Chapter 840 — Crossing the Border

Yuri drew close to the gap behind him and put his eye to the narrow slit. He saw the morning sun rising from the end of the open wilderness, its splendid corona lighting the whole plain and the mountains at the plain's far edge. The lakes and rivers inlaid across the plain glimmered with scattered gold, while the trees and grass nearby raced backward past the railway, blurring into one continuous phantom.

The thin mist had been driven off by the sunlight at some point.

"We're nearing the border," Yuri warned at once. "Careful—there's a checkpoint here—"

A jolt ran suddenly through the car, and from beneath the floor came the shrill screech of iron wheels grinding against the rails. At the same time a distinct shudder passed along both sides of the carriage, and outside the walls the clatter of some mechanical device came to life all at once.

The braking mechanism was pressurizing the wheels; outside the carriage the repulsion devices were adjusting their polarity one by one—the train was slowing down.

"Don't panic," Wendy said at once, turning back. "We're approaching the border outpost. This is a normal stop."

"I'll go check the car ahead," Yuri said, rising quietly and lowering his voice. "It's near the coupling. We have to be especially careful there."

...

Sunlight fell on the outpost near the Typhon-Cecil border. A slightly chilly wind blew in from the plain. Several fully armed Typhon soldiers waited on the elevated platform, watching the freight train coming from Butterfield County slow gradually and ease up to the stopping mark in the inspection zone. The commander of the little station narrowed his eyes, forcibly suppressing the urge to yawn in the cold morning air, and ordered the soldiers forward for the routine inspection of the train.

In the brief wait for the train to open its cars, the outpost commander drew a deep breath of the cold plain air, and as he roused himself he looked off to the side—two battlemage towers stood on either side of the railway, their great arcane focus crystals gleaming in the sunlight, while several junior battlemages and knights kept watch in the nearby sentry posts, their eyes on the train as it came to a stop.

His gaze drifted farther still, past the fence, past a stretch of open ground, past the low wall at the border and the blockade belt on the other side, until it came to rest on another outpost—the Cecil border guard post, a few square, boxlike buildings set on a concrete platform, arcane crystal devices floating in the middle of the open yard, and several weapons called "railguns" mounted atop the perimeter wall, their barrels angled at the high sky.

The Typhon officer glanced at the soldiers who had already begun the inspection, then turned back, drew a small dagger from his belt, caught the sunlight on the blade, and waved it twice toward the Cecil outpost.

A few seconds later, a similar glint swept across his eyes.

The young officer grinned, then sheathed his dagger and walked toward the train.

A man with a great bushy beard, dressed in a blue uniform, leaned against the outside of a carriage. He was the conductor of this train, a Typhon man.

"A full load of textiles and alchemical materials," the bearded man said with a smile to the young officer. "Off to trade for some good yellow gold for our emperor."

The young officer extended his hand. "Let me see the manifest."

"I already gave it to the soldiers..."

The officer frowned. "I haven't looked at it yet."

The bearded man had no choice but to dig out the papers he carried and hand them to the officer before him. "Ah, yes, here you are."

The officer took the manifest, then turned and strode toward several carriages not far away.

The bearded conductor, meanwhile, cast what seemed a casual glance at the distance, and suddenly a faint dark speck appeared in the eastern sky, flying swiftly toward them like a bird.

The conductor's expression shifted. He immediately turned and walked toward the officer, who was inspecting the carriages one by one with his soldiers, a smile on his face. "Sir Knight, these carriages have already been inspected just now."

The young Typhon officer looked at the soldier beside him. "Have they been inspected?"

"Yes, sir," the soldier answered at once. "They match the manifest."

The Typhon officer glanced down at the list in his hand, gave the bearded man beside him a slight look, then grasped the handrail by the carriage door, set one foot on the step, and unhurriedly leaned his upper body in to look inside.

The dark speck on the horizon was drawing closer and closer, until a human outline could vaguely be made out.

"Sir Knight," the bearded man stepped forward, smiling ingratiatingly, "there are alchemical materials in here..."

The Typhon officer's gaze swept slowly across the interior. Inside the dark freight carriage, a great many crates were piled together, and beyond that there was nothing else at all.

To count all those crates again would obviously be a waste of time.

The conductor stood outside the carriage, smiling, yet his eyes were fixed unblinkingly on the officer's movements.

He dared not bribe the man, nor dare he attempt any verbal coaxing, for either would immediately arouse suspicion—those guarding this place were probationary knights of the Black Steel Knights, and these soldiers, of noble blood and with the Black Steel Knights as their goal, were different from those elsewhere: they were extremely vigilant.

"Sir Knight, we still have to undergo another inspection on the Cecil side afterward..."

At last the Typhon officer withdrew from the carriage doorway, his military boot landing on the ground with a clack.

"To be honest, this way of crossing the border—stopping for inspection twice on either side of the frontier—is a bit unreasonable," the officer remarked offhandedly. "What do you think?"

"I wouldn't dare say," the bearded man hurriedly waved his hand. "The great men above must have their reasons for designing such rules. We just follow them..."

"Sooner or later it will need optimizing," the officer chuckled. "After all, everything's only just begun..."

"Who knows..." The bearded man spread his hands. "For my part, just getting my head around this big fellow behind me is enough to make it spin."

"All right, then," the officer seemed to feel that discussing such matters with the man before him was a waste of time, and finally waved his hand. "Verification passed. The stop time is about up—let them through!"

The bearded man broke into a smile at once, bowed like a gentleman, then turned and climbed onto the carriage handrail; the next second, the signal bell inside the train began to ring.

This vast and intricate machine of steel began slowly to accelerate, gradually leaving the Typhon outpost behind, passing over fences and low walls, across the broad buffer zone, and gliding steadily on toward Cecil territory...

Only after the train had crossed the border did a middle-aged mage in a black robe finally descend onto the Typhon outpost.