"And as the greedy Mastiff crawled forward, intent on devouring the last of the al-Malik defenders, the janissaries urged their slaves on to even greater haste, and the Direwolf was brought to bear. The Mastiff, seeing its peril, evoked the gatling cannon, and the air erupted in an incendiary roar, and fully half the slaves dropped in charred shreds to the flagstones, leaking half-cauterized blood. But the other slaves strained all the harder, and the artillerist invoked a prayer to whatever celestial seraphim would carry the shot true, and focused the scope.
"And there was a crash, and a sound like the gnashing of a giant's teeth. And all gazed in paralyzed awe as the Mastiff shuddered, and swelled, and erupted forthwith, so that of the proud attacker only a shrapnel of ceramsteel shards remained."
Dorian Hawkwood, A Military History of the Diaspora
(An interesting depiction of this particular mechanical brute, which I had always heard described as capable of independent mobility. Ah well, perhaps Count Hawkwood refers to a crippled specimen.)
