Fire, Steel & Petroleum: A Dieselpunk Short Story

Hello patrons,

We have a little treat for you! Tomorrow, we’re releasing the short story, Fire, Steel & Petroleum. You can read the whole story below for free.

If you’d prefer to load it onto your ereader, a free version will be available tomorrow across a variety of platforms. As always, we appreciate your reviews if you enjoyed it!

Happy reading!

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Fire, Steel & Petroleum

by Glynn Stewart

The big twin-cylinder motorbike was done. Afageon knew it just looking at where he’d propped the vehicle up when it had guttered to a stop.

The smell of iron and petroleum flickered through the air—and so did the drifting smell of smoke from the village behind him. There was no blood or flesh in that smoke.

So far.

One of the big trucks rolled back down the gravel road, and a grizzled old woman—the mayor, Afageon thought—jumped down.

He hadn’t had time to collect names. Things had moved too quickly. Even he was feeling it, and he could see it in the woman’s eyes.

“There’s still plenty of fuel in the trucks,” she told him loudly, following his gaze to the fallen bike.

“It’s the wrong purity,” Afageon replied. She knew that too. She hadn’t lived under the guardianship of Knights like Afageon for this long without knowing that. “Engine would seize up before we made it a league.”

He pulled the stubby carbine from the saddle holster and ejected the magazine. Only six rounds left. Afageon had fired off the rest before he’d even reached the village. He reseated the magazine.

“I don’t suppose your people have any four-seven ammo?” he asked.

“Not a rifle in town would fire that, Sir Knight,” the mayor told him. “And…well, we haven’t had a gunsmith in a bit. We’re mostly out of huntin’ rounds at that. We’ve half a dozen shotguns, maybe two dozen shells for all of them.”

The Knight nodded heavily.

“Get me the best shotgun and half the shells, ma’am,” he told her. “Then you get your people up on those trucks and you drive north.

“You drive until you hit the Keep at Chatham, or till you run out of fuel. If you run out of fuel, you walk. If anyone falls, you carry ’em. You get me, ma’am?”

“I’ll get you the shottie,” she promised. “But…surely you’ll ride with us, Sir Knight?”

“Trucks can’t outrun raiders on bikes, even raider bikes,” Afageon told her. “No, ma’am, I will remain and hold the road.”

There was a long silence. Somewhere in the village, a fuel tank exploded.

“They’ll come for you.”

Afageon checked his sword and the carbine and smiled at her.

“I am a Knight of Cadrellion,” he told her. “By fire and steel and petroleum, they shall not pass.”

—-

The raiders gave him a tenth of a day by his watch, time Afageon spent digging up the road with his folding shovel. They’d go around it easily enough, but it would slow them down. It gave him time.

It let him shoot the leader before they ever saw him. The man, clad in a mismatched collection of leather and scrap metal, seemed to freeze in position before sliding sideways off his bike—a rusted twin-cylinder machine that had probably once belonged to a Knight like Afageon.

He racked the slide on the carbine and fired into the bike’s gas tank. It wouldn’t explode, but even raiders knew to watch for sparks and fuel and fire.

Engines screamed in the moonlit night as a dozen motorbikes careened away from their leader’s body. A third of Afageon’s precious four-seven bullets cracked into the bike of the first raider to turn around.

A miss. Even a Knight couldn’t land every shot, not in the dark like this.

His bike could do him one last service. He flicked the lever that brought up its powerful arc light, highlighting the gang on the gravel road as he stepped forward and bellowed the words every raider within a hundred leagues of here had to know and fear.

“I am a Knight of Cadrellion! By fire and steel and petroleum, these lands are protected. Turn back or die!”

A hail of gunfire answered, bullets smashing into the dirt around the bike Afageon was already walking away from.

He didn’t miss with his fourth bullet, a second raider falling from their bike. The others swiftly dismounted, taking cover behind their vehicles from a shooter they couldn’t detect in the dark.

The borrowed shotgun was heavy on his shoulder, his sword a familiar weight at his side. This dozen was only the scouting party. Even if he scared them off, there would be five times as many in town.

All he could ever do here was buy time.

“Cadrellion will burn!” one of the raiders shouted back. “And her raggedy knights with h—”

Five bullets down, but another hail of fire swept through Afageon’s position and he hadn’t moved fast enough this time. His tabard and hauberk were reinforced, but they were intended to protect him from a fall, not bullets.

He stifled a scream of pain as fire burned through his arm and shoulder. He tried to lift his carbine properly to take another shout and bit down more pain.

One-handed it was. Even a Knight of Cadrellion was going to have problems hitting like that.

It was dark again, a final raider bullet finally having put out his bike’s light—and the raiders’ bikes didn’t have the batteries to have light with the engines off. The moon gave enough light for him and the raiders to continue their dance, but it could only end one way now.

Nine of them. One of him.

His last four-seven went wide, his one-handed firing stance unable to support the carbine enough, and he discarded the heavy weapon and hugged the ground under the raiders’ response.

They seemed far more casual with ammunition than most. He’d noticed that before, though. This group was well-equipped. Either a captured gunsmith or something meant they weren’t worried about their bullets.

Afageon pulled himself to the pile of dirt where he’d dug up the road. That gave him a rest for the shotgun as he unslung it. With only one usable hand, he wasn’t going to be able to reload the double-barreled gun, but that was what it came down to.

“I smell blood,” one of the raiders shouted. “Yer bleeding out, knight. Come on out and we’ll make it quick. Make us find you…and we won’t.”

He didn’t have a clear shot at the speaker. He could line the shotgun up on a couple of the laughing companions, but… The buckshot would spread handily, but it wouldn’t do much against even raider leathers at any range. He needed them to get closer.

“Why don’t you come and find out the steel part of the oath means, chucklehead?” Afageon shouted back.

That got him more laughter—and more bullets, several definitely landing in the shallow pile of dirt in front of them.

But the raiders were now moving toward him, moonlight glinting off rusted scrap metal in their armor and he judged it as carefully as he could.

“Come out, come out, mister knight,” the apparent new leader chortled. “I though you were a hero, not a mou—”

With even a moment’s hindsight, Afageon knew firing both barrels at the man had been a waste. The raider went down like a sack of wet potatoes, but now Afageon was out of bullets. He couldn’t even break open the shotgun with his left arm hanging uselessly at his side.

He shifted to reach his sword. He’d already given a good account of himself and bought the villagers time. Surrender wouldn’t even buy him a quick death at this point, which meant there was only one way for a Knight of Cadrellion to go down.

The remaining raiders were spreading out in silence now. They’d guessed where he was, and they were done taunting. They knew their work, even if he’d made it as hard for them as he could, and they guessed he had cover of some kind.

The moonlight would betray him if they got the right angle. He was out of time and swallowed hard against a spike of fear.

A Knight of Cadrellion was expected to fear. They were expected to recognize their risks and enemies.

And they were expected to do what was necessary regardless.

By fire and steel and petroleum, this land is guarded!

His sword was in his hand and his time was up—and then one of the raiders stopped.

“Listen!” she hissed. “Engines.”

Afageon heard them a moment later—the distinctive sound of perfectly tuned big twin-cylinder motorcycles. At least a dozen of them.

“Fall back on the town,” the woman snapped. “We were to catch villagers, not fight a flying wing of Knights!”

The others fell back quickly toward their bikes, but the woman remained for a moment, clearly looking roughly where Afageon was lying hidden.

“Not bad, Sir Knight,” she whispered, barely loud enough for him to hear her. “Might kill you another night. You might kill me then, too. Today…today you get lucky.”

She strode back to her bike and was gone in a blink of an eye, the only remaining sound and presence that of Afageon’s sibling-Knights riding to the rescue—as the Knights of Cadrellion were sworn to do.

By fire and steel and petroleum!