Ambush! We're being attacked! Get clear of the knot! Move those Warriors! Get the Archers on the Soulless. Hustle. Hustle. Hustle!

Then after that mess is cleaned up, take a look at the east side of the amphitheater where it casts a shadow. Although there is nothing on top of the pillars, you can see two interesting shadows. But what are they?

As ThorulfR points out:

The warrior is clearly visible due to his shield, the falcon, well you might disagree.

Could be, could be, indeed.

There is no turning back from here on. Once you leave the area around the World Knot you will hear a loud explosion.

If you investigate you will see that one pylon of the Knot is destroyed. Your escape route to Tyr is now cut off!

But how did it happen?

Through the magic of Infrared Resonance Tomography we are proud to be able to show you exclusive details of what destroyed the World Knot:

A Crack team of veteran Wights!

The Wight on the left is the trigger man, who starts the powerful explosion. This kind of job is usually given to a Wight Hero.

Well, I'm off. I just received a report about the Wight Pathfinder in the Great Devoid!

Jan Paul Barends sends film evidence (mac | win)that you can successfully complete the mission objectives and return to the start with the World Knot intact.

All it takes is to leave one unit within sight of it and send the remainder of your troops to retrieve the Codex. Sadly, the Knot is still inoperable and you are forced to continue to the exit corner if you want to finish the level.

Find the statue near the lost party. Myth leaves out no details. You can even see what looks to be a face on the medallion around the statue's neck. What can it mean?

As for the book the statue is holding, it isn't the Total Codex as one might assume. It is the Book of Lanreb as our magic reveals when you zoom in and clean up the contrast with Photoshop. But who the hell is Lanreb?

As G. Barnett so correctly points out:

'Lanreb' is 'Bernal' backwards. Yet another Bungie employee showing up.

Yes indeed, Mark Bernal worked for Bungie on the art and level design in Myth. Very nice detective work Mr. Barnett!

A passage from the pregame narration of the level reads as follows:

The Head appears to know something about everything, and now it has us looking for an artifact called the Total Codex. Its been located in the ruined city of Covenant, but the first group sent to retrieve it has not returned.

Usually, when you recover the Total Codex on this level, the only thing you see of the first group are their bloody, broken bodies. However, if you hurry straight to the Total Codex with your fast units you can see them as they make their last stand.

If you have one unit set foot in the ruins where they are you can take control of them! This has several desirable side effects.

First, having the extra units makes it possible to finish the level with 'No Casualties!' even though some of your warriors have died.

Second, if the extra Journeyman is still alive, you can use him to pick up the Total Codex. He does not go into 'auto-pilot' mode when he does this. (A minor, but welcome addition is you do not have to listen to an endless litany of 'Look out! The enemy is near.')

You have to be very quick or else the wights will nuke them. Attempts to do this trick on the higher difficulty settings almost always ends up a suicide run.

JPB noticed that if you send one unit to the cathedral alone, the units involved in the massacre don't warp in. They are only triggered once you send a subsequent unit in.

After a little experimentation moving warriors forward one pace at a time, I managed to find the barrier your second unit must cross in order to bring in the first party and their attackers.

The overhead map with the barrier marked is shown to the left.

Recently, there has been discussion on the Asylum.

The legendary Hamish Sinclair has stopped by and, in the midst of another discussion regarding World Knots, put forth as evidence that the Dark knew how to use World Knots before "Force Ten From Stoneheim" the fact that a team of Wights beams in to destroy the Knot at the end of Homecoming. Others disputed this, the likes of SiliconDream and IronDuke. Still others defended Hamish, such as Joyeuse.

The argument put a number of items into evidence; that there is no Knot warp effect and Bungie could easily have made one, that the Knot is close to the north edge of the map and the Wights could be presumed, story-wise, to have walked there from somewhere else, being a part of the Watcher's large force occupying Covenant; and on the other side, that we weren't meant to see the Knot effect as it was out of our visual range, so it wasn't implemented, and that the Wights would have attacked the Light forced as they beamed in if they were around nearby.

A counter-argument to the last position was that the Dark could have beamed the Wights in to attack the Light if they really wanted too. But the final piece of evidence that puts it all to rest is this film where Silicon manages to catch eight Wights shambling up to the Knot from the north, destroying it utterly. The film goes out of sync shortly thereafter when he quits the game after capturing this in action.

An interview with Jay Barry was held at Bungie Sightings on February 9th 2003. Jay was a level designer on Myth: The Fallen Lords but left Bungie before Myth II was shipped. Here's what he had to say about Homecoming:

Ryan Martell had started it, and I finished it off. One thing I remember about that level was trying (and failing) to get a series of blocking forces to engage the player between the knot and the cathedral, to make it really difficult for you to "save" the team with the book.

I must say, it would have been nice to see a scripted cathedral massacre at the start of the level before having the camera swing round to the Knot as your troops warp in.