The man responsible for receiving Calas Typhon's remains was Nathaniel Garro, Commander of the Death Guard Legion's Seventh Company.
He stood at the entrance to a dim docking bay aboard one of the Death Guard Fleet's Strike Cruisers, his figure casting a long shadow beneath the sickly green emergency lights.
Garro wore dark green MkII Power Armour. Its battered plates bore stubborn stains and the marks of chemical corrosion, exuding, like the man himself, the gloom of long years spent in death's company.
He was a Terran-born Death Guard. Kallus had come from Barbarus, struggling to survive amid the toxic miasma and tyranny of that death world before finally being accepted by the Primarch. In background, beliefs, and even the subtle web of relationships within the Legion, the two had never been close. There was even an unspoken gulf between them.
Yet once a comrade's death became an established fact, once his remains had to be solemnly welcomed back into the Legion's domain, personal likes and dislikes and differences of origin became secondary.
Garro's face was hidden behind his Helmet, his expression unreadable. Only his eyes, particularly deep in the shadows, remained fixed on the small Transport Craft slowly approaching, its hull painted with the scarlet Insignia of the War Hounds.
He stood perfectly straight, his hands resting naturally at his sides, radiating a cold solemnity befitting a Death Guard.
At this moment, he represented the XIV Legion and had to fulfill a Commander's duties and observances toward a fallen comrade.
The Transport Craft's hatch slid open with a hiss, and the cold breath of the void briefly mingled with the ship's stale air.
The first to emerge were ten warriors in dark gray Power Armour, their pauldrons bearing the markings of the Word Bearers Legion.
They formed two columns,