Page 10 of Wings of War
Pip shuffled to the next wheel, then grimaced at the grease device, which was all gummed up with dirt and grime. She reached for her low cart of tools and pulled it closer, fishing around until she found her blue, elven light. Closer inspection with the light revealed that the bottom side of the wheel was ground slightly flatter than the rest, flakes of metal curling around the edges.
Well, that would explain the loud squealing the conductor had complained about. With the grease plugged up, the bearing had seized and the wheel no longer turned. It had probably been grinding most of the way on the return trip from the mountains. The linkages between this wheel and the others had warped and snapped, leaving the rest free to turn while this one skidded.
Pip picked up the right-sized wrench and put it on the nut of the center hub over the bearing. She called up her magic, sending it through the wrench into the nut. With her magic, she loosened the nut even as she turned with the wrench.
Having the ability to bend and move metal with her magic sure came in handy. Especially since her magic was rare. Perhaps even unique to only her.
Most dwarves had some kind of stone- or metal-working magic. But the magic operated differently than elven magic. Their magic needed a rhythm, and it was wrought alongside their picks or hammers in a different way than the trolls wielded their similar, but elven, stone magic.
Pip’s metal magic came from her dwarf mother, but it operated like her father’s elven magic, flowing out of her directly into whatever metal she wanted to work. Her magic was so strong that she could even create a solid barrier of pure magic with it, something only the strongest of the elves could do, whether that pure magic was plant or ice or stone.
While Pip’s mother could work metal with her magic, she used her magic differently, not melding the metal as directly as Pip did. Muka’s magic was more crafted, and she could do much that Pip couldn’t do.
Once Pip removed the nut, she disassembled the seized bearing, fixing what she could with her magic, replacing what she couldn’t. After repacking the bearing and thoroughly greasing it, she reassembled everything, including replacing the broken linkages.
Finally, she rested her palm on the wheel and sent her magic into the metal, molding it so that it was no longer ground into a flat spot on the bottom. She had to thin the metal from other places around the wheel, but it wasn’t enough to weaken it. Another mechanic would have had to regrind the wheel into shape.
After cleaning out the grease device, she topped off the grease before moving on to the next wheel.
The rest of the wheels needed nothing besides a bit of cleaning and a top off for the grease. She was just putting her tools back onto her cart when footsteps crunched in the gravel alongside the siding.
“Hey, Pipsqueak, are you finished with the inspection yet?” Mak, Pip’s older brother, knelt as he peered beneath the train car.
“Just finished. One of the bearings seized, but I set it to rights.” Pip gestured with one grease-stained hand at the problem wheel.
“Rather handy, your magic. I’ll get this car moved back to the others.” Mak slapped the wheel. “There’s an elf official here asking for you. I left him in the front office.”
“And you didn’t lead with that?” Pip rolled onto her hands and knees, then crawled out from under the train car. As she stood, she dusted off her green coveralls, though the effort did little good beyond shaking off the worst of the dust. Grease smeared her hands, the sleeves of her coat, and probably her face.
She pulled the goggles onto her forehead, then checked that most of her hair was still up in a messy bun at the top of her head. Several strands had fallen out, but she wouldn’t be able to fix it without a mirror.
Mak smirked and leaned his elbow on her shoulder. At over a foot taller than her, Mak had to bend over to do so. “If he’s asking for you, then he should expect to find you a bit grimy.”
From her position underneath his arm, Pip nudged Mak in the stomach with her elbow, making him step back with a laugh.
At only five feet tall, Pip had inherited their dwarven mother’s diminutive height. While she wasn’t stout like a dwarven woman, Pip carried a few more curves than an elven woman. At least she hadn’t inherited dwarven facial hair, though her eyebrows were on the thick side. Her hair was sleeker like her father’s but with a curl to it like her mother’s while her skin was lighter than Muka’s but darker than her elven father’s pale, silver skin tone.
Mak had their elven father’s height, though he was broader in the chest and shoulders and sported a thick brown beard unlike anything an elf male could normally grow. His brown eyes sparkled as he grinned down at her.
Pip swiped her hands on the front of her coveralls. Mak had a point. There wasn’t much she could do about her appearance without a full shower and a change of clothes. “What does the official want?”
“He didn’t say, but he had an official-looking document with the king’s seal.” Mak shrugged. “Dacha is waiting with him.”
Pip nodded, her stomach sinking as she turned toward the railroad hub’s main office. What could the king possibly want with her? She was just a half-dwarf, half-elf mechanic living on the far western edge of Tarenhiel, a place the elves who lived deeper in Tarenhiel’s forests considered rustic in the extreme.
The railyard sprawled between the trunks of a stand of poplar trees. At this time of spring, the branches overhead were bare, lacking the pleasant canopy they’d provide in a few months. A few storage sheds were grown from the trees while open-sided roofed areas provided a place to park trains out of the weather. Train tracks wound between the trees, branching out from a turntable in a cleared space between trees.
The railyard bustled with activity, from elves using a crane to transfer cargo from one train onto a train that would take the goods deeper into Tarenhiel, to a human operating a small train engine to push cars from one siding onto another. Even a few half-humans and half-trolls mingled with the other workers, finding a haven here at the fringe of the kingdom away from the snooty society that looked down on those of mixed blood.
Many of the workers paused what they were doing to wave at Pip as she strolled by. As the boss’s daughter, she could have been disliked. But everyone here knew that her family worked just as hard as everyone else, from her mother who was the chief mechanic to her father who handled the mountains of paperwork a railroad hub generated.
Pip set out through the maze toward the longest building at the far side of the yard. Oak trees grew in two neat rows that formed the two long sides of the building, their branches arching and intertwining to form a roof. The main maintenance facility also housed the office in a smaller building tucked to one side.
Here the trees weren’t as massive and lofty as the trees found in the heart of Tarenhiel. While these trees would be considered large and old by the standards of most humans, they were normal-sized. Many of the elves in western Tarenhiel lived on the ground or in treehouses close to the ground, unlike the dwellings high in the trees found in other places of Tarenhiel. Strong winds often howled across the plains and battered this side of Tarenhiel, making tall trees and high homes impractical.
As she neared the building, sunlight sparkled off the broad Milnissi River that ran along one side of the railyard and formed the border between Tarenhiel and the Afristani Plains, a land populated by nomadic human tribes that formed a coalition. On the other side, a few spindly trees and scrub brush lined the river while rolling hills of grassland disappeared into the hazy distance.
A metal trestle bridge crossed the river, the dark line of railroad stark against the hills on the far side. Even as she watched, a train rumbled across, headed farther west. It would likely be carrying goods from all three of the Alliance Kingdoms for the markets of both Afristan and the dwarf kingdoms. Once empty, that train would return filled with dwarven-mined refined metals, which would be used all over the Alliance Kingdoms for everything from railroads to guns to dreadnought battleships in the Kostarian shipyards.