Page 23 of Wings of War

“There, there.” The fan lady returned to setting up a breeze. “That was quite the spell that came over you.”

Pip flushed, her face burning. She wasn’t about to explain that she had hero-worshipped herself into shock. “That was my first time seeing Weylind Daresheni.”

While that was technically true, it wasn’t the reason for her temporary paralysis. But saying it was far less embarrassing than explaining the truth.

The lady perked up, likely catching Pip’s use of the king’s elven title. “Oh, you’re an elf? I should have guessed. You have the pointed ears. But I have never seen an elf so…”

“So vertically challenged?” Pip gave a wry laugh and pushed herself to her feet, stepping out of fanning range. “I’m half elf and half dwarf.”

“Ooh, I’ve never met a dwarf before! Much less a half-dwarf!” The woman beckoned to her. “Come. We simply must have a picture with you. Please? Gerald, get back behind your camera.”

As Gerald scurried to return to his camera, the ladies herded Pip into the center of their cluster.

Pip didn’t try to resist, still in a bit of shock over the glimpse of Prince Farrendel. Not to mention that she’d never had anyone ask to take her picture, as if she was someone famous instead of a nobody half-dwarf from the far edge of Tarenhiel.

Once the shutter clicked, and they held their pose for the required amount of time, Pip extracted herself from the huddle and said her farewells to the tourists. They wished her well and gave her a whole list of shops, stores, cafés, and soda parlors to check out in Bridgetown while she was there.

Pip returned to the train station with plenty of time to collect her things from the locker, see them loaded onto the baggage car, and board the passenger car, settling down for the trip to Bridgetown.

The train neared Bridgetown in late evening, the lights of the sprawling city reflecting on the rippling waters of the Hydalla River.

Pip twisted in her seat, all but pressing her face to the glass to catch a glimpse of the city ahead. Lights twinkled along either side of the Alliance Bridge. The train swerved around the bulk of Calafaren, heading a hint west before turning south again.

The train glided to a halt next to the moss-covered, tree-shaded platform at the far side of Calafaren. Most of the elves stood, making their way to the doors to disembark.

Pip remained where she was, peering through the reflection on the windows to take in what she could of Calafaren’s quiet pathways. Perhaps she’d have the chance to better explore Calafaren and Bridgetown if those in the Mechanics Auxiliaries were allowed to leave the base.

Once the others had left, a trickle of new passengers climbed on board. One elf took a seat at the far end of the car while a troll family—their gray skin and white hair a contrast to the other passengers—found seats across from Pip. She smiled at the family and nodded her head to a little girl, who shyly tucked her face against her mother.

A few humans wearily clambered on board as well, talking in voices that punctuated the quiet that had filled the train car for most of the trip.

As the doors shut once again, the train car shuddered, a clunking, grinding noise coming from outside.

“What is that?” The little troll girl tucked herself closer to her mother.

“They are lowering the iron wheels for the trip under the river into Escarland.” The troll mother patted her daughter’s head.

This was one of the few trains in Tarenhiel designed like this, to run on both Escarlish iron and Tarenhieli root rails. Pip had heard all three kings had private trains that could travel over both systems, as did Prince Farrendel and his family.

With a final clunk and screech, the whole train car lifted slightly, settling onto the iron rails instead of the root rails. When the train eased into motion again, it was with the familiar clack of iron wheels on iron rails that Pip had grown up hearing as a constant background to her life at the far western rail hub.

As the train picked up speed, it swerved away from the lights of Calafaren before it straightened out to face the river once again.

There was a dropping feeling in the pit of Pip’s stomach, then darkness swallowed them as the train plunged underground.

The few elves in the passenger car around Pip stiffened. One even rubbed at his temples. Being underground was difficult on an elf. Many of them even had physical symptoms, such as headaches, if they were surrounded by too much stone, like the stone tunnel that currently provided passage for their train beneath the Hydalla River.

It was that sensitivity to being underground and surrounded by stone that prompted her mother to move to Tarenhiel when she fell in love with Dacha rather than Dacha move to the dwarven mountains. While her mother was often scorned by some among the elves, she wasn’t in physical pain living among the trees. Dacha would have withered and died if he’d been the one to move.

Unlike the elves around her, Pip peered out the windows, trying to take in as much of the tunnel as she could as it flashed past the windows. A few blue elven lights were spaced along the sides, providing some illumination for the rock walls.

If she could have, Pip would have asked the train conductor to stop so she could get out and inspect the troll workmanship that went into carving the tunnel into bedrock beneath the river. A few glints of the troll magic still remained, glittering gray in the walls. It would have been fascinating to compare it to the dwarven stone construction she was familiar with from visits with her grandparents.

Across the way, the troll girl was peering through the windows with a similar wonder.

Then the train rose again, bursting into evening daylight on the other side of the Hydalla River and into a bustling city that was a sharp contrast from the peaceful, tourist retreat on the northern side.

Here, brick and stone buildings rose into the sky alongside the blocks of straight, asphalt or stone paved streets. Even more newfangled automobiles rumbled back and forth along the roads than there had been the last time she had visited Escarland, their shiny chrome fenders reflecting the streetlights. Horse-drawn carriages clogged the streets between the automobiles while bicyclists wove in and out of the traffic, nearly running over the pedestrians that choked the walks on either side even at this time of night.

---