Necropolis Knights

The Necropolis Knights ride to war on the backs of the Sacred Serpents, monstrous constructs of enchanted bronze wrought in the shape of the cobras venerated in old Nehekhara and animated by bound spirits of the honoured dead. The riders themselves are skeletal warriors of the tomb-guard elite, chosen champions interred with their serpent-mounts to form a heavy cavalry unlike any the living can field. The serpents strike with venomed fangs and crush with coiling bronze bulk, rearing over shield-walls to bring the riders' halberds down upon the ranks behind, and their metal hides turn aside blows that would fell a living beast. They move with a horrible, sinuous grace, neither charging like horse nor lumbering like monsters but flowing across the field in gleaming, weaving ranks. To the enemies of the Tomb Kings they are a nightmare of old religion given murderous form: the sacred image of a dead god's serpent, thirty feet of animate bronze, bearing down with a dead champion riding high upon its neck.