"That could work," Joe said. "But we'd need a way to temporarily support the rails until the train passes over them and locks them in place."

  Edward snapped his fingers. "Deployable support jacks! We extend them out the front, lay the rail across, then retract as the train moves forward."

  Len slowed his run towards the train, spotting his rifle. He guiltly moved over to it, checked the serial number and slung his rifle over his shoulder and kept jogging all while thinking everyone was staring at him for leaving his rifle.

  He passed Christina and her team working with block and tackle and chains, hooking them to the engine to roll it back upright.

  Soldiers were hauling carts towards the train cars.

  Ramps made of planks were used to haul them onto the flatbeds.

  He reached the nearest cargo car, tossing his pack up to the soldiers loading gear inside as others were doing. It disappeared down the human chain into the carriage.

  He spun on his heel and raced back to the front of the train, dodging between clusters of people carrying out their tasks.

  As he neared the locomotive, he spotted Joe Xinta examining the engine alongside Edward. Len waved to catch their attention.

  "Joe, Dad, I need you to design a system that can roll ahead of the train and lay down rails in front of it," Len explained.

  "I was thinking of making rails on the flatbeds then we move them to the rail layer which has magazines on it so it has rails in reserve," Len said.

  "Going to be hard to time the rails going in at the right time moving at speed," Joe said. "What about using tree growth magic to rapidly sprout new wooden rails directly on the ground? We could have a lead cart with soil and seeds to deploy the raw materials."

  "Interesting idea," Edward said. "But to go from seed to shaping it into a rail, that's quick and finicky."

  Joe grimaced.

  "I've seen people bend metal with a heat spell. What about a spool system? Unwind rails from large spools on either side then cool them in place so they solidify?" Edward asked

  Len furrowed his brow, "Once we run out of the spool then we're out of material and we have to load it up again. Len put his hand on the buttstock of his sluing rifle and tapped on the wooden buttstock.

  "It would be nice to have a spool though, if we have it come out continuious and harden in place." His talk about the rails and bending them struck Len. "We could make enchantments that would make the wood supple until it reaches the track. Need something to affix it into the ground."

  "Roots?" He father shrugged.

  "Right! Have an extruder that makes something like a root at the bottom of the rail, then when its pushed into the ground it goes in easily but its hard to pull out. That would mean that the rail would have to be upside down, then, it would go over a roller that would press it into the ground, flipping it. Easy enough to make the rail upside down." He spotted Wilbur and Peter running past with their packs.

  Len chuckled to himself. "Extruder draws the material towards it, if I was to change, it. An enchantment that pushes the wood fed into it out in a certain shape. Then it would go down feeder lines that are enchanted to keep the wood supple as it passes the tender, engine and then the forward structure. Then an extruder makes the root points and the whole thing gets pushed into the ground, have to make it up with the movable section." Len clapped them on the shoulders. "Thanks!" He spotted Wilbur running towards him, Peter going towards the tracks forward of the train.

  "Clear the area!" Christina bellowed, people moving out of the way. Joe went back to drawing rails from the wood he was working with, his father as well.

  People cleared away from the wooden platform, giving space around the massive engine. Christina's team had rigged up an intricate system of blocks and chains, anchored to rapidly-grown trees on either side.

  Sam's Engineers were tying up and going down the gully, their work unseen.

  Len spotted Wilbur and waved him down. "Get your notebook out."

  Wilbur pulled the worn leather book from his vest pocket, flipping it open to a fresh page.

  "Keep working on the hopper design, but I need to modify the rail enchantment," Len said, reaching for the notebook. He formed the enchantment needed and pressed it to the page and singed it slightly, giving it back to Wilbur.

  "I've inverted the direction design. Rather than drawing material towards the rail, it'll push it away. Then we'll make holders enchanted to keep the wood supple around the tender and engine and push the wood to a track layer." Len said. "Then we'll feed it like a thread to the ground and roll it out ahead of the train."

  Len gave Wilbur a quick pat on the back, sending him toward the first flatbed while he sprinted over to where Peter worked on the track supports.

  Wood creaked and chains rang out as they drew up slack. Len turned back to watch, gathering mana instinctively as the engine began to tilt.

  The massive locomotive rose, new trees sprouting and thickening to brace its weight.

  The train shifted suddenly, smashing its wheels into the wooden platform with a thunderous impact that threw up clouds of coal dust. Chains snapped as the engine threatened to tip over to the other side, making Len and others flinch.

  The engine rocked back, settling onto the wooden platform.

  "What, never seen a train engine righted before?!" Christina's voice cut through the haze. A note of victory in her voice and a grin on her face.

  Len reached the tracks where Peter was undoing the bolts that secured the bolts holding the rails together with his bare hands, the metal groaning against his sheer strength.

  Len moved to the opposite side of the track and gripped a bolt, the nut grinding in protest as he strained against it. With a grunt, the bolt finally came free in his hands. He moved to the next one, bracing himself and letting out an exhale of breath to get the nut and bolt moving.

  Peter was still struggling, his face red from exertion. Len called out, "Undo the bolts I've loosened, and I'll get the stubborn ones started for you."

  Peter nodded gratefully and moved over to the loosened bolts, quickly spinning them undone.

  Len worked quickly, lean down, grab, twist, repeat—continuously down the tracks towards where the bear laid.

  "Told to come this way and help," A man yelled. He lead a group of men carrying railroad tools. Len gestured to Peter. "He's in charge here."

  Len looked over ready to talk again but seeing if Peter would take over.

  After a moment's hesitation, Peter straightened and addressed the group. "Start pulling out the nails holding the rails down, going to have the two sleepers on either end untouched, then take out two sleepers for every one you don't take the nails out of."

  "Alright," The man leading the others said as they broke up into four groups and shoved their wedges under the nails.

  As the men got to work, Len moved quickly towards the warped section of track. Activity buzzed all around - trees were being felled rapidly, to be turned into rails.

  The temporary track Rick had made now arced around to the gully to the north.

  The camp was nearly completely dismantled. Soldiers helping out with other tasks, several jogging over to the tracks.

  Len finished undoing the last bolt and drew his sword.

  He quickly cut out sections of the rail, he paused and took two extra. Always good to have backups.

  Len sheathed his sword and shifted his rifle sling across his body and picked up the cut sections of rail, two on either shoulder and jogged towards the first flat bed of the train.

  Len jogged over to where Wilbur was working on two large funnel-shaped hoppers, constructed from wood planks lashed together with rope.

  "Got those rail sections, and some extras to be safe," Len said, shrugging the lengths of steel track onto the flatbed that was just under shoulder length tall.

  He turned and did the same with the second set.

  "Thanks, always good to have spares. These hoppers are coming along nicely." He gestured to the large funnels. "The idea is we dump the tree trunks in the top Then it'll all get fused together and extruded through this round section here." Wilbur tapped the bottom with a hammer. "That way it pulls from all of the wood that's dumped in. Then the rails will push it out of this slot," He pointed to a square hole at the bottom, angled out to the side. "Got it pointed to the side so can run the feeders up the side of the cars to the front."

  "Good thinking," Len said with emphasis, it was great when others thought of ways to help out along the way.

  Len looked around.

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  "Hey troops!" He called out to a squad and waved them over, they hurried over, their master corporal leading. "Wilbur I want you to get them making feeders we can fuse into the side of the trains, uhh," Len picked up a plank, creating an enchantment that would impart wood within to be supple. by increasing the water content and heating it.

  He checked it and melded it into the wood of the plank.

  "That's the enchantment, cover it in coal, then smack it against the feeders it'll make an outline!"

  "Len!" Gretchen called out.

  Len dropped off the plank with Wilbur as he started talking to the squad and jogged over to Gretchen coming from the direction of the engine.

  As if on cue, Gretchen's voice called out from behind them. "Len! I think I've got the grader and shaper enchantment!"

  Len turned to see her hurrying over and moved to meet her. She turned over her notebook. A faint burnt smell wafted from the parchment, the enchantment burned into it.

  "Harold worked on the shaper, right now he's working on a design for extruding the system to secure the rail into the ground. He said makes the most sense to use the shaper to compress all of the material where the rail will go down in a uniform manner. He said if we tried to make sleepers then we would have to line up the rail ties to the sleepers perfectly which would be much harder." She pulled out pages covered in numbers. " He got the information from Christina on the weight of the train then use that to know the amount of compression the ground underneath the rails would have to withhold."

  Len scanned over the numbers, they worked, he handed the pages back and checked the grader, he pulled out her pencil from the notebooks cover and jotted down changes. Then formed a blueprint with all the changes, flipped to a new page and pressed it down.

  "The grader will bring in material ahead of the train, the shaper will compress it all uniformly turning it all into a sleeper bed," Len said. He marked the second enchantment in her notebook.

  "That's correct," Gretchen nodded, worry threading into her voice.

  "Very good work, I love the idea, give Harold my thanks."

  "He is saying that he'll need to test if the extrusions will be able to get through the sleeper bed," Gretchen said.

  "Okay, but we don't have long," Len said. "What are you going to put the enchantments on?"

  "We're using steel sheets that were going to be used to repair the engine," Gretchen said.

  "Okay, and you had it working off of ambient mana. Second enchantment on both to increase the area it draws mana from," Len grimaced and bounced his head from side to side. "We'll have to see how it works as we go. It might need to have a larger power source to draw from. Don't worry we're figuring out as we go along here.

  Len watched as trees were rapidly cut down and turned into rails that flowed down the gully. The remains were tossed onto the flatbed where Wilbur was working on the hopper system.

  Len started enchanting the iron rails.

  Peter and his team pulled up the first section of rail and sleepers from the ground. Half his team picked it up and hurried it over to the train engine.

  "Told we need to connect this to the front of the train!" One of the men yelled out.

  "We've been working on a hinge for it, take it up front!" Christina yelled back.

  "Okay, you two go get the wheels and springs."

  Men ran past Len to the next flatbed where soldiers were strapping down the carts.

  "Hey we need your undercarriage, the wheels and leaf springs!" One man yelled, jumping up. "Any of you got a mana blade?"

  "Yeah, here," One of the soldiers took out his sword and passed it over.

  The man from Peter's team cut through the undercarriage, others held up the cart as he pushed it off to the side.

  "We need all of the under carriages!" The man with his borrowed sword said.

  Len kept carving on his iron rail with his knife, his mana was still slowly coming back to him.

  He checked the lines and kept going, watching the acles of the wheels get cut.

  They grew the wood of the axles to a bulge so the wheel wouldn't fall off .

  The soldiers joined in on the work, groups sent off towards where Peter was working.

  Len finished the first rail and lined it up with the hole through the bottom of the hopper. He then started carving the extruding enchantment into the hopper itself as Wilbur had described.

  He kept watch out the corner of his eye watching what they were doing with the rail sections they'd pulled up.

  People were altering the sleepers, making them wider, and growing them around the rails themselves.

  The separated wheel assemblies with their leaf springs were then attached to the sleepers.

  Christina jumped onto the first flatbed. Getting really busy around here.

  "Oi you lot working on the rails and sleepers! Once you've got the wheels on we're going to stock them on top of this platform!" She yelled.

  Her people brough chains they'd used to make sure the train didn't fall over. Others move to the four corners of the flatbed and picked up the waste wood from the rails that were being fed into the gully and started fusing them together into supports.

  Len finished his enchantment on the hopper and activated it. Then he cut out a piece of the steel rail in the middle of the enchanment. He added the last connecting line on one face, then a different version on the second. Fast and slow.

  He put the slow side out and put it into the rail. Compressed wooden rail pushed out the other side at a rapid pace. Not so slow. It would need to supply rail as fast as the train was moving so he wasn't so unhappy with that and he could use mana to adjust the speed.

  "Peter send me some nails!" He yelled, making sure his voice would carry the distance.

  He ran over to the second hopper where Wilbur was carving in the extruding enchantment into it. Len checked what the man had marked in coal.

  "Looks good." He started carving into the rail that he'd brought with him and started carving.

  Finished rail-sleeper and cart wheel assemblies were stacked above Len. He didn't pay attention, focused wholly on his work.

  He put down the rail, Wilbur was walking down the length of the flatbed, using a piece of wood to test the feeders, making sure the enchantments worked.

  People covered the blueprint Len made in coal, then took a board, slapped it against the coal covered blueprint and carved out the lighter sections.

  Len got out from under the people who were putting the third modified wheeled base atop the flatbed.

  He jogged towards the front of the engine, looking for Gretchen and Harold, finding them both carving into steel sheets.

  A flare shot up into the sky from the west.

  "Shit." He checked their work, he couldn't see any issues. He still needed to create something to feed the tracks ahead of the train.

  "Looks good to me," Len said to them both. "Get into the tender and keep working on it. Len saw sentries running from where they'd been positioned back towards the train. The camp was gone. Soldiers were bringing the last piece of track over to the train. Peter with them. There was a mass of work going on around the first flatbed.

  He ran for the flatbed.

  Its a stupid idea.

  "There any brooms up there?" He yelled ot the people in the engine.

  "Yeah." Someone yelled back.

  "I need them , two if you have them!" Len yelled.

  Someone came out of the side of the train with two brooms.

  Len grabbed them and jumped, putting them in the back of the tender.

  "Thank you!"

  He ran back to the flatbed. "Nails Len!" Peter held them out.

  "Thanks lad, check the feeder enchantments, the brackets enchanted along the side of the train!" Len grabbed them and kept going.

  "On it!" Len grabbed one of the half dozen nails and reached the steel rails, he checked their alignment and paused. He turned the rails over so the bottom was to the air as they'd go through the feeders, then curve infront of the train to go under it. He drove the the nails through the holes on their underside, pinning them upside down, into the flatbed with his palm.

  He activated the rail, starting it extruding.

  "Get it in the feeders!" Len yelled.

  Hand grabbed it and threated it along the side of the train, smacking it into the brackets.

  Len went to the other side and did it all again.

  "Get on the train!" A sentry yelled as he ran in.

  Len looked in the direction he came from. Another bear lumbering across the ground a kilometer and a half away.

  "Get on the fucking train!" Len echoed.

  Everyone scrambled onto the train, adding their last touches.

  Crews on the train kept working.

  Joe and his people scrambled aboard.

  "Christina I need a driver up front!"

  "I'm busy!"

  Len looked around, his eyes locking onto his fathers.

  The mad bastard grinned and clambered forward for the engine.

  Len looked back, spotting Joe.

  "Joe! I need you to keep feeding uncommon wood into these hoppers, they're going to be making the rail ahead of us," Len pointed at the hoppers and then at the front of the train where the first of Peter's creations was tightened and secured in place with chains.

  Len rushed forward along the train, checking each feeder bracket as he went. The wooden rails flowed smoothly through them, extruding ahead of the train's path. His heart pounded as he reached the engine cabin where Edward stood examining the controls.

  He reached the cabin where his father leaned over the controls, a furrow etched deep into his brow. "The engine's building pressure," Edward announced, his voice steady despite the chaos surrounding them, his hands moving confidently over the gauges.

  Len had taught him what they did once last night. Hope it was enough.

  Len grabbed the emerging rail from the feeders. The wood was still supple from the enchantment, allowing him to bend it backwards along the length of the train. They'd need a good stretch of track behind them to maintain stability.

  "Gretchen! Harold! You finished?" Len called out.

  "Yes!" Gretchen's voice echoed from the tender's metal sides, bent on the side it had been resting.

  Harold came with her.

  "Fucking awesome," Len grinned and motioned to the wood rail in his hands

  "Keep those wooden rails flowing backwards on both sides of the cabin," Len instructed them. They immediately set to work, Gretchen taking over from him and Harold doing the same on the other side.

  Len helped him, it was damn heavy, already extending past the train engine but once in the right direction easy to deal with.

  Len turned to his father, seeing the same intense focus he remembered from childhood lessons about steam engines and something he hadn't seen, or maybe been old enough to understand. Fear, and the willingness to face it head on. The massive bear was closing fast, less than a kilometer away now.

  "Here we go." Edward's hands moved deliberately across the controls, activating the enchantments Len had linked.

  Edward released the brake. The engine huffed once, wheels spinning before finding purchase. The train lurched forward, beginning to roll towards the gully's edge.

  Len's stomach dropped as he saw the sheer drop ahead. "Fuck," he muttered, grabbing a handle with one hand and the back of Gretchen's shirt with the other.

  "Brace yourselves!" Len shouted down the length of the train.

  Harold threaded his arm through a railing, never stopping his careful manipulation of the wooden rail as it continued to flow backward.

  The train pick up pace and ran on the rails, they creaked but held as the train started to pick up speed, and began turning.

  The drop faced them as Harold adjusted the controls, and looped a chain around his waist and Len's before bolting it to a handle.

  "One hell of a dream come true driving one of these," Edward patted him on the shoulder.

  Len's eyes itched, seeing the bear closing within a few hundred meters. Its roar shook the train, its footsteps running through the train and into Len's body.

  "Always knew you were crazy for trains." Len chuckled.

  The track disappeared ahead of them the train dipping down as he saw the drop ahead.