Geographical note

Nobody could imagine any of the difficulties or terrible events that could come with the building of the railway that was bound for the north-west of the Mountain Knot. So the Local Administrative Council decided to go on with the project.

This decision was inspired by the rate of development of our country and the promising results of the geological survey. The scarce settlements of this area, most of which were built in the previous century, are basically cattle-dealing factories, and few of them became small towns. Theses towns’ inhabitants are a society that is quite unusual and paradoxically pretentious. Manufacturers, ethnographers, inspectors, anthropologists, descendants of the political outcasts and random visitors – all in all educated people – managed to peacefully coexist with the native inhabitants of the area, whose traditions haven’t gone far from the archaic social system.

The railroad project was meant to bring mutual prosperity to the area, so the Committee members were extremely surprised to see the coldness with which the local inhabitants reacted to the news. The engineers even encountered sabotage and open diversion on certain occasions, which resulted in whole large parts of the railroad being spoilt. They used to make sacrifice altars from the sleepers and spirals from the rails… These diversions were explained by means of blaming some dark tribes for them; however the investigation showed that the acts of vandalism were not performed without notification of the local authorities, they had actually been encouraged by rulers.

Nevertheless, the road was built and heavy goods trains started moving along it soon.
The administration’s indignation grew even greater when they received notifications one after the other, about three trains’ mysterious disappearance. However, the local rulers (the owners of the factories, to be more precise) were using their far-off position from the metropolis to bathe in autocracy. They denied having anything to do with the events. The disappearance of the trains they blamed on the evil will of the Steppe, which was worshipped by many tribes as an ancient mother. What could be done about that?

The North-western line has a bad reputation now. Once a month would some regular train roll down it, driven by a frightened man; having unloaded the mail, building materials and manufactured goods, it takes cattle and produce. Then something, half-man, a deaf and dumb sorcerer would ascend upon it. He drives the train through the dark Steppe, praying to the spirits and ancient gods, so the earth would not unleash its wrath for the ones that are taking the skins, hooves and meat of her slaughtered children.

And the Steppe answers with a groan. She breathes scorching underground steam in front of the train, and huge dark animals scour the area around it, moving close to the train, jumping at it, stepping over it, and bend their massive horned heads to the train’s top. They move with the train until the horizon fills with the vague outlines of scattered outskirts of the capital.

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