Solo’s immense ocean-going ships resembled floating temples of unclean hopes more than warships. They moved at a barely perceptible speed, yet not only crossed the Dragon Waters themselves but somehow brought an armada of transports and swift gunboats through behind them.
In battle, the sarcophagi displayed incredible speed and immunity to Varvarossa’s most powerful modern guns. Only the cyclopean, ancient dragon-slaying cannon of the Times of Gnashing could pierce their armour.
Examination of a sarcophagus sunk in the Narrow Throat showed that it resembled an iceberg: its underwater portion exceeded what lay above. At the heart of its power plant was an oratay, captured during the Median War and transformed by Solo’s black sorcery. His body was so greatly altered that his name could not be discovered. He showed signs of life for several months after being found in the sarcophagus’s belly, but remained in a quiet delirium, doing nothing but indistinctly reciting charms in an unknown tongue.
