Chapter 4

Four

Pippak Detmuk-Inawenys wiggled on her back underneath the train car, checking each of the devices that automatically applied grease to the bearings while the train was in motion. As she went, she looked for any loose or worn parts.

Dust rained down on her every time she brushed the underside of the carriage or gripped an axle. She scrubbed a sleeve over her protective goggles, but that just smeared the film of dust around.

So much dust. The trains and the cars picked it up as they rumbled back and forth across the Afristani prairies that separated the western edge of Escarland and Tarenhiel from the dwarven mountain kingdoms. If it wasn't dust, then it was mud. Lots and lots of mud and slush dripping onto her head.

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.

Halting before the door to the office, Pip took a moment to wash her hands in the slop sink just outside of the door, using the pumice stone scrub to scour as much grease as she could off her skin. She scrubbed her hands on her coveralls to dry them, though all she succeeded in doing was coating her hands with dust. Oh, well. The dust was better than grease.

Straightening her shoulders and standing as tall as she could manage, she opened the door and strolled into the office vestibule.

The walls were formed of living branches, a few twigs formed into coat hooks on the inside wall while a root formed a long bench along one side.

The elf official wasn't waiting on the bench. He stood in the center of the room with his arms crossed, his nose in the air, and a curl to his lip as his sharp gaze darted between her dacha and her muka.

Her dacha was a tall, lithe elf with an angular face, long brown hair braided along the sides in the style of the elves of western Tarenhiel, hazel-brown eyes, and skin so silver pale it was somewhere between porcelain and moonlight. As with many elves, he was handsome to the point of almost beautiful while his life behind a desk hadn't given him the muscles of the warrior elves.

Next to him, the top of her mother's head barely reached above his elbow. Muka—dwarven for mama—had a well-endowed figure that was all bosom and hips with no waist in between while her arms were well muscled. Her dark brown hair spiraled around her head in thick curls while her neat, feminine beard was curled and braided. Her skin was a bronze-brown with wrinkle lines around her dark brown eyes.

They were an odd pair. To the elves of Tarenhiel, Pip's mother was far from what was considered feminine beauty. Then again, to the dwarves of the mountains, Pip's dacha was far from the pinnacle of male strength.

As Pip stepped inside and closed the door behind her, the official elf gracefully turned to her. The curl to his mouth deepened as he swept a glance over her, as if assessing her from the dirt-smeared goggles in her messy hair to her dust-covered hands, and finally to her grease-begrimed coveralls.

Typical arrogant attitude from an elf from the capital, Estyra. He, clearly, wasn't the type to get dirt underneath his prissy-clean fingernails.

In general, elves tended to have a superiority complex, and the elves in the central forests especially so. While dwarves weren't hated like the trolls had been nor were they seen as utterly inferior the way humans had been, dwarves were disdained as filthy and uncouth. Thanks to the Alliance, attitudes toward the trolls had drastically changed and even humans were seen with a little more tolerance. At least, the humans of Escarland were generally well-regarded.

But attitudes toward dwarves hadn't changed all that much.

Then again, dwarves didn't exactly like elves in return either, so it wasn't like elves had a monopoly on bad attitudes. The ability to be prejudiced was one thing that didn't discriminate.

"Are you Pippak Detmuk-Inawenys?" The elf official stumbled over her dwarven-sounding first name and the first part of her family name before he hit the final, elven half. Her parents' decision to combine their dwarf and elf family names created a mouthful.

He probably wouldn't appreciate it if she offered for him to call her just Pippa, which she'd found was easier for elves and less exotic for humans. She'd gone by Pippa for years while she had been away from home, studying magical engineering.

Though she wasn't going to offer her nickname of Pip. He didn't deserve that.

"Yes, I'm Pippak." Pip glanced from the official to her parents. Their somber expressions didn't give any more indication of what was going on than the official's did. "What's this about?"

"You attended Escarland's Hanford University and have a decree in magical engineering." The official said it somewhere between a question and a statement, that curl to his mouth both doubtful and disdainful.

"Yes." Pip wasn't sure if he was looking for confirmation, but she gave it anyway, holding the elf official's gaze while she did.

The prestigious Escarlish university had become the place to study magical engineering after Tarenhiel's Prince Farrendel Laesornysh—Pip had to bite back the instinctual squeal—attended there for a magical engineering decree.

Pip had been a young half-dwarf, half-elf child when Tarenhiel and Escarland signed their peace treaty and Prince Farrendel of Tarenhiel married Princess Elspeth of Escarland.

And Pip had become obsessed. There was something romantic about the king's own brother in a mixed elf-human marriage. Until then, Pip's parents had seemed like the only ones. Sure, there were others scattered all along the borders of Tarenhiel, mostly troll-elf pairs or human-elf pairs. But they kept their heads down, staying away from the public eye.

When the news broke that Prince Farrendel was attending Hanford University to get a magical engineering decree, his status as Pip's childhood hero was cemented into place. From that moment on, Pip had dreamed of attending Hanford University herself. She'd even had a poster of Prince Farrendel on her wall while she'd been saving up to go.

Traveling across Tarenhiel and Escarland had been quite the experience, as had living in Escarland for four years among humans. While humans still had prejudices, mixed marriages were more common in Aldon. For the first time in her life, Pip hadn't felt like as much of an oddity as she did when among the elves of her home village or the dwarves when visiting her mother's family.

At the end of those four years, she'd returned to her backwater home at the edge of Tarenhiel and continued to help her family keep the trains running as if her little jaunt to Aldon had never happened.

"Hmm." The elf official didn't look entirely convinced, though he lifted the sealed envelope he had been holding. The green wax seal glittered with edges of gold and was pressed with the oak tree symbol of the king. "As preparation for a likely war between the Alliance Kingdoms and the Mongavarian Empire, the Flying Corps of both Escarland and Tarenhiel are recruiting mechanics to form an auxiliary mechanic unit to repair the aeroplanes, flyers, and all assorted flying vehicles of the joint operations of the Alliance Flying Corps."

Her heart squeezing in a strange way in her chest, Pip took the letter, holding it in her grimy hands for a moment. Was she supposed to break the seal and read it in front of the official? Or wait until he left? Did he need an answer right away?

Before she could do more than awkwardly stand there for a long moment, the official straightened and nodded to Dacha. "Thank you for your hospitality. I will take my leave. I will await a response in Morne."

He named the local village, which boasted a single boarding house to accommodate the occasional visitor they got all the way out here.

With that, the official swept from the office. Through the window, she caught sight of him climbing onto his bicycle, then pedaling off along the forest path that wound from the railyard to the village.

"Well, that was something." Muka rested her hands on her hips just above her tool belt, which held everything from a hammer to her favorite wrench to a tin of grease.

Dacha made a noncommittal murmur of agreement, his gaze fixed on the letter. He would be the most interested in the official paperwork side of things. "What does the king have to say?"

Pip wedged her grease-stained finger beneath the pristine white flap of the envelope and peeled up the seal. Once open, she dug out the thick piece of paper and unfolded it, quickly scanning it. "It basically repeats what that official said, though it adds that if I agree, I'm to report to Aerodrome D at Fort Linder outside of Bridgetown in a month to begin training with the latest aeroplanes with the Escarlish Flying Corps. Since I know Escarlish, I'll be training with the EFC, though I'll technically be on loan from the TFC. Once trained, I would be sent wherever I was needed at any of the aerodromes across all three Alliance Kingdoms."

The letter also listed her accommodations and pay. The pay was comparable to what she was making now, though living in military barracks would be a downgrade.

Why was she even considering this enough to compare living quarters? She had no reason to even think about taking up this offer.

It wasn't like she had any strong feelings one way or another about the possible war with Mongavaria. Here at the far western side of Tarenhiel, the Mongavarian Empire seemed so far away. Even if war broke out, it would change their life here very little, except that demand for dwarven iron would go up and a few of their workers might leave to volunteer.

Dacha nodded, his mouth still in a grave line. "I see. I do not think we can dismiss this lightly."

Muka gave a harrumph. "The offer might have come from the king, but you are under no obligation to agree. In the event of war, our railyard will be more important than ever. A war will demand iron from the dwarven mountains at a prodigious rate. All our workers will be exempt."

"Perhaps, but I am not sure Pippa will be included in that number." Dacha's gaze settled on her in a way that held an added weight. "Certified mechanics are rare. Especially ones with magic like hers who also have a degree from Hanford University. The king or his officials might deem Pippa to be more useful elsewhere. A mechanic without her degree could do her job here just as well."

"I could find myself drafted into a war effort regardless of what I choose now?" Pip swallowed and stared down at the letter in her hands. The king had always seemed so far away. It seemed unthinkable that he had such power over her life that she could find herself drafted into the war against her will.

At least if she went willingly now, the Mechanics Auxiliary was currently considered a civilian contractor unit. She wouldn't be officially in the army, even if she would be more in the army than a regular civilian.

"Perhaps. I do not know if it will come to that. We may not even go to war, as likely as a war looks at the moment." Dacha's gaze dropped to the letter in her hand rather than continuing to meet her eyes.

"Nor does that mean you have to go now." Muka tapped her fingers against her hammer. "If there is a war and if you're drafted into these auxiliary mechanics, then we can worry about it."

Pip nodded, folded the letter, and tucked it into one of the large pockets of her coveralls. "You're right. No reason to leave now."

Then why did her heart sink at that?

Pip nestledinto a crook of the branches that formed the roof of her family's home on one side of the western rail terminal. At this time of night, a cold breeze wafted up from the Milnissi River, stirring her hair and bringing with it the thick, wet scents of mud and algae. A liquid sheen of moonlight skimmed across the water's surface, while in the distance, a train's whistle carried on the breeze.

She tugged a blanket tighter around her shoulders. Her hair remained slightly damp after her shower, and the temperatures were rapidly falling as the night deepened. At least her clean coat and coveralls kept most of her protected from the cold and the jabbing sticks of the roof.

With a grunt, Mak clambered up the last few feet of the wall and leveraged himself into the nook beside her. "Thought I'd find you up here, Pipsqueak."

Pip rolled her eyes and elbowed him. The childhood nickname—both a play on her name and a reference to her stature—was somehow both endearing and annoying. It would be nice if her brother stopped, but she also didn't know what she'd do if he did. "I'm just getting a bit of fresh air. That official sure was something today, wasn't he? All pompously expecting I'd leap at the chance to get out of here. But I'm not going to go. Don't worry."

Mak nodded, drawing up one of his long legs and resting his arm on his knee. "Actually, I think you should go."

"What?" Pip swiveled to better face him. "Why?"

"Your magic is too great to be wasted out here." Mak shrugged, pulling out a piece of wood and one of his carving knives. "That's why you went all the way to Hanford University, after all. I've never seen you quite as happy as when you were studying there."

"I'm happy here. This is home." Pip gestured at the railyard.

"Oh, sure. It will always be home. Doesn't mean you have to stay forever." Mak tapped his knife against the piece of wood, starting a rhythm. "After all, Muka left home for Dacha. You are free to pursue your magic or mechanics or whatever you wish. We'll be sad to see you go, but we also want what's best for you."

"But I can't leave you short-handed. And do you really want me volunteering to be part of a war, if war does come?" Pip scrubbed her hands on the front of her coveralls.

"Well, I don't really like the idea of you caught in a war. You're my little sister, after all." Mak grinned and leaned his elbow on her shoulder. "Emphasis on little."

Pip groaned and shoved his arm off her. "Mak."

His grin dropped. "But Dacha was right. You might not be given much of a choice. I might not either. Trained mechanics will be scarce, and if there's a war, the officials might not care about leaving this particular railyard shorthanded if young and trained mechanics are needed elsewhere."

Pip swallowed, her heart aching at the thought that both her and her brother could be drafted into the war.

If the war came. It was all the rumors in the papers, but that didn't mean it would actually happen. The papers were known to hype up the smallest thing.

"But even beyond the war, I have another reason for thinking you should go." Mak gestured from her to their perch. "You want to go. You wouldn't be up here so torn if you didn't. You would have flat-out refused. You're as stubborn as Muka."

"So are you." Pip poked him in the ribs. "You're more stubborn than me."

Mak grinned, picked up his wood and knife, and started the tapping rhythm once again.

The two of them lapsed into silence. Well, not exactly silence since Mak murmured in dwarvish under his breath, a rhythm to the words. He changed his tapping to long, cutting strokes with his knife, peeling curls of wood. Yet even his shaving motions were timed with the rhythm he'd established.

Pip could sense his magic gathering around the piece of wood, even if it was only the faintest green, not nearly as bright as their dacha's plant magic. While Mak might have inherited elven plant magic, he worked it as a dwarf would, crafting the magic in time with knife and hands, song and rhythm.

In Mak's hand, the wood transformed, and Pip couldn't have said what part was magic and what part was the knife. There was no separating the two, not really. That was the power of dwarven magic that melded the skill of hands and tools with the power of magic.

Within moments, Mak stopped his carving and low guttural chanting. He held out a tiny, miniature train. It was detailed down to wheels that spun, connected by delicate coupling rods. "Wherever you go, Pip, you'll never forget us. But you can do so much more with your magic. Don't hold yourself back out here."

Pip took the tiny train, turning it over in her hands before she looked up at Mak. "Your magic is special, too, Mak. The same goes for you. You might not have studied at Hanford University, but you could be doing so much more with your magic too."

Mak just shrugged, though he didn't meet her gaze. "Maybe. But you know how the full elves are. They don't see a lot of use in plant magic that is wielded like a dwarf."

"Who knows? They might if war breaks out." Pip wasn't sure why she was making war sound like it would be a good thing.

But oddly, it would bring new opportunities for both of them. They would become important. Necessary. Barriers would be broken for them because of their unique skills and the demands of war.

It wasn't easy to be divided in halves, always torn between cultures and kingdoms. Perhaps a war would be the only thing that would help them find a place where they truly belonged.