Ikkred Pyrhelm:
A Daughter’s Birth
Picks crunched and tore into stone as the slaves worked. The cruel masked overseer watched on as they worked, dark eyes seeking any who faltered. A meaty hand clutched a barbed whip even as other slaves moved around him, carting off mined minerals to the forges.
Hammer struck blazing metal again and again. An army of smiths ceaselessly worked ore into thick plates of blackened steel, great beams and curved ribs. Amongst the smiths robed priests moved from line to line, growling benedictions to Hashut. Every now and again they would pause and carve hateful runes upon the metal.
Within the drydocks the skeleton was formed of a mighty ironclad by teams of workers and slaves. Some perished as they worked from accident or malicious intent, their hot blood oozing into the young bones of the ship.
Upon his altar the Daemonsmith intoned the final rite of summoning as his acolytes took their blade to the throat of the sacrificial bull. It kicked and thrashed as its lifeblood oozed over the brass chased and runic etched wheel. From the still shuddering bull came a faint wisping smoke that coiled and curled with an almost hungry intent. The lights in the altar chamber then died one after the other and a scratching noise that emerged from the smoke turned into an inferno roar as the smoke erupted into the shape of a great daemonic bull of flame that poured into the bloodied wheel.
Bellowing Hellcannons, deprived of their wheels angrily tried to thrash in the chains that hoisted them into position upon the dark iron deck. Teams of Dawi Zharr engineers ran from cannon to cannon, fixing them to the decks even as the daemons roiling within them snarled. Great batteries of rockets and cannons too were erected and fixed to the decks and gunports, each one overseen by a growling forge master.
The brackish waters frothed and hissed to the touch of the ironclad as the drydocks were slowly opened to the sea. At the helm the shipmaster ran a stony hand through his beard before placing it almost tenderly upon the wheel. A low gurgling hiss was his response, the daemon within tasting and touching the ship that too was its body. Savagely smiling, the shipmaster gently turned the great wheel and the ship curtly obeyed. A ship made of pain and fury now let loose upon the world.