Ereshkigal-Namtar

Ereshkigal-Namtar was a Daemon Engine of Zharr-Naggrund, incorporating a colossal Hellcannon.

History
Ereshkigal-Namtar was the beloved and priceless daemon-construct of Zumarah, one of the Chaos Dwarfs greatest warriors. He had personally overseen its creation in the nightmarish hellforges deep below the scorched surface of Zarr-Naggrand. For over fifty years he had slaved over its construction, barely allowing himself or his slave-crews 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 ruddy, 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's high priests infused it with the eternal daemon-twins. Ereshkigal and Namtar had been the true names of these malicious daemons of blood, rage and industry, and they had 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 were caged within his daemon-construct.

Its construction was a thing of beauty, and Zumarah often felt a jealous pride as he looked upon Ereshkigal-Namtar's 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 Norscan dragonship.

Alas, 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's head, bound the daemon engine, connected to its blood-bronze body and pounded deep into the ground to hold it in place. Chunks of shiny black volcanic rock engraved with runes of power were hammered into its sides, and these runes glowed like lava as they exerted their power of containment upon the twin daemons locked inside the machine.

The bulk of the engine's weight was borne upon a pair of immense, spiked wheels, each taller than an Ogre, and filled with hundreds of intricate, interconnected cogs and wheels that were in constant motion. The barrel of the engine's 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 the engine's crew.

Source

 * Knight of the Realm (Novel), by Anthony Reynolds

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