This had Rescat's attention; the vixen listened carefully. Teo watched the white tip of her tail start to wave, and a smile spread across her ruddy muzzle. "Is that so. Karri... Karri, it sounds like she's talking about something beyond even your knowledge..."

"Yes, mistress," the feline was forced to admit. "Even the Pala do not know this. To separate the essence from the flesh... to see it reborn anew... strange. Haseiravik sumanin..." Was he... impressed? Perhaps he saw it merely as a boast; Teo found it difficult to judge the saman's moods, even when he was not speaking in his native tongue.

"Intriguing. But one would need to have retained one's... essence, wouldn't one?"

"Of course, mistress," he agreed.

Rescat turned, and examined the map on her wall. By her estimation, and Teo's, they were only fifteen or sixteen leagues from the edge of the Dalrath. Well over halfway -- the smooth edges of the lake had helped, and the skill of the Iron Corps demolition crews. Perhaps this was what had angered the natives so...

He didn't know what Rescat was looking for. But at last she turned; the anger and the steely superiority were gone from her voice. It was level, and matter-of-fact. "So. I know if I were to turn you over to my soldiers they would suggest torture. But I don't think that torture works particularly well, and I'm not all that interested in trying to find out. We can agree to that, can't we?"

Aum Ung flattened her ears, and looked slightly puzzled by the question. "Yes..."

"Good. Then here's what we're going to do instead. I'm going to ask you one more time -- very nicely. And if you don't tell me what I want to hear, Karri is going to kill you." The panther grinned at this suggestion; his fangs glittered a brilliant blue. "Karri, how is Tavak?"

His ebony paw slipped into his cloak to produce the warped alembic. It seemed to mold to his grasp; the jet stone practically vanished into his palm. "Tavak... hungers, mistress." Now that he was holding the sculpture the glow of his teeth had brightened, and his slit-pupiled eyes were lit from within.

Aum Ung went rigid -- her tail jerked and coiled tighter, and despite the restraints she tried to pull away. "You -- wouldn't!"

"No, no, he would. Please try to be more precise with your language, Aum Ung; it's about to be important for you. He very, very definitely would -- if I gave him the order to. So let us try this one more time. What is your tribe planning?"

The native girl was starting to pant quickly -- hyperventilating, the tip of her long tail twitching as her eyes fixed with wide terror on the panther, who took a threatening step closer. "I -- please -- you can't!"

Rescat shrugged. "Well, so much for that. Kill her."

With an unearthly, atavistic snarl, the panther pounced on her with jaws wide. Teo saw the alembic flare brightly between his fingers as he pressed it to her side. Aum Ung screamed, a piercing shriek as chilling as anything Teo had ever heard -- keening, desperate: "no! No, please, I'll talk! I'll talk! Get it off me!"

"Karri," Rescat snapped, and when that didn't immediately bring him to heel the vixen grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, hauling him back. Instantly her voice was calm again: "You heard her. It just took a bit of time for her to see reason, that's all. Now... go on..."

Aum Ung had frozen, save for her chattering muzzle. "H-h-h-he -- no..."

"Karri is calm now. Are you calm, Karri?"

Karri was standing on his own feet, and he slipped Tavak back into his robes. "Yes, mistress."

"For now. I told you I don't like torture," the vixen said. "And this certainly counts as it, so I won't pull him back a second time if you don't cooperate. You were about to tell me about some fascinating schemes..."

"We... we attack... we -- " She gulped for breath and, realizing that her stammering was not endearing her to the vixen, began again. "We will attack. Your camp. Our home -- our home is just downriver. You won't see it until it's -- until it's too late -- and then -- then we will kill you. All of you. You can't stop us."

"That's rather optimistic," Rescat smirked. "Isn't it?"

"Not just us... it's not just us. Not anymore. After -- after that... th-that... thing..." She stared at Karri's robes, and Teo remembered what Rescat had said about the nature of the warped alembic to alert the thaumaturgically sensitive to its presence. "Other tribes, too. They s-summoned a meeting, two days ago... they are agreed for war..."

Rescat sighed. "I sort of suspected that."

"You won't stop. You won't leave us alone. Not until we show you..."

"Show us?"

"The city. We can leave the trees too, sunlover. We will destroy it. That was our mistake, before... before, we left some of you alive... that mistake... that mistake we won't make again. I saw it with my own eyes..."

"You're just barely old enough to hold that bow," Rescat scoffed. "What do you know about that?"

"She's been reborn," Teo realized, aloud. It followed logically from what she had said, after all. "Dozens of times, maybe. Maybe they're as old as the trees..."

"We are... the forest... and it is us... and if all of you are dead, you will never come back to bother us. When we raze that city, then you'll have no reason to come here. You can hide behind your walls like everyone else -- where you belong -- in the light..."

The vixen stepped back, releasing her hold on Karri to stare at the bound native girl. "You think you could destroy New Jarankyld? You can't have more than a few thousand under arms -- how do you plan to attack a fortress like that?"

"I won't tell --"

"Karri?"

"The old city!" Aum Ung yelped. "The old city below the falls, please, no -- keep him away from me... whatever you do, keep him away from me..."

"What about the old city?"

"There were... there were hundreds of thousands of them there. More, maybe. Still are -- in the crypts... in the... in the ground where we put them... afterwards... if we go in the singing caves you made for their bodies we can hear them... hear their bones..."

For only the second time he saw Rescat speechless. The vixen blinked; her dark ears fluttered as what the native was saying sunk in. "My god..."

Sergeant Anguld, too, was horrorstruck. "Does she mean..."

"The river," Rescat faltered, slower to recover than Teo had ever seen her. "Does the river run to the sea?"

"I don't know --" Aum Ung saw the vixen glance to Karri, and she shook her head fiercely. "I don't know -- by the trees I swear I don't know, I don't know --"

"We have to get word to the city," Rescat was thinking on her feet, and Teobas could almost see her building up steam, like a locomotive. "There has to be some way to warn them. We're not far from the edge of the forest. Greta, we need a boat -- a dugout canoe; anything. Major Gereo can help. She's the head of the engineering company."

"You want me to try the river, then."

"Yes. It flows southwest, at least; it's something. Head out at once."

Rescat was asking her to test the black woods without a map -- alone. Much as he trusted the vixen, Teo would not have challenged the river with a full division of the Iron Corps and the brightest torches in all the world -- knowing what he knew now. Greta closed her eyes, and nodded. "Anur æft netduellen," she dipped her head -- and made for the door.

"You can't stop us." Aum Ung was not boasting; Karri's presence seemed to be keeping that in check. "There's nothing you can do..."

"Watch me. Karri, keep an eye on this damned thing -- if she resists, do what you want with her."

"Yes, mistress..." He bared his fangs. "Will she... 'resist,' mistress?"

"I'm not sure I even care. Teo."

"Colonel?"

She shoved the door open and hoped down from it without taking the steps. He followed, pulling the wagon door closed. "We need to find out where they're hiding. You're going to come with me. Just the two of us."

"Why... me?"

"Because I need your eyes. And I need my best men here."

"But I'm... I'm just a --"

"You're not just anything, Teo. If you were just anything, you'd still be a schoolboy tagging at Allen Grensmann's heels. You're the head of this project -- this is not the time to be doubting." And, her stony gaze flickering, she grinned for a moment. "Do I look like I'm doubting?"

Happiest at the head of a column. But the man who had accused her of that was dead -- his caution had not helped him any. "Let's go, then."

"They'll be expecting us," she shook her head. "My only hope is that they'll be expecting us in force -- and making a lot of noise."

Rescat, with a soldier's training, moved without a sound -- slipping from tree, to rock, to tree again. When they left the trail she became a shadow in the darkness; he had to follow her by hearing as much as anything else. Around them, the forest was impossibly silent. His ears strained, but all Teo could make out was the whisper of Carregan's footfalls and the burble of the river off to their right.

Then the footfalls stopped, and he stopped with them. They had descended to the riverbank.

"Teo." She spoke so softly that her voice was almost a thought, rather than a word. "Do you feel that?"

Nothing seemed out of place -- nothing but the quiet; even the running water was muffled. They had only been gone for a few hours, but already he missed the sound of the camp. Lara Layleigh did not know how lucky she was, to have the engine of the Adara for comfort. "No... what?"

"That ring I gave you. Do you have it?"

"Yes."

"The ground... feel the ground, Teo..."

Spreading out his fingers, he pressed his paw into the yielding loam -- and could almost swear that he felt something pressing back. He tried to recall everything he'd said, and practiced -- turning the sparks and light whispers of touch and sensation into something tangible. Rescat was right: there was something strange about the air around them.

If he concentrated, it became visible. He could see, in ghostly outlines, the way that the river caressed the boulders in its midst -- the eddies rendered as frothing, boiling wisps of pale white. He could see the roots of the trees, sinking into the earth in search of treasure as surely as the mines of his homeland. He could see... tracks, the fading echoes of great beasts that had walked the riverbank in recent memory. Pawprints the size of a wagon-wheel -- no doubt the strange, striped monsters that the forest-folk had tamed.

It was as though he had needed his vision to adjust -- now it was all becoming clearer. The Dalrath was permeated with the electric heat of the earth's magic. The shapes of squat mushrooms, clustering near the river's edge. The brighter glow of Lace of Jana, here and there, clinging to the rocks. Blind spiders, their movements slow and careful as they quested for prey. Falling dust, glowing like snowflakes. But why?

He followed the path that the dust was taking, and gasped.

Above them a city sprawled, its walkways and buildings glowing softly with the charms that kept them suspended. Dark shapes moved with a silent purpose -- the city's inhabitants, two hundred feet above their heads. Dozens of buildings, perched in the thick branches of the trees or hanging like hornets' nests. "Rescat... look up..."

Layers upon tangled layers of rope bridges bound it all together in a dense maze his eyes could barely follow. The treetop city stretched between a dozen trees in the river valley. For being savages, it was a staggering sight -- as complicated and as imposing as anything he had seen in the West. Nearly as large as Jarankyld had been -- and aloft. "We would never have seen that," the vixen breathed, echoing Aum Ung's words. "Until it was too late. How many of them are there?"

"I can't count," Teo shook his head. Hundreds, at least; possibly thousands. "It goes up all the way into the treetops..." The construct was too complicated for him to understand -- wrapping in upon itself, with bridges that seemed to lead in every direction. The impression he had was of an ant colony, and of an internal order that defied their comprehension.

More walkways ran from the trees to the forest floor. Squinting, he saw wooden gates hacked into the valley walls -- the animal tracks were thicker there. Stables, he thought. Now that he focused, he could see a few of the huge beasts... grazing? Feeding, in any case, at heavy troughs. He did not want to know what they ate, or where the natives got the food from.

"We need to get back." Rescat tore herself away from the sky city with an effort. "This place, I don't... I don't even know."

Closer to the camp, he felt it was safe to raise his voice again. "How are we going to... what are we going to do about that?"

"I don't know," she said again. "I have to say, Teo, I was... I was not expecting that."

"The engineering required is..."

"Magic, mostly." She laughed; it was a quiet, knowing snort. "I told you it had potential, didn't I?"

"How will we get past it?"

The next thing he knew she was asking that question, and it was being posed to her direct reports. Major Maristhea rubbed at his neck uncomfortably; the tiger looked about as happy as Teo felt. "How large is it, again?"

"A dozen trees," Teo said. "Interconnected. It's about as high above as the valley walls."

"We could fire on them from there, then," Major Silvaarch suggested. "Put the Darveleigh batteries on the level and rake them with it."

"Nine guns against a city?" Rescat asked -- rhetorically. "Even with the Wismere rockets we'd be overwhelmed as soon as we ran out of ammunition -- and probably before. How do you propose to get the guns set up without being detected?"

"What about mining? Major Gereo," Teo tugged the name from his memory; he'd never spoken to the woman, a mongrel canine, before. "Could you take down the trees with blasting powder? Like we've been doing to clear a path for the railbed?"

"It would take even more work to move the crews into position than it would to set up the repeaters," she declared morosely. "A dozen trees? I'd need two days -- without being shot at and, ma'am, I have to imagine that's not likely?"

"No," the vixen agreed. "It's not."

"If you fight then, you'll have to deal with their... beast things, too," Teobas pointed out. "They keep them on the ground. I saw at least a dozen, but I'm sure that wasn't all. They'll turn them loose in an instant."

"We need heavy artillery," Major Silvaarch concluded. "Bring it down from the garrison at Marrahurst -- borrow what we can from the King's Own Army. Overwhelming force." From the looks that the otter received, the others seemed to agree with him.

Only it wasn't an option. "We don't have the time. That's at least a week, and probably two; they'll move on New Jarankyld before then. According to our prisoner, they..." Rescat furrowed her brow; even for her, the suggestion was difficult. "They mean to raise the city's dead. All of them."

Silvaarch stiffened. "To... fight?"

"Yes."

"Selat..." Gereo's ears flattened, and she mouthed a quiet prayer.

"I've never seen it done. I don't know what it would look like. Even as a distraction, even as fodder for the town garrison they could overwhelm what's at New Jarankyld -- particularly if the town was caught unawares. I've sent warning ahead, and I'm optimistic -- but I have to operate under the assumption that the warning won't make it."

"But... the dead..."

"Corporal K'nErta says that according to lore the catacombs hold two centuries of Jarankylders."

Major Silvaarch finally broke the silence that Rescat's comment had brought. "The catacombs? They'd have to get to the city first, then."

She nodded to the otter. "Yes, Arn. At least, as far as I can tell."

"We could fortify the old town, in that case. The walls will hold. If we send for reinforcements..."

"We're three hundred soldiers and half as many civilians against four tribes of these miserable bastards. Nine repeaters, a handful of rockets -- Major Silvaarch, that city fell to a siege once, with defenders who knew its strengths and weaknesses. We could hold it, yes. For a day? Two?"

"And with the specter of them raising up a bloody army beneath us." Gereo looked haunted, herself. "We can save ourselves, but..."

"We are the Iron Corps," Carregan reminded her -- reminded all of them. "We may die, but we do not give up. We certainly don't give up without a plan." Quiet greeted the vixen. "This is basic strategy. Attack them where they're weak, with the fullest extent of our ability. Well, you're the fullest extent of my goddamned ability -- so where are they weak?"

"Where they aren't." Teobas was the one to answer. The dog was beginning to see something, a half-formed idea in his brain -- like watching the patterns slowly resolving in the darkness. Strike quickly and powerfully, and then disappear, Arstois had told him. Like a bolt of lightning. Like the fury of a thunderstorm, set on the folly of anyone who would set up camp in a valley. "Here."

"What?"

They were all staring at him. Teo licked his dry lips. Swallowed. "We attack them... here. We blow the dam."

"I don't --"

"He's right." Rescat cut Major Maristhea off before the tiger could finish. "Their fortification may be well built, but it's not going to stand to having a lake dropped on it. Major Gereo, can we do it?"

"I..." The canine woman shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe, yes."

"Put a team together. You, Foreman Stockman, your men -- as much powder as we can move on foot. Thirty minutes. Major Maristhea, Major Silvaarch -- protect the civilians. Get the train ready to move and send it back to the last depot. Beyond that, you'll need to buy us time here at your palisade."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Teo, you're coming with."

He had known that this would be the case. "Of course..."

Before he did, though, he made his way back and into the camp. Dr. Grensmann was still asleep; the attending nurse would not speculate on his condition except to say that he did not think the otter was near death. Thusly buoyed, he picked his way through the chaos of the evacuation until he found Kaen Wulyth, helping to load one of the train cars.

"Kaen."

"Teo?"

"Colonel Carregan is putting an expedition together. I... I don't know how well it'll go."

"They told us to get out. The wounded, and as many of the civilians as they could put on the freight train..." She looked him over, uncertain of what to say. "I... I wish you the best of luck."

"Thanks." He put on the best smile he could manage. "I'm sure it'll be fine. I trust the colonel. But I... before I go, I wanted to tell you something."

"Yeah?"

"I... I don't know when Allen is going to wake up. But... you need to talk to him." Her face hardened, and he shook his head strongly. "No. You do. Tell him... tell him he needs to tell you the truth. And... and that if he doesn't, I will. When I'm back."

"The truth?"

"It's about --"

"Teo! We're going!"

"Truth?" Kaen repeated, her head tilting further to the side.

"Talk to him," the dog insisted -- then Carregan was shouting for him again, and he ducked away from the otter. He had to trust Allen. The old man had been carrying the weight for too long -- and... and it wasn't that difficult. Perhaps Kaen Wulyth already knew, even, only... only he couldn't take that chance.

Rescat had brought together twenty men, half of them civilians from Stockman's gang. The bear must have explained their mission already, because none of them showed the faintest hint of regret or hesitation. Major Gereo was handing out packs stuffed full of powder cylinders. Teo took the one he was given, grunting at the weight -- but he could do it, he told himself. If he had come this far...

It took an hour to cross the dam, with their burdens -- carefully feeling their way from fallen log to fallen log. Another hour to descend the far side; all the while, Rescat kept glancing back to the rim of the valley where the camp lay. It was only a matter of time; they knew that -- Teo, too, was waiting for the sound of a bugle.

"Where?" Rescat demanded of Major Gereo.

"I need to think." Her tail was tucked between her legs, and in truth Teo couldn't blame her. The dam was nearly two hundred feet tall -- solid stone, formed in an arch that pressed it snug to the walls of the valley. On the Jarankyld side, the stone joined up against a shorter extension of the city's walls below the ruins of the old machinery. "The spillway, but..."

The spillway, which must once have supplemented the floodgates above the machinery, was on the other side. It was possible to cross the base of the dam -- just -- but the path up to the spillway had long ago been eroded away, and the gate itself was filled with dirt and debris. Only a trickle of water made its way through. "We can't get there, not in time. Pick another option, major."

"I don't know. Colonel, that dam must be forty feet thick."

"The city wall." Sam Stockman pointed with his huge paw to where the dam joined a smaller line of defensive works that was, itself, attached to the principle fortifications of the city. Once upon a time it had caught the runoff from the city's waterwheels, but centuries of neglect and a landslide or two had filled in the pond; now it held back the valley as a retaining wall. This wall was only twenty feet high, but the granite blocks were joined to the structure of the dam, and Teo saw the vulnerability as well. "You can't damage the stone itself, maybe, but we've had lots of practice taking out the earth beneath it."

"True... it'd be damn weak in tension," Gereo thought aloud. "We could do that."

"Get to it, then," Rescat ordered.

Stockman's men had brought shovels. Teo used his paws -- scrabbling at the thick earth, clearing away what the shovels turned up as they sought the foundations of the retaining wall. The sound of gunfire ringing from across the valley brought them up short -- then they dug in again with a renewed, frantic energy.

"Mr. Stockman..."

"It ought to be deeper," the bear panted back to Rescat. "We've just found the base, I think -- need more time..."

"You don't have it. How long will it take to set the explosives?"

Sam hauled himself out of the hole, and looked at the pile they'd brought with them. "Ten minutes."

Now Teo could hear the quick rattle of a Darveleigh gun firing. He shuddered to think of what must've been at the palisades -- how many of them? Hundreds? Thousands? "We can't wait any longer, then," the vixen was saying. "This'll have to do."

"I can take care of it." Stockman looked at the hole they'd dug -- to his men, fur smeared and stained with dirt and grime. "Get out. All of you."

"What? We can help you." Teo was protesting by reflex.

"No you can't. Kitten, you don't know anything about blasting powder. Ma'am -- colonel -- get your people out of here while you still have the time for it. Mine too -- they don't deserve this. I can do it. Let me."

The vixen looked him over; looked to the pit. Nodded. "Alright. Karri's charmed this. It's directional, I think, the --"

"I know. Been working with the bastard since you brought him 'ere. I've got it. Please. Move."

"Give us half an hour to get to the top." She dug into her uniform, and pulled out a pocket watch. Glanced at it, and then tossed it to him. "Four forty-five."

"On the dot. Of course."

"Let's go!" Rescat barked. "Leave your packs -- we need to be quick! Godspeed, Mr. Stockman."

"Sam..."

Stockman clapped him on the shoulder. "Five thousand, nine hundred, and seventy feet, Kitten," the bear grinned. "What's a few more? Get running -- don't think your girlfriend'll wait..."

Teo wanted to answer -- but the bear was right; the team was already making their way up the slope. He had to sprint to catch them, using his paws to grab for the scraggly trees that clung to the valley walls. With no attention to safety they raced back across the dam; even Rescat was out of breath when there was soft earth under their boots again. "Major Gereo -- you have a watch?"

"Four forty," the dog gasped.

A runner met them -- the hare that Teo had seen before. "Colonel. Major Maristhea reports that we've held them for now, but the Darveleigh battery is down to its last magazines and Ostleigh's rockets are spent."

"It's all or nothing now, anyway," Rescat told him. "I hope your man is good for his word, Teo..."

"So do I." He swallowed, to think of the bear -- how often the dog had bristled at his coarse language, or the name-calling. But they had respected each-other, in the end. Kitten. It hadn't been such a bad nickname...

"Four forty-five."

"Cover!"

They dropped, and Teo found himself counting seconds. Fifteen went by. Thirty. A minute.

The ground shuddered, and a second later there was a deafening explosion -- a great, terrible spray of dirt and rock geysered up, in fantastic silhouette against the late-afternoon sky. Even where they were -- on the far wall, two hundred feet up -- they could feel the flung pebbles pelting them.

Rescat stood, then, and Teo stood with her.

A great hole yawned black and gaping beneath the retaining wall. They watched as the wall cracked, and split. Little was stronger than stone under compression -- the great blocks pressed snug to one another, so that the pressure locked them into place. But now, without a foundation, the wall was pulling itself apart. First one block tumbled into the pit that had been blown in the earth -- then another, and another.

For reasons Teo could not divine the builders of Jarankyld had tied the wall to the dam -- the stone that bore the weight of the water leaned on the wall, too, for support. Now that support was gone, and the far edge of the dam began to sag. The granite slid forward. Jets of water sprayed from between the widening gaps, forcing them wider still.

Mortally wounded, the stonework died in slow motion drawn out by its size. The blocks that made up the dam were fifteen feet tall and twice as wide; rushing water tossed them like dice. Rescat's muzzle was open -- she was shouting -- but they could hear nothing at all over the roar of water. He had to clamp his paws over his ears, and even then the rolling thunder filled his brain.

Half the dam abruptly tumbled -- now the draining lake was scouring the valley wall, a churning brown torrent that swept aside all resistance. For a few minutes the city walls of Jarankyld held against the flood, but the water was blasting out the earth from beneath it. First the corner crumbled away -- then the rest of it. He had one final glimpse of the rathaus before it was consumed, and he found himself thinking for a final time of Samhal Stockman's story: a hundred thousand swarming barbarians storming the town, overwhelming the last of her defenders.

Inexorable. The water clashed against granite walls that could do nothing to resist it. Before their eyes the city of Jarankyld vanished. Then the water was racing onwards, pouring into the valley. The flood passed beyond their sight, but even over the din of the torrent he could make out the cracking boom of impacts -- debris, carried by the waters, slamming into the trees of the valley.

A new shaft of light burst down onto the forest floor -- spreading wider, as though the sun was forcing open the forest canopy just like the water had claimed the old dam. A tree had been uprooted, twisting as it fell-- briefly holding the deluge back until it was carried forward on the surging current. More followed, and the bright blue sky forced a wider opening -- a great chisel, forced by three hundred billion gallons of water.

They had to communicate by written notes. No more attackers challenged the palisade, according to the runner; Rescat went forward anyway, to make sure there were no weak points they had missed. Teo remained on the hillside, captivated by what they had done. The lake was not shrinking at a visible rate, but he could see where the banks had once been: their rail, which had been at the water's edge, was now ten feet above it. Then fifteen. Then twenty.

Sunset -- the first sunset he had seen in the Dalrath -- turned the massive waterfall to the molten, hot yellow of metal in a blast furnace. It was four hours before the flow had begun to ebb, and two more before it had stopped completely. Artem, the smaller moon, rose slowly over the valley, joined by a consort of stars that dawned in the weakening light: purple at first, then indigo, then the gentle velvet black that Teo remembered from school in the little town of Cotting Chase.

"I'll send scouts forward," someone next to him said; he turned to find Rescat watching with him. "But by the looks of it, it's washed a path clear down to the edge of the forest. I don't think the Lengalabar tribe is going to be giving us much trouble..."

"They'll be back, though, won't they? They are the trees..."

"I suppose. Cheeky bastards."

"What happened to Aum Ung? Did Karri..."

"Eat her? No," Rescat smirked. "She's... under guard."

"But he... does..."

"I don't know everything the Pala do. Some of it is... well. It's unconventional."

Of everything that was a mystery to him, Karri's loyalty was one of the greatest. "But you keep him around. And he... follows you. He could destroy you, I guess -- all of us?"

"Probably."

"Why doesn't he leave?"

"Not everyone in my family appreciates thaumaturgy the way I do," the vixen answered; it wasn't a clear explanation, but she opened her muzzle to continue. "His order are mercenaries. Someone had ordered them to destroy a depot out towards the Dominion. It was one of my first excursions beyond our border... I saw what had been done to the buildings -- reduced to... to sand, to microscopic pieces... such a strange, elemental force of destruction!"

"That you wanted to know more about?"

Rescat shrugged. "I was a young girl, at the time; curious about a lot of things. You know, though, it seemed to me that -- like fire, or flood, or storm -- it seemed to me that whatever it was that they used must also have had some creative power, too."

"So you... sought them out?"

"No. We captured them. Or... the Iron Corps did, anyway. They had orders to execute them. There were four, and they killed three. The last one, they captured trying to escape -- pulled him from a boat on the harbor. I got there just as the firing squad was getting ready..." She laughed, as if in disbelief at her own memory. "I put myself in front of him, and I told them to stand down. The firing squad! Here was I was, some eleven year old girl, and I was... shouting to these soldiers, telling them to put their weapons away. I might be young, but..."

Teo understood: "but you're still a Carregan. They listened."

"My mother was furious. But I promised that... well. I promised I would go into the Iron Corps, when it was time, rather than contesting ownership of the Railroad. That's tidier. It's what I wanted, anyway; the boardroom is so tedious. The soldiers thought I wanted Karri for a servant. Everyone did! The first time I was alone with him, he asked me what I wanted. If I wanted to see him dance, or to make my sheets... instead, I gave him his robes back, and I told him to teach me everything he knew."

"Sixty years worth?"

She nodded. "I'm still learning. He is, too. Reincarnation, for one -- that's an interesting trick."

"If only it was like that for us," Teo sighed. He was thinking of Dale Masseler, and of Allen Grensmann slumped quietly on the ground, and of Samhal Stockman. "It's not been easy..."

The vixen took his paw, and rubbed it gently with her thumb. "It often isn't. We pay a toll in blood for the Railroad. I'm sure I will, one day. A lot of good men. Some mediocre ones, but a lot of damned good men. Your friend Stockman was one of the good ones."

"He was," Teo smiled sadly. "I'll miss him."

"Fuckin' bet you will," growled a voice from the darkness below them. A moment later, a shadowy bulk limped into view. "Just. Fuckin'. Bet. Yer probably pickin' over my things already..."

Teo blinked in surprise -- not that he could see anything anyway. "Sam?"

"Hey, Kitten." Rescat held up her arm, and the beam of her lantern struck the bear full in the face. He growled, and waved it away with his massive paw. "Car'gal'th, watch where you point that bloody thing."

"Mr. Stockman!" The vixen, to her credit, seemed as happy as Teo. "How did you --"

"'Cause I fuckin' do that for a job, that's why. Bloody -- what, you think I'd trust you lot to finish this line? Lara fuckin' Layleigh? The ruddy Iron Corps? My arse." But he was grinning, Teo could see in the moonlight. "'Fraid your watch didn't make it, colonel."

"I'll take the trade," she laughed. "Did you get up the hillside, then?"

"Well, I can't swim... Followed you up that trail, but... figured I couldn't make it across the dam in time. Turns out I was right. As it was, half the hill gave way when the dam went; wrenched my wrist somethin' bad trying to keep from falling in. Was anyone hurt over here?"

"No. Everyone here's fine, Sam," Teo reassured him. "All your men, too. The palisade held."

"Thank the gods. Was worth it, then... was all worth it..."

"How'd you get across?"

"Anybody can, now, Kitten. Bunch of debris is caught on what's left of the dam. If you're quick, you don't hardly even have to get your feet wet. Can't see it now, but in the morning..."

In the morning, the lake had completely vanished. So, too, had Jarankyld. The pink light of sunrise stretched the shadows of the broken wall out and over the gentle hillside -- now thickly covered in mud, and scattered debris. No buildings remained -- only, here and there, a few scattered stones of the old wall.

With the trees gone, though, they could see the valley itself for the first time. Gentle -- perfect farmland. By midmorning, the whole of it was bathed in warm light. "Must've been so lush, once..."

"Will be again. One day. Maybe not now," Rescat amended. "But one day."

Jarankyld had, after all, been ideally located. Between it and the sea looked to be nothing but flat plains. Behind it, further inland, were the hills and canyons of the inner Dalrath -- thus the dam and its staggering power, enough for a hundred factories. A gateway to the forest -- whose victory, Teo observed, had been short indeed.

Even with his arm in a sling Sam Stockman was a force to be reckoned with. Under the brilliant sun they forged onward, guiding the railroad down to the valley floor. The flood had cleared the way for them. There was no trace of the treetop fortress -- they had not heard the last of the forest folk, Teo felt certain, if they were indeed reborn, but none dared show their presence now to the men and women of the New Jarankyld Line.

There was nothing that could stand in their way. With the Adara's coalbox stoked to blazing heat, they put down two and sometimes three miles a day. It was not the trees that held them up, now, but their supplies -- gravel for the railbed, and crossties, and spikes. "Hell of a crisis, Kitten," Stockman grinned. "Shame it's not the kind of problem you can tackle with blasting powder -- you must be at your wit's end!"

And Teo grinned back.

They stopped only once, for a trestle -- it was easier than detouring the line, and they had the wood for it. Two weeks later they were on their way again -- and every time Teo looked, at the end of the day, the trees seemed to be getting thinner and thinner. It was hard to believe -- but then... "It is," Rescat laughed, and hugged the fuzzy dog tightly. "You're right. It's the bloody horizon!"

The river was the Chirel's Tooth; Greta Anguld met them, at a farm near the forest's edge, with maps of the plains beyond. She'd warned the city, the ermine said -- but not a day later a roiling brown flood had swollen the river, carrying all sorts of debris, and the city elders had guessed what had transpired. "Fourteen leagues," the sergeant smiled. "That way..."

The city walls of New Jarankyld were a pale imitation of its namesake -- barely forty feet, and much of the city sprawled beyond them. Still, it was plain on the horizon -- a sharp outline beneath the rising smoke of chimneys and factories and forges. Half of Jarnshire, it seemed, was turning out to greet them -- watching the work with great curiosity, and pestering them with questions. How far had they come? Was it true that they had found the old city, buried in the forest? Was it safe?

How long did it take for a train to get from Tinenfirth to New Jarankyld? "Months," Teo chuckled to the inquisitive youngster who had posed the question -- a farm boy, no older than twelve. "Takes months."

"Only the first time," Rescat Carregan rolled her eyes. The city gates were barely a mile away. "When it's done, you'll be able to get from Tabisthalia to New Jarankyld in less than a week."

"You mean I could visit? I could really go there?"

"You could go anywhere," Teo agreed, and meant it.

The next person he found himself before was not a child, or a farmer. A tall lion with a vibrant mane faced him; the perfect stitching of his clothing jarred Teo into remembering that he was wearing a spare Iron Corps jacket and coarse denim pants -- that, apart from a dip in the Chirel's Tooth, he had not bathed in weeks. And then he discovered that the man did not care. "It's been a very, very long time coming," the lion said.

Rescat Carregan smiled. "Too long, I know."

"Well, it's in the past now." His accent was unfamiliar -- a bit of the March; a bit of the South Coast. Not unfriendly. "I am Ruglache, Duke of Jarn; this is her Grace the Duchess of Jarn," he gestured with his paw towards the lioness beside him, whose dress was if anything even more fine.

Teo looked to Rescat just in time to see her curtsey, and was grateful that the occasion called for him to smile -- it gave him a good way to hide his astonishment. "Colonel Rescat Carregan, of the Iron Corps. This here is the civilian director of works on the New Jarankyld Line."

"Teobas Franklyn, your Grace," Teo said with a bow.

"Welcome, all of you," the duchess smiled. "You've come at harvest time -- there will be a celebration in your honor, of course."

Teo had considered Lord Rulwen's feast at Castle Mirhall sumptuous, an evaluation which lasted only until the first course at New Jarankyld. They were in the great hall -- as large as the rathaus of the old city had been, with polished marble floors and towering sculpted columns lifted straight from a temple of the Reach. No piercing fiddle -- instead, the Duke of Jarn had produced a string quartet, and soft background music washed over the feast. Stately and quiet, it left the railroad men bemused.

So did the spread of food: prepared by chefs as fine as any in Arrengate. The meat of succulent young cows, and cheeses aged to exquisite fineness. Fresh bread that was so much better than what Garmery had given them Teo nearly cried out when he bit into it for the first time. Crisp vegetables, and sweet dried fruits from the Empire's holdings in Dhamishaya to the south. All of marvelous: all of it fit for a king's coronation.

Or a triumphal procession for the conquerors of the very earth.

It was difficult to imagine how far he'd come, the dog thought, and sipped liberally at his wineglass. From Castle Mirhall; from the quiet halls of the Carregan headquarters in Marrahurst. Through the hills, through the plains, through the valleys of Perashire and the great forest -- Dalrath! He'd found that word terrifying -- once. And now it was behind them. If he closed his eyes he could see a map in his head -- the continent, clad securely in iron rail. From Tinenfirth to New Jarankyld -- from the sea to the sea!

So much had changed! As his fingers danced to the sound of violins, Teo looked around the room. The Duke of Jarn had cornered Corporal K'nErta -- he could hear the collie recounting all that they'd seen in the old city, spinning a grand adventure that scarcely needed embellishment. A half-dozen soldiers, still in uniform, bantered with the Duke's guards, who followed whatever was being fed them with rapt attention. Karri Ervakarri, very out of place in his robes, looked rather overwhelmed. He was facing down questions from the duchess and a younger lioness who must've been her daughter, and they both seemed to find the foreigner of exceptional interest.

By the wine barrels, Cravern Garmery was gesticulating wildly to a bemused servant, too drunk or too Raghish to be understood. Finally he served himself, downed half the glass at once, and went back for seconds. At a table in a quiet corner, Allen Grensmann sat across from Kaen Wulyth: the two otters were talking, over digestifs and slices of Jarnshire cheese, and he saw the older man flash a smile. Sam Stockman had his paw on the hip of a comely squirrel, whose heavy tail flicked with her bright giggling.

Well, not everything had changed.

Rescat was nowhere to be seen, although he knew where he would find her. Sure enough, she was back at the railhead, which was almost entirely deserted. A few Iron Corps soldiers stood watch; from the ease with which they carried themselves, Teo suspected it was mostly because they had not wanted to attend the feast in the first place. Nobody challenged his approach. Rescat was leaning on an empty flatcar, looking up and into the night sky.

"Don't like chamber music?" he asked the vixen.

She snickered. "Hate all those damn... celebrations and ceremonies. Waste of time..."

"Director Masseler said you were only happy at the head of a column."

Her smirk was telling. "You think that's true?"

"It might be..."

"It is," she corrected. "It'll be that way for you too, soon enough. These people, with their parties and their pomp... ah, there's so much to be done!"

And he knew what she meant. Not that there were chores to be finished -- floors to be mopped or socks to be mended or food to be cooked. She meant that there were horizons to be chased -- new rails to be laid, new frontiers to be opened, and new paths to be trod for the first time. "Up there?" The vixen's muzzle still pointed skyward.

"Maybe. You ever read stories about the World Before, Teo?"

"Sometimes."

Above them, Artem and Jana were at play -- Artem had nearly caught up to her larger sister; in a few days, the moons would be overlapping. "The most fantastic story I ever heard was that back in the World Before, once, men walked on Jana's surface. Saw her up close -- closer than Artem has ever been. Do you believe that?"

"I believe..." Teo began, and joined her for a moment in staring. "I believe what you believe, Ellea. Whether or not we could do it in the World Before, we'll do it in the New World." Not in his lifetime, perhaps -- unless his time in the Dalrath meant that he, too, would be reborn.

"Visiting Jana. Crossing the Shroud of the Western World. Ah, Teo, the times we live in!" She pushed herself away from the flatcar, grinning, and he followed her to the locomotive. "You see what we finally got?"

"It's an 885!"

Bright moonlight picked out its gorgeous, graceful lines. Two leading wheels were followed by eight driving wheels, to support the weight of the massive boilers and firebox. "Fresh from Geovia," Rescat nodded. Her tail wagged. "She's named the Arestutha, according to her plate. Can I let you in on a secret, Teo? I haven't seen one of these in action before, either!"

The design -- Ætoric, they called the 2-8-0s -- was relatively new. Most of the Railroad still used the older 'Olmor' locomotives that Tegreon Olmor had first designed thirty years before, with four leading wheels and only four driving wheels. Compared to those, an Ætoric like the one before them was twenty feet longer. With the tender it weighed more than a hundred tons -- it could put down three times the tractive effort of a forty-ton Olmor. "Eighty miles an hour up those grades?"

"At least." Rescat was running her fingers over brass letters fixed into the freshly painted side of the boiler. Arestutha, and then below that: Geovia Locomotive Works. "You think your bridge will take it, Teo?"

"Of course. I'd love to be on it when it does..."

"We're putting together the first consist now. Fresh meat from the Jarnshire farms -- god damn it, Teo," she turned to him with a laugh, her eyes dancing. "In just a few days they'll be eating fresh Jarnshire beef in the headquarters at Marrahurst. Think of it!"

"And good Tilladen anthracite for their furnaces down here..."

"Want to see what it looks like inside?" She pulled herself up the ladder and into the cab, and Teo followed. Before them was a dense array of valves and dials; his eyes tried to follow the arrangement of the pipes and he thought, for some reason, of the city in the Dalrath -- paths wandering everywhere and nowhere. Rescat's paw caressed one of the gauges, and the vixen's brushy tail wagged faster. "The firebox is cold, though. Nothing sadder than a cold firebox..."

In just a few days he would be back in Marrahurst -- back on the shores of the Ostermere, where he'd first stood months and months ago. The young pup waiting patiently for Allen Grensmann to finish his morning fish was not the same as the one who now inspected the locomotive. Not the same as the one who'd fled from the bared teeth of a plains greatcat. They'd built more than a locomotive. Rescat turned to him, looking for a reply, and impulsively he leaned forward and pressed his muzzle to the vixen's in a deep kiss.

He felt her gasp with it -- her soft black ears pricked -- but she did not seem to be in the mood to resist him. Her arms wrapped around him, hugging him warmly. In that tight embrace he leaned into her, pinning the slim vixen against the riveted iron of the firebox. Rescat's eyes glinted behind her glasses, in the moonlight that filtered through the confined cab, and he felt a gentle, velvet touch on his lips. He parted them, catching her tongue with his own and slipping it forward and into her muzzle. Explored her warm mouth hungrily. Felt her shudder into a moan.

Sharp claws scored the back of his grey jacket and the dog heard himself growl excitedly. His back bowed and he pushed harder against her, his paws feeling for the edges of the vixen's uniform. Groping at her roughly, he sought out the buttons. Find a weakness and exploit it, he thought. Her coat was weakest at the bottom -- his growl deepened as he tugged the buttons open sharply, feeling for the soft warmth of her fur underneath.

She was trying to repay the favor -- grasping and raking her claws over his coarse jeans. Distracted. They were both panting -- ragged breath washing against each other's muzzles as their lips locked and their tongues danced hotly together. He had her jacket open nearly all the way now; the dog's paws brushed her chest -- fondling her, squeezing the vixen's small breasts as he mapped out their contours like any good surveyor. She groaned for him -- her back arched --

Then she tugged away from the kiss with an awkward, strangled yelp. "Mmf -- Teo --" she had a paw at his chest, pushing him away.

He growled warningly.

"There's a bloody steam valve in my back," she explained. "And this isn't exactly private..."

There wasn't a great deal of room to maneuver in the cab, and no good surface that wouldn't be rough on the vixen's back. Which was -- well. There were two ways to solve that problem, and one of them involved not waiting to get back to her carriage. "Turn around, then."

"Doesn't do much for the privacy," Rescat pointed out.

Teo was beyond caring; he took the vixen's slender hips in his paws and twisted her around -- pressing her back and against the wall of the boiler. One paw groped at her breast again and when she shivered he nudged his muzzle down and against the base of her silky triangular ear. "We'll be quiet..."

"What's gotten into you?" she snickered -- though it was not really a condemnation, and when he nosed her ear more roughly he could see the grin spreading over her muzzle. He teased her through the open fabric of her jacket; the warm bud of her nipple stiffened under the insistent brush of his fingers. His other paw dropped lower to unbutton her trousers: the military sturdiness of the fasteners kept him from destroying them, but just barely.

Between her thighs he found downy fur, warm and silky under the smooth pads of his fingers. It beckoned him inwards, upwards, to where those pads met bare flesh, slippery to the touch. The vixen took a sharp breath; her eyes closed, and she widened her stance - parting her legs in open invitation for Teo to curl his finger forward and press inside her. She clung hotly to him, shuddering as the intruding digit worked its slow way into her until he was buried to the knuckle and his slick fingerpad worked over her folds in a gentle, stroking rhythm.

He had, the dog thought, a sort of power over her at that moment -- she gasped and shivered in time to his steady pumping; her whiskers twitched, and her panting breath fogged the dial before her sharp muzzle. And she felt so nice, so soft and wet around his finger -- completely sodden now, as was its partner when he added a second. Teo grunted in anticipation, thinking of how she would feel on his length instead: he was already rock hard, straining against the denim...

The pressure grew too great; still stroking his fingers through her soaking, snug womanhood, he used his other paw to undo his pants. His cock sprung free in an instant -- rigid, pushing up and into the nice soft fur of the vixen's rump. She moaned when he ground his hips against hers, and Teo had to nip at her ear by way of reminder: "quiet, I thought..." he asked her.

"Right..."

"If you can't be quiet..." he warned, and dragged his fingers along her walls with a pointed, agonizing deliberateness. Rescat's legs trembled, and weakened.

"I can be quiet, Teo," she promised huskily.

Time to test that theory. He pulled his fingers -- she yielded them up with a slick, wet pop that did plenty to portend what was to come. Teo took his length in his paw, and dropped his hips so that he could nudge up and between her thighs. At first he misjudged the angle -- his shaft glided between her lips, soaking it in her wet juices and even still he bucked by instinct, grinding against her. It happened again -- just -- then the pointed tip caught, and she bent forward to make it easier, and with a mutual gasp from the pair he sunk all the way inside the vixen in one deep, plunging thrust.

She had her teeth gritted; her breath whistled through her nose, but she managed to stifle her groan and so did he. For a few seconds, smoothly rolling his hips against her lean rear, he let himself enjoy it -- buried to the hilt, his lover's folds squeezing him like wet satin, contouring to every veiny ridge of his eager length. The grinding came with a soft, wet squelch and eventually it was this sound that forced him to continue -- it strengthened and built as he widened his pace until he was thrusting firmly, bucking against her furry rump swiftly.

In the weeks since they had first made use of the bench of her private carriage he had thought about Rescat... often. On more than one occasion he had worked himself to climax with his paws -- now he thought he had remembered it only halfway. It felt so much better -- the textured heat of her pussy opening up around him as he pushed in deep, squeezing him instinctively when he pulled himself from her. The vixen's strong, slender hips pushing back to meet his thrusts as he took her from behind like any feral animal might. Her gasps and muffled cries -- the feeling of her body beneath his fingers when he groped for her haunches to pull her back and into him.

Somewhere, maybe at the temple or in whispers from his roommates, he had been taught that it was proper for lovers to mate... on a bed, somewhere. Face to face. Intimate, and tender. This was not that. He was not, Teo thought as one shuddering thrust pinned the panting foxgirl up and into the firebox, making love to Rescat. He was fucking her -- they rutted swiftly, tearing pleasure from each other's bodies in the swift, clashing heat of their coupling. The intimacy came from the very energy of it -- a coarse, rough-edged energy, the energy of furnaces and anvils and black powder; his cock speared into her powerfully and he growled with the feeling of slippery heat engulfing him.

Their hips met with a wet smack every time, and a louder, lewder slurp from the thick knot spreading her folds apart. Teo leaned heavily on Rescat -- his rhythm sharp and powerful, pounding her into the cool iron of the locomotive's boiler. She bit back her moaning with an intense effort -- reaching out to grab one of the brass pipes, bending it slightly, bracing herself as he began to shift into deeper, shorter, jerking thrusts. The dog was losing himself to the building warm pleasure in his loins and the growing need to fill the vixen with his seed.

Rescat whimpered and bit down on her paw -- even still he heard her muffled yelp; she bucked hard on his cock, her legs jerking as she fought to stay upright. She was clamped down on the dog's smooth, thick length, and rather than fight it he worked himself into her steadily -- grunting as his knot swelled too large to pull from her. As he fucked into the spasming, squirming vixen he felt the edge approaching and did nothing to resist it -- nothing to fight the surge of energy that hit him, consumed his vision...

He was pressing her up against the metal wall now -- lifting her hips up as his desperate grinding forced his cock just that little bit deeper, the pointed tip gliding, grating into her silky, massaging folds. His paws circled her and he snarled -- the dog's whole body went rigid and his shaft throbbed as he filled her, pumping thick, gushing ropes of his cum into her. Groaning hoarsely -- forgetting his commandment for silence as in the peak of his ecstasy he forced the vixen to take his load all the way inside, the warmth spreading deeper even than his cock could go with the strength of those long spurts.

Gasping, fighting for every breath he fell forward -- grasping blindly for something to hold on to. His knees were weak -- as the climax ebbed from him he felt utterly spent, as though all his strength had flowed into the vixen... except that she was trembling too, with her pinned tail reduced to weak twitches between their legs.

It was some time before either of them spoke. His fuzzy chest slotted against the curve of her spine, and his arms encircled her, and she turned to look at him with pleasure-muzzy eyes. "How long have you had that in you?"

"I don't know. Just seemed like a..." It hadn't really been an idea -- more a craving. "Like it needed to be done. I wasn't exactly planning on the tie..."

"You'll manage. If anybody comes knocking, I'll just..." She held up her arm, so that he could see the silver bracelet she wore.

"Charm it? You'd charm me smaller? That's rather..."

"Unkind? Well. It probably works the other way, too." Rescat laughed, and reached behind her to pat the dog's flank. "I have to take advantage of you while I can... I'm being recalled, apparently. Orders came down with the train..."

"Back to the garrison at Sirnland?"

"Pacifying the Menapset," she shook her head. "My military science program at the Academy requires deployment to someplace active -- apparently the forest didn't count. The Corps outpost at Kamir though -- and they say they might make my field promotion permanent. Quite an opportunity."

"I've never been to Kamir." It was a city-state nestled in a valley far into the desert -- the Railroad had a large harbor there, and a yard for the locomotives of the Lodestone Meteor. "I hope it's interesting..."

"I'm sure it will be." She twisted her lithe body, putting a dizzying pressure on his knot that -- from her pleased little grunt -- she seemed more than aware of. Supporting her hips on the door of the firebox, she carefully swung her leg over so that she could face him. "Which leaves you..."

"Well..."

"I fully intend to wear you out between here and the home office." Her grin was toothy, and lascivious. "But what am I supposed to do after that? If you go back to Marrahurst..."

"You think I shouldn't?"

"Transfer to Tinenfirth," she suggested. "Learn about building railroads on the frontier. There's a lot of frontier out there. Run a line to Ellagdra, or past Korlyda if we could finally make the Dominion see reason..."

"Dhamishaya. All that cotton; that livestock -- you know," Teo rolled his eyes. "I read they still use caravans?"

"Horrible. We could fix that right up," the vixen snickered, and kissed him again. "Issenrik..."

"The Low Kingdom."

"The Ishonko range..."

Anywhere on the continent. They would build the bridges and blast the tunnels and put down the track. They would tear down the forests so they could be put to the plow; dam the rivers to keep them from flooding and harness the howling winds to put their power to use. They would open the land to the glittering promise of civilization. They laughed, and planned -- seeing as if by prophecy the spreading rails that would tie the world together -- and in their giddy laughter was an unspoken toast.

To the sound of the whistle from a freight train pulling to a stop in a sleepy farming town, bringing the fresh lifeblood of Empire to its outstretched limbs. To the look of wonder on the passengers of a hundred mile an hour express: from city to city; from the sea to the sea. To the hopeful restlessness of entrepreneurs and dreamers, depending on the rail for the raw material of their ambitions.

To the pounding rhythm of the drive wheels and to twenty-four thousand pounds of tractive effort dragging the horizon closer. To the forward march of progress -- a celebration of ingenuity, and willpower, and effort. To the belief that nothing was impossible; nothing too mysterious to be explained or too daunting to be conquered. To facing any and every challenge unbowed -- and to besting them. For after all --

They were the Railroad.