"Come on, greenskin bastards! More of you! Show the mighty Sons of Horus what you can do!"
Company Captain Brutus's roar mingled with the snarl of a Chainsword tearing through flesh and the muffled thump of close-range Bolter fire, echoing through the narrow passage before the greater, endless tide of Ork war cries swallowed it.
The insignia marking him as First Company Captain had long since been obscured by dried green blood, soot, and wear. Only the roaring Chainsword in his hand continued its tireless harvest of lives.
Half a step behind him, Horus stood like a mountain.
The Primarch's pearl-white armour lay in ruins.
The remaining fragments were covered in thick, crusted blood, blast scars, claw marks, and smeared entrails, like a trophy dragged straight from the Hellforge.
Only the eyes behind his lenses still burned with a cold, fierce light, like those of a beast cornered in a hopeless situation—exhausted, yet all the more dangerous.
Each swing of his weapon had lost the effortless grace with which he had cut through everything at the battle's outset. In its place was a honed, mechanical lethality. Every parry, slash, and thrust targeted the Orks' most vulnerable joints and vital points with precision, extracting the greatest killing efficiency from the least expenditure of strength.
He and Brutus stood back to back, their heavy breathing falling into rhythm over their private channel.
The dozen or so survivors of the Justaerin Terminators' honour guard, the Legion's finest Champions, formed a battered ring of steel around their Primarch and First Company Captain.
Their massive Terminator Armour was riddled with dents and rents. Broken ceramite exposed the fibre bundles and adamantium frames beneath, while dangerous arcs of electricity occasionally spat from their power packs.
Countless assaults had forced their formation to contract as far as