SALVATION
Jonathan Green

THE ROAR OF their storm bolters drowning out their battle-cries, the veterans of Ultramar's First Company vented their righteous fury against the abomination that was the tyranid race. Shrieking, the hideous elongated head of a hormagaunt appeared in front of Brother Rius, its fanged mouth dripping with strings of saliva. Responding instinctively, Rius turned his weapon on the creature. He watched with grim satisfaction through his visor as the creature's grotesque visage disintegrated. As his storm bolter kicked in his hand, the back of the creature's skull exploded outwards in a splattering burst of purple blood and bone fragments.
As another in a long line of vanquished foes fell before him, Rius found himself looking across the entirety of the vast battlefield. The rocky plain was covered with a seething mass of flesh and armoured warriors, accompanied by a host of support weapons and vehicles. To both left and right the barren plain rose up to meet steep cliff faces, above which the land bristled with a profusion of plants clustered in primeval jungles. The yellow sun shone down on the prehistoric steppes from a cloudless sky. At any other time the conditions could have been described as almost pleasant.
Reacting automatically, Rius turned his storm bolter on an advancing brood of red-skinned termagants, pumping several rounds of armour-piercing shells into the pack before they had even mounted the outcrop. Despite the repulsing fire of the squad several of the cunning creatures managed to infiltrate the Terminators' position.
With an electro-chemical surge, a fleshborer propelled its cargo of living ammunition towards its target. The veteran Space Marine was

standing his ground before the milling termagants as they closed on the Ultramarine lines. The borer beetles impacted on the warrior's Terminator armour, many splattering harmlessly against the ceramite plates. A few survived, expending their remaining life energy in gnawing through the armour with their viciously gnashing teeth, but none of the voracious insects made it through to the warrior within the plasteel shell. The Marine's response was to swing his free right hand, enclosed by its power fist, into the termagant's body. The creature's ribcage shattered under the blow, the fist's disruption field liquefying its internal organs.
With a convulsive spasm, a spike rifle in the grip of another of the hive-mind's assault troops launched a harpoon-like projectile. The barbed spike cut through the air with a hiss before embedding itself deep in the power armour of another of Rius's battle-brothers. The Terminator Marine replied with a burst of fire from his assault cannon. The termagant was torn apart by a hail of shells, its ruined carcass knocked back into the genocidal horde.
Despite the Terminators' valiant resistance, Rius judged that soon they would be overwhelmed. As each of the murderous aliens fell it seemed that there were two more all too willing to take its place. Unaffected by grief for the death of their fellows or remorse for their actions, the inscrutable members of the hive-mind were an awesome enemy indeed.
When the Gauntlet of Macragge had come out of the warp, the mighty starship's sensors had picked up the tell-tale signals of a massive alien presence. Scanners quickly confirmed the presence of a hive fleet in orbit around the fourth planet in the Dakor star system. Initial long-range scans of the world had revealed it to be in a state of evolution much like that of Old Earth millions of years before the rise of Man. Warm, tropical equatorial seas separated three massive continents which abounded in different environments: great burning deserts, coastal jungles and steaming swamps, forested uplands, globe-spanning mountain ranges.
A search of the Gauntlet of Macragge s library banks had revealed that this was the lost world of Jaroth. According to Imperial records, the planet had been settled millennia ago by isolationists and had subsequently become cut off from the rest of the galaxy by particularly violent warp storms which had only abated in the last hundred years. So it was that in a routine patrol of the wild eastern fringe of the Ultima Segmentum, the flagship of the Ultramarine fleet had rediscovered Jaroth. The Chapter's commanders' first thoughts had been that no doubt if any of the human populace remained their society would have reverted to one of superstitious primitivism. The secrets of the Imperium's Techno-Magi would be lost to them. Jaroth would now be a feral world inhabited by a feral people.
The presence of the tyranid fleet decided the matter. Whatever the state of its population, Jaroth was just the sort of world that the Great

Devourer would relish in plundering of all life, human or otherwise. The galaxy-spanning entity that was the tyranid race was voracious in its appetite. Dozens of Imperial worlds had already been totally scoured of all life to provide the alien horror with raw material from which to perpetuate itself. Who knew how many hundred others had been infested by the insidious cults of genestealers, the blasphemous alien monsters working in collaboration with their corrupted human brood-brethren? The Ultramarines Chapter could not let another planet fall to the Great Devourer. It was their sacred duty to uphold the Emperor's laws, to defend the Imperium against the myriad menaces that threatened to engulf it from all sides. The feeding frenzy of the hive-mind's children was as effective at wiping all life from the surface of a planet as the world-scouring process of the Exterminatus, as a score of worlds would testify.
Squad Bellator fought atop a rocky escarpment in the centre of the bleak valley alongside the veteran Squad Orpheus. Here and there granite formations thrust up from a dried-up river-bed. Every outcrop was the scene of some conflict or other, with the bravest warriors of the Imperium fighting desperately to repel the invading alien horde.
Rius, himself a veteran of Ichar IV, was no stranger to the horrors of the hive-mind. But no matter how many times he witnessed the foul abominations, nothing would ever inure him to them. He could only face each battle with the resolve and courage of the Ultramarines, as laid down in the ordinances of the Codex Astartes by the primarch of the Ultramarines, Roboute Guilliman himself, centuries before.
A unit of tyranid warriors emerged from the slavering ripper swarms to confront the Ultramarines. As Rius watched, a bonesword sliced down through the ceramite shoulder pad of one Space Marine's power armour, severing the skin and sinews underneath. As soon as the serrated edge connected with flesh, the nerve tendrils within the bonesword delivered a potent psychic jolt to the warrior's body. The stun would only be momentary but it was long enough for the tyranid, howling in triumph, to remove the man's head from his shoulders with its second blade.
Striding behind the charging tyranid warriors, lording it over his swarm, the hive queen's consort came into view. The hive tyrant was a truly terrifying figure to behold. The monster stood over two metres tall and its presence exuded a malign intelligence that filled the Ultramarines with dread.
Rapid bursts of laser energy struck the hive tyrant, but to no effect: the monstrosity's toughened carapace absorbed the lethal blasts. With unintelligible roars, and no doubt telepathic signals as well, the master of the swarm directed the broods to seek out the humans and destroy them, consuming all available bio-mass in the process as well. The tyrant had to die!
* * *

KILOMETRES OVERHEAD, THRUSTERS fired, desperately turning the vast spacecraft on its axis, but it was too late, and the Gauntlet of Macragge collided violently with the asteroid-sized pod launched from the hive ship. The massive spore mine detonated with the power of a thermonuclear explosion, the resultant shockwave shaking the spaceship.
Chunks of bone-like shell as thick as a fortress wall bombarded the craft. Some shards disintegrated as they struck the vessel's force-field but the shields had been damaged by the initial explosion and provided only intermittent protection. Other fragments struck the vast ship like meteors, wrecking communications antennae and tearing holes in its hull through which the accompanying shower of acids, algae and virus-bearing particles could gain access to the craft's interior.
The Imperial Navigators reacted swiftly, bringing the six kilometre-long vessel under control. Fission-boosters firing, the Gauntlet of Macragge moved off in pursuit of the bio-ship.
The prehistoric world resting six hundred kilometres below appeared as a welcoming blue-green paradise, its atmosphere streaked with wisps of white cloud, a total contrast to the smog-polluted planets that were so often the refuges of humanity. Jaroth's airless moon, no more than a planetoid that had become trapped by the larger astral body's gravitational pull, rose over the glowing nimbus of the planet. Then the stricken bio-ship came into view.
From the bridge of the Ultramarines' flagship, Commander Darius watched through the view screen wall as the Gauntlet of Macragge closed in on the tyranid craft. The gigantic curled body of the organic vessel was tilted at a strange angle and appeared to be drifting. However, as the mighty gothic cruiser closed the distance between itself and the tyranid craft, Darius could see yet more spore mines and other sleek, finned creatures being disgorged from the bio-ship's gaping hangar-wide mouth.
'On my mark, hit that abomination with everything we've got!' the commander ordered the soldiers at their control consoles. Returning to his throne of command Darius sat down, never once taking his stern gaze from the monstrosity displayed before him on the view screen. His brow furrowed. 'Fire!'
A hundred turbo lasers blazed into life, great beams of intensely focused light energy striking the already weakened tyranid mother ship. In a blaze of coruscating fire, the nautilus shell of the massive space-travelling organism splintered, mountainous shards flying from the creature and its soft internal organs rupturing as its body depressurised. Its hundred kilometre-long innards spilling into space, the great creature dropped away from the cruiser as it was caught in Jaroth's gravitational field. The bio-ship plunged towards the planet's surface through the atmosphere, its shattered shell glowing red hot. As Darius

watched, the organism began to burn, its pink flesh cooking as it hurtled planetward.
THE TERMINATOR SQUAD moved cautiously through the undergrowth with grizzled Sergeant Bellator at its head. The Space Marines covered the jungle in front of them and to either side with sweeps of their guns, monitoring their motion sensors for signs of potentially hostile life. The surrounding trees were alive with sound. Unknown bugs clicked and hummed while mosquito-like insects as long as a man's hand buzzed around the armoured warriors.
With the defeat of their hive tyrant, the tyranid hordes had been thrown into disarray. Pressing home their advantage, the elite warriors of the Imperium had routed the foul alien army. The less determined termagants and hormagaunts had fled immediately but the rampaging, bestial carnifexes continued to hammer the Space Marine ranks.
Even when its fellows lay dead around it, one of the screamer killers relentlessly charged a razorback. Smashing into the tank, the alien horror scythed through the plasteel armour, its razor-edged killing arms flailing. A living engine of destruction, the carnifex had gutted the vehicle and slaughtered its crew before it was felled by a bombardment of missiles from an Ultramarines Whirlwind.
There was a screeching cry from deep within the trees to the right of the Terminators' path. Sergeant Bellator fired off several rounds from his storm bolter into the foliage. All was quiet again.
'Precautionary fire.' Bellator's growling voice came over the Terminators' comm-units. 'It could have been a tyranid.'
Had it been a tyranid? Rius wondered. It could just have been one of Jaroth's indigenous life forms. There was no way of knowing. With the main tyranid force wiped out, the Terminators had been sent into the jungle to carry out a clean-up operation. With the hive tyrant gone, many of the tyranid troops had gone rogue, randomly attacking Space Marines that far outnumbered them or fled into the primeval jungles where it was harder for the Ultramarines to follow.
Although the tyranids had been defeated, the veteran squad was still tense with anticipation. The Ultramarines' lines were miles away and out here in the depths of the jungle they were as much the aliens as the tyranids.
There's something up ahead,' Brother Julius said, breaking the communication silence. The others checked their motion sensors. Several red blips had appeared at the outer limit of the small displays.
'Be ready, brothers,' the squad sergeant hissed.
The fronds gave way to a clearing. On the far side of the glade was the crumpled fuselage of an Ultramarines Thunderhawk gunship.
It was instantly obvious to the veterans what had happened. A broad hole gaped in the side of an engine housing. Its edges were corroded with

an acidic slime and splinters of bone were lodged in the plasteel hull around it. The living cannon of a biovore had fulfilled its deadly purpose. Having been fatally hit by the spore mine, its crew no longer able to control it, the aircraft had come down on the forested plateau.
A scorched path through the jungle showed where the Thunderhawk, its engines burning, had seared through the trees. It had flattened everything in its wake until it ploughed into the clearing, the soft soil thrown up around it putting out the fires.
But what had happened to the crew?
'Spread out!' Bellator instructed and the Terminators immediately began to take up appropriate positions around the crashed craft.
The blips were still present on their motion sensors. From the readings Rius could see that almost all the organisms were actually inside the downed gunship. As yet, however, the Terminators had not made visual contact with them. Were they the injured crew, tyranids or denizens native to the planet? Were they hostile or totally harmless?
As if in answer, Rius heard his sergeant's voice again over his comm-unit: 'Expect the worst.'
Cautiously the squad strode across the glade, the servo-assists in their cumbersome suits whirring, closing in on the Thunderhawk with every step. When the craft had gone down it had probably been assumed that the crew had perished. However, it was just as likely that the crash would have gone unnoticed to the Ultramarines commanders as wave after wave of mycetic spores hurtled down onto the teeming battlefield. Whatever the case, a rescue attempt had not been ordered.
From Rius's motion sensor, it appeared that the creatures inside the Thunderhawk had stopped moving. Were they aware of the Terminators approaching them? There were too many blips for it to be any surviving crew members, the Marine convinced himself - but were they tyranids?
Brother Hastus was the first to reach the crumpled fuselage. He edged his way towards the open cargo bay hatchway as the others covered him. Several seconds dragged by as Hastus checked the interior of the cargo bay. A wave of his power fist and the rest of the squad moved in.
Rius followed Brother Sericus into the shadowy interior of the crashed Thunderhawk, the optical sensors in his helmet adjusting from the glare of the clearing to the gloom instantly. Lightning claws raised, Sericus advanced slowly through the gunship, brushing aside dangling pipes that dripped oily fluid into the chamber.
Rius glanced down at his motion sensor and then immediately looked up at the ceiling in alarm. A six-limbed, insectoid nightmare dropped out of the darkness. His reflexes working far faster than conscious thought, the Ultramarine automatically raised his power fist to protect himself. The creature hit its crackling distortion field and screamed as its carapace shattered; it fell squirming onto the floor behind Rius. Julius stepped over

it, thrusting a whirring chainfist into its face. Then another of the purple-skinned monstrosities was on his back.
Genestealers! His worst fears had been confirmed. Before he could train his weapon on the tyranid construct and blow its vile carcass apart, the monster plunged a taloned claw through the back of Julius's armour. It yanked it out again, dragging with it the man's spine, slick with blood.
A hail of armour-piercing shells from Rius's bolter punched through the genestealer's exo-skeleton and the alien's corpse joined that of Brother Julius on the floor of the cargo bay.
Something heavy slammed into Rius, sending his heavily-armoured body sprawling on the metal floor with a resounding clang. Gripping his left arm between its vice-like jaws, another hissing genestealer was trying to bite through the ceramite shell to get to the flesh within. The creature was swiftly dispatched with a bullet to the temple but even in death the genestealer's jaws refused to release their grip. Several more shots shattered the creature's skull allowing Rius to extract his arm.
To his left, Brother Sericus was grappling with two of the tyranid creatures, one gripped in each fist. A jet of orange flame illuminated the cargo bay as Brother Hastus kept yet more of the creatures from approaching his overwhelmed fellows.
Rius clambered to his feet, shaking the genestealer's blood from his suit. Brother Bellator stood in the open hatchway, assailed on all sides by the rest of the genestealer brood, defending himself as best he could at such close quarters with his power sword. The savagery and ferocity of the genestealers was terrifying. His storm bolter blasting, Rius rushed to the sergeant's aid.
Another flare from Brother Hastus's flamer struck the frenzied press of purple bodies surrounding Bellator and the reek of burning alien flesh filled the chamber. With a sizzling flash an oily puddle ignited, the flames rushing back through the cargo bay following the trail of black liquid to where it cascaded from a broken fuel pipe. Sericus's horrified gaze followed the progress of the fire, his chainfist still embedded in the metal wall through the skull of a twitching genestealer.
Rius reached the edge of the hatchway and the overwhelmed sergeant as the Thunderhawk's fuel tanks erupted in a conflagration of molten metal and oily smoke. The force of the explosion threw the Ultramarine out of the cargo bay, flinging him right across the clearing. Rius's body slammed into a thick tree trunk. The unconscious Terminator slumped to the ground, the weight of his heavy armour embedding his body in the soft ground. Flames engulfed the wreckage of the gunship.
Rius OPENED HIS eyes slowly, his vision taking a few seconds to focus. Above him were wooden beams and the underside of a thatched roof. Cautiously he tilted his head to one side.

'Hello.' said a small voice. Sitting only a few feet from him was a human child. Her keen blue eyes regarded him with intense fascination. She wore a simple smock and her waist-length auburn hair hung in a plait over one shoulder.
'H- hello.' Rius mumbled in reply. His tongue felt thick and there was the taste of stale saliva in his mouth.
'My name's Melina.' the girl-child said. What's yours?'
Still only half-conscious, Rius tried to focus on the girl's question so that he could provide an answer, but he couldn't. A nebulous fog obscured that part of his memory from him.
'I don't know.' he muttered, bewildered. 'Where am I?'
'You're at home, in our house. Why don't you know your name?'
Ignoring the girl's question, Rius scanned the room from where he lay. It was small and spartan. The only other furniture in it apart from the bed was a chair and a small table on which rested a wash basin. Lying on his back in a rough wooden bed, he could feel the straw mattress beneath him.
You do have a name, don't you?' the girl persisted.
'Come away now, Melina. Let our visitor rest.'
Rius swivelled to find the source of this second voice. A man had entered the room. He also wore plain peasant clothes and although only in his thirties, Rius judged, he had already begun to lose his hair.
You must be tired.' the man added, addressing Rius himself now. We will leave you in peace.'
'No!' Rius found himself demanding, something of the old authority in his voice returning. What happened to me?'
'You do not know?' the man asked, incredulously. 'Are you not a warrior of the Emperor himself, fallen from the stars?'
Rius stared at the man with incomprehension. 'Am I? How did I get here?'
We saw the stars falling to the earth and knew that it was an omen. The menfolk set off into the untamed lands as our elders instructed. We found you in the forest. You were unconscious and badly injured.' the man explained patiently. We brought you back to my farm and did what we could for you. At first we were not sure if you would survive but your holy armour had helped to keep you alive. You have been asleep for almost a week.'
Desperately, Rius tried to clear the fog from his mind and piece together his shattered memories. He could remember nothing clearly from before the moment when he had awoken. There were only trace images of terrible, unreal monsters and the distant sounds of battle, like the last lingering fragments of a nightmare that are forgotten with the coming of dawn.
Who am I? What am I?' Rius's voice was no longer aggressive and demanding, more like that of a pitiful child.

The man and his daughter looked at him sadly. 'I am sorry.' the man spoke wistfully. We can heal your body, as best we can, but we cannot minister to your mind. We cannot help you to remember. That is something that you will have to do yourself, given time.'
A sorrowful silence descended over the room for several minutes. Nobody moved. You saved me.' Rius finally said, humbly. The man smiled. 'Then I know what I must do.' Rius continued. 'I owe you my life so now I must repay the debt. I pledge myself to your service. I will do whatever you wish.'
Rius tried to sit up and immediately white-hot daggers of pain shot through his body. His face a mask of agony, he collapsed back onto the bed.
You must rest.' the man chided, gently. 'Tomorrow is a another day. Then we will see.'
EVERY DAY JEREN the farmer and his family tended to Rius's needs, bringing him his meals and seeing to his injuries. The little girl, Melina, was a constant companion. The time Rius spent with the child, hearing of her youthful adventures or helping her with her letters, filled him with joy and gave him new strength to face the long haul to recovery ahead.
But it was not to be a long recovery. Within days his wounds had healed as if they had never been. He was able to leave his bed and walk again. He began helping out around the farmhouse where he could. Jeren and his family, along with the other villagers, were in awe of Rius's restorative powers. The injuries he had suffered would have taken a mortal man months to recover from, if he did at all.
Truly he is a warrior from the stars.' the people said and heaped blessings upon the Emperor for sending them a saviour. Yet each day Rius still came no closer to resolving his own internal struggles, no nearer to remembering who he was or where he came from.
Only a fortnight after his arrival at the farm, Rius was able to set to work in the fields. Jeren and his family were the owners of a few tidy acres at the edge of a village which consisted of nothing more than a collection of farms, a mill and the local tavern. During the following months he learnt much about the people of the village and their customs. They spent most of their days toiling in the fields in order to raise crops from the unforgiving land. It appeared that the humans fought a constant battle with the surrounding jungle, the 'untamed lands', as the farmers called them. Wherever trees were cleared to provide more land for growing cereal crops or to graze animals, the primeval forest reclaimed an acre left fallow on the farm's boundary. Weeds seemed to grow more readily than wheat and much of the villagers' time was spent clearing them from their fields. It seemed like the forest didn't want the humans there and was trying to evict its unwelcome tenants.

Rius joined Jeren and his family in their own battle with the jungle. He would be the first up at dawn, taking a mighty axe to die twisted trunks, and the last to return to the farmhouse at dusk. The other villagers marvelled at the star-man, as they called him, for his strength was many times that of the other humans. Soon he was also helping the other farmers, single-handedly repairing broken wagons and erecting barns for the grain harvest. There was not one person among the villagers who did not welcome Rius's assistance.
But for all he learnt about the resilient, magnanimous people who had taken him in, he was still no wiser as to his own origins. Perhaps, he began to think, the villagers were right, that he had been sent from the stars in order to help these kind people in their plight. This growing conviction was strengthened by news that came to Jeren's farm one chill morning.
A small party of farmers arrived at Jeren's door, out of breath and in a state of agitation. Jeren and the farmers spent a few minutes in anxious conference before turning to Rius.
'What is it?' Rius asked, concerned.
'Last night Old Man Hosk's place was attacked by something that came out of the forest. Hosk died trying to defend his home but his wife and children escaped.' Jeren paused, as if he hardly believed what he was about to reveal himself. 'They say it was a monster as big as a house and with the strength of a giant. And then there were the terrible, unearthly screams heard outside Kilm's farm during the night. This morning, Kilm found his entire herd slaughtered in the fields and his grain store razed to the ground. Everyone in the village is too terrified to go after the beast. They want you to hunt the monster down for them and kill it.'
You're the only one uhat can kill the Screamer, star-man.' one of the petitioners added. You will help us, won't you?'
The Screamer... the name troubled Rius. He was certain that he had heard it before - and that it spelled danger. Despite his unease, however, now was his chance to repay these people for their kindness and fulfil his purpose. 'Of course I will.'
Taking up his axe, Rius left the farm with Jeren and the other villagers, and headed for what remained of the Hosk homestead. At the head of the valley in which the ruined farm lay, he saw that the farmers' descriptions of the devastation had not been exaggerated. Most of the buildings had been demolished as if something huge had ploughed straight through the wattle walls.
Suddenly the uneasy quiet of the morning was broken by a bloodcurdling, high-pitched bestial scream that cut through Rius like a knife. 'What was that?' he demanded, turning to the crowd of farmers huddled behind him.
That was the Screamer.' one of them replied, nervously.

The howling beast emerged from the line of trees on the far side of the valley. Although still over a couple of kilometres away, thanks to his enhanced eyesight, Rius was able to make out the monster quite clearly. He saw the bleached, bone-like dome of its head; the great curved arms; the crushing hooves; the tough, chitinous hide.
Instantly Rius's mind was awash with terrifying images and recalled sensations: slavering jaws, burning acid death, stinging tentacles, blood-drenched talons, fetid decay-ridden breath, a nightmare of purple and crimson. It was as if someone had opened the floodgates that had been holding back his memory. Temporarily stunned as forgotten experiences came crashing back into his mind, all Rius could do was stand stock-still, staring at the beast that had banished his amnesia.
What is it, star-man?' Jeren asked.
'No, not that. Rius. I am Rius,' the Space Marine mumbled, shaking his head as if coming out of a troubled dream. 'I know who I am, what I am.' His thoughts and words became more focused and determined: 'I know where my destiny and duty lie. Where is my armour? Where are my weapons?'
Hefting aside the bales of straw, Jeren uncovered the trapdoor set into the floor of the barn. 'I always thought that one day you would ask for it back. When we found you it was encrusted with dried blood and in a condition not befitting a warrior of the Emperor. I cleaned and polished it, then laid it here, togemer with your mighty weapons, for safe-keeping.' The farmer raised the trapdoor to reveal the gleaming blue armour that lay there.
The Space Marine held up the helmet, a shaft of sunlight catching its whiteness in a dust-shot beam. Reverently, Rius removed each piece of the centuries-old Terminator armour from its resting place. As he did so, his gaze lingered on the badges of honour won through decades of conflict on a hundred worlds. Pride welled up within him as he took in every crack and inscribed line of the great stone icon fixed to the left shoulder pad. Only the most honoured of the Emperor's veterans wore the Crux Terminatus.The winged skull carved into the chest plate of the armour attested to another righteous victory against the enemies of humanity. The Purity Seal granted him by the Chapter's chaplains was still intact too. Its blessing had certainly not proved wanting for Rius: it had kept him alive while the rest of his squad had been condemned to death as a result of the accursed tyranids' intervention at the Thunderhawk. Pride turned to sadness as he mourned his departed battle-brothers. He would never fight at their side again. The coming challenge he was to face would be as much for them as for the Emperor and the people of this unforgiving planet.
'I would like to be alone now,' the Space Marine said, turning to Jeren. I must prepare for battle.'

As Rius strode out of the barn he looked nothing like the man that had entered. His mortal frame was encased within the metal body of a Terminator and mighty he looked indeed. He had donned the armour of his ancestors and chanted the litanies of war. Now he was ready to confront his foe. He addressed the overawed farmers gathered outside the barn. 'This day I go to face my destiny'
'Will you return?' Jeren asked.
Rius turned his helmeted head towards the horizon. These people had shown him such compassion, hospitality and friendship. Now he could finally repay his debt to them. 'If the Emperor wills it. If not, my death will serve the greater good.'
What is your name, warrior?'
'I am Brother Rius of the First Company of the Ultramarines Chapter of the Imperium, may it never fail.'
Then farewell, Brother Rius. May the Emperor's spirit go with you, as do our blessings.'
Rius saluted the man who had done so much for him and then paused before departing. 'Jeren, will you do something for me?'
'Of course, my friend. Name it.'
'Remember me.'
With that the Ultramarine turned his back on humanity and strode off down the track away from the farm, towards the primeval jungle to meet his destiny.
BROTHER Rius FROZE. There it was again, a rustling in the undergrowth ahead of him. He checked his motion sensor. There was definitely something there, but was it his quarry or yet another tree-fox? He had hunted the beast for three solid days without resting, having followed its tracks from the ravaged farmstead that now lay many miles behind him.
With a bellowing scream the carnifex broke through the tangle of fronds before him, all four of its razor-edged killing arms scything wildly at the vegetation as it ran. Instinctively, Rius hurled his heavily-armoured body to one side, out of the way, himself crashing through the undergrowth. As he hit the ground, his storm bolter was already spitting round after round of devastating fire in the direction of the rampaging tyranid.
Still screaming, the carnifex ground to a halt and turned, ready to charge Rius a second time. The screamer killer well deserved both its name and the reputation that went with it. The piercing cry of the carnifex was enough to discourage the most resolute of men, while its diamond-hard, sickle-shaped arms could tear apart Rius's ceramite armour as easily as it could his flesh. Its chitinous hide was virtually impenetrable to normal weapons and the great mass of its rounded body made it unstoppable as it stampeded across any battlefield.

This must be the last of its foul kind on the planet, Rius decided - left behind, as he himself had been, after the defeat of the hive-mind's forces.
As the Space Marine struggled to get to his feet, almost cursing the bulky suit in which he was encased, the monster charged again. The carnifex hit the Terminator with the force of a mortar shell, forcing the air out of his lungs and throwing him bodily through the air. Rius crashed to the ground, splintering the branches of a tree on the way down, landing at the top of a steep, densely-forested slope. The impetus of the charge and the subsequent momentum of his own body sent Rius rolling over the edge, tumbling down through the undergrowth.
He came to rest at the bottom of the slope, stunned and crying out in agony. It was like trying to wrestle a tank! Doing his best to suppress the pain mentally, Rius got to his feet. The fall had knocked out a servo-assist in the left leg of his suit so that he now walked with an acute limp. It would also slow him down.
He was standing in a clearing at the edge of a great plateau and, looking out beyond the cliff edge, he saw the prehistoric terrain shrouded by the smoke of distant grumbling volcanoes. Down in the broad valley, partially buried under a layer of ash, were the indistinct outlines of alien skeletons and twisted metal hulks. This was where the battle for Jaroth had been won - and where the final conflict in the war would take place.
A high-pitched screech accompanied the sound of a huge shape ploughing through the jungle towards the Space Marine. The carnifex burst through the trees - and stopped. A disgusting purple fluid oozed from several small holes in its chest where the extremely tough bone and cartilage had been punctured. He had managed to wound the beast, the Emperor be praised! However, his excitement almost instantly turned to disappointment. The flow of alien blood stopped and before his very eyes the wounds began to heal themselves. The carnifex was regenerating!
The great creature's shoulders heaved as if the tyranid was breathing heavily. The deafening scream continued as the carnifex pawed the ground with its crushing horned hooves. A crackling field of bio-electrical energy flickered around the scissoring arms. As Rius watched transfixed, the creature convulsed violently and a glowing green ball of plasma emerged from its fang-lined mouth. Trapped in the energy field of the beast's claws, the carnifex was able to determine the direction in which it would fire the incandescent missile.
Rius ducked as the scorching ball of plasma hurtled towards him. The blazing gout splashed against the Terminator's back, bathing the armour in licking green flames. At once the ceramite began to sizzle and dissolve. Still safe as yet inside his suit, Rius raised his bolter, took careful aim and fired. As many shells rebounded off the reinforced carapace as penetrated it, and those that did wound the creature seemed to make no difference as the tyranid's supernatural vitality and single-minded desire

for slaughter drove it onwards. A new pain shot through the Ultramarine's nervous system as the bio-plasma reached his skin, having eaten through the armour. Rius realised that there was only one thing to do. He braced himself. As the rampaging monster ran at him he prepared to meet its charge, not flinching as the distance between the pair rapidly decreased.
As the monster hit him head on, Rius grabbed the creature around its waist. At the same moment he could not contain his agony and screamed. A jagged, curving arm sliced through his armour and deep into his side. The Ultramarine was now face to face with the tyranid. Surprised by its enemy's retaliation, the creature lost control of its charge and stumbled, its momentum carrying the two of them rolling towards the precipitous edge of the plateau.
The hulking monster towered over him. Rius gagged at the stench of the carnifex's reeking breath, its grotesque face mere inches from his visor. The Marine could feel his life-blood seeping away. It was now or never.
With the last of his failing strength he lifted his gun and rammed its muzzle between the monster's jaws. Depressing the trigger he emptied the rest of the cartridge into the carnifex's mouth. Shells blasted through the back of the creature's malformed head; others ricocheted around inside its toughened skull, liquefying its tiny brain.
Rius knew he was dead, but it no longer mattered. He had reclaimed his honour and identity and repaid his debt to the people who had saved him from ignominy. Thanks to them he could die the death of an Ultramarine. Trapped within the carnifex's grasp he could not stop the great bulk of the beast dragging him with it as it toppled over the edge of the plateau. Locked in the inescapable embrace of death, Brother Rius and the tyranid fell into oblivion. The Battle for Jaroth was finally over.