Winters War

The Time of Ice, The Gates of Dolgarth

The cold was not natural. It was a hateful, living thing that crept into iron, choked engines, and froze the very courage in a Dwarf’s heart.

Before the great gates of Dolgarth, the Mountain Breaker stood alone. It was an avatar of defiance, its 40-ton chassis a stark silhouette against the unnatural, shimmering twilight of Winter’s endless storm. The Behemoth was new then, a masterpiece of the Warsmiths of Clan Herewydd. Its armoured plates were lacquered in the deep forest green of its clan, and the massive, articulated ram at its front was forged in the likeness of their sigil: a Golden Ram’s head, its horns ready to shatter the world.

Inside the forward viewport, Commander Thurgrom “Ice-Vein” Herewydd stared at the impossible sight before him. His beard, thick and red, was flecked with frost from his own breath freezing on the plate-glass. Where a legion of Goblins or Orcs should have been, there was only the enemy that could not be routed: a glacier, scores of fathoms high, a moving mountain of blue-black ice. It was being pushed forward by legions of Ice Elementals, their forms shifting within the glacier's heart, and swarms of frost-sprites—sentient shards of malice—that skittered over the snow like glass spiders.

A sudden jolt of cold against the viewport glass sent Thurgrom’s mind reeling—not to the present, but to a memory buried deep beneath years of command.

He was a young Dwarf then, barely old enough to braid his beard, standing atop the inner walls of Dolgarth beside his father. The city was alive with the clang of hammers and the laughter of kin. His father, Thegn Herewydd, had rested a heavy, calloused hand on Thurgrom’s shoulder.

“Remember, lad,” his father had said, voice rumbling like distant thunder, “these gates are not just stone and iron. They are hope. As long as they stand, so do our people.”

Thurgrom had watched the sun glint off the golden ram’s head above the gate, feeling pride and fear in equal measure. “And if the gates fall?” he’d whispered.

His father’s grip had tightened. “Then we hold the line. We buy time. We do not yield, not while a single Dwarf draws breath.”

The memory faded, replaced by the biting cold and the groan of the Mountain Breaker’s engines. But the words lingered, steadying his resolve. Thurgrom’s knuckles whitened on the levers. He would not let Dolgarth’s hope die—not while he still stood.

"She’s failing, Commander! The oil’s thickening, pistons are seizing—I’m fighting for every heartbeat of the engine! ”The voice that crackled over the speaking tube was strained, a gravelly shout over the hammering of the engine.

Thurgrom gripped the steering levers, his knuckles white. "She will hold, Warsmith. She is Herewydd-made." He spat, the gobbet freezing before it hit the floor plate. "She holds, or we are buried with the city. The deep roads are not yet clear. Valandor’s bulwarks have fallen."

Deep in the Behemoth's guts, Warsmith Darin "Hearth-Heart" Rock-Heel cursed, his breath a cloud of steam. He was a broad, powerful Dwarf, his face slick with a mixture of sweat and oil. The engine room, normally a furnace, was barely warm. Every gauge was in the red, the needles quivering. The great hero Valandor had helped them build the bulwarks, but he hadn't designed their engines. Darin felt the shudder as the glacier, grinding stone and ice, began to move.

"Gunners! Fire at will! Melt this accursed thing!" Thurgrom roared into the howdah tube.

Above him, on the open-topped platform, two young gunners—ancestors of Flinn and Kili, their names long lost to the sagas—wrestled with the brass controls of the twin-nozzle Flame Cannon. "By the forge, fire!" one yelled.

With a sound like a dragon’s roar, twin rivers of liquid, alchemical fire blasted from the nozzles. The Mountain Breaker was the hold's only hope; its internal furnace and flame cannon were the only things in Dolgarth that generated enough heat to fight the supernatural cold. The fire tore a massive, molten cavern into the face of the glacier. Steam hissed and blanketed the battlefield.

But it was not enough. Before the steam cleared, the magical cold radiating from the Wicked One Winter’s army sealed the wound. The ice groaned, reformed, and continued its advance.

"It heals itself!" the gunner shrieked. "It does not burn!"

"Then burn it again!" Thurgrom bellowed.

A new sound joined the din: a high-pitched skittering, like thousands of chisels on glass. Frost-sprites. The swarms surged across the snow and began to climb the Mountain Breaker’s legs. Ice, thick and unnatural, instantly began to form around the pistons and joints. A warning horn blared as the Behemoth's relentless, stomping stride slowed to a struggling, metallic groan.

"They're freezing the legs, Commander! She's seizing!" Darin's voice was frantic. "I can't... I can't break her free!"

"Then boil them off!" Thurgrom roared, slamming his boot on the floor. "Give me steam, Darin! Now!"

"It will crack the manifold!"

"Do it!"

Darin grabbed a heavy brass lever—one never meant to be pulled in combat—and threw his full weight against it. "Forgive me, old girl!" he grunted, and slammed it home.

With a shriek of tortured metal, the engine overclocked. Darin was thrown against the bulkhead as scalding, high-pressure steam was vented directly from the core to the outer hull plates.

Outside, a pressurized PFFFFSSSHHH erupted from every seam on the Behemoth's body. Hundreds of frost-sprites were instantly boiled, their magical forms shattering like glass in a furnace. The ice encasing the legs cracked and fell away. The Mountain Breaker stomped one heavy foot, then another, free once more.

Thurgrom used the reprieve, ramming the Golden Ram's head straight into a towering Ice Elemental that had lumbered from the glacier. The forty-ton impact shattered the magical creature into a thousand pieces. "Firm as the Mountain Roots!" Thurgrom roared, the Herewydd motto a prayer of defiance.

But the glacier never stopped. For hours, the battle raged. The flame cannon blasted, the engine screamed, and the ice advanced. The Mountain Breaker was fighting a mountain, and the mountain was winning. Slowly, inexorably, the ice began to win, encasing the machine. The gunners fired until their arms ached, but the cold was too great. The glacier's shadow loomed over them, and the Behemoth was locked in place, frozen solid from the feet to the chassis.

A final, desperate banging came from the rear hull hatch. A Shieldbreaker Captain, his beard frozen solid, was yelling from the gateway. "The last are through! The King commands you back! Seal the gate, Thurgrom! It is the last order!"

"We are frozen fast!" Thurgrom bellowed back, wrenching the levers uselessly. The machine only groaned. "Darin! One last time! Everything you have!"

In the engine room, Darin looked at his gauges. The engine was choking, the fuel lines freezing. There was no power left for the legs. But there was fuel.

"It will be her last fire, Commander!" Darin yelled, his hand moving to the primary fuel line for the cannon. "Brace!"

He didn't wait for a reply. With a Warsmith's grim certainty, Darin Rock-Heel smashed the emergency vent seals on the main fuel canisters and shunted the entire, unlit payload directly into the ignition chamber.

For a second, there was only the sound of the engine dying.

Then, the Mountain Breaker exploded.

A concussive WHOOOOMPH of fire and steam erupted from the Behemoth in every direction. It was not a jet of flame, but a singular, devastating blast of heat and pressure. The glacier itself cracked. The ice encasing the Behemoth was vaporised instantly. Every elemental and sprite within a hundred yards was annihilated.

The Mountain Breaker was free. Battered, smoking, and nearly powerless, but free.

"Back!" Thurgrom screamed, pulling the levers. The machine, shuddering in protest, took one painful, stomping step backwards. Then another. It retreated into the yawning darkness of the great gate of Dolgarth.

As the last of its golden ram-head cleared the threshold, the ancient granite gates, taller than any giant, began to grind shut. Thurgrom "Ice-Vein" Herewydd watched as the gates sealed, the sound of their locking bolts echoing like the doom of a city.

A moment later, the glacier, its advance no longer contested, crashed against the doors with the force of a falling mountain. The gates of Dolgarth held, but they were buried.

In the darkness of the deep hold, surrounded by the evacuees, the Mountain Breaker finally powered down. Its green-lacquered hull was scorched black, its golden ram chipped and dented. But it stood. The crew, deafened and shaking, climbed down from the chassis.

Darin "Hearth-Heart" simply patted the warm hull, his face a mask of soot and relief. Thurgrom "Ice-Vein" raised his axe to the cheering dwarves in the tunnel. "Herewydd!" he roared, his voice cracking. "Firm and Fast!"

Dolgarth was lost, entombed in ice. But its people, and the legend of the Mountain Breaker, had been saved.