The activation of the steam piston at Outpost Alpha had inverted the logistical crisis of the Protectorate. Where there had once been a famine of iron, there was now a surplus of raw hematite that threatened to choke the mining site. The seven-mile stretch of frozen, rutted mud between the outcrop and the main kilns had become a graveyard for wagon axles. A single freight wagon, laden with two tons of ore, would sink six inches into the thawing silt, requiring a team of eight oxen and twenty men to move it a mere mile a day. Kael's math was clear: the "Iron Hunger" of the forges was now being throttled by the friction of the earth itself.
To solve the transit bottleneck, Kael initiated the construction of the Iron Road. He rejected the notion of traditional stone paving, which was too slow to lay and prone to shifting under the extreme weight of ore transport. Instead, he designed a primitive but effective Plateway System. This involved laying parallel lines of L-shaped iron plates onto a foundation of crushed limestone and timber sleepers. The vertical flange of the iron plate would keep the wagon wheels on the track, drastically reducing rolling friction and allowing a single team of oxen to pull three times the previous load.
The "grit" of this project lay in its sheer scale. To cover seven miles, Hektor's forge needed to produce thousands of identical iron plates. This created a self-sustaining industrial loop: the first ore brought back by manual labor was forged into the rails that would bring back the next ten tons of ore. Kael divided the labor force into three specialized "Road Brigades."
The first brigade, composed primarily of the newest Aspirants, worked on the Foundation and Drainage. They excavated a shallow trench along the seven-mile line, filling it with layers of graded limestone and ash to create a stable, frost-resistant bed. The second brigade, led by the Tier 0 laborers who had proven their mechanical aptitude with the steam piston, handled the Timber and Tie placement. They harvested stunted frontier timber, treating it with a mixture of hot pitch and charcoal dust to prevent rot before burying the sleepers into the limestone bed.
The third brigade, the Platelavers, were the elite. They were tasked with the precision alignment of the iron rails. If the gauge of the track deviated by even an inch, the wagons would derail, potentially crushing the crew. Kael introduced a "Standardized Gauge Rod"—an iron bar exactly four feet, eight inches long—that every pair of platelayers had to use to verify the distance between the rails at every single tie.
Socially, the Iron Road became a visible manifestation of the "Ashfall Standard." As the iron lines crept further into the wilderness, the citizens saw their isolation ending. The original "Old Citizens" began to realize that their safety was directly tied to the sweat of the Aspirants working in the mud seven miles away. Kael reinforced this by implementing the Kilometer Milestone. For every kilometer of track completed, the entire labor force received a "Utility Dividend"—a small increase in their personal credit at the barony's central store, redeemable for better clothing or supplemental tobacco.
The project faced a major technical failure at the three-mile mark: a deep, seasonal marsh that refused to stabilize under limestone ballast. The heavy iron rails simply sank into the muck. Kael's engineers argued for a detour, which would add two miles to the route. Kael refused.
"A detour is a permanent tax on our energy," Kael told Hektor. "We don't go around the marsh; we bridge it."
He designed a Sinking Trestle. This involved driving hundreds of sharpened, pitch-treated timber piles into the marsh until they hit the bedrock below. On top of these piles, they constructed a heavy timber framework to support the iron plates. It was backbreaking, filthy work; the men were waist-deep in freezing, stagnant water for twelve hours a day, fighting the suction of the mud. Kael stayed in the marsh with them, his own hands stained with pitch, calculating the load-bearing capacity of the piles.
By the end of the second month, the first three miles of the Iron Road were operational. The first "Rail Train"—four interconnected wagons with specialized iron-rimmed wheels—rolled toward Ashfall. The sound was a rhythmic, metallic clatter that could be heard for miles, a new music for the frontier. The transit time for a load of ore dropped from three days to four hours.
The chapter ends with Kael standing at the end of the finished track, watching the rail train disappear into the mist toward the main settlement. The Iron Road was more than a transport link; it was the spine of a new geography. The Protectorate was no longer a collection of isolated pits and kilns; it was becoming a singular, integrated machine. But as the iron reached further, Kael knew he was attracting eyes from beyond the frontier. A road that could bring ore in could also bring enemies out.