Alongrid Knights

By Stephen Dorning

Welcome to the world of Alongrid. A world in the midst of a war that has raged for centuries. A world where hope is a valuable commodity. A world where the only thing standing in the way of total conquest by the Elven Nation is the steam powered might of the Dwarven Kingdom.

Stories in this volume include;

Dishonored
There Shouldn’t Be Elves In Hammertown
It Never Rains In Hammertown
The Sapphire Wave

In the conflict for world domination there is no such thing as neutral ground.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stephen Dorning
• Release date: Sep 29, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301910250

Stephen Dorning

In the declining months of 2010 there was a cataclysmic event in the Blount and surrounding counties area of Alabama. A competition of wordsmiths as Fifth Estate Publishing, a publishing house that prints by invitation only, was seeking new talent. Stephen Dorning won that competition with his first book, Stars of the Kanri. Since that time, Stephen has written a sequel, Spheres of the Ryk-tar and is currently working on a third book set in that same world. Stephen was also featured in a steampunk and a pirate anthology, both printed by Kerlak Publishing. He was born and raised in the rural area of Blountsville, Alabama where he lives with his wife, Vicki and their four children. You can find more info on his work at www.heavymetalcowboy.com.

Book preview

Alongrid Knights

Written By : S.P.Dorning

Copyright 2013 Stephen Dorning

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* TABLE OF CONTENTS *

*~~~*~~~*

Dedication

Author’s Foreword

About Alongrid

Dishonored

There Shouldn’t Be Elves In Hammertown

It Never Rains In Hammertown

Introduction to The Sapphire Wave

The Sapphire Wave

About The Author

Preview for the upcoming Alongrid book

*~~~*~~~*

This book is dedicated to my good frien,d Mrs. Herika Raymer, and to the great people of Imagicopter for sparking the flame that created the world of Alongrid. Thanks to all my family and friends for their continuing support and encouragement, and I would also like to especially thank David and Rhonda Bryant, for helping me bring Orin VanDarn and Haibo Ardinvare alive. And finally, this book is dedicated to my son, Galen who doesn’t like to read Science-Fiction. Maybe he will like this better.

Special thanks to Jeff Jackson and Daniel O’Ryan for helping me understand the processes involved in steam generation and the practical applications of those processes. I had to take creative license with some aspects of the steam-plants mentioned in these stories, as the heat generated for their use is created by ‘magical’ means. That being said I take full responsibility for any errors you may find.

* FOREWORD *

The stories contained in this book might never even have existed if not for a group called Imagicopter. A short time ago they decided to do a ‘steampunk’ anthology. The theme would be ‘machine versus magic’. At the time I had no intention of submitting a story. I was too involved with the science-fiction trilogy I had been working on. The next letter I received from them was a second call for stories. It seemed there had been a lot of poetry and artwork, but not enough stories to make an anthology out of. I had never written ‘steampunk’ before. I knew what it was but had never really gotten into it. Then I thought of all the people who had already contributed. I didn’t want them to lose their anthology for lack of stories. So I dusted off my thinking cap, sat down, and wrote one. The short called ‘Survival’ was born just for that anthology, but the spark it lit in my imagination did not go out. Instead, it tried to take over. The world expanded and grew. How did the war start? What happened to the elves to turn them evil? My steampunk world began to resemble WWII. The elves had become the faery tale version of Nazi’s and the Dwarven cities would have mirrored any city in the United States during the 1930’s-40’s. The world practically created itself and just begged me to write about it. I could not resist it any more than I could stop breathing. The stories contained in this book are the start of something beautiful that grew from that acorn that was the short, ‘Survival’. I thank Imagicopter for pushing me in that direction, for if I had not wanted to help them with ‘Clockwork Spells & Magical Bells’ the world of Alongrid may never have come to be. I hope that you find as much enjoyment reading the following pages as I did writing them.

* ABOUT ALONGRID *

Welcome to the world of Alongrid. A world powered by steam, and populated by creatures of myths and legends. Once, long ago there were good elves. They lived at peace with all the other races of Alongrid. Somewhere along the way a splinter faction formed, believing that the elves were the rightful rulers of their world, and all other races were inferior. A great war commenced pitting the good elves against the evil. Unable to believe that the Elven Nation could become so corrupt, the good elves were caught off guard. They lost, leaving humans, dwarves and gnomes to face the might of a corrupt Elven Nation. Now the elves are well on their way to conquest. The only thing standing in their way is the steam powered might of the Dwarven Kingdom.

* DISHONORED *

Thunder rumbled in the distance, promising rain later on in the day as Orin VanDarn made his way to the Phoenix Guard’s Fifth Regimental Assembly Tent. His stride was quick and showed the confidence of a dwarf that had been in the military a long time. There were times when he wondered if there was anything else to life besides the military. He knew there were other places. Places where the war was a distant threat and life was the normal every day humdrum that it had always been, but it seemed foreign to him. His life before was a dim memory.

The bloody conflict between the Elven Nation and the Dwarven Kingdom had raged long before he had earned the right to wear the steam-powered armor of the Phoenix Guard. In fact, it had raged for as long as he could remember. Orin couldn’t quite remember how it had started, but he knew why it continued. The elves thought of themselves as the Master Race. To them, a perfect world would only contain elves, and they were making a grand effort at bringing that perfect world into being. Every day seemed to find the dwarves retreating little by little, grudgingly giving ground under the onslaught that was the elves. The dwarves made them earn what they took, but they were still taking it. Another peal of thunder sounded as he entered the shade of the Assembly Tent. Other soldiers were arriving, and they all formed ranks, preparing to receive instructions for the day.

Listen up! The commander was a grizzled old dwarf with more grey in his beard than black. His skin was dark with the tan of someone who had been in the sun blasted trenches of the treeless plains a long time. Someone who had spent a lifetime fighting the elves so their kin-folk could remain safe in the caves of their homeland. His name was Thanto Veesal, but everybody under his command just called him Crank. Only in whispered conversations though. "We’ve been ordered to make another strategic withdrawal, the elves have taken the Histle Pass. They are currently northeast of our position, and heading our way. We need to stall them to give the Thundermakers time to get their gear and fall back to the next barricade. It should only take about two days. I know we’re spread thin, but we only need to hold’em for two days. If they get past us, they can wreak havoc on our supply lines. Fightin’ on stale biscuits is tough, but believe me, boys, fighting on ‘no’ biscuits is worse. Pick up your individual assignments from your duty officer."

*~~~*~~~*

The rain finally came. Beating down on Orin’s helmet and puddling in the low spots of the crumbling building he had chosen as a bolthole. The sound of it echoed inside the steam armor giving the illusion of a fierce storm instead of the steady downpour that it was. Orin peered out, watching the courtyard in front of him with intense concentration. He had seen movement. Of that he was certain. He just didn’t have an exact position. The elves that they had been fighting in this particular area of Arringar hadn’t used any invisibility spells, but that didn’t mean they didn’t have any. Orin had picked this building for cover because it overlooked the empty courtyard giving him a good kill-zone. The cobblestone road was the only way for anyone to get through with equipment of any size. That meant the elven troops would more than likely come through here. It was possible that the movement he had caught out of the corner of his eye was a scout.

He kept the boiler-pack that was powering his armor at low-fire, barely enough to run the servos required to move, but he could bring it up to full readiness in just a few moments. The uneasy feeling that was creeping around the nape of his neck persisted, giving him the premonition of a trap waiting to be sprung. He glanced down at his weapon gauntlets and back up again just in time to see the flash of movement again.

Bloody elves and their bloody magic. He whispered, spitting between the bars of his faceplate as if the words left a bad taste in his mouth.

An elf appeared below in the courtyard, as if summoned by Orin’s whispered curse. A male elf, standing almost six feet, dressed in plain traveling cloak and clothing. Two bandoliers of pouches crisscrossed his chest, and a courier’s satchel hung by his left hip. A canvas backpack was slung across his shoulders, and his knee-high black boots appeared to be made for comfort when walking long distances rather than the government-issued ones most elven scouts wore. That was enough to cause Orin to hesitate in firing, but not enough to keep him from aiming the chain-gun mounted on his right gauntlet in the elf’s direction. There was something off about this character besides his clothes, but Orin couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

The elf scurried from cover to cover, making his way across the courtyard, and Orin tracked him with his chain-gun barrel all the way. When the elf was halfway across, he managed to figure out what was different. The runes that were tattooed on the elf’s face and clothes were glowing with a soft white light as opposed to the angry red that all the others he had fought wore. Orin wasn’t sure if it was significant, but he made a mental note to ask around when he got back to base camp. Bracing himself for the recoil, he pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. Twice more he tried to fire and was rewarded with nothing more than the clicking of the jammed feed belt.

Cursing, he cranked the manual feed handle, backing the chain up to free the track. The mechanism loading the ammo into the firing chamber had been bent in a fight with an elf wearing Scorpion armor. He had thought that he had straightened it out sufficiently for it to work. Apparently he had been wrong. Dropping back into cover, he worked the misaligned chain trying to free it, the elf halfway forgotten in the back of his mind.

Gnomish engineering, coupled with dwarven craftsmanship could produce some wondrous equipment. Unfortunately some of the tech they issued the Phoenix Guard required precision alignment, and could be a little touchy. Once something was bent it was almost impossible to realign in the field. He knew he was going to have to strip it down and try to fix it again this afternoon. It looked like the pin holding that particular link in place had worked itself out, jamming against the housing of the loading breach. He lifted up on the link to get it in a better position to push it back into place. With a twang it jumped out of the link, vanishing into the rubble at his feet. With nothing to keep it in place, the chain slid free and Orin cursed again as he stood there holding the useless piece of junk.

The crackle and pop of electricity was his only warning as three energy blasts from an elven Wendigo-model armor exploded around him. Reflexes took over, and he dodged to his left, putting a pile of broken bricks between him and the new arrival. Two more blasts exploded in front of him, this time from the opposite side of the building as a elven Corsair appeared. They must have spotted him and split up for an ambush. Now they had him in a crossfire.

That be jes’ perfect, he grumbled to himself under his breath. Dropping the useless ammo chain, he launched himself at his nearest attacker.

The wall collapsed under the impact from his steam-powered armor as Orin drove the Wendigo into it. His gauntleted fist cannoned into it, boosted by the servos in his armor. Orin was strong enough to break trees with his fists; with the extra power from the servo-assist he could crack boulders. He hammered at the Wendigo faceplate, knowing he had to take one of them down fast. A crack appeared in the seam where two of the armored plates met, and Orin focused the brunt of his assault there. The Wendigo tried unsuccessfully to block Orin’s attack as another energy blast exploded against the wall behind them, peppering them both with concrete shrapnel. Orin jammed the barrel of his steam-jet into the crack he had managed to open in the Wendigo’s helmet and triggered the weapon. The elven warrior screamed as he was cooked alive inside the shell of his armor. The Wendigo bucked and kicked, flinging Orin off just as the Corsair came in firing. Energy slugs slammed into the Wendigo where Orin had straddled it just moments before. As the metal turned to slag under the magical energy, the screams from inside the armor