'Then you will die,' it said. The blunt claws scraped over Bjorn's shoulder, furrowing the leather. A rope of drool slid from the air over his head, and landed upon his cheek. Hot breath caressed his skin.

Bjorn tensed.

'One-Handed!' a voice bellowed from the steps below the vigil place. 'Down!'

Bjorn threw himself forwards as the beast struck at him. Something sharp opened the skin of his back. A blade thrummed into the circle. It hit the thing behind him with the meaty kiss of steel parting flesh. A disruptor field boomed. Bjorn choked on smoke of such foulness he thought he would die.

A daemonic howl of outrage echoed from the Volda Hammarki.

A second later he was being hauled to his feet.

Leman Russ had returned. He was singed, his hair burnt back and eyebrows curled. His face was red from fire and lips chapped from cold. He was bloodied, his clothes tom. A weapon slit parted the fabric and leather covering his chest over his primary heart and his gear was drenched in blood. But it was him.

Without thinking, Bjorn made to look at his assailant. Russ grabbed his shoulder. 'Don't look behind you, remember?' he said. He reached past Bjorn and pulled out the Emperor's Spear.

'What was it?' said Bjorn.

'Best not to see,' said Russ, looking past him. 'It is a non-thing, a corrupt wight. One of those beings referred to as the Neverborn. A daemon.' He was thoughtful. 'A word we must learn to take seriously.'

'You used the Emperor's Spear.'

'I did!' said Russ. He smiled as he hefted it. A crust of black blood had formed on the blade, baked hard by the weapon's power field. 'For all its bad wyrd, it is a well-balanced weapon. That was a good throw.'

'It was.' Bjorn took in Russ' wounds.

'You are injured.'

'In the Underverse. Kva said there was a price.' Russ waved his concerns away. 'I paid it, and now I know how to hurt Horus.'

Russ did not say beat. Bjorn noted that well. There was something about the primarch that was different. Bjorn's eyes flicked over his face. He was behaving as he always did, brash, carefree, bold, but under his eyes were new, purplish smears, and he looked…. How did he look? thought Bjorn.

Haunted, that was the only word that fit how he looked.

'I found myself upon the steps. Where are the gothi?' asked Russ.

'They will not be joining us,' said Bjorn. 'They sleep on the red snow.'

'The manner of their death?'

'Heroic,' said Bjorn simply.

'We will go to them, and see what can be done to honour them in death,' said Russ.

'I cannot,' said Bjorn. 'It is forbidden.'

'Yes you can,' said Russ. 'Just keep your eyes closed.'

Russ led the way back down into the glen. Russ bound Bjorn's eyes over with a strip tom from his own shirt, and the primarch led him by the arm down the steps.