Editing Nobledark Imperium Writing (section)

== Iron Within, Iron Without ==

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“He refuses to eat or drink and so far as we can tell he hasn’t slept in nearly a week” The serving maid said, refusing to lift her eyes from the floor. It did not make Oscar happy, neither the news or the means of it’s delivery. Humans should not look down in shame or apology to him. He was a Man of Gold; created to serve.

“Thank you, I will speak with him”. They had been walking thought the fortress of Štip-Isar to the eastern wing of residence. Each of the Steward’s mighty strides was equal to more than two of the serving maids such was his inhuman stature. He bade her farewell as they approached the door of the eastern wing and her pace was much increased as she left. The Steward couldn’t help but notice her fearful glances at the old wooden door that he approached.

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Although the Fortress Palace of Štip-Isar was a vast and ancient rambling structure the Steward didn’t need any superhuman abilities to determine which room his Primarch would be found in. True to form Perturabo, son of long dead King Nikola, had taken up residence in his old room and childhood refuge. The Steward Oscar paused at the door but before he could knock a low rumble of a voice informed him curtly that it wasn’t locked. Oscar knew that was as close to a polite invitation as he was ever going to get.

The room was fairly spacious but mostly austere. It contained a set of draws, a closet, a bookshelf, a writing desk and a bed. It was all neatly placed. Every book was arranged alphabetically, pens arranged according to colour, bed made to a razor crease. Bar the thick layer of dust surrounding everything it was inhumanly neat.

Perturabo was standing at parade rest with his back to the door looking out over the east of the ancient Macedonian countryside. It was not a pretty sight. The Beast and it’s minions had burned it to the bedrock. Vast tracts of land were still irradiated, ash still fluttered on the breeze like some parody of snow.

“I don’t know why you are here. I am in disgrace. I have failed. I can be of no more use”. Everyone assumed the monotone was a sad result of the augmentations he had endured but it was not. All the Thunder Warrior alterations had done was drop it from tenor to a deep baritone with a hint of shingle beach.

“Disgrace? Maybe. Failure? No, not a failure. Far from it in fact”. Responded the Man of Gold as he stood besides the Iron Warrior, adopting a similar stance and watching the sun start to crest the horizon.

“Don’t try and comfort me. It’s wasted effort, we both know it and lying for the sake of comfort demeans us both”. The Iron Warrior turned to face the Steward. There wasn’t that much difference in height between them, at least compared to baseline humanity. To the casual observer they were far more alike than they were different.

The Steward looked into that impassive face and those dead grey eyes. Human minds tended to be open to him. He could read them with the most passive ability of his nature and know their intentions and meaning. Not so with Perturabo. Seeing into Perturabo ended at those grey eyes. He had once upon their first meeting seen a little further than that before the great steel wall slammed up. He had no intention of ever seeing that again. It was a mind that was outwardly sane but constructed entirely of insane parts.

“As you say; I wouldn’t subject you to empty platitudes. Your career as head of my fourth Legion has been one of great success. Not unqualified success, that’s for damn sure, but you did many great things and whether they will admit it or not the people of the Imperium owe you a great debt”.

The disgraced primarch gave a grunt of disapproval. “I didn’t do it for the Imperium. I did it for my people. So long as they were surrounded by a strong and friendly supernation the people of the Tharkian Empire should have been safe. But they weren’t. I didn’t prepare hard enough. They are all dead”.

“Not all”.

“Estimated casualties put the death toll of my nation at approximately ninety-five percent. It’s as close to a total failure as makes no difference. Kings have hanged for far, far lesser forms of incompetence. I was the Prince of Macedonia, it was my duty to protect them. MINE! I failed”. Those eyes remained unreadable but Oscar could all to easily imagine the horrors scrolling behind them.

“And would one of your brother primarchs have done better?”

“Irrelevant. It was not their task”.

“It’s possible to do nothing wrong and still fail”.

“Irrelevant. Words are empty. Deeds matter. No man was made a primarch for acceptable ability”. The word acceptable was said with as near to a sneer as Perturabo was capable of. “Only results matter. A lasting empire can’t be built on empty rhetoric and failed intentions. You know why I was removed from active service?”

“Yes”. 

“Good. Then you know that my usefulness is over. I am broken. I am not the head of a Legion. I am not a General. I have been relieved of my sad justification for living. All that remains for me is to contemplate my folly and die quietly without doing more harm on the way out”. His voice was as dead and flat as always, his age worn and war broken face impassive but he turned again to face the horizon, the first rays of the new day bathing the ash in gold as if it the nation was aflame again. 

“You are still my primarch. My ‘Mad Architect’”. Your Warsmith council don’t have the authority to take that title from you or those responsibilities. I gave you that title, only I can relieve you of it”.

“Then I know why you are here. Issue my discharge papers and let me finally die. It is the last thing I shall be doing”. In another man that might have been some residual spark of humour shining through. In the case of Perturabo not so much.

Oscar’s golden eyes for a moment went as cold and hard as the Iron Warrior's.

“You will be relieved of your duties at my choosing, not before. My homeworld is broken and in ruins. I need an Architect of inhuman skill to rebuild it. Mad, sane or total raving lunatic; I don’t care. I have people orchestrating repairs and trying to repair but they can’t deal with the scope of the problems. Even the most gifted of my servants can’t deal with something bigger than half a continent before it breaks their comprehension threshold. I need someone who can organize the world into a cohesive whole. The list of people I know that have a hope of doing that starts and ends at you”. Oscar could remember the first time he had seen this view. Despite the ruination before him it still looked so much better that it had then. It was amazing how an army of Urshite’s could detract from an evening. Outnumbered hundreds to one Prince Perturabo of Macedonia had held out impossibly long and brought low the most feared horde on Old Earth with one barely coherent nation only nominally under his influence.

“Find someone else”.

“I can’t. There is absolutely nobody else, trust me I’ve looked”.

There was a long, long moment of silence.

“I’ll give it some thought”.

“I expect nothing less”.

As the Steward closed the door his heart was gladdened. The Iron Warrior was turning away from the light of a bleak dawn towards his writing desk. On that desk had been written the breaking of Ursh.

Oscar walked back along the old fortress. His mad old Primarch would live. He would not be happy, but that was never an option and something’s not even he could fix. Not happy but content. He had a problem before him and that was something for his self-destructive mind to focus on and survive a little longer. It was not a mind that was whole unless it was breaking something, itself or someone's army it did not matter. Or indeed breaking someone elses victory. Earth was intentionally broken and he would makes sure that their satisfaction was temporary. His victory would out last them. A victory by attrition was very much his way. Iron Within, Iron Without, War Eternal.

Oscar could give him nothing in thanks that would be worth his centuries of service. The nearest he could come close was to make sure that his name was sung with praise.

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