would make it out as the transport of a primarch. It lost itself in the maelstrom, joining the flights of other ships streaming towards the retreating wolf fleet. A valuable ploy, but not a guarantee of safety. Horus' forces were deliberately targeting the gunships. Each successful kill lessened the number of the Emperor's warriors by a score.

The larger ships were faring as badly. They were breaking from the attack, leaving themselves open to the continued fire of their opponents as they pulled away. Few of the Vlka Fenryka's vessels Bjorn saw in the jumping pict-feed had much in the way of void shields. Those that had them at all were reduced to the low brandy fires that signified imminent failure. Too many vessels were bearing the hits on their hull's armour. The Vlka Fenryka's void fleet was dying.

A bright explosion whited out the screens. For a moment, the armourer ceased chasing torpedoes and fighter craft across the sky and focused on the cause of the flash.

'Skjitna,' he breathed.

Gutted by multiple lance strikes, the Niddhoggur detonated violently. A ship died that had fought for Leman Russ for two hundred years, that had survived the Wheel of Fire and worse, that bore witness to the terrible brother-on-brother battles of Prospero and the Alaxxes Nebula. The artificial star of its reactor slipped free of its magnetic bonds and enjoyed a fleeting moment of freedom. Smaller vessels detonated as they were overcome by the ball of dissipating plasmas, their own power plants igniting in a chain reaction. Overlapping spheres of light crowded out the ships in the sky. When they winked out, several vessels from both sides were burning and adrift.

The heavy cruiser Grinunggap was the greatest of these secondary casualties. Half its port side was ripped away, leaving the cellular structure of its decks exposed to hard vacuum. Oxygen fires burst in and out of life in its vented halls. The walls glowed hotly. It was like a paper model, half burned, its exposed innards glowing cinders. No guiding hand steered the Grinunggap, its command centres were open to the void and its engines out of control. With stately elegance, it powered away from the engagement, turning nose down towards the gas giant. Its death spiral took it into the path of the Word Bearers light cruiser Vox Deus. The traitor ship attempted to pull up, but instead raked obliquely along its flank. Locked together, the two vessels fell towards the deep gravity well of Etrian, and to their inevitable doom in its milky skies.

These moments were but vignettes in a greater tableau of destruction. Flights of Alpha Legion attack craft sped over the retreating wolf fleet, dropping clusters of bombs that bloomed like flowers on iron fields. Swift destroyers and torpedo boats dogged the Vi's heels. More ships of the Imperium named for the indomitable monsters of Fenris died in the void, their warriors and crews lost.