The Mk I 'Pathfinder' sat at the Oryn Rail-Head, a black-iron beast that hissed with the pent-up energy of the geothermal steam it had carried in its high-pressure reservoirs. Unlike the massive, ornate carriages of the Imperial nobility, the Pathfinder was a study in industrial brutalism. Its external piping was exposed for easy maintenance, and its oversized driving wheels were designed for the punishing gradients of the Northern Range.
"The line is clear all the way to Mile Marker 12," Miller reported, wiping a mixture of soot and condensation from his goggles. "But the telegraph is chatter-heavy. There are reports of 'unauthorized campfires' near the Cleft. The Southern Coal-Lords aren't just sending lawyers anymore, David. They're sending wreckers."
The economic reality was simple and brutal: if the Pathfinder successfully reached Oakhaven with a full load of coastal supplies, the cost of transport would drop by seventy percent. The Southern Coal-Lords, who had built their fortunes on the back of inefficient mule-trains and expensive fuel monopolies, were facing obsolescence.
Deacon climbed into the cab, the radiant heat from the firebox a welcome shield against the damp estuary wind. "We don't stop for campfires, Miller. If the track is clear, we push through. If they've pulled a rail, the cow-catcher will clear the path or we'll derail trying. Either way, the mail moves today."
The journey began with a rhythmic, bone-shaking chuff that echoed across the salt marshes. For the first ten miles, the Pathfinder behaved perfectly, its standardized pistons moving with a mechanical grace that silenced even the most skeptical Board of Works observers. But as the tracks began to climb into the foothills, the "gritty realism" of the opposition manifested.
At the entrance to the High Cleft, the horizon glowed with an unnatural, flickering orange light. It wasn't a campfire; it was a river of Alchemical Bitumen. The Coal-Lords had dumped barrels of a slow-burning, high-viscosity sludge across a fifty-yard stretch of the tracks and ignited it. The heat was intense enough to warp the iron rails and melt the lead solder in a standard locomotive's joints.
"Brakes!" Julian shouted from the secondary carriage, shielding his face from the sudden wall of heat. "David, you'll melt the gaskets if you take us through that!"
Deacon didn't reach for the brake lever. He reached for the Sand-Box and the Steam-Blowoff.
"If we stop, the heat will soak into the boiler and we'll explode anyway," Deacon shouted over the roar of the fire. "We're going to use the pressure to blast a path."
In a world of 19th-century engineering, the "Steam-Blowoff" was usually a safety measure to prevent over-pressurization. Deacon repurposed it as a weapon of physics. He opened the cylinder cocks at the front of the engine, releasing a deafening, high-pressure jet of superheated steam directly onto the tracks ahead.
The steam hit the burning bitumen like a physical hammer. It didn't extinguish the fire, but the sheer force of the pressure blew the flaming sludge off the rails, creating a momentary, blackened path. Simultaneously, he engaged the gravity-fed sanders, dropping crushed grit onto the iron to give the wheels traction on the slick, scorched surface.
The Pathfinder surged into the flames. Inside the cab, the air became unbreathable—a choking mixture of steam, smoke, and chemical fumes. Deacon felt the hair on his arms singe. The locomotive groaned, the metal expanding and popping under the thermal shock, but the standardized Whitworth bolts held. The "Iron-Road" proved its resilience; because the rails were laid on crushed basalt rather than timber sleepers in this section, the fire had nothing to consume but the sludge itself.
They burst through the other side of the fire-wall, the engine's black paint bubbling and peeling, but the wheels still turning.
A group of armed men—hired mercenaries of the Coal-Lords—stood on the ridges above the Cleft, ready to pick off the survivors of a derailment. When they saw the black-iron monster emerge from the flames like a demon from the deep, they didn't fire. They fled. The psychological impact of the machine was as potent as its physical power.
"Check the gauges!" Deacon coughed, his lungs burning.
"Pressure is holding, but the front bearings are screaming," Miller replied, already reaching for the oil-can. "We lost the lubrication in the heat. We need to stop at the next water-tower or we'll seize the axle."
They limped the last five miles into the Oakhaven station, the Pathfinder screeching and hissing, but carrying its full load of copper-wire spools and medical supplies. The crowd that had gathered—miners, smiths, and their families—didn't cheer at first. They stood in a stunned, reverent silence at the sight of the scorched, battle-scarred engine.
Deacon stepped down from the cab, his face smeared with soot, his duster ruined. He looked at the rail-head in the center of the valley. The "Iron-Road" was no longer a theory; it was a reality forged in fire.
"The Coal-Lords just spent a fortune to prove they can't stop us," Deacon told Julian as the first crates were unloaded. "But they've also proven that the 'Permanent Way' isn't permanent unless we guard it. We need to build Armored Wickhams—small, fast rail-scouts to patrol the lines."
The "Iron-Train" had arrived, but the war for the infrastructure was now a shooting war. Deacon realized that to keep the rails clear, he couldn't just be an engineer; he had to be a general of the tracks.