Len's stomach lurched as the weight of the train, even lessened with his enchantments pulled them down and into the gully.

  Rick and the engineeers had been busy, they had a track to the bottom of the gully and running along it for a good distance. Even now they were laying more track, it stopped at a rise ahead.

  The train rattled down the gully's slope, gaining speed with each meter. The other cars followed them down to the whoops and yells of those in the back.

  The whole train shuddered. Len twisted to look back - the rear flatbed car cartwheeled through the air, torn free by a massive sandstone paw.

  The bear's paws set of a mini landslide as it backed away from the edge of the gully.

  Fire bloomed at the top of the gully. The explosion's heat washing over Len's back. The train came to a flat section, jostling around before it started to climb a hill, their momentum slowing greatly.

  Len released himself from the chain brace, boots sliding on the metal as he sprinted for the stored cleaning supplies. He grabbed the brooms, jamming them between his armor plates, the wooden handles catching on his living Sylvani armor.

  "Harold, do you have the extruding enchantment to secure the rail to the ground?" Len called out.

  "Yeah its with the other plates!"

  Len found the enchantment plate, examining it quickly. The activation trigger looked correct - it would work when it hit full mana charge against wooden materials.

  Smart way to space it out.

  He pocketed one plate and held the other in his hand. Guess we'll have to see how well it works.

  "Curve the wood up," he ordered.

  Len leapt onto the roof of the control cabin, boots holding him steady.

  "Dad keep the pace steady, slow enough for everyone to board!" He had to shout over decent speed they had, a good jog to pre-mana people.

  He heard a roar, the beat with half glass crystals hanging to it started to climb down the rails, cracking them and dropping, its claws sticking into the hill as it righted itself.

  "Wilbur take out the pins on the extruders and turn them around to the other side!" he yelled back to the flatbed.

  He grabbed onto the rails Gretchen and Harold passed up from below holding them in one hand and cast a spell for the wood to work as he desired.

  "Deploy the builder frames!"

  The tome chained to his hip and the Sylvani broach worked together as he jumped off of the train and ran ahead stamping in the ties/roots to the bottom of the rails. He unfolded the length of wood Gretchen and Harold had folded back, always adding more ties as he ran to the end of the rails.

  The enchantment reshaped the wood, creating upside down, spiral-topped spikes that looked like twisted pine trees that smoothed into a point that could be stabbed into the ground.

  He added as many as he could put in to the ends of the rails. He had to run faster than the train as the rails were growing so rapidly.

  Christina lowered down the first building frame that she'd attached to the front of the train.

  It started bouncing around on its leaf springs and cart wheels as Gretchen and Harold climbed around the front of the train with their finished enchanted steel plates.

  Gretchen activated hers, smoothing out the space ahead of the rail and smoothing out the extra bouncy ride that the leaf spring enabled wheels were providing.

  The wood of the sleepers was coaxed to creating a platform between the rails. Engineers supplying their spell to the cause, making it spread rapidly up the platforms.

  Christina yelled back as another platform was brought over the top of the train.

  Gretchen and Harold moved forward with their enchantments with Gretchen in the lead.

  Engineers conveyed the second platform forward, the sleepers had been spread out into flooring between the rails somewhat.

  They pushed the whole thing forward, the wheels bouncing with the terrain as they kept extending it. Platesalready attached to the new rail were slotted against the first rails, nuts and bolts securing them to one another rapidly.

  Thumbs went up, Gretchen crawled forward, the bumps making the whole platform jump up and down. She pushed onwards with her enchantment, the ride smoothing out.

  Soldiers clambered up, creating a human chain to move the platforms forward.

  Len focused on his run for the top of the slope they were going up.

  Rick was off to the side with Captain Sam and her people.

  Rick ran with him, the only one able to keep up wit his speed.

  "Stick the rails into the ground at the end of your track!" Len passed him one over.

  "What's the brooms sticking out of your armor for?" Rick asked.

  "Push them against the top of the rail to push it into the ground!" Len handed him a tie extruder. "Slap this against the wood and it'll make these things to secure it into the ground!" Len pointed to one of the ties on the bottom of his rail.

  A roar cut through the gully, another sandstone bear reaching the top of the gully and starting the sliding-tumble down. The first was already two thirds of the way down and it would start gathering speed quickly.

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  They went over the slope and came down the other side.

  Rick took his broom and pushed the wood up high so it wouldn't catch on the top of the hill.

  Len spotted where Rick's rail finished.

  He reached it in a few seconds, altering the angle of the rail as he put down the new wood one and stomped the collection of ties into the ground before checking that the rail Rick had laid and the new were close.

  "Keep it straight, so when it catches speed it doesn't jerk it around and try to throw it from the tracks!" Rick said.

  Len stomped more of the ties into the ground, the wood was growing faster than he was laying track.

  He stepped on the track already on the ground, raised his broom high, keeping the supple spell going through the rail curving infront of him as he picked a target in the distance and began running on the rail.

  He took out the tie enchantment and held it around the rail, creating ties as he rail, pushing them into the ground as he ran.

  "This is completely insane!" Rick shouted over the rumble of the approaching train. His laughter carried across the distance between them.

  Len couldn't help but join in, the absurdity of laying track ahead of a moving train while being chased by stone bears striking him as hilarious. His chest shook with mirth even as he continued running along the rail, pushing ties into the earth.

  Peter's platform emerged over the hill behind them, now extended to four sections. The engine's wheels clattered as it crested the rise. Engineers and soldiers waited to come down on the other side working in perfect coordination even as they bounced up and down over the place, passing the fifth and final section forward. Metal rang against metal as they bolted it into place with Gretchen and Harold moving forward to the front quickly, the wood having been spread across the rails to make a complete platform.

  "We're going to have to jump up on the platform when it gets to us and use the brooms to push the rails into the ground," Len yelled to Rick.

  "Okay!"

  He watched as the land smoothed ahead of the platforms and then compacted, clamping around the rails they'd pressed into the ground.

  Christina and several engineers were making a steel frame at the front of the first platform. Gretchen and Harold were securing their enchantments behind them.

  The train continued to pick up pace as the frame took shape, the wooden rails going through feeders at the top that made them supple again.

  Feeders attached to arms were measured and dropped, grabbing onto the rail in the ground and lining it up.

  "Get out the way!" Christina yelled.

  Len jumped to the side as the platform chugged forward, bringing his tie enchantment with him.

  He jumped back up and onto the platform, the wind racing through his hair.

  "Tie encahantment!" Christina yelled.

  Len reached her and passed it to her, she put it against an arm over the rail. Ties grew out of the rail passing under it as Rick put his enchantment against the other arm.

  The metal melded together and the rails got ties, as they curved over the front of the the train, through the feeders that lined them up with the railway gauge that matched the train's wheels and pressed the ties into the ground before the ground was compressed holding it tight.

  Len exhaled out of his mouth, controlling his breathing as he looked back at the train. The platforms were going up and down like a ship through the sea, engineers had feeders like those along the side of the train going up between the platforms, the wooden rails snaking from the flatbed.

  The wind was at his back as the train's engines picked up pace.

  Len and Rick moved along the bouncing platforms carefully and clambered around the engine, getting into the train cab.

  The platforms undulated infront of the train. Edward operated the whistle of the train, the forward-most section turned on a slight angle, the train turning towards the valley between the great hills.

  Detonations rang out of the back of the train.

  "Going to need more rail faster!" Len's father said. "Bears are in the gully!"

  Len slapped him on the shoulder and headed backwards, jumping up onto the top of the tender.

  The bears were rushing towards the train, fire was spreading throughout the gully, though they were falling back as the train moved faster than they could catch up.

  A soldier shot a tree near the track, where he hit exploded, toppling the tree.

  By the time it was tilting over, a chains from the second flatbed, the second car after the engine, wrapped around the tree, dragging it to the train.

  Rick following as he dropped down to the flatbed.

  Soldiers pulled it up and passed it to others who cut it up with mana blades, de-limbing and sectioning it up that was moved forward to the flatbed car where Peter and Wilbur were working the wood hoppers, trees quickly dropping away as they worked.

  "Increase the amount of rails being made!" Len yelled over the noise as he reached the duo.

  "Got it!" Wilbur said, pressing his finger to the right place and injecting more mana.

  The rail's speed cranked up.

  "Wood!" Wilbur yelled.

  The tree wranglers kept up their pattern.

  Len's sound talisman shook, he pulled it out. "What?"

  "Trees, going to need some magical help!" Christina said.

  "Back we go," Len retraced his steps, standing on the top of the tender and looking forward as his father used the whistle to let out one blast.

  The front platform turned to be straight again, leading them into the valley between hills, filled with trees instead of the sparse stuff in the last valley.

  "Rick you guide my dad through the area. I'll deal with the trees."

  "Alright!"

  They dropped into the cab, Rick pulling out a map from under his sylvani armor an checking his compass.

  Len climbed around the engine, they were going full tilt now, the wind pulling at his hair and clothes as he smiled.

  He got to the platforms, staying in the middle as he muddled his way forward. People were tying rope around the poles holding the rail feeding brackets up, creating at least some feeling that he wasn't going to just fall off of the side with one bad buck.

  He reached the front of the train where Christina, two of her people, Gretchen and Harold were.

  "Len the enchantments need more power!" Gretchen said. "We're increasing the power ourselves but we'll run out soon!"

  "Use this," Len pulled out some mana pieces from his pocket and gave them to her, and some more to Harold.

  Len squinted against the wind as he looked forward at the trees coming up, feeling his own mana reserves.

  The broach and tome are going to be damn useful.

  "Tell someone to get my staff from the first cargo car," he called out. Christina pulled out a sound transmission device and started talking into it.

  Gathering his power, Len cast a spell to manipulate the trees in their path. The massive trunks groaned and creaked as they either toppled over or bent backwards, the ground shifting to open a passage through the forest ahead. Once they passed through, the trees would simply snap back into place, covering their trail.

  "One whistle means straight ahead, two means left, three means right," Christina said from beside him.

  Len nodded. "Alright." He pulled out a mana piece and popped it into his mouth, consuming the concentrated energy to increase his own mana regeneration rate. Given enough time, the influx would start stressing his system, but it was ideal for short, intense bursts like this.

  The train barreled through the newly-formed gap, trees whipping past on either side. Len could feel the mana drain as he continuously reshaped the terrain, but the piece helped mitigate the strain.

  Holy shit we're actually doing this.

  He started chuckling to himself as he cruised on a platform through the middle of the stained mountain range's foothills, parting a forest ahead of him as they rode an enchanted train.