Bror fought like a great white bear. He had a new chainsword, liberated from the clutch of a dead traitor. Once the teeth on that were blunted, he intended to take another, and then another, until there were no more chainswords or no more traitors. Dying did not factor into his plans.

They blasted their way into a tall, domed chamber whose ceiling was ringed with fans chopping noisily at the air. A gas mixture that smelled of algal bed carbon scrubbers past their best wheezed up from pipes beneath the grilled floor. Bror slammed the final traitor in the face with his stolen sword's spiked guard, and shot him dead while he staggered. His brothers stepped in after him, covering the interior with their guns.

'There is no one here,' said Ragner.

'Not yet,' said Bror. 'Take a moment. Drink. Search the enemy for ammunition and supplies.' He pointed at the corpses spilled around the doorway to the hall.

The Sons of Horus had changed. Bror had seen them before aboard this very ship not so long ago, but in the interim between his visits their armour had deviated further from the norms of the faithful Legions. More of them sported spikes and hooks. Skulls hung in bunches at their sides, and the pauldrons and poleyns of some had been reworked into leering daemonic faces. Out of curiosity he removed the helm of one of the slain. He was not surprised to see the warrior's face had lost some of its humanity. If maleficarum could rework metal, why not flesh? The appearance of the traitors was altogether crueller than it had been, and everywhere the insolent, stylised eye of Horus stared.

'They have the look of the Underverse, don't you think?' said Ragner, lifting up the deadweight of a slain legionary so Enrir could pull out spare ammunition from his belt. 'How could they possibly think they are on the right side carrying things like this?' He flipped over a flap of tattooed, flayed skin worn on the warrior's pauldron. 'They call us barbarians.'

'All power makes tyrants, brother,' said Bror. 'They have been made mighty - now they use those gifts for themselves rather than for mankind. Do you think the people of our world would view us any differently than these creatures if they knew the Imperium could purge their world of monsters, stabilise its orbit and free them from lives of fire and ice?'

'I don't like your tone, Tyrfingr. The primarch keeps Fenris that way to keep the Legion strong. Do you want a planet of weaklings?'

'I am sure the weaklings would like to be alive,' said Bror.

Ragner growled. 'You've been away too long, tugging at the skirts of Malcador on Terra. You have gone soft.'