'You can kill me,' said Russ defiantly. 'But you will never win.' Horus swung his arm down. A howling grey blur intercepted the maul, knocking it aside. A member of the Rout took the full force of the blow intended for the primarch. The maul pounded the warrior flat. Blood burst from the ruptured plates of his armour.

'You are wrong. I will do both,' said Horus, drawing back his arm to strike again.

But the sons of Russ were roused to protect their jarl. A second warrior ran at Horus, chainsword growling. The teeth of his weapon shattered on the Warmaster's armour and Horus swatted him aside, sending his broken carcass clanging into the wall. A third came, and a fourth, dragging at his arms to save their king.

'Your sons can die before you or after you,' shouted Horus, as more and more Vlka piled atop him. 'But I will kill you.' He shrugged off the press of bodies, sending their souls to Morkai with sideways twitches of his maul, but there were too many, and they would not stop. As Horus slaughtered his bold sons, Leman Russ dragged himself away.

Bjorn's world narrowed to his immediate vicinity, as the necessities of staying alive dictated. Wicked voices jabbered at him in a multitude of tongues. The titanic clash of primarchs resounded like a thunderstorm throughout the hall, but he was distracted neither by their struggle nor by maleficarum. He could not afford to be. He had attention only for his foe.

A screaming warrior in cracked green armour circled him. He flexed elongated fingers tipped with giant claws. He carried no weapons in his outsized hands. Large tumours split by puckered mouths forced their way out through broken plate, intimately enmeshed with the suit's inner workings. The possessed Space Marine wore no helmet. He would never have found one to fit, for the man's face was that of a giant insect blended with a simian's heavy features. Compound eyes and twitching antennae surmounted an ape's prognathous jaw. The slit of a second mouth ran off-centre where the warrior's nose should have been, lined with fixed, needle teeth. Bjorn could not understand how Horus' Legion could allow such an aberration to be. The Sons of Horus had destroyed entire species far less deviant than this. They had exulted in wiping out beings that did not match humanity's form, and now they allowed maleficarum to warp them into these things.

A lashing tentacle wrapped itself around his elbow. A second daemon-ridden warrior was attacking from behind. This second warrior's other arm was a pincer covered in tiny, iridescent feathers that snapped at his face. Bjorn took a step back, as much in disgust at the thing's appearance as a desire to escape its attempts to kill him. Its malformed mouth chittered horribly, and spilled acidic spittle from its corrupted Belcher's gland. Bjorn yanked hard, dragging the creature towards the waiting lightning claws of his right arm. It died messily. The second took advantage of his distraction, rushing at him with a powerful leap that knocked them both back. Bjorn's power pack collided with a Sons of Horus legionary. The traitor was sent sprawling. Another Space Wolf finished him with a downward stab of his power sword.