V2 Chapter 142: Don't Worry. I Won't Let the Warmaster Fall Beyond Saving.
Duvette received Macaroth's message and brought both of them to the surface command post immediately.
Juno looked much as she always did. The black Inquisitorial robes hung from her shoulders. Her white hair was bound into a long braid and draped casually across one side. But this time, the unhurried smile she usually wore was absent. Her expression was serious. The red pupil that the eye patch did not cover carried something that looked like anxiety.
What told Duvette more clearly than anything that the situation had deteriorated was the state of the man standing at Juno's side.
Macaroth looked terrible. His hair had clearly not been attended to in some time. He wore an ordinary civilian coat that had seen better days. His rank insignia had been removed.
When he had stood at Slaydo's side, he had always carried the particular settled authority of someone second to none. That authority had been pressed flat by exhaustion, and what remained was urgency and strain barely held in check.
Macaroth looked at Duvette and repeated the line he had sent in the transmission.
"Duvette. You may genuinely be the only one who can save the Warmaster now."
"If the Imperium's higher authorities detect something wrong, the Administratum, the Departmento Munitorum, the Officio Assassinorum will all become involved. By then, what happens to the Warmaster will be—"
He stopped.
The sentence did not need to be completed.
Everyone in the room knew what the end of it was.
Duvette raised a hand and gestured for him to sit.
"Take a breath first."
He looked at Macaroth directly.
"Tell me everything. What has actually been happening with the Warmaster recently. Why you were removed. What condition the crusade is in right now."
Macaroth was quiet for a moment.
He was clearly finding the words. Juno walked to the side of the room and began examining the documents on Duvette's tactical table without invitation.
Duvette glanced at her but did not object.
He simply waited for Macaroth to speak.
At last, the former Chief of Staff drew a long breath.
"It started as strategic disagreements."
He said.
"Slaydo and I argued many times. That was normal in the crusade command structure. The Warmaster was never someone who couldn't hear opposition."
He raised his head and his voice grew heavier.
"But then it changed."
"He became increasingly impatient. Increasingly hungry for a perfect victory."
Duvette's brow came together.
Macaroth continued. "If a front-line commander failed to advance on the schedule he had set, they would be replaced immediately. A single delayed landing day, a single operational zone falling behind, a single battle report that wasn't worded with sufficient certainty: any of these could become grounds for dismissal."
"If anyone questioned it, he would relieve them of their post directly and install someone he had chosen himself."
"Some of the orders made surface sense. But as they were executed, the crusade's command structure shook."
Duvette did not interrupt him.
Macaroth began working the fingers of one hand against the other.
"When I understood the Warmaster genuinely had a problem, I went to him."
"I asked him what had happened in that period. Why the mid-campaign command changes. Why he was handling the front-line officers that way."
"I told him this approach would destabilise the crusade's morale. That if it continued, some sections of the line might break."
He paused here, and his expression became considerably worse.
"His response was what finally broke something in me."
Macaroth straightened up, as though positioning himself to face that moment again.
He reproduced Slaydo's tone and phrasing, slowly.
"Slaydo looked at me with very dark eyes."
"He said, 'Have you already run out of patience? Are you already making decisions for the crusade's future? Macaroth. I have not died yet.'"
The command post went quiet.
Duvette narrowed his eyes.
"The Warmaster believed you were trying to seize power?"
Macaroth let out a breath and gave a nod.
"That is what I concluded."
"He shouted at the guards to remove me from his quarters. He stripped every authority I held that same moment. Three days later, he formally revoked my position and placed me under house arrest."
He looked at Juno.
"Lord Inquisitor Karol brought me out quietly."
Juno did not look up from the documents on the table.
Macaroth looked back at Duvette.
"The Warmaster would never have done this before."
"It goes against everything in his character."
"I have followed him for twenty years. I know him."
Duvette said quietly: "I know."
He thought of Slaydo after Balhaut.
The look in the old Warmaster's eyes. The increasingly urgent orders. The unreasonable deployment decisions toward Menazoid.
"The change in the Warmaster after Balhaut was too pronounced."
Duvette said it slowly.
"For a person's character to shift to this degree in a matter of months, there is only one explanation."
He looked up and met Macaroth's gaze.
The two of them said the word at almost the same moment.
"Chaos corruption."
Juno's hand paused.
The command post was entirely silent for a moment.
Then Duvette asked: "Before it began, did you notice anything unusual around the Warmaster? A person, an object, anything?"
Macaroth's brow came together. He began going through his memory.
Duvette was thinking as well.
His memory went back several months.
After Nadzybar was killed, Slaydo had personally led the advance into the throne hall. Everyone's attention in that period had been on the victory, the commemoration, and the crusade's next arrangements.
Could the corruption have started then?
At that moment, Macaroth spoke.
"There is one thing."
Duvette's head came up sharply.
"Tell me."
Macaroth hesitated briefly.
"The Warmaster became increasingly focused on a particular figure."
"Who?"
"Saint Sabbat."
The name produced a slight shift in Duvette's expression.
Macaroth continued. "Imagery of Saint Sabbat began appearing around the Warmaster with increasing frequency. Statues, portraits, anything that could represent her."
"More icons appeared throughout the command complex. In the council chamber, in his private prayer room. Eventually, he began carrying a small figurine on his person."
"He kept saying that the crusade had to become a perfect victory offered to Saint Sabbat."
Duvette went quiet.
He thought of the great Saint Sabbat statue from the celebration after Balhaut.
He thought of the expression on Slaydo's face when he had looked at it. The furrowed brow. The displeasure. Duvette remembered noticing a flaw in the statue, a small imperfection in the carving. At the time he had not thought much of it.
Had it started even then.
Duvette said slowly: "Saint Sabbat herself is not the problem."
Macaroth looked at him.
Duvette continued. "What is problematic is something wearing the form of Saint Sabbat."
His gaze settled on the tactical table.
"In Nadzybar's throne hall, there may have been a corrupted trophy. It took the shape of Saint Sabbat and used it to magnify the strongest obsession already inside the Warmaster's mind."
"Victory. Time. A successor. The future of the crusade."
Duvette's voice dropped slightly.
"Slaydo wants to win. He wants to win while he can still hold the authority to do so. He wants the Sabbat Worlds Crusade to be completed according to his vision."
"Something took hold of that obsession."
Macaroth's colour shifted slightly.
"So that is why he pushed me away."
"Because you are the crusade's future."
Duvette looked at him.
"In his corrupted perspective, you are no longer simply the Chief of Staff. You are someone waiting for him to step aside."
Macaroth closed his eyes, as though confirming, at last, an answer that had always been the worst one.
"And what about Duvette?"
He opened them again.
"The Warmaster has been asking about your movements. He has become increasingly intent on recalling you. He has apparently raged about you as well."
Duvette gave a quiet nod.
"Because I am also a variable."
"Cawl, the Inquisition, the Carpé family, the 112th Combat Group, Menazoid."
"All of these are outside the direct reach of the Warmaster's command structure."
Macaroth looked at him.
"So what are you going to do?"
Duvette did not answer immediately.
He looked at Balhaut's position on the star chart, then at the crusade's main operational zone. Slaydo was still the Warmaster. He was still the symbol of the Sabbat Crusade, still the victory banner in the minds of countless Imperial soldiers.
If the Officio Assassinorum and higher authorities became involved, the Warmaster would very likely receive no opportunity to explain himself.
If the corruption was allowed to continue spreading, the entire crusade would be pulled into catastrophe.
Duvette brought his gaze back to Macaroth.
"I understand the situation."
"Don't worry. I will go and see him."
His voice was steady. There was no hesitation in it at all.
"I will not let the Warmaster reach the point where there is no way back."
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