Ushabti

The Ushabti are Nehekhara's gods given shoulders to bear arms. Carved from temple stone and sheathed in gold, each is raised in the likeness of a deity (the jackal mask of Djaf, the hawk of Phakth, the asp of Asaph), and each was consecrated so thoroughly that a splinter of the divine took up residence in the stone. They line the processional ways of the necropolises and stand sentinel at the tomb gates, motionless through sandstorm and siege alike, sometimes for centuries between a single step.

When the priests speak the words of unbinding, the Ushabti come down from their plinths. They fight with a grace no construct should own, ritual great-blades sweeping in arcs learned from temple dances, and there is something in their serenity more frightening than any fury: the sense of being punished by a religion rather than attacked by an army. The legions rally in their shadow, for where the Ushabti walk, the dead believe their gods are watching. They may be right.