The Screaming Skull Catapult is the necropolis legions' answer to walls, squares, and courage. Its ammunition is the empire's ledger of grudges: the skulls of traitors, invaders, and tomb-robbers, hoarded across the centuries, etched by the mortuary priests with hieroglyphs of anguish and set alight with cursed pitch. Loosed, they arc over the battlefield trailing baleful fire — and they scream, for the malice written into the bone is given a voice in flight.
The engine's skeletal crews worked the same batteries in life, and their aim has only improved with practice. The bombardment kills, but the killing is almost beside the point: it is the shrieking that unmans an enemy, a rain of howling faces that convinces mortal soldiers the sky itself has taken up haunting them. Hardened regiments have broken before the first volley landed. The Liche Priests, who keep careful records, note that the skulls of those who flee make excellent ammunition in their turn.
Order of battle
