The Mountain Breaker

The Steel Behemoth "Tyrryrr Myndd" (Mountain Breaker) of Clan Herewydd

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Mr Ronnie Renton of Mantic Games on my Podcast, Tales from the Warriors Hall: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2KwgbZ6kQApnxRneoSAJLL?si=_BtYyyzUTS-ZpWYwBzecEw, and during the interview, he expressed a desire to read stories about a Dwarf Steel Behemoth crew that follows the crew through a series of campaigns. Whilst editing the episode that got me to thinking, did Ronnie mean that someone was already writing the stories or was it just an idea on the spur of the moment, a quick few emails later and the Steel Behemoth "Mountain Breaker" or "Tyrryrr Myndd" in the dialect of Clan Herewydd was born. In future episodes, I will expand on the Clan and background I am writing. I know, I know, they are an Imperial Dwarf Clan, but events will bear me out!

So with thanks to Ronnie Renton for the idea and Matt Gilbert and Dave Symonds of Mantic for their help with the Steel Behemoth info and with apologies for the changes I have wrought to Mantic Canon to make things fit, here is the first story of the "Tyrryrr Myndd"

In the Mountains of Abkhazla, just southwest of the Dwarf hold of Gaer Donig.

The air inside the "Mountain-Breaker" was a rancid stew of burnt oil fumes, hot metal, and stale sweat. Noise rattled your teeth. The oil-fired engine hammered beneath the armoured floor—a relentless, muscular heartbeat.

At the front, behind a thick plate-glass viewport, was Thurgrom Stonefist. He was the Behemoth's commander. His hands, scarred and sure, gripped the heavy steering levers. He’d driven machines like this for sixty years. Behind him, nestled in the vehicle's guts, was Borin Rock-Heel, the Warsmith. Borin wasn't just maintaining the engine. He was listening to it, his grizzled head tilted as if discerning a lover's whisper from the mechanical roar.

"She’s running hot, Thurgrom," Borin’s voice crackled over the speaking tube. "This incline is straining the gearbox."

"She’ll hold," Thurgrom grunted, not taking his eyes off the narrow, winding track ahead. "She was built to climb. She was built to break."

Above them, on the open-topped rear platform, two new gunners, Flinn and Kili, stood by the looming Flame Cannon. They were exposed to the steel-grey, biting mountain air—and to the enemy. Flinn gripped the brass traverse wheels, knuckles white. Kili, the loader, tensely checked the seals on stout canisters of pressurized oil-gel. Both were young, their beards barely brushing their chests. This was their first taste of battle. Their predecessors had been scraped off this very platform by a goblin catapult. With them was Gwilim, the Mountain-Breaker’s Pump operator and assistant loader, wordless as he exhaled clouds of steam into the freezing air.

"Look sharp, lads!" Thurgrom's voice boomed from a tube opening near their feet. "The XXII Legion is right behind us. 'Golloch's Children' don't like to be kept waiting. We are the spearhead. You will not falter."

"Aye, Commander!" Flinn squeaked, his voice cracking.

With a final, wrenching lurch, the "Mountain-Breaker" heaved its 40-ton steel mass onto the main road. The machine—a four-legged juggernaut—began its pounding, earth-shaking stride. CLANG... THUD... CLANG... THUD. Behind them, the guttural chant of Ironclads and Ironguard infantry rumbled, axes hammering against shields.

The road was steep and treacherous, littered with the wreckage of a previous, failed assault. Thurgrom navigated the Behemoth around a shattered cart.

"Commander," Borin's voice came again, tighter this time. "Engine pitch just changed. We put weight on the front-left leg and I heard a slide. Not rock."

Thurgrom stopped. The world went quiet, save for the wind and the engine's hot idle. "Flinn! Kili! Gwilim! Eyes on the road, twenty paces ahead! What do you see?"

Kili squinted, his young eyes sharp. "Stones! Just... piled stones, sir! To the left of the track!"

"As I thought," Thurgrom muttered. He barked into Borin's tube. "Warsmith! Engage the Ram-Head. We're clearing the path."

Borin grunted an affirmative. With a hiss of hydraulics, the massive, articulated ram's head at the Behemoth's front lowered. It was a masterpiece of dwarven engineering, shaped like the sigil of their clan. Thurgrom eased the machine forward, guiding the tip of the left horn until it was inches from the suspicious pile.

"Gently..." he whispered. He nudged the levers. The horn pushed the rocks.

The world erupted.

A deafening KRA-BOOM! tore the air. The booby trap—a massive cache of goblin black-powder—detonated. A cloud of rock and shrapnel screamed through the air. The blast hammered the Behemoth’s front armour like a giant's fist. The chassis rang like a bell. Exposed gunners ducked behind the cannon's shield, whimpering.

"See?" Thurgrom’s voice was unnervingly calm. "They're sloppy. They set it too shallow. We're scratched, nothing more. Kili, stop shaking. Flinn, get your head up. Move!"

The Behemoth resumed its climb, engine growling. Twice more, they found booby traps and cleared them the same way: the ram-head nudged suspicious piles of rocks, explosions erupted, and the machine shrugged off each blast, Ironclads behind them cheering every time.

They were rounding a tight switchback, the sheer cliff wall on one side, a thousand-foot drop on the other, when the real ambush began.

"CONTACT!" Kili shouted, pointing.

From hidden crevices in the rock above, a dozen shapes emerged. They were big for goblins, clad in crude iron plates and wielding heavy, spiked clubs. The Luggit shock troops.

"Flinn! Traverse left! Ninety degrees! Burn them!" Thurgrom roared.

Flinn yanked on the wheels, his panic making him clumsy. The cannon whined as it turned. "I... I see them!"

"Kili! Load! Prime!"

Gwilim opened the Pressure ammunition door, Kili fumbled a canister, dropped it, then grabbed another. He slammed it into the cannon's breach and twisted the primer valve. "Loaded! Loaded!"

"FIRE!"

Flinn jammed his boot onto the firing pedal. WHOOSH-BOOM! The pass echoed thunder. A thirty-foot jet of sticky, incandescent fire blasted from the nozzle, washing over the cliff face. The Luggits climbing down vanished in a cloud of smoke and high-pitched screams.

"Good kill!" Thurgrom bellowed. "Reload! More coming! Right flank!"

A second wave of yelling Goblins burst from a hidden tunnel on the road. They swarmed the Behemoth's right side, hammering its legs with club and heavy iron swords..

"Can't depress! Can't depress!" Flinn screamed, wrestling with the cannon. "They're too close!"

"Pistols!" Borin’s voice yelled, and Thurgrom saw his Warsmith had clambered up from the engine pit, his own flintlock pistol in hand, firing through a side port.

Thurgrom drew his own heavy pistol, bracing it on the viewport's sill and firing at a Luggit trying to jam a crowbar into the Behemoth's front-right knee joint. The shot sent the goblin spinning into the ravine.

Above, the gun crew followed suit. They drew their sidearms and fired down at the swarming goblins. Brutal, point-blank work.

"Borin! Back to your station!" Thurgrom commanded. "Full power to the legs! Stomp them! SHAKE THEM OFF!"

Borin dropped back into his seat and slammed a heavy lever forward. The engine shrieked. The "Mountain-Breaker" reared up on its hind legs, ram-head to the sky. It slammed its two-ton front legs down with bone-shattering force. The Luggits on the road were crushed instantly. The machine took another step, grinding them into the stone, then resumed its relentless climb.

Finally, the great gates of the hold came into view. They were dwarven-made, twenty feet of granite and iron, but they were scarred, defiled, and barricaded from within. A dozen Luggits stood guard on the path before it.

"Flame Cannon! Sweep the front!" Thurgrom ordered.

This time, the rookies were ready. Kili loaded the canister in a single, smooth motion. Flinn aimed the cannon low. "Firing!"

The jet of fire was a scythe. It swept the doorway, clearing out every living thing. Only scorched armour and melting snow remained.

"Well done, lads," Thurgrom said, a rare note of approval in his voice. "Now, hold on. Borin, my friend... give me everything you have. We are the ram."

"With pleasure, Commander," the Warsmith replied, his voice grim. The engine's note rose from a grumble to a deafening, full-throated roar.

The "Mountain-Breaker" charged the last hundred yards. It hit the gates at a full, stomping run.

The CRUNCH of steel on granite was the loudest sound any of them had ever heard. The ancient doors groaned, splintered, and buckled, but held.

"Again!" Thurgrom roared, pulling the levers to back the machine up.

"Again!" Borin echoed, fine-tuning the fuel mixture.

The Behemoth reversed twenty paces and charged a second time.

KRA-KOOM!

The right-hand gate tore from its ancient hinges and collapsed inward. The way was open.

"Flinn! Into the breach! One more, for luck!"

Flinn traversed the cannon to point into the hold's blackness. He gave it a long, five-second blast. Hellish orange light illuminated the entry hall, scattering the goblin defenders inside.

Thurgrom keyed the speaking tube to the Ironclad captain waiting behind them. "The door is open. The hall is hot. Advance and reclaim what is ours. For Golloch!"

A great dwarven war horn answered him. The chant of "Golloch's Children" rose to a roar, and the heavy infantry charged past the Behemoth, a river of steel and beards flooding into their stolen home.

Inside the "Mountain-Breaker," the engine settled back to an idle. Thurgrom rested his forehead on the viewport, his arms aching. Borin was already tapping gauges, a small, proud smile on his face.

On the platform, Kili slumped against the ammo rack, his hands black with soot and his knuckles bleeding. Flinn just stared into the darkness of the hold, his pistol still smoking.

"Sir," Flinn said, his voice hoarse. "We're... we're low on gel."

"Then go get more from the internal stowage, lad," Thurgrom’s voice replied, tired but steel hard. "This battle has just begun."

He looked at Borin, who met his gaze. The two veterans nodded once. The new lads would do.

Clan Herewydd Sigil