Len closed up his pack as . Rick approached, carrying a rifle and a pouch of bullets.

  "Here," Rick said.

  Len moved away from his pack and accepted the weapon with a sigh.

  "This is what I thought you might like to see," Rick said to Lydia who was standing nearby.

  Rick hiked up the rifle on his shoulder and gave him the pouch of bullets.

  They walked to where the troops were gathered, each of them issued a rifle but no rounds, just bullets in pouches.

  "Gather round," Len called to the soldiers. "I'll demonstrate how to fire without powder."

  He removed the magazine, tucking it into his pocket. Opening the bolt, he aimed the rifle at the ground.

  "Alright, you don't need the magazine or the bolt. Can take the bolt out later. Right now this will work." Len held up a bullet between his forefinger and thumb.

  " You're going to take one bullet you're going to insert it into the chamber." He did as he'd said.

  "Then you're going to keep your finger—probably your thumb makes it a little bit easier to aim— Against the base of the bullet." He tilted the weapon so they could easily see what he was doing.

  "Now you aim." He nestled the rifle's wooden stock between his shoulder and neck, and aimed down the sights.

  Focusing his mana, Len cast a continuous pressure spell behind the bullet. The round cracked out, striking the dirt with a sharp snap instead of the usual explosive boom of powder. Dirt rising up from where he'd fired.

  "The key is mana control," Len explained to the watching troops, removing his thumb from inside the weapon. "Too little and the bullet won't clear the barrel. Too much will destroy the rifle and deplete your mana stores. You'll need to find the right balance through practice." He turned his eyes to Lydia and Lieutenant Simmons.

  "Well it looks like we're going to be doing a rifle drills before we head out!" Simmons called to his people.

  Len headed back to his pack and the rest of the advanced squad who are already ready. It included the Xintas captain Sam, three of her engineers and Rick.

  "Now I see why rifles were included in the packing list," Sam said she hefted a rifle, withdrawing the magazine and drawing the bolt to the rear. She quickly started disassembling the rifle to remove the bolt.

  Len and Rick did the same while Rick was giving further information to Lydia.

  Len shouldered his pack and tightened the straps.

  "Ready?"

  He got nods and indicated for Rick to take the lead.

  The advanced party filed out of the warehouse into the morning light.

  "I'll see when you get back," Lydia said to Len and Rick as she moved in a different direction once they neared the administration district. "Try and keep my brother out of trouble."

  "I'll do my best," Len promised

  The group moved at a steady pace through Goran's streets. Construction crews were already hard at work, filling molds and fusing stone, or hauling massive blocks into place. Extruders were at work on the ground, engineers checking how much they'd done overnight.

  Scaffolding rising up where the northern gate would eventually stand.

  Rick took point, setting a brisk pace as they passed through the half-built northern gate. The wooden framework loomed overhead, stone blocks stacked nearby ready to be lifted into place.

  Once beyond the city limits, Rick increased their speed. Len dropped to the rear, keeping an eye on the group's spacing. Sam and her engineering team maintained formation well enough, their packs laden with tools that they'd strapped down so they didn't swing around. The morning dew had burned off, as they jogged along the farming roads leading north.

  They adjusted their pace according to the slowest amongst their group. Still they were moving faster than a train going all out.

  The group moved efficiently, everyone seeming to understand the importance of maintaining their pace.

  They slowed as they left behind fields and entered the forest, Rick and Len cut the pace to let the others get used to moving quickly through the forest.

  After about an hour or so their pace increased once again heading relentlessly northward.

  ***

  The forest reminded Len of the ones back home in the dell - tall pines and broad oaks stretched skyward, their branches creating a dense canopy overhead. Fallen leaves crunched under their boots, the earthy scent of decomposing vegetation filling his nostrils. Squirrels darted between trees, and birds called from the branches above.

  The Oaks started thinning turning more towards Pine and Evergreen variants as they closed with the train tracks.

  On the afternoon of the second day, they reached the train tracks.

  "Alright, well clearly its not right here, we'll move westward and find it," Rick took point once more, leading them westward along the iron rails.

  "There!" Joe called out a few minutes later, pointing ahead.

  Len's eyes widened at the sight. Train cars had tumbled in the dirt, crashing into the tree line to the north next to the rail road.

  The engine sat furthest from the rails, while the last car remained closest, creating a jagged path of destruction between them.

  They carefully picked their way past the first car.

  There were five train cars off of the tracks in various states of disarray. Their doors open to nature.

  The advanced party walked alongside the derailed train. Debris littered the ground - broken crates, spoiled food, and scattered goods that had spilled from the cargo cars. The earth between the tracks and train was packed flat from countless footsteps. Those that had come to recover the cargo.

  Rick jumped up on the tender that had hauled the train's coal, scanning the train.

  The damage became clearer as they approached the engine. The main boiler had blown out spectacularly, its water tanks ruptured and empty. Dark, wet soil spread out from beneath the wreckage where the water had seeped into the ground.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "What the hell happened to this thing?" Len muttered, taking in the destruction.

  "I think it's a Landen engine," Joe said, running his hand along the twisted metal. "Their long-haul. Big body bastards."

  Len climbed up to the engine cabin, the whole engine was on its left side. He looked inside the levers, wheels, taps and piping looked operational. Other than the whole boiler blown out.

  He stood back up and looked around, the train had crashed through the tree-line.

  "Took some force to get this far from the tracks," Len said. He unslung his rifle, resting the butt against the train and crouched down. "What's the plan?" He asked those gathered.

  "I don't know how we're going to get it righted," Captain Sam said.

  Len looked around.

  "Grow the trees under to push it up," Rick said. "Its heavy and it'll bury its wheels in the dirt. Use the trees that are down to create a fused platform to distribute the weight so it doesn't sink?" Rick looked at the group as he finished scanning.

  "Will the wood be able to hold that weight?" Sam asked.

  "Can make them dense as hell so they're strong as steel," Rick said.

  "It'll be easier to work on the damage to the boiler and water reservoirs if its in this position," Christina said. "Drop the metal plates in place and fuse them instead of having to get people to hold them up. Have to cut out the mangled parts make it easier. Going to have to get into the guts and make sure everything will work with patches. I can also get to the wheels and check them, see if the metal is warped."

  "While its up like this I can carve in enchantments to reduce the weight of the train," Len said.

  "You can do that?" Joe asked.

  "The only real limit that I've run into with enchantments is the limit of ones imagination," Len said.

  "If you're willing to teach me I'd love to learn," Christina said.

  "Happy to do so." Len smiled. "Though the underside is a mess of stuff. Water pumps linkages all kinds of stuff. Going to need some quality wood to create a cap underneath everything, fuse that wood together and put the enchantment on that."

  "Well we're not going to right the engine and all of these cars up as one. I'll need some help but I can detach the other cars. We'll have to do it carefully so we don't have them drop on top of us. Might need to make some of those tree platforms. The flatbed cars we can probably tip them back onto their wheels pretty easily," Joe pointed to the simple cars that were just a platform atop wheels.

  There were two flatbed cars, two of the cargo cars and one grain car.

  "If we can reduce the weight enough I can make some wooden rails that we can put the train atop and drive it onto the tracks," Rick said.

  "You sure that they're going to be strong enough?" Len asked remember in case conversation with his father about rails yesterday.

  They've got enough give to them so that they won't just shatter it's all going to really depend on how much weight the train is going to put on them," Rick said.

  " Okay I'm going to have to modify the enchantment to spread out the weight across the entire underneath of the train probably best to use air I think," Len frowned.

  "Train!" One of the engineers on watch called out.

  "No spells, no outward shows of strength," Captain Sam said to everyone.

  "Okay I think we've all got our jobs," Rick said. "Start getting things prepped and once the train's past we'll be good to go."

  "Cal you're with me the rest of you go help Joe with the cars," Captain Sam said.

  "Len you're on enchantments, Cal, Captain, if you get started de limbing the trees that got toppled I'm going to grow up the trees under the train to make sure that the train doesn't shift, we're a good few meters from that decline, but I'd prefer that we don't have to carry it up the hill again," Rick said.

  Len stood glancing past the train there was another five meters on the other side before it dropped away Leading to a gully that cut through the rugged foothills and headed towards the mountain range.

  Len dropped off of the train taking off his pack and his rifle, setting them to the side.

  The train passing chugged on its way by, whistling.

  Len waved to them as they continued on, coal smoke filled the air, the train clunking and clacking onward. Over a dozen freight cars of different kinds being hauled to Nordun.

  He headed onto the other side of the train and started moving among the trees, pushing mana through them to test their grade.

  Those that passed his testing he marked with his utility knife.

  ***

  That should be enough.

  Drawing his sword, he delimbed the trees. The train was well gone at this point.

  Once the trees were bare, he gripped the first trunk. He heaved it up onto his shoulder, and threw-shuffled it onto the top of toppled cargo carriage.

  He did the same with trees near the cargo carriages, then jumped onto the train cars and over to the other side, pulling the trees off off the train and letting them drop to the ground.

  Those done he went back and picked up the trees that were near carrriages that looked unstable on their side, hiked them up on his shoulder and carried them around to the other side, dropping them down near the carriages which didn't have trees near them.

  He reached the second carriage from the engine when he called out to Rick who dropped half of a split tree into the dirt. The wood smoothed, out, flowing into the other split trees he'd laid down.

  "Hey Rick, could you plank these trees up for me?" Len indicated to the trees he'd laid out. "They're the uncommon ones that I marked with an L at the base."

  "Alright," Rick stood up.

  Len continued to get more trees from the other side. Rick moved down the trees sizing them up before he'd hit the base with his hammer causing them to collapse into planked wood. The air under his hand would shimmer as he walked the planked tree's length, drawing out the moisture.

  Len dropped his last tree and moved back to the train engine.

  Christina was still moving over the contraption, running tests and making notes. Her gear was stained with the oil and coal, completed absorbed.

  Len took the planked wood, fusing it together and started creating a board that would cover the underside of the train.

  With the board completed he used pieces of leftover wood to create stilts that would keep the board from touching the moving parts. He moved it to the side as Christina approached.

  "That's a lot of weight being held by those supports," She said.

  "Yeah I was just thinking that. Though I'm not sure if my other idea will work well," Len said.

  "What?"

  "I spread wood throughout the undercarriage, then have it shape around everything there and then fuse the board to that," Len said.

  " How would you do that?"

  I put wood all throughout the undercarriage then fuse it together and have it grow into one another then I would add more wood Building it out through the places that doesn't have anything running through that basically encapsulating everything in wood. I can orientate the grain of the wood and use knots to increase the density and strength of it to support the boards."

  "Sounds like you have your answer already," Christina said.

  "Thanks."

  Len set to work, Rick working nearby to create the platform for the first engine and then moving back along the train to do the same for the other cars.

  Joe and his people helped Len, the engineers switching out with Captain Sam and her helper as afternoon wore on.

  Len stepped back from his creation. A smooth undercarriage.

  "Alright, step one done?"

  "Enchantment now?" Joe asked.

  "Yeah," Len said, He conjured a mana blueprint in front of himself of two different enchantments.

  "We'll get started on the next cars," Captain Sam said.

  "Make sure that you're using the uncommon wood," Len called after them.

  "Copy," Sam said.

  Then alter the two blueprints within his site to the size of the train that made them smaller to work on the finer details altering their runes and designs. He picked up two planks of wood pushing the enchantments into the wood using a wood altering spell on the enchantments form.

  One pushed air against the ground, the other reduced the effect of gravity.

  Len waved his hands up and down, the closer the air version go to the ground, the greater the resistance. The gravity one fell slower than other things.

  Len moved forward and in different directions.

  Gravity one works well no matter what, the air one dips, needs to build up air pressure underneath again.

  He warped the wood into something unfamiliar and broke it up near where their packs and waste wood was going, fuel for the night's fire.

  Then he picked up the board to fit under the engine and pushed it overtop of the enchantment and had the wood grow together, making it one whole.

  Wonder how it'll do. He'd used some of the ideas he'd seen in the Sylvani trees, lining up the grain of the wood to help with the flow of mana.

  Len stretched and looked down the train. Quite a few more carriages to go.