Tales of the Mountain Breaker Part II

Dwarf Hold of Ganekhaz in the cavernous hall of the Warsmiths of Clan Herewydd

The roar of the foundries was nothing compared to the Warsmiths Hall of Ganekhaz. It was a symphony of mechanical violence—the grinding of gears the size of shields, the hammering of pistons, and the acrid, throat-stinging reek of refined black-blood oil.

Thurgrom Stonefist, his beard barely reaching his chest in those days, stood at the edge of the cavernous hangar, his kit bag heavy on his shoulder. He had seen Steel Behemoths from afar during the great parades—majestic, unstoppable avatars of Dwarven might. Up close, they were terrifying. They leaked, they smoked, and they radiated a heat that made the air shimmer.

"Close your mouth, recruit, before you swallow a rivet."

Thurgrom snapped his jaw shut and saluted sharply. The Dwarf who had spoken was sitting on an overturned crate next to the massive foot of a particularly battered-looking Behemoth. He was old; his beard was more grey than russet, braided tightly to keep it out of moving parts, and his face was a map of burn scars and oil stains.

"Commander Durak Ironhelm," the veteran grunted, standing up with a groan of stiff joints that closely mimicked the machines he commanded. "And this rusty bucket of bolts is Gannek’s Grudge. She’s your new home. Try not to break her; she’s older than your father."

Thurgrom looked up at the Grudge. It was a training chassis, dented from a thousand rookie mistakes. "It’s an honour, sir. I’m assigned as gunner."

Durak snorted. "Honour. We'll see if you say that after you've spent six hours scraping carbonized naphtha out of the main nozzles. Get up top. The rest of your nursery class is already there."

Climbing the iron rungs welded to the Behemoth’s flank, Thurgrom reached the 'howdah'—the open-topped armoured fighting compartment carried on the beast’s back. It was cramped, dominated by the massive twin assembly of the flamethrower system that sat directly above the mechanical head of the Behemoth.

Two other young Dwarfs were already there, looking equally nervous. Korgan and Valen, the loading team, tasked with hauling the heavy pressurized fuel canisters from the rear storage racks to the gun assembly.

Below them, in the guts of the machine, something banged loudly, followed by a string of inventive curses.

"That’d be our Warsmith," Durak said, appearing in the commander's hatch "Thinks because he read the manual, the engine will listen to him."

A soot-covered face popped up from a hatch in the deck. It was Borin Rock-Heel. He was young for a Warsmith, his guild leathers still stiff and new, though currently covered in grease.

"The fuel injector manifold is fouled, Commander!" Borin shouted over the din of a neighbouring machine starting up. "The tolerances on this piston are off by at least three microns! It shouldn't even be running!"

"It isn't running, Warsmith," Durak said patiently. "Because you're arguing with it instead of hitting it with the percussive maintenance tool like I told you. Give it a clout, lad!"

Borin looked offended at the unscientific suggestion, disappeared back down the hatch, and a moment later, a loud CLANG rang out. The Behemoth shuddered, coughed a dense cloud of black smoke that set the howdah crew coughing, and then settled into a deafening, rhythmic chugging.

"See?" Durak yelled over the noise. "She just needed affection! Right, crew! Stations!"

The next few weeks were a brutal education in the reality of Dwarven engineering. The Steel Behemoth was a masterpiece, but it was a masterpiece that actively wanted to stop working.

For Thurgrom, the dream of heroically incinerating goblin hordes quickly dissolved into the nightmare of fluid dynamics. The flamethrower wasn't a simple trigger. It was a terrifyingly complex assembly of brass pipes, pressure vessels, and ignition pilots.

"Again!" Durak barked, hours into a training simulation.

Thurgrom’s gauntleted hands slipped on the hot brass controls. "Pressure valve A to seventy percent. Open main intake. Check mixture ratio on gauge B..."

He twisted a valve too fast. A warning whistle shrieked from the assembly, and a jet of unlit, pressurized fuel sprayed harmlessly but wastefully onto the testing range gravel.

"Dead," Durak said calmly, leaning over Thurgrom’s shoulder. "You flooded the ignition chamber before the pilot light was hot enough. If that was combat, a troll just ate us while you were fiddling with knobs. Reset."

"It’s too many steps, sir!" Thurgrom protested, wiping sweat and oil from his eyes.

"It is exactly enough steps to keep this tank from exploding and turning us all into hairy charcoal," Durak countered. "You don't just operate the weapon, Stonefist. You feel it. You have to know the pressure in those tanks better than your own blood pressure. Korgan, Valen—you’re too slow on the reload! If Stonefist runs dry, you two are the reason we die. Heave those canisters!"

Meanwhile, below decks, Borin was fighting his own war. The internal combustion engine was a beast that drank 'black-blood' oil and breathed fire, and it hated being told what to do. During a pivotal manoeuvre on the rocky incline of the training grounds, the engine suddenly sputtered and died, leaving them exposed on the hillside.

Durak didn't yell. He just keyed the internal vox-pipe. "Warsmith, we seem to have stopped. The enemy is currently imaginary, but if they weren't, they'd be using our hull for target practice."

"It's the compression, sir!" Borin’s voice came back, strained and panicked. "It keeps dropping on cylinder four! I can't keep the seal!"

"Don't look at the gauge, Borin," Durak said, his voice cutting through the young dwarf’s panic. "Listen to the rhythm. She tells you what she needs before the gauges do. She was wheezing ten seconds before she died. You missed it."

It was grueling. They ended every day exhausted, bruised, and deafened. They failed inspection constantly. Thurgrom burned his eyebrows off twice when the back-draft damper failed. Borin nearly lost a finger to a cooling fan.

But slowly, painfully, the rhythm began to form.

It happened during the final live-fire exercise of the season. They were tasked with advancing up a scree-slope, engaging three target hulks, and holding position.

As they hit the slope, the Grudge's engine started its familiar wheezing cough.

In the howdah, Thurgrom tensed, waiting for the stall. But it didn't come. Down below, Borin had heard it. Before the compression could drop, the young Warsmith had already adjusted the fuel mixture and given the number four cylinder intake a pre-emptive strike with his hammer. The engine roared healthily, powering them up the slope.

"Target sighted! Thirty yards, bearing left!" Durak called out.

Thurgrom didn't think. His hands moved in a blur of muscle memory. Valve A, seventy percent. Intake open. Mixture good. Pilot light hot.

"Loaders, ready canisters!" he shouted. Korgan and Valen were already there, slamming the fresh fuel cells into the receivers with a satisfying clunk-hiss of pressurization.

"Burn them," Durak ordered.

Thurgrom slammed the twin firing levers forward.

With a sound like a dragon clearing its throat, twin rivers of liquid fire roared from the nozzles above the Behemoth’s iron head. The flame caught the target hulk perfectly, engulfing it in a torrent of alchemical destruction.

"Cease fire! Advance!"

The Behemoth lurched forward, crushing the burning wreckage under its massive treads. For the first time, they didn't feel like five dwarfs trapped in a faulty metal box. They felt like a single organism—a beast of steel and fire.

Durak Ironhelm looked at his young crew, his soot-stained face cracking into a rare smile.

"Not bad," the veteran grunted, patting the warm metal of the howdah. "You might just survive your first battle, lads. Now, take her home. Borin, if you stall her on the flat, you're cleaning the latrines for a month."