The Red Terror

The Red Terror is a Ravener that learned to be a legend. On Devlan it ate a Catachan company one fire-team at a time, leaving a red smear and the kind of after-action report officers do not read twice. Veterans finally brought it down. Hive Fleets have a long memory for successful biomorphs.

It is a tunneller with a swallow reflex and a carapace the colour of fresh casualty. Imperial records treat the original as dead. Later sightings treat it as a pattern the Hive Mind can stamp again whenever a world needs a bedtime story.

Guardsmen still use the name for any red blur in a trench. Sometimes they are wrong. Sometimes the trench is already empty.