#44 Charge of the Wight's Brigade

Following the unfortunate consequences of his quest, the vampire Lord Voltaire found himself very much out of favour with Lady Beauvoir, Queen Neferata's prime agent in Barfunweltz. Sure enough, he was soon dispatched to Nulhamia, carrying a letter from Beauvoir to the Queen of Mysteries. He knew better than to try to break the  missive's eldritch seal which was no doubt cursed, but he rightly suspected that the message contained his own inditement.

Fleetingly, he considered absconding, but he would never break the chivalric code of the Order of the Blood-Drenched Rose. Nonetheless, a resolve to face his fate did not (to his mind) preclude attempts to mitigate his inevitable punishment. He had heard mocking whispers about 'foolish Voltaire's evils three', so he devised a threefold absolution. 

Therefore, as soon as he and his vampiric brigade had left Barfunweltz, Voltaire picked out three of his blood knights - Kant, Locke and Rousseau - to help assuage his guilt. He declared that it was Kant who had captured the bestigor that had directed the daemon prince Moh'sheh to Barfun Moor. He accused Locke of counselling him to humiliate Moh'sheh in his own Fight Pit rather than destroy him. And he blamed Rousseau for assuring him that the Ghoul King Sawl Gizzardspittle would oppose the False Messiah rather than join him. These three vampires he promptly caged and starved of blood on their journey to Nulahmia. 

By the time Lord Voltaire reached Queen Neferata's palace, his 'Three Evils' had transformed into raging, bestial vargheists. Thus he hoped to demonstrate to Neferata that, though he was not to blame, he took the failings of his retinue seriously and punished them severely.

When Lord Voltaire was finally granted an audience with the Queen of Mysteries, Neferata took Lady Beauvoir's message from his hand and read her inditement: Not only was Voltaire's disastrous quest described, but the knights were also blamed for various military defeats, and of plotting against Beauvoir in favour of Voltaire. Though Voltaire had been an agent of Neferata's for some time, the Queen instinctively mistrusted the Order of the Blood-Drenched Rose for as mercenaries, they had often fought against the Legions of Nagash, including her own.

When asked to answer for his failures, Lord Voltaire presented Neferata with his 'Three Evils' but the Queen was unimpressed and cast the vargheists out to roam the wilds of Shyish. Instead, she declared that she would make use of his willingness to blame and punish others: Voltaire was forced to behead his own blood knights one by one before Neferata reanimated them as a brigade of mere deathrattle horsemen. Every vampire warrior was reduced to a formless spirit, encased in armour resplendent with the heraldry of the Blood-Drenched Rose and mounted on spectral steeds. Each knight's own skull was cursed to burn for all eternity and mounted upon their helm as a ghastly crest. Castellan Descartes alone was granted a visible form and appointed to take them and the Queen's message back to Barfunweltz.

And finally, Voltaire himself faced his Queen’s judgment...

* * *

Made vigilant by her recent run of bad luck, Lady Beauvoir went out warily to meet Volatire's retinue on the edge of Barfun Moor. She could not perceive the nature of his return, for in truth she had not expected him to return at all, but to be destroyed by Queen Neferata. Had he returned for revenge? Or perhaps the Queen of Mysteries had discerned Beauvoir's failures, turned the tables and sent him back to punish her? 

Curiously, it was Castellan Descartes, not Lord Voltaire who rode forward to greet her while the rest of the brigade sat silently upon their spectral steeds, visored heads slowly turning to follow her. 

"My lady," he rasped as he removed his helm. Beauvoir smiled as she instantly comprehended Neferata's justice. The former vampire knight no long enjoyed physical form. His features flickered like a candle flame. Instantly, she was able to dominate the mind of the demoted undead creature and learn all of what had befallen these one-time gallants of the Blood-Drenched Rose - and their erstwhile liege, Voltaire.

She chuckled as she drifted over to the static, silent, armoured shell which contained all that now remained of the once proud vampire lord. "Well, well... Voltaire the Mortified? This is a vast improvement," she crowed vindictively to the newly-made Wight, "I must convey my gratitude to her Majesty - you and your errant knights might actually be of some use now."

Voltaire the Mortified & the Errant Knights of the Blood-Drenched Rose (mounted Wight King & Black Knights)

#45 THE DOWNFALL OF GENERAL PRUMT