Loki:
Hope the pop corn is still warm Kera because here is the next instalment of CD action
Ok the scene is a large Bretonnian force of 10,000 knights and about 5 times that of peasants about to due battle the a huge chaos force in the middle of a blizzard the knights have just charged in to the chaos lines and are starting to get bogged down.
A dark red spitting light shot up through the blizzard and exploded overhead.
That�?Ts the signal, snarled Zumarah to his dark kin, his eyes gleaming. He spoke in his native tongue, a guttural language not unlike the sound of gears grinding and rocks being crushed.
The Chaos Dwarf gazed adoringly at Ereshkigal-Namtar, his beloved priceless daemon-construct.
Zumarah had personally overseen its creation in the nightmarish hellforges deep below the scorched surface of Zarr-Naggrund. For over fifty years he had slaved over its construction, barely allowing himself or his slave crew any rest so consumed was he in his obsessive work. Thousands of slaves had perished during its forging. These ones had their life fluids drained from their bodies, their bones and gristle ground to powder, and this viscous mix was added to the alloys, tempering them and dyeing the metal of the great beast a ruby blood-bronze.
Upon the completion of the physical, inert form of the infernal machine, he had been present for fifty days and fifty nights of ritual and ceremony as great Hashut�?Ts high priests infused it with eternal daemon-twins.
Ereshkigal and Namtar had been the their names of these malicious daemons of blood, rage and industry, and they struggled hard against their bindings, screaming and roaring as they strained to break their bonds and rip the high priests, and Zumarah, apart from the inside out. Nevertheless, their struggles had been in vain, and they had now been caged within his daemon-construct for over a decade.
Its construction was a thing of beauty, and Zumarah felt a jealous pride as he looked upon Ereshkigal-Namtar exalted form.
It was the size of a small house, standing almost fifteen feet tall and some twenty feet long, and weighed more than a fully laden Norse dragon ship. Indeed, transporting the infernal machine across the seas had not been an easy task, but one that, if the norscan�?Ts word could be valued, would be worth this while.
Ereshkigal-Namtar had not accepted its imprisonment, and still it strained against its bonds. Steam rose from its brazen body, and runes that glowed with heat shimmered across its form. Ensorcelled chains, each link the size of a man�?Ts head, bound the daemon engine, connected to its bronze body and pounded deep into the ground to hold it in place. Chunks of shiny black volcanic rock engraved with runes glowed like lava as they exerted their power of containment upon the twin daemons locked inside the machine.
The bulk of the engine�?Ts weight was borne upon a pair of immense, spiked wheels, each taller than a ogre, and filled with hundreds of intricate, interconnected cogs and wheels that were in constant motion. The barrel of the engine�?Ts gaping, tooth-filled maw, which was wide enough to swallow a horse with ease, was rimmed with more runes of binding and the stink of sulphur, blood and death rose from within.
The brass flanks of the daemon engine rippled with movement as the daemons struggled vainly to escape, and a myriad of gargoyle �?"like faces pressed forth from within, each one more horrific than the last as they snarled and reached for Zumarah.
The stony-skinned dwarf laughed at them. Ready Ereshkigal-Namtar for firing, he growled over his shoulder to his two kinsmen.
Belonging of a lower caste level than he, these two chaos dwarfs wore simple masks of metal over their faces rather than the tall helmets of the nobility, and heavy apron of leather, with stripes of metal woven into them, protected their squat bodies from the heat of their daemon-machine charge. The bowed their heads to their forge master and moved forwards to align the cog-runes for firing.
Hellcannon the norscans had called his beloved daemon engine. Zumarah liked the name. It was appropriate and fitted well.
A dozen black orcs slaves with heads bowed in dog-like submission squatted near the engine, their powerful bodies covered in scars and burns. As Zumarah�?Ts kins-men aligned the cog-runes, the heat from Ereshkigal-Namtar increased exponentially as its power grew, and the black orcs whimpered, turning their heads away. Creatures sorcerously bred for servitude by the high priests of Hashut in ages long past, each of the black orcs wore a collar of iron around their necks.
Thick chains connected each collars, and just like the daemon engine that they tended, the ends of this chain had been hammered into the ground.
Zumarah turned towards the battlefield below, and although it was all but completely obscured from view by the roaring blizzard, he knew that his estimations of the distance and trajectory were accurate.
He grinned to himself, his eyes blazing with hatred and his tusks pressing against the stony flesh of his cheeks as he imagined the carnage about to be unleashed.
Fire he growled.
I think that that answers every one questions and then some
Good to see the reference to big hats and black orc slaves cant wait for his next appearance