Dwarven Rifleman Series: Diaries of a Dwarven Rifleman

by Michael Pearce

  Engvyr gaped at him in shock, but before he could protest the Prince continued.

  “We can't have you living like a pauper! What would people think if the Lord Warder of the North were living in a hovel? A cottage, he says!” the Prince said, shaking his head in scorn, then he frowned at Engvyr, “Lord and Lady, boy, close your mouth! I won't have one of my Royal Officials standing about gaping like a fish!”

  Engvyr closed his mouth with a snap. The prince clapped his hands together gleefully and said, “Oh yes, my boy, a very bright future indeed!”

  EPILOGUE I

  Deandra and Ynghilda sat comfortably in their accustomed places by the hearth in the great hall. A good fire was burning tonight against the late-autumn chill and but for the absence of her husband she found herself content. The harvest, such as it was, was in. The Prince had assured them that a Royal Stipend of grain and other foodstuffs was on its way to tide them over through the winter. The great hall was emptier than it had been in many weeks.

  There were a number of farmholds left vacant by the war. The Braell crews had, with some swapping around, organized themselves into 'families' and taken names for themselves. The first of these families had already moved out to the nearby farms, each with a volunteer from the hold or a farmhold to ease them into their new lives. They would spend the winter adjusting to their new lifestyle, learning to read, keep accounts and anything else that they needed to become self-sufficient.

  They were disturbed by the sudden entry of one of the guards, who told them that a large mounted party had arrived.

  “Odd,” said Ynghilda, “I wasn't expecting anyone.”

  “My apologies, Ma'am, but they say that they are here to see Lady Eastgrove,” the guard said nervously.

  “Well, for the Lord and Lady's sake, man, don't leave them standing out in the cold! Send them in!” she commanded.

  The two women stood as the party was ushered into the hall. There were several men and women, all dressed in the fashion of prosperous tradesmen and women. At the head of their party strode a slight, elderly dwarf. Reaching Deandra he bowed deeply to her.

  “Lady Eastgrove, I am Biphur, son of Ouwen, at your service.”

  Deandra glanced at Ynghilda, whose shrug signaled that she was as much in the dark as the younger woman.

  Deandra returned his bow and said, “I am most pleased to meet you, Biphur son of Ouwen.”

  Straightening, the elder dwarf said, “If it is not too great an imposition on M'lady's time, perhaps you would care to look over some of our plans? The rest of the party has gone on to the work-site. Given the season we had thought it best to get started as quickly as possible.”

  “Rest of the party?” she said, baffled, “Plans? Work site? I am quite at a loss for what you are talking about.”

  The Biphur looked at her with surprise.

  “Why, for your estate, M'lady! Surely...” he cut himself off, a look of dawning comprehension crossing his face. Then he surprised them by swearing softly and exclaiming, “Oh that brat! He didn't tell you, did he?”

  “Um... who didn't tell me what?” Deandra asked.

  “That we were coming? No?”

  Deandra shook her head.

  Biphur heaved a long-suffering sigh and said, “M'lady, we're here on the Prince’s orders all the way from Ironhame to see to the construction of your estate!”

  “Excuse me? My what?”

  He looked at her, realizing that she still didn't understand and continued, “Your husband has been appointed The Lord Warder of the North, m'lady. The Crown has sent us to see to the building of a proper estate for you both. You are to be this region’s new Crown Authority!”

  Deandra blinked and said, “Oh. Um... I'm not sure quite what to say...”

  “I know what to say.” Ynghilda said with a wicked grin, “Congratulations, M'lady! That and... You’re fired.”

  EPILOGUE II

  In the distant south it was still early autumn. Far beneath the earth in a ruined palace something stirred. There was awareness that The Dreamer was no more, but that did not matter; his role was finished. By harvesting the energy from the sacrifice of the Dead God he at last had the power to begin the process of healing. After all these long ages he would, finally, rise again. The Sleeper would awaken.

  Let the Gods of Men tremble.

  APPENDIX I : TERMINOLOGY

  Measures:

  A 'Pace' is the standard unit of measure for distance. The military 'Pace' in our world has been the same since the time of the Roman Empire, and is about 2.5 feet. Dwarves are shorter than us, so their 'Pace' is 2 feet. One hundred paces is two-hundred feet, or 66.7 yards.

  A League is three miles, and the dwarven mile is two-thousand paces, or a bit over a kilometer.

  Bore refers to the interior diameter of a gun barrel. This is the same as the 'gauge' system used for shotguns. A gun's 'Bore' is determined by the number of lead balls of that diameter that it takes to make up a weight of one pound. If the weight 12 balls of a given diameter is equal to a pound that would make it a '12-bore.'

  Here are some equivalents: 36-bore is about .5 inches, or .50 caliber. 16-bore is about .66 caliber, 14-bore is about .69 caliber and 12-bore is about .72 caliber.

  Weights are the same as ours for our (the author's) convenience.

  Military terms:

  Unit sizes: these are nominal, IOW what the unit has ideally. This varies in practice.

  A Squad is ten men, all fighters

  A Platoon is four Squads, all fighters

  A Company is five Platoons, four 'of the line' (actual fighters) and one Headquarters Platoon consisting of command, logistics and medical personnel.

  A Battalion is five Companies- four regular and one Headquarters Company, so total there are 640 fighters and 360 'Admin,' Logistics and Medical personnel.

  A Regiment is five Battalions and a Company-size Headquarters element, or 3200 fighters and a total of 2000 support personnel.

  Note: that supply, logistics and medical personnel tend to concentrate into a 'train' during large-unit movements rather than with their unit. Also units sometimes travel 'light,' leaving their support personnel (excepting medics) behind and depending on the rest to catch up later, or depending on 'native' resources to fill these roles at their destination.

  Unit Types: A number of different types of regiments are present in the book.

  Rifle Regiments: These are elite formations. They wear 'Buff Coats,' breastplates and 'Kettle-helmets.' They are armed with Infantry Long-Rifles with a cut-and-thrust socket bayonet.

  Heavy Infantry Regiments: Armored like a rifle regiment, they are armed with a mix of smooth-bore 'slug guns' with socket bayonets and pikes. Both Pike-men and Gunners are also armed with a double-edged cut-and-thrust short-sword and a buckler. Their formations are flexible, able to reform 'on the fly' into all-pike or all-gun sub-formations as needed.

  Mounted Infantry Regiments: These are not cavalry- they do not normally fight mounted. They ride ponies to the battle and dismount to fight. They are Heavy Infantry Gunners.

  Light Infantry: These troops wear Buff-coats and soft Caps rather than Kettle Helms. They are armed with slug-guns with socket bayonets. They are usually used for security or fighting from fixed defenses. When fighting from fixed defenses they replace their soft-caps with Kettle Helms.

  Dwarves don't have Cavalry because they expect to fight primarily against Humans, and a dwarf mounted on a pony is no match for human horse-cavalry.

  I hope this is helpful to those that need or want it.

  APPENDIX II: GUNS OF THE DWARVEN RIFLEMAN

  These guns are big-bore spring-piston airguns because Battlemages in their world can detonate 'blasting powder' at a distance, so conventional firearms, while certainly within the technical prowess of the dwarves, are a Very Bad Idea.

  In our world large-bore airguns have a distinguished history starting in the 16th Century. The first such airguns used a leaf-spring to compress a bellows in th
e butt-stock to fire a dart. These were used mainly for target practice, but there are some indications that they were used on small game as well.

  Next to come along, both at about the same time, were guns that used a pressurized air tank and spring-piston guns. These types fired the same sort of lead balls that were used in muzzle-loading firearms and were comparable in power. Some were smooth-bores, some were rifles and there were even some large-bores that could be fitted with a smooth-bore sleeve to fire shot loads. Spring piston guns were relatively rare, however, because it was very difficult to make a spring of sufficient power and quality to last for very many shots.

  At their apex around the turn of the 19th century powerful repeating airguns were in limited military service with the Austrians, the Japanese and a few other forward-looking nations. The Girandoni was the most famous of these. These were .49 caliber, 22-shot repeaters. The air tank served as the butt-stock and when exhausted could be unscrewed and replaced with a fully charged tank. These guns were lethally accurate at ranges up to 150 meters. In an age where the standard military arm was a muzzle-loading smooth-bore that fired about 3 shots per minute, with an effective range of fifty to sixty meters, they were practically a machine-gun. The problem is that they were relatively fragile, difficult to maintain in the field and very expensive to make.

  Modern large-bore airguns range from .357- .58 caliber and are quite capable of taking large game.

  The airguns in the Rifleman's Universe are of the spring-piston type. These are simple designs compared to the pressure-tank type guns, but require very sophisticated metallurgy and manufacturing. In these guns a trigger releases a piston, which is driven down a tube by a powerful coil spring. The air compressed by the piston fires the projectile. Modern guns of this type fire pellets of .177 to .25 caliber that weigh from 4.5- 31 grains. These guns are designed to optimize their performance with small, light projectiles and all calibers use the same power plant and same aperture size for the air to enter and propel the pellet. So while the .177 pellet leaves the bore at 1200 feet per second the .25 manages maybe 700 feet per second. While these are not toys and are quite dangerous, they are hardly suitable for offensive or defensive use against people.

  Based on these modern guns many people scoff at the idea of large-bore spring piston guns. The usual objection is that the spring would have to be so powerful that a person couldn't cock it, but in a properly designed gun this isn't true. Modern guns all use the same size hole for the air to enter the bore, and this is idealized for small-caliber pellets. But in the larger bores this slows down the flow of air behind the projectile and reduces the muzzle velocity. They don't take advantage of the volumetric efficiency of the larger projectile diameter.

  Las a simple example a 9x19mm handgun uses 25,000 psi to propel a 125 grain bullet at 1,100 feet per second. But a 11.25x 23mm (.45 ACP) cartridge uses only 13,000 psi to propel a 230 grain bullet at 850 fps. This same effect can be taken advantage of in an air rifle.

  A typical modern air rifle that fires a .25 caliber/31 grain projectile will, if a .30 caliber barrel is mounted, fire a .30 caliber/61 grain bullet at about 400 fps. With no changes to the power plant (the spring-piston and compression tube.) This is actually getting into the genuinely dangerous-to-humans range. But if the power plant is modified to allow the air to enter the bore more quickly the gun will fire the same .30 caliber projectile at approximately 500 fps. Increase the diameter of the piston and the power of the spring and 1000 fps is easily attainable- without it being excessively difficult to compress the spring. This would produce a weapon that was capable of bringing down man-sized game.

  The larger the bore the better it works. The math suggests that a .50 caliber air-rifle firing a heavy bullet at 800-1000 fps is doable and would not require excessive cocking effort. Thus the guns of the Dwarven Rifleman's universe.

  The Infantry Long Rifle (ILR) used by the protagonist is described as a '36-bore/325.' This means that it is a nominal .50 caliber firing a slug 325% of the bore diameter, or an about 1-5/8 inches long and weighing about 800 grains, at a velocity between 800-1000 fps. With a good shot this would drop a Kodiak bear... or more to the point hammer through a goblin's breastplate at 125 yards. These guns have a nominal effective range of around 200 yards. These are the top-of-the-line guns in the story.

  The Rangers and some skirmishers use a 36-bore (.50 Caliber) repeating Carbine that fires a round ball and holds twenty shots in a tubular magazine parallel to the barrel. The ball weighs about 173 grains and the muzzle velocity is around 1200 fps. The repeaters aren't much faster to shoot than the breech-loading single shot ILR- but they are easier to cock and fire while mounted. These guns are rifled and have a nominal effective range of about 150 yards, but a good shot can stretch that a bit.

  Most soldiers are armed with 'Infantry Slug Guns.' These are 16-bore smooth-bore weapons, firing a one-ounce hollow-based slug at around 900 fps. They are much shorter-ranged than the ILR and, like musketeers in our world, depend on volume-of-fire more than individual accuracy. These guns have an effective range against an individual target of about 60 yards and perhaps double that against massed targets like enemy formations.

  Civilian guns are relatively rare owing to the expense of purchasing and maintaining them, but they do exist. One character has a 12-bore (.72 caliber) rifle, and while I don't get into specifics this has to have some serious punch- and require a huge compression-chamber. It is, as the protagonist notes, "a lot of gun" and probably represents the practical upper limit of size and weight for a rifle of the type used in the story. The protagonist's father has a 14-bore (.69 caliber) smooth-bore that fires balls, shot or slugs. The smooth-bore makes it a relatively short-ranged weapon, but highly effective within that range.

  Handguns are very rare but two are mentioned in the story- 'The Hammer,' given to Engvyr's father, and one carried by the Prince. The Hammer is based on a scaled-down carbine action and fires the same balls, but at about 600 fps., making it about as powerful as a modern .38 Special 158grain target load. The Prince's gun, while never really described (though it might be in following books,) is a very different proposition. It's a single-shot breech loader representing the finest the dwarves can make. It fires the same 36-bore/325 slug as the ILR, but at about half the velocity. In modern terms this isn't very powerful, but a one ounce, ½ inch diameter slug moving 550 fps will still seriously ruin your day. Because they need bulky compression chambers handguns are big- The Hammer is about twenty inches long and the Prince's gun is similarly sized. They probably weigh in the neighborhood of four pounds.

  Despite the relative rarity and expense of guns there are several gun-smithing firms in the Inner Ward of Ironhame that cater to the civilian market. The oldest and most prestigious of these is Ulfbehrt and Bueller. Mention of this firm was edited out of 'Diaries of a Dwarven Rifleman' but they do appear in 'The Half-Elf's Daughter' and may figure into other books in the series.