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.

The first possessed Space Marine had one of its freakish hands clutched around Bjorn's helmet, the other pinned his arms to his sides in an enwrapping embrace. The daemonic Space Marine was incredibly strong. A tocsin pinged in Bjorn's ear as the ceramite of his armour creaked under the pressure, then cracked. Gas hissed from the hole. His helm groaned and gave, the inner surface pressing into his scalp.

Bjorn grunted, and flexed his arms. The possessed Space Marine's pinning limb tightened like a constricting serpent around him, but in the moment before, it loosened a fraction, enabling Bjorn to swivel up the barrel of his gun.