by Eric Vall
“Only one car,” Korion sighed, disappointed. “I was hoping for three.”
“That just means the Atway family has exceeded my expectations,” I said as I clapped the lad’s shoulder. “They finished a car’s worth of stock before Bagnera got back with two cars from Magehill? I’d say for non-magical folk who never mined before, that’s pretty damn impressive.”
“Well,” Korion grinned as he held up a finger that glowed with blue flame, “they did get a little magical help.”
“Sorry, I give you full credit,” I chuckled, and then I pointed next door. “Try to wake up the others, and try not to annoy Haragh until he’s had a chance to stretch. He’s really isn’t a morning ogre.”
Korion gulped while I returned to my room and roused the girls. Unfortunately, there was no time to wake them my favorite way, not when we had a station to build and tracks to be moved into the locomotive. We really just had time for breakfast.
The last time I was in Keld, I taught Serlo how to make my world-famous omelette, and he had not forgotten. The rest of the group joined us in the main room of the tavern while we tucked in.
“You know,” said Cayla as she savored another bite, “we give you credit for all the things you’ve created, guns and motorcyles, mechanical men and trains, but we don’t give you enough credit for your culinary inventions. Wings, ranch dressing, omelettes. What will you create next to tempt our tummies?”
The princess meant this half-teasing, but it was something to consider. Tacos? Mac ‘n Cheese? Lasagna? The possibilities were endless.
The challenge had been issued, and I considered it while I led the group back through Keld and out the gates to the trains. I had an idea of what I most craved from life on Earth, but it wasn’t something I knew how to make outside a trip to the corner convenience store.
I pushed the thought of various Superbowl snacks from my head as I turned back to consider the design of the station. Building a wall around Keld had saved the town, but it didn’t really match the style of the Wild West.
I could fix that.
My idea required me to multitask and join with the group mind of the Terra Mages. While they used their combined power to build the depot, I used my Metal magecraft to move the tracks and ties into the locomotive. The sensation was strange as ever, like one ghost image on top of another, and I couldn’t relax my focus on either. I wondered if this was the reason I was the only Terra Mage with Metal Mage powers in existence. Maybe all the rest had gone blind or crazy.
“Do you want us to give you a hand with that?” came a man’s voice.
He was one of the tradesmen from Keld, a big, bald guy, and there was a large crowd behind him.
“Can you carry all these into the train?” I panted as I wiped the sweat from my brow. The morning sun was slowly rising in the east, but already my shirt was damp from my exertion.
“It’s the least we can do,” another fellow in the crowd volunteered.
I looked out to all the faces and saw something similar to what I had seen in the mages when I first asked them to be a part of the project. It was a hunger for leadership and direction, to be a part of something that was going to change things forever. I nodded gratefully and let them take over the task.
Since I knew I would be expending a lot of energy when I put down tracks, I didn’t want to loan too much power to the group, just enough to help push them toward a vision of the depot.
Most of the time, I built from the bottom up, but because I had an idea of the distinctive roof I wanted on this station, we began from the top. We focused our collective energy and pulled up a long ridge in front of the train, fifty yards from the entrance to town. Lifting up the ridge, we created a long low slope on both sides, and then ten yards from the entrance, we pulled it up as a straight wall twenty yards high. It looked like a big, simple house with a pitched roof like a child would draw.
At that point, we began to carve into the flat walls of the structure all the way from one end to the other. All that we had left was a platform at the base, six feet from the ground, and a series of columns to support the roof. The end result was the kind of old-fashioned train depot I used to see in old western movies, open air with a gabled awning on top for shelter.
Now I needed to lay down the tracks. Since the station was open, it was perfect for a switch rail on each side to allow parallel tracks, one in front of the depot and one between the depot and the entrance into Keld.
By the time I was finished, the morning sun had fully risen, and the men of Keld had loaded up the locomotive. They looked at their new depot with awe.
“Alright, Korion,” I turned to the young Ignis Mage, “time for you to head back to Durch. We’ll see you down the line when you have more supplies to deliver. Give my best to the Atways.”
Korion nodded and headed back to his car. In a moment, its engine roared to life and it began the journey westward.
The rest of the mages and I waved goodbye to the good folk of Keld and boarded the locomotive. I first turned to Cayla.
“All right, princess,” I said. “We have about thirty miles of track, so about a quarter of what we need to reach Eyton. You’re the expert on this kingdom. Where should we head that’s on the way and could use a depot?”
Cayla pursed her lips while she considered the options, but it didn’t take long for her to come to an answer.
“Pautua,” she said definitely. “It’s just a little village, but it’s at the crossroads of several large cattle ranches. It would definitely do them a world of good to have a fast way to get their meat to market before it spoils or they have to salt it down so much it’s basically inedible.”
“To Pautua,” I agreed with a grin, and everyone aboard the train got into their positions.
“Is there anything I can do?” Shoshanne asked in a small voice.
“You and me are just baggage on this trip,” Cayla said with a wink.
“Don’t you sell yourselves short,” I said and took both of their hands. “You two were totally badasses in that fight last night. How would we find our way around Cedis without its princess, and what’s going to happen when one of us inevitably hurts ourselves without our healer?”
The two women looked at one another, and then back at me, and we all shared a smile. I looked over to my other girl and noticed Aurora alone had a frown.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, concerned. “Do you hear something?”
The half-elf shook her head and took a moment to reply. “It’s hard to explain if you’re not an Ignis Mage, but … I’ve seen you when you go into a mine or someplace with a strange metal. It sort of speaks to you, right? You can sense its presence even without trying sometimes?”
I knew exactly what she was talking about. When I focused, I could find metal where it was hidden in the rock, but I could also feel its call when there was something new or wrong, like the mine cave in. I gave Aurora a nod of agreement.
“It’s like that,” Aurora replied with a shake of her head. “I felt a little twinge, like there was some sort of fire that was not normal. It’s gone now though.”
“Have you felt it before?” I asked with a frown.
“Recently? Once or twice,” Aurora replied, and then after a thoughtful pause added “Definitely twice.”
“Do you remember specifically when?” I prodded her.
“The first time was in Magehill, right about the time you asked me to explain to the Ignis Mages how the Stirling engine you just created works,” the half-elf said with a purse of her lips as she recalled. “The second time was in the morning as we were leaving Rajenne.”
“Both times just a few hours before this agent of the Master struck,” I pointed out and tried to keep the concern out of my voice. “Maybe you’re sensing the spell of this powerful Ignis Mage who can destroy mines and conjure up giant fire scorpions.”
“The feeling is so faint I ignored it before,” Aurora said, her emerald eyes wide with fear. “If I had known, I could have do
ne something!”
“Stop it, there’s nothing you could have done,” I said as I went to my Ignis Mage and put my arms around her. “Nemris even warned me directly we would be in danger after we left Rajenne, and even that nearly wasn’t enough. Don’t you blame yourself for even a single second.”
Aurora nodded, and wiped at the tears she wouldn’t let fall. Then I felt her pull herself together as I held her.
“I’m fine,” the half-elf said after a moment as she gave me a smile. “Let’s get going.”
“Okay,” I said as I pulled her closer and then turned to Cayla and Shoshanne. “One thing you two could do while we’re riding the tracks?”
“Yes?” Cayla asked.
“Keep your eyes out for … anything,” I said.
“You got it,” Shoshanne replied eagerly.
I considered that was a drawback I hadn’t thought about, the way we travelled. In order to lay out track, we had to take the train backwards so I could pass the tracks and ties out the open back door. That had bothered me because, frankly, the train didn’t look as cool going ass-end first.
But there was a more serious problem, that of visibility.
The windows were mostly on the front and sides, so we only saw what was directly in our path. That was the only thing really important to lay tracks out, but we knew we had enemies and too many blind spots.
Shoshanne took the east windows and Cayla took the west. On my signal, Aurora charged up the engine, and the Terra Mages sent a wave of their energy toward the south to smooth out our path and lay out a path of pebbles for my tracks. Then I took a deep breath, forgot about the mistakes I’d made, and threw out the first tracks and ties with my power.
The train surged forward on the tracks, and we began our journey south toward Pautua.
Cedis had an advantage over Illaria in terms of terrain, at least for our purposes. It was generally flat fertile terrain of open fields, a bit like the Midwest of America where I had grown up on Earth. Because of that, the Terra Mages had a much easier time. We didn’t have mountains to burrow through, or wide rivers to build a bridge over, or even rocky terrain that needed to be flattened. There were a few hills to which they gave more gentle slopes and an occasional odd boulder deposited in some ancient glacial age which needed to be pushed aside or shattered.
The real tricky part I discovered in our path through Cedis was not geographical but economic. Much of the land was cultivated as farmland, and I wanted to bring as little trouble to that as possible. I tried to direct our tracks next to roads so we didn’t get too deep into the fields, and when that wasn’t possible, I aimed our path next to fences in between farms so we weren’t cutting through the land, just shaving the ends. Legally, of course, since this was a feudal type society, all land was the king’s, but in practical purposes, I couldn’t let us ruin some farmer’s livelihood.
Three hours after leaving Keld, we traveled along one such stretch with a long picket fence on our left and cornfields to our right when I suddenly heard Cayla give a shout.
“Stop the engine!” the princess yelled.
Aurora quickly cut the power, and we rolled to a stop.
“What’s going on?” I asked as I turned to the women in the front of the train.
“Did you see the scarecrow in the field we just passed?” Cayla asked. “Well, the moment we passed him, I saw him climb down into the corn.”
“So, that was no scarecrow,” I said as I grasped the meaning, “that was a man on lookout.”
“Mason, you should come see this!” Pindor shouted from the back door. “I think we have a problem!”
The train rails were pulled tight against a thick length of twine the same color as the earth and corn that stretched off into the field. Beneath the train there was a river that flowed out of the cornfield, shallow for now, but the current was getting stronger and deeper.
“Follow me!” I called to the mages as I jumped down from the train into the muck.
The ten of us pushed our way through the cornfield as we followed the rope to its source. The stalks were so high even Haragh couldn’t see over them. It wasn’t until we were nearly on top of it that we found what the trap had triggered.
It was a tin water silo, tipped on its side. Gallons of water rushed out of a two foot tear in it where the twine had been attached. If we had let the train go forward even a bit further, it would have ripped the silo completely apart and washed us over. I quickly flexed my powers and sealed the tear and then lifted the water silo back up to a standing position.
“We’re in a real swamp now,” I said as I stamped through the foot and a half of flood in my boots. “We should’ve have Quidnu on the train. We could use a Flumen Mage.”
“That’s not the only way to dry a path,” Aurora smirked before she turned to Shoshanne. “All we need is a little heat and air.”
Shoshanne nodded seriously and held out her arms. Her wild, curly hair began to whirl about her head, and her robe rippled in the wind. Aurora also concentrated, and I smelled the evergreen scent of her powers in bloom.
The Aer and Ignis Mage concentrated their powers into the flood around us, and the water began to shimmer and evaporate into steam. I could definitely feel the heat, but the air current defused it before it could do damage to us or the crops. When the steam cleared a few minutes later, we found we stood on earth that was slightly moist but not flooded.
I smiled at Aurora and Shoshanne and began to say something when I noticed the half-elf had turned away to stare eastward, through the fence. She pulled her blue hair back from her ears and frowned sharply.
“What do you hear?” I whispered.
“Screams,” the half-elf said quickly. “Someone calling for help.”
“Let’s go then!” Cayla said as she pulled a rifle off the train car.
Aurora unleashed a ball of fire to create a hole in the picket fence, and the ten of us rushed through it and into the adjoining orchard. The thickly clustered bright green apple trees obscured our view and tripped Cayla as she ran through before I helped her up. It wasn’t long before the half-elf wasn’t the only one who heard the cries of distress. There was another cry as well, but it wasn’t human. It sounded like the scream of a bird of prey.
We burst out of the orchard and onto one of the dirt roads that criss-crossed Cedis. Immediately, we were face to face with a covered wagon engulfed in flames, and when we looked up and down the road, we saw the ruins of several more.
The traders from Keld that we had faced in the Prairie Inn were in a panic. One man rolled on the road to extinguish the flame on his clothes. Others tried to beat out the fire on one of their wagons with blankets, but they only succeeded in feeding it. The only thing we couldn’t see was the cause of the fire.
Then it came from above like a demon from hell.
It was a hideous giant bird made of fire, a twisted, burning combination of a vulture and an eagle, and it let out an ear-piercing shriek as it dove out of the sky straight at one of the few undamaged wagons. At the last moment before collision, the bird banked to the side so it was undamaged, but its flames had lit the wagon ablaze.
Two men leapt from the wagon, and I could tell one of them was our old “friend,” trader Yaxin. Our eyes met through the smoke and chaos, but we had bigger problems at the moment than each other.
I caught a scent of evergreen from Aurora’s direction, and I knew the half-elf didn’t need to be told to put out what flames she could. The Terra Mages however needed a little prod to use their powers to smother the fire.
“Lift up the dirt, guys!” I shouted as I demonstrated. Clouds of dust from the road rose up and around the burning wagons.
The temperature of the bird must have been intense, because the wagons were burning white hot just from its proximity. I felt the connection between my fellow Terra Mages and me grow as they blew up more dust, and between our efforts and Aurora’s all the fire we could see was extinguished.
Yaxin and his men ran t
o us, but if I expected gratitude, I should have known better.
“This one of your creations, mage?” the head trader spat as he reached us, fury in his eyes.
“We’re saving your sorry asses!” Cayla yelled. “Don’t make us regret it!”
“Incoming!” I shouted as I pointed up.
The fiery bird of prey plunged out of the sky straight for us. Everyone instinctively scattered, some into the orchard, some into ditches on the side of the road. I waited until the last moment and sent a cloud of dirt into its face before I dove out of the way.
The beast crashed into the ground and rolled until it hit the remains of a wagon, which instantly reignited. I sent out a fast pulse and pulled up walls of stone around it to create a cage. One flap of its wings, however, and the stone disintegrated.
Haragh came up next to me and grumbled, “Don’t even ask me if there’s salt around here, ‘cause there ain’t.”
The bird took off into the sky again and began to circle above us.
“We have to keep it down on the ground,” I said to the mages. “That’s the only way we can fight it.”
“But how are we going to fight it?” Cayla asked. “It’s much tougher than even the scorpion was.”
I turned to Cayla, no answer on my lips. Then I noticed something on her face. I reached out and touched the orange and white mottled smear on her cheek.
“What’s this?” I asked seriously.
“I don’t know. I guess just mud or whatever from the flood,” Cayla replied, bewildered at what I was getting at.
“No, this came from the orchard,” I said decisively as I rubbed my fingers together and felt it sing to me. “The farmers put it down for fertilizer.”
“We’re all gonna die, and this guy wants to know what makes Farmer Joe grow his apples so good?” Yaxin rolled his eyes.
“Shut up,” Aurora snapped, and then she turned to me. “You got an idea, I can tell. What do we need to do?”
“Distract the bird and buy me some time,” I said quickly and grabbed Shoshanne by the hand. “I need you in the orchard with me now!”