‘All you have to do is get up,’ he says.

He can suddenly feel his left eyelid fluttering. Something stirs. A skitter of loose debris. A scrape of metal. The Emperor is as still and silent as before.

Oll looks behind him. Across the chamber, the black shape is shifting. It twitches like a scarab on its back. It stirs.

Horus slowly sits up, and hauls himself upright.

Horus rises.

Horus stands.

Black bone and blacker light fume around him, repairing and restoring the burned materia of his wargear and his flesh. He is as terrible as before, more terrible, more awful, unbearable, a black mass lit from within by a ghastly, bloody light. He takes a step forward, then another, his pace increasing into a stride. Each footstep shakes the deck and rings out like a falling tank.

Oll gets up. ‘You have to wake up, now,’ he says urgently.

Horus approaches, wordless, furious.

‘You really have to get up now,’ Oll calls. ‘Please. Get up. Get the hell up.’

Horus is closing. The Warmaster reaches out a huge hand. The immense maul scrapes across the deck with a shriek, and then flies straight into his grip.

Oll steps forward to face him. He puts himself between the Emperor and the oncoming monster. He pulls his lasrifle off his shoulder, arms it, and aims it. He knows there’s no point, but it’s better than nothing.

‘Get up now!’ he yells over his shoulder. ‘Please, get up now!’

Horus is just metres away. He’s not slowing down.

Oll pulls the rifle in against his cheek, flexes his grip, and settles his finger on the trigger.

‘No further!’ he yells. ‘Damn you! I won’t let you touch Him!’

Horus keeps coming.

Oll opens fire. Full-auto, sustained. The las-bolts flick and spatter off the black war plate like candle flames in a night wind.

Oll Persson is still firing when the Talon of Horus reduces him to a drifting red fog.