#38 The Resurrection of the Undead
In an instant, the battle stopped. Undead and beastman alike froze in their acts of mutual destruction. Blood dripping from her lips, Lady Beauvoir turned to gaze at the Empty Hearse of the Foolish Martyrs, the source of the piercing sound. With blinding flashes of purple and green light, the black coach seemed simultaneously to both implode and explode. All around, both alive and undead, mortal and immaterial shuddered as the shockwave passed through them.
As the fighters’ senses gradually returned, the black coach remained before them, stationary, as if waiting respectfully for the next stage of some dark ceremony. Inexplicably, neither the children of chaos nor the undead hoard could do anything but watch and wait.
Beauvoir congratulated herself: her plan had worked. Initiating a battle between the Reformed Society of the Sanguine Rose and the Beasts of Barfun Moor had been simplicity itself. Chaos beasts and deadwalkers had been slaughtering one other since nightfall, unwitting sacrifices for her mystic offering. Now at last sufficient death had been dealt in the presence of the Empty Hearse for it to revive and - once again - release its inhabitant.
Gradually, from deep inside the funeral carriage came a rumbling as of distant thunder. The curtains obscuring its coffin twitched and billowed as a mighty gust of grave wind blew from within. The door at the rear of the hearse slowly swung open. Mists curled as the temperature plummeted.
Lady Beauvoir and her entourage stood watching in silent expectation. Slowly, with gracious purpose and solemn ceremony, a figure emerged from the black coach. Regal and sinister, it was clad in ornate, shining, blood-red armour with only its mouth and chin uncovered. As it stepped down onto the ground, a deep voice echoed from its helm:
"In the beginning was the Rose.
And the Rose was with me.
And the Rose was me.
I am the Pontifex Surrexit.
We are the Rose."
The Hermit of Barfunweltz alone seemed able to move. He stepped forward without hesitation and knelt before the figure. "We welcome you o Lord. There is hope in the Way of the Rose."
The new arrival ignored him, looking around the battlefield as if in search of something. Then he stopped and strode purposefully towards a bestigor who stood transfixed, watching his doom approach. Without hesitation, the Pontifex grasped the helpless beastman and with brutal grace and majestic cruelty, tore the creature limb from limb. Its blood was a red mist around him as he drank his fill. Even his armour seemed to absorb the crimson fluid. The speed and brutality of his attack might have appeared bestial and savage to mortal observers, but to Lady Beauvoir it was a magnificent display of Soulblight art and passion.
Discarding the exsanguinated portions of the bestigor, the Pontifex Surrexit sounded his sonorous voice once more. Having fed, his strength was clearly returning rapidly. He roared one word in the darkness, expressed as a call or a summons: "Ophanim!"
Lady Beauvoir silently frowned, observing the figure as he stood before the Black Coach, apparently now looking up into the sky. Despite her excitement she was also confused. This 'Pontifex Surrexit' certainly appeared to be the resurrected Soulblight portion of the False Apostle, just as she had anticipated. However, from his speech and manner, she was concerned that his time within the Empty Hearse had cost him his sanity.
Furthermore, she had expected the so-called Empty Hearse to disappear once the vampiric relics within had been removed. Yet there it remained, independent, and still throbbing with necromantic power. Already, its sarcophagus had given up the Abhorrent False Messiah, and now the Soulblight Pontifex Surrexit. There could only be one reason why the Empty Hearse still endured: it was not empty! Some part of the False Apostle's soul must still remain within it.
The realisation made her gasp. This must mean Nagash had somehow rendered this soul into three parts, not just two. She knew that three was a magic number, so it made some sense. A Trinity, a Three-Petalled Rose: Pontifex, False Messiah and Empty Hearse; Soulblight vampire, Abhorrent ghoul king and Malignant spirit. What power might become manifest if the threefold soul was reunited? What honour would be granted to her as the one responsible for bringing them together? With a jubilant grin, she knew she could do it - she had already prepared the way for the False Messiah to accept the Pontifex...
Suddenly the deep purple sky was rent with an ear-splitting shriek. A massive spectre, the ghost of some mighty drake, descended from above on cold and tattered wings. Instantly the Hermit, the Revivalist and all the other believers in the Rose delusion fell to their knees. "The Ophanim! The Ophanim!" they cried in wonder. Beauvoir frowned, but indicated to her coven that they should kneel too.
But as soon as they began to kneel, the battle suddenly restarted, the Beasts of Chaos also resuming control of their faculties. Weapons were raised again and the fighting continued, intensified. The winds of Shyish swirled around the undead forces with renewed vigour, raising those that had fallen, granting unholy speed, and even transforming some into new extremes of ghastliness.
The gheist-dragon landed with phantasmal elegance before the Pontifex Surrexit and bowed its boney neck. The vampire leapt up onto its back, and at his command, the dragon launched them both into the air, circled once and then descended in wrath upon the children of chaos. The battle had restarted; soon it would be ended.
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