The Dornsblade

In its midnight gauntlet it held the Excoriators Chapter’s Fifth Company battle standard. Stabbing it into the earth beside the grave, the revenant let the bloodspattered banner flap in the breeze. In its other hand, between two exposed, skeletal digits, it held something else. The damned legionnaire dropped it on the Scourge’s chest and walked away into nothingness, leaving Kersh on the field of battle. Alone.
...
At the sight of hulking silhouettes, cut out of the morning sky, the survivor clutched his gleaming short sword to his ruined chest. Unlike the wrecked Excoriator, and everything else on the cemetery world, the gladius was unblemished and unblooded.
...The approbator looked about him, his instincts taking his gaze to the Santiarch’s own. The Excoriators Angels were looking at the sword rather than their wounded brother.
…‘You came for the sword?’ the approbator marvelled.
The Santiarch ignored him and addressed one of his gathered brethren. ‘Brother Japhet, signal the Cerberus. Inform Chapter Master Ichabod that we have discovered the Dornsblade. Tell him that it remains in Corpus Captain Kersh’s care and will be transported to the battle-barge with the Chapter Scourge directly.’



Legion of the Damned, Chapter Twenty/Epilogue