Marius Calgar, Chapter Master of the Ultramarines and one of the Imperium's most steadfast heroes, stood in the breach at the fortress's main gate. His signature Power Fists had been stained blackish green with foul blood. Deep scratches and dents covered his Terminator Armour, proof of his battles against the daemons.
But he could not retreat. Behind him lay the sanctum.
"Chapter Master! First Company has suffered over seventy percent casualties! Third Company can barely hold the breach over there!"
A captain's transmission crackled with static and desperate screams. "That huge thing... that huge thing is coming again!"
Calgar raised his head. Through the poisonous fumes filling the air, he saw the figure that made him feel as though he were suffocating.
At the center of the plague army hovered a giant in tattered robes, rotten wings sprouting from his back. He held an enormous War Scythe dripping with deadly poison, and wheezes like a broken bellows rasped from beneath his respirator.
Mortarion, Primarch of the Death Guard, Daemon Prince of Nurgle.
"So... tenacious..." Mortarion's voice was low and hoarse, as though it came from the depths of a grave. "Just as that... hypocritical father... taught you..."
He gently swung his War Scythe, Silence.
An invisible ripple of plague swept outward. More than a dozen Ultramarines caught in it instantly stiffened. Their ceramite armour began to rust and disintegrate, and the flesh inside dissolved into puddles of pus within seconds.
"No!!" Calgar roared, the bolters mounted on his fists firing wildly, but to a Daemon Primarch, they did not even count as a scratch.
"Give up... little one..." Mortarion slowly descended, his enormous shadow falling over Calgar. "Hand over... my brother... I will free him... from pain..."
Just as Calgar prepared to launch a suicidal charge, defending his Primarch's dignity