The ground changed about forty yards before the marsh itself. The dirt road gave way gradually, each step sinking a little deeper before finding resistance underneath, then the resistance stopped being reliable. Beorn watched his boot leave shallow impressions when he lifted it again.

A different aroma rose from the soil as well, of cold moisture pushing upward through the surface. It had nothing in common with the dry furnace heat of the Badlands they had crossed to reach this place.

Ahead, the marsh spread in uneven patches of standing water between low grass. The vegetation near the ground had changed color, the grass denser and more yellow than the scrub behind them, rooted in soil that kept water close beneath the surface instead of dry stone and mineral dust.

An old drainage channel remained visible, stretching southwest away from the marsh toward lower ground. Presumably Coss had cut it a decade ago, maybe longer. The trench itself had survived, though time had nearly reclaimed it.

Grass and marsh plants had grown along the banks and silt had settled across parts of the floor. Workers hired by Beorn had spent the previous day reopening the cut to something close to its original dimensions, and now the channel floor lay exposed again, descending at a shallow grade from the marsh intake toward the outlet farther southwest.

The engine sat at the intake point on a platform of timber planking. In open air, the V3 looked different than it had inside the foundry warehouse.

The separate condenser vessel stood beside the main cylinder, connected through the pipe Wynn had added during final assembly. The entire installation looked more reliable than the V2 ever had, albeit it was still temporary, set up together for testing rather than permanence. But the layout followed a plan instead of necessity.

The intake pipe descended from the pump housing into the marsh water below. The outlet pipe fed directly into the drainage channel.

Wynn stood beside the boiler while his two men moved across the timber platform, testing the boards with their boots. They checked each section carefully, since if the planking shifted too much under load, the marsh ground beneath could destabilize the whole installation.

Beorn already had the ledger open before he stopped walking.

Hild lingered multiple paces behind him, standing near the edge where the ground was still firm enough to trust without overthinking every step. Her arms rested loosely at her sides.

Beorn talked to Aestrith without looking up from the ledger. "If we can drain this marsh to cultivable depth within a season, we gain something close to forty acres of usable ground. That would put us out the imminent food collapse."

Aestrith studied the marsh while she answered, tracking the spread of groundwater.

"Wouldn’t the water eventually return to the marsh after you drain it?"

Beorn turned a page in the ledger. "Only if the drainage can’t exceed the rate the marsh floods. The point of this test is to confirm the engine is potent enough to stabilize the ground without that risk."

"In this case, the V3 runs cleaner than the V2 ever did."

She seemed oddly satisfied with the machine. "The crew built it up nice and tight, and in the past two days I made sure there would be no major problems with the precision and reliability."

"That’s good to hear," Beorn glanced at her.

He wrote the note down immediately.

Behind them, Hild pressed her boot slightly deeper into the soft ground.

Wynn looked up from the boiler.

"Ready."

The engine fired up.

Beorn followed it mostly by sound now rather than sight. He had watched the process enough times to recognize each stage without studying every movement.

Instead, he kept his attention on the drainage itself.

The first cycle fired.

The effect felt completely different in open air.

Inside the foundry or the mine shaft, the percussion had always rebounded from walls and stone. Here the noise dispersed upward into empty sky and outward across wet ground.

What remained reached him first through unreliable ground. The atmospheric stroke traveled through the marsh as a rhythmic vibration in the soil before the noise itself arrived.

The submerged intake pipe drew water. Near it, the marsh surface stirred in a small circular motion as water pulled inward against its natural stillness.

Then the timber platform shifted.

Not much. Just enough for Beorn to notice the problem immediately.

The engine’s vibration worked against the soaked ground beneath the planking.

The boiler rocked slightly during the first cycle. By the second, the condenser fittings creaked under the uneven movement.

Aestrith looked to the soft ground surrounding it. She reached the conclusion quickly.

"I’ll deal with it," she said.

The effect spread across the entire installation zone like an invisible net.

The marsh soil beneath the boiler, condenser vessel, pump housing, and timber platform compressed downward under her gravitational field. The water near the surface pushed deeper into the soil while the upper layers compacted to be denser and more stable.

The timber became steady into firmer support. On the next engine cycle, the vibration spread through the ground instead of feeding instability back into the machine’s joints and fittings.

Wynn watched it, confused by the sudden change.

"Hm," he said at last. "Stroke’s even now."

By the eighth cycle, the drainage channel began to show a weak flow.

The intake filled the upper section first, then continuous pressure from behind pushed the water slowly along the trench.

Beorn could see movement near the intake before the lower sections responded. At the outlet, the drainage channel was still filling rather than draining cleanly when he started walking the bank.

He moved from intake to outlet with the ledger open in one hand and charcoal in the other.

The channel extended roughly sixty yards before flattening near the discharge point. At the midpoint, he could already see the difference between standing water and moving water.

By the time he reached the outlet, water was arriving consistently.

Not much volume, but enough to matter. The channel had stopped behaving like a closed basin.

Beorn turned back toward the engine in the distance.

"The rate’s too low," he said.

Wynn walked beside him along the bank as Beorn continued. "The water is backing against the pipe instead of entering the drainage channel cleanly."

"The banks closed in over the years," Wynn said.

He crouched and pressed his thumb into the channel wall. The soil gave way easily beneath the pressure, roots had loosened decades of steady earth. "You can still see where the original cut was wider. We need to clear it back to that width, wider than that, if needed."

"The outlet pipe also needs more slope," Beorn added immediately.

He traced the channel with his eyes while picturing the flow restriction.

Wynn nodded once.

"The issue is with the channel. The engine is up to the job."

Beorn recorded both changes in the ledger.

Several yards farther along the bank, Hild stood near the bank the drainage had been pulling from for nearly an hour. She pressed the toe of her boot into the exposed soil beside the cut.

"This part feels different than back there," she said.

She meant the difference between the bank and the intake zone near the marsh. The channel here had been drawing moisture from the surrounding soil continuously since the engine started.

"Less full," she added.

Beorn paused before writing that down.

Instead, he studied the bank itself. Then the marsh beyond it. Then the engine continuing its steady cycles atop the timber platform.

Hild’s observation matched the process he expected to see.

He closed the ledger.

"Wynn."

He gestured the man away, "Keep the engine up for another two hours. Log the channel depth at the intake every thirty minutes."

Wynn nodded immediately and started back toward the boiler.

Beorn turned toward Hild.

"Now, let us see what you can do," he said.

She had spent most of the day watching the marsh in silence. Now she looked at him with rebellious, fired up eyes.

"All right," she said.