“The good news is, nobody died or got bitten.”

Greg blinked in confusion. Nathan was standing over him, crossbow held in an easy grip. They were somewhere in the forest.

“What’s the bad news?” Greg mumbled.

“We lost three days,” Nathan said. “Very interesting, that pack dynamic. And your Bernadette, very impressive.”

He offered Greg a hand, and Greg let himself be pulled to his feet. His naked feet.

“Ouch,” he muttered.

In answer, Nathan pushed a bag full of clothes into his hands.

Together, they returned to the camp. Greg still felt a little disoriented. Where were Bernadette, Boris, and Fleur? Where was his pack?

He shook his head. Three days. He had a very vague memory of them, of following Bernadette around and evading others.

“What’s wrong?” he asked when they climbed the mound. From up the dyke he could see that all the workers had gathered at one end, at the foot of their defences. They were eerily quiet.

“We got to decide how to handle new moon,” Nathan explained.

Eyal and Digger were climbing the bank when Greg and Nathan approached. Greg stood with Isaac, Thoko, and Randal, but Nathan went on to join the two crew leaders.

Before either of the three could say anything, one of the navvies called: “Who’s guarding the camp right now? All the werewolves are here!”

“Not all,” Nathan said. “We’ve got the four strongest of them on patrol, it’ll be fine. The issue is not today. The issue will be new moon.”

“What happened to the clerks?” Greg asked Isaac when all the workers started talking and yelling at once.

“Got scared senseless,” Isaac said.

“Quite the opposite,” Thoko disagreed. “They finally came to their senses. One of the bigger Rot things climbed the bank, when the fires were low, yesterday during the rainfall. Would have gotten in, but one of you dragged it down again. Turned the thing to mush.”

“Certainly got into everybody’s head,” Isaac said with a shudder. “Froze us solid.”

“I think that was the first time the clerks realized how dangerous this job is,” Thoko added. “They didn’t argue anymore that we need a plan for new moon.”

The plan that everybody agreed on, in the end, was to have one third of the crew fortify the full moon camp even further, while the other continued the work as usual. Then, a day before new moon, they would all hurry back here, to wait out new moon. For the next full moon, a new camp would be built and then again fortified until new moon, and so on, until they reached the point where the railway was to cross the Savre, a little more than halfway to Mannin.

They actually reached that point two days before the third full moon. An old bridge, predating the Rot, crossed the river here. The mail coaches used it, so it had a fortified coaching inn on either side. The navvies began to erect fortifications immediately – naturally in such a way that the inn was included into the camp. The crews celebrated this milestone with lots of beer.

After full moon, Calder, one of the older werewolves, escorted a clerk back to Eoforwic to inform the company of the progress, and hand over Smith’s reports.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

For Greg and the other werewolves, of course, there was little time to celebrate. The first proper break they got was on the next new moon, when they couldn’t do much anyway. The Morgulon spent nearly the whole day sleeping, and did so outside, in the forest. Several other werewolves followed her example.

Bernadette, Boris, and Fleur did enter the camp, apparently mostly because Greg had no intention to sleep on the forest floor. Bernadette and Boris both liked Eyal, Isaac, and the rest of the original crew, but Thoko and Fleur didn’t get along. Greg had no idea what that was about, and it annoyed him to no end – mostly because Isaac seemed to think that the unspoken argument was hilarious.

Nathan seemed to think it was funny, too, but he was less obvious about it. Even so, it had taken Bernadette, Boris, and Fleur nearly two months to get used to him and his crossbow, and the idea that Greg was still close to his family of werewolf-hunters. By the time they had reached the bridge, though, Nathan had won them over, and they all dozed in the sun.

Only Greg was too restless to lay on his back. The sun was glaring down on all of them, and most of the workers seemed determined to move as little as possible. There was no hint at all of the Rot, not even the slightest whiff, for the first time since they had started the work. Greg stared up towards the fire grilles on the dam surrounding the camp. Tonight should be quiet.

“Want to have a look at the old bridge?”

Greg jumped when Smith suddenly stood behind him, but he nodded in relief.

“Well, come on,” Smith said. “It’s not a bad construction.”

“Why are we tearing it down then?” Greg asked, and followed the engineer towards the camp’s gate.

“It’s not going to hold a fully loaded train,” Smith explained. “And while it’s a well-built bridge, it’s also over three-hundred years old, and the river seems to have been much narrower back then. Even without the railway, the timbers would need to be renewed soon.”

“In other words, the whole thing needs to go?” Greg asked.

They had reached the coach road and had a good view of the construction.

“The wooden parts, yes,” Smith said. “But this,” he stomped the ground, “is some excellent stone-work, we can extend on that. Especially if the river returns back to its old bed.”

“Why would it?” Greg asked.

“Oh, haven’t you noticed? With so many werewolves around, there’s less Rot, and the swampy areas are getting smaller. It looks like the groundwater levels are dropping, but I’ll need to get a geologist out here to say for sure. Oh, and the bridge will need to be wider, since the coach still needs to be able to pass here, too.”

“Why would anyone take the coach, once there’s a railroad?” Greg asked, confused.

Smith shrugged. “I think it’s stupid, too, but those are the specifications we’ve been given.”

He looked around. “Maybe it’s not that stupid,” he added. “Maybe there’ll even be foot traffic. Just think about it – in a few years, this river might be cleansed entirely. There might be a town, soon, where the camp is now, with a proper railway station and a harbour. People will change trains here, from the line to Mannin onto the line to Clyde’s Pass, or just spend a day in the city. People from Deva will travel here, just to take a stroll in the forest... It’s all possible, now, isn’t it?”

“I guess we’ll see,” Greg said, staring at the trees. It was hard to imagine anyone would travel from Deva to go for a holiday here. Or was it? Sunlight was filtering through the leaves, which were moving in a slight breeze, and all they could smell was the cool, wet earth.

What would it be like around here in a few years?

Smith grinned, and changed the topic, straight into an analysis of the old bridge and its architecture, and then on to a description of what was planned for the new bridge. He walked around excitedly and showed Greg where exactly the new construction would be rooted into the earth, and which course the rails would follow. Greg’s questions kept him going.

“Want to have a look at the blueprints, too?” he finally asked.

“Sure,” Greg said.

“You know, I have absolutely no idea why a guy as bright as you ever wanted to become a werewolf-hunter,” Smith said, a little sadly, as they turned away from the river. “Mind you, I’m not saying it was a wrong decision – hell, I’d most likely be dead if you hadn’t gotten bitten. But still. It doesn’t fit you at all.”

Greg shrugged. “I don’t think I really wanted to become a hunter,” he said quietly. “I just wanted to – to prove I could do the job, I suppose. The job the rest of my family did. If I hadn’t been bitten, I’d probably have quit by now, anyway. Maybe, I’d be sitting at university right now. I’d like to become an engineer, too. But I guess that ship has sailed.”

“Maybe not,” Smith said. “If we can push this line all the way to Mannin, then why shouldn’t a werewolf become an engineer?”

“People will still be scared,” Greg pointed out.

Smith shrugged. “All the navvies you work with used to be scared of werewolves,” he said. “Remember how they reacted when the Morgulon transformed, that very first day of this job? And today? Let’s go, grab a beer,” he added since they were just passing the inn’s entrance.

Greg followed the engineer rather hesitantly inside. The inn was packed with navvies, of course, and the proprietor could barely refill their glasses fast enough. Nobody gave Greg a second look, though.