Chapter 36 - Fifteen-Minute Stop

The first sign of slackening speed came with the dry shriek of cast-iron brake shoes biting into steel wheels.

The squeal was shrill, vibrating through the heavy plating of car twenty-eight with an intensity that rattled Maria's teeth. Chunks of crushed iron ore rolled forward across the deck under the sudden deceleration, piling against the forward partition of their canvas lean-to.

The lead locomotive gave two short, piercing blasts of its whistle.

FONN. FONN.

Dante checked his wristwatch. Seven in the morning on the fourth day of continuous transit across the plateau rails.

"First service stop," he said quietly, sliding his notebook into the pocket of his heat-resistant leather vest. "Slag Desert Water Post. Goran said the train halts here only long enough to fill the three engine tenders."

Maria was already on her feet, dusting coal grime off her denim shorts. She peered through the upper slit of the vulcanized tarp, taking in the terrain outside.

The landscape had shifted completely since the previous night.

The basalt outcrops and derelict crane gantries were gone. The scenery had dissolved into a vast expanse of black sand, ground fine from volcanic slag by parched winds, stretching toward a range of low, barren mountains stripped of all growth along the distant horizon.

The outpost was nothing more than a hundred-foot reinforced concrete tower supporting two cylindrical tanks of riveted iron plate.

Three articulated sixteen-inch pipes hung from the raised platform, primed for coupling into the forward engines by line tenders already scrambling over the rail ballast.

The metallic rasp of a Legion sergeant blared through a brass bullhorn mounted to the command car's flank:

"Fifteen-minute service stop! No one steps further than fifteen feet from the rail bed under penalty of fire without warning! Authorized vendors on the eastern berm only!"

The freight lurched to a dead halt with a final heave of the coupler chains.

In the corner, Cida was already on her feet, helping old Jabor sit upright to work the numbness from his legs. The two sisters, Tali and Vana, stared out through the tarp seam with wide eyes, drawn by the clamor swelling along the train's flank.

Dozens of peddlers, penal souls and lesser demons in patched leather coats, were already jogging along the gondolas hauling wooden trays slung from canvas neck straps.

The aroma of hot food wafted over the rim, cutting through the reek of rust with smoke from skewers sizzling over sulfur charcoal and hot rendered grease.

"I'm heading down," Maria said, hand already planted on the rim of the seven-foot iron wall. "Two weeks of cold sardines and dry jerky have given me enough heartburn for half a year. I want fresh meat and hot fat."

"Take your sword," Dante advised, adjusting the lead token over his chest. "Keep your eyes open. Goran said Captain Varek oversees the escort with thirty Legion infantry."

"This sword doesn't leave my side even when I piss," she tapped the leather hilt on her back.

Maria vaulted over the upper rim of the iron plate, dropped down, and landed upright on the black track gravel with a solid thud that kicked up a small cloud of soot.

Cida stepped toward the opening, clutching an empty brass thermos.

"Girl!" Cida called out in an undertone, peering down at Maria. "If you're buying water, can you fetch a pint of boiled water for me? I've got fifty scrip here."

Maria glanced up at the woman's worn features.

"Keep your money, Cida," Maria answered in her usual blunt cadence. "I'll fetch the old man's water. Stay put with Dante."

Dante remained seated in the corner of the car, monitoring the bustle through the tarp slit.

Legion security was heavy.

Every four cars, pairs of soldiers in slate-gray uniforms and slotted iron helmets stood facing away from the tracks, holding heavy bolt-action rifles with fixed bayonets. Further ahead, near the second engine, the imposing bulk of Captain Varek oversaw the hookup of the water hoses.

The commander was an eight-foot-tall cybernetic demon.

The left side of his skull was an armored brass plate fastened with heavy hex bolts, and his left arm had been replaced by a massive hydraulic assembly of cast iron, terminating in a pneumatic hammer head venting short white puffs of steam with every stride the giant took.

[Identified Entity: Captain Varek (Tier 3).]

[Level: 28.]

[Health Points: 680/680.]

Dante kept his breathing even, his gray eyes committing the officer's movement cadence to memory.

Level 28 corroborated everything Goran had laid out in the backroom tavern: going toe-to-toe with a Legion battalion commander remained impossible with their current kits. The officer had nearly seven hundred hit points and mechanical drive leverage capable of caving in Dante's thickest runic barrier with two hammer strikes.

Down on the gravel, Maria pushed through the crowd of peddlers with long strides.

Her six-foot-three height and the silhouette of her forty-pound greatsword slung across her back cut a clean path through the passengers stepping down to stretch their legs.

She stopped before a wooden cart where an old demon in a leather apron was grilling long skewers of meat over a brazier of glowing coals.

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"How much per skewer?" Maria asked, her deep voice carrying over the chatter along the dirt embankment.

"Twenty scrip a stick for slag lizard," the peddler answered, turning the meat with brass tongs. "Clean rendered fat, seasoned with black pepper and mineral salt."

"Give me six," she drew a hundred-scrip bill and two tens from her pocket. "And fill this brass thermos with boiled water from your steam reservoir."

The vendor snatched the scrip, hooked Cida's thermos directly to the draincock of his cart's pressure tank, and wrapped the six hot skewers in thick sheets of coarse butcher paper, handing the steaming parcel into her hands.

The aroma of seared fat and crushed pepper cut through the dry morning air.

Maria tucked the thermos under her left arm, gripped the bundle of skewers with her right hand, and pivoted toward car twenty-eight.

At that moment, the iron boots of a Legion patrol crunched into the gravel fifteen feet away.

Two infantrymen holding rifles across their chests paced along the train inspecting the seals, accompanied by a lean corporal holding two short cast-iron leads.

At the ends of the chains, straining hard against brass collars, padded two Sulfur Hounds.

The beasts were stocky, hairless quadrupeds, their gray hide shielded by thick dermal cartilage plates, with maws venting thin ribbons of sulfurous smoke from the corners of their lips. Their small yellow eyes scanned the gravel in rapid twitches, hunting for any whiff of organic contraband or unregistered sorcery.

[Legion Sulfur Hound (Level 16).]

One of the hounds stopped short ten feet from Maria.

It lifted its broad, flat skull, scenting the air drifting from the girl. Its slit nostrils flared, and a low, guttural snarl vibrated the corporal's iron leads with a metallic clink.

The patrol corporal halted instantly, resting his right hand on the butt of his holstered sidearm.

"Hold right there, girl," the corporal commanded, his voice muffled behind the vision slit of his iron helm. "Display your tags."

Maria didn't yield an inch.

She kept her boots rooted in the black ballast gravel, her brown eyes meeting the soldier's slit visor with steady, unflinching coldness. With the fingertips of her left hand, she drew the rawhide lanyard out from her collar, lifting the lead medallion bearing the Legion eagle and the serials Goran had stamped into the alloy.

The soldier stepped forward, took the heavy metal tag in his leather glove, and checked the five digits against the tin clipboard hitched to his belt.

The second soldier drifted around Maria's flank, fixed bayonet lowered toward the ground, his eyes lingering on the hilt of the forty-pound greatsword.

"Where did you pick up that salvage cleaver?" the second sentry barked.

"Bought it out of Krell's armory in Low Ember," Maria answered, her tone clear and measured, devoid of hesitation. "Third Continent railcar leaf-spring steel. The smith carries a directorate forging permit."

The corporal completed his check of the serials.

Goran's forgery was seamless: the lead matched the precise mass of military-issue vouchers, and the colonel's stamp had been struck with an authentic directorate die.

The second Sulfur Hound trotted two steps toward the boarding ladder of car twenty-eight, sniffing the iron plate where Dante sat tucked into the shadow of the tarp.

The beast thrust its snout skyward, drawing in the draft slipping past Dante's shoulder.

Dante didn't flinch. His hands remained resting on his knees, his breathing slow and his intellect focused entirely on the equilibrium of his internal matrix.

The basilisk bone plate housing the Primordial Iron Core across his spine functioned flawlessly. The [Ash Veil] siphoned away every trace of etheric radiation his dormant wings attempted to bleed. To the keen arcane senses of the hound, the boy perched in the gondola smelled solely of coal dust, old rust, and cast iron.

The hound snorted, irritated by the bite of the coal soot underfoot, and tugged its lead toward the next car.

The patrol corporal released Maria's tag, letting the lead drop back against her brigandine plate.

"Board your car," the corporal ordered, waving his men onward down the line. "Departure blast blows in two minutes."

Maria waited until the patrol had put fifteen paces between them before turning toward the ladder.

She took the iron rungs with easy efficiency, swung her legs over the seven-foot lip while clutching the thermos and food parcel, and landed inside the compartment with a clean thud.

The locomotive's long whistle screamed that very second.

FONNNN.

The water hoses parted from the boilers with a crash of uncoupling clamps, venting residual steam that shrouded the concrete tower.

Passengers lingering on the dirt embankment scrambled frantically up the iron ladders before the freight could get rolling.

Maria set the steaming brass thermos directly into Cida's hands.

"Here you go, Cida."

The woman took the container with genuine relief shining in her eyes, cradling the warm metal against her chest with trembling fingers.

"Thank you so much, girl... God repay you, truly."

"God doesn't pay a dime on this iron dirt," Maria muttered with a dry half-smirk, sitting back onto the tarp pallet beside Dante.

She unfolded the heavy butcher paper across her knees.

The steam of peppered, roasted meat filled their sheltered corner. She plucked two long skewers of glistening lizard fat and handed them to Tali and Vana, who sat with their hands in their laps, eyes wide with raw hunger.

"Take them before they get cold," Maria commanded.

The two girls took the skewers with hurried whispers of thanks, tearing into the hot meat with the desperate haste of people who had eaten nothing but dry flour for three days.

Maria picked up the third skewer and tossed it to Dante, who caught the skewer out of the air with his right hand.

"Actual meat," she said, already biting into the fourth stick, chewing the rendered fat with her eyes half-shut in pure satisfaction. "A hell of a lot better than tinned fish."

Dante took a bite of the hot meat.

The flavor was gamy, stringy, with a pronounced mineral tang from the plain's salt, yet it hit the gut with a caloric density that immediately restored warmth to the body.

The freight train gave its opening lurch forward.

Coupler chains snapped taut in sequence, the cars rocking violently as steel flanges bit into the rails of the Slag Desert, gathering momentum as the three high-pressure boilers drank the fresh water.

The concrete water tower receded into the distance, swallowed by the cloud of black sand and ballast dust kicked up by the rolling wheels.

Dante finished the meat off his skewer, wiping his fingers on his coat sleeve as he looked up through the slit in the tarp.

Their first operational checkpoint had cleared without a hitch.

Goran's forged medallion had passed inspection, the [Ash Veil] had blinded the arcane senses of the Sulfur Hounds from ten paces, and the manifest of Express 404 was cutting across the desert toward the second landmark on their route: the Black Chasm Trestle.

Maria stretched her long legs out over the ballast stones, crossed her arms across her iron cuirass, and leaned her head back against the gondola's chilled plate, savoring the warmth of the food in her gut as the relentless cadence over the ties reclaimed the silence of their journey: clack-clack, clack-clack, clack-clack.