‘Move! Move!’ The sergeant’s voice rang between lasfire, greenskin roars and cries of men. ‘To me, Venn! Now!’ Something whizzed past his ear, close enough to chill the skin.

Venn was on the move, clearing the path with his standard-issue lasgun, wearing standard-issue flak armour, while survival equipment rattled in his standard-issue backpack. He was, by all accounts, unremarkable: brown, cropped hair peeking from a helmet too large for his head, held up mostly by his standard agri-world recruit attitude.

‘Sir!’ he snapped to attention and saluted, trembling with what the Commissar called “wide-eyed enthusiasm”.

‘Deliver this report to the White Scars!’ the sergeant commanded, raising his scavenged plasma pistol at the massive Ork charging their position. ‘And pray to the Emperor that they come swiftly.’

‘Sir, yes sir!’ Venn shouted in reply, pivoted towards the Emperor’s Angels’ camp and ran. Luckily for him, the greenskin was intercepted before it reached them. 

‘The Emperor protects…’ the sergeant whispered, growing pale, his empty stare fixed at the Ork tide drawing closer. The sergeant joined in the choir of shots, covering the private in his wake. 

Venn managed to get to the edge of the combat zone when he laid eyes on the ugliest grox he had ever seen. The beast stood lower than a Sentinel and longer than a Chimera, its hide the green-grey of old meat, pebbled in structure yet somehow lacking the scaly, reptilian shine. Tusks came up from the lower jaw, blunt and stubbed, growing uneven on both sides. Its head was mostly jaw, which was accurate to his experience. The eyes were small and beady, set deep and holding a gaze showing no thought, only appetite and a promise of bad temper. It didn’t have horns and its body was bulkier than the ones back home, but the agri-worlder decided it was a local breed. Its current preferred destination: Commissar Strech.

He had his orders. He also knew what to do when the cattle misbehaved… and that one made a very wrong menu choice.

The backpack hit the rocky ground sooner than his thoughts had registered it. Lasgun followed it with a clatter, forgotten. A stack of ammo crates gave him his angle, letting Venn leap to the beast’s back.

‘Down, boy!’ he yelled as his hands found the eye sockets and pulled on the bone. Venn’s legs wrapped around the odd creature’s neck in the iron grip of an experienced herder. The misbegotten animal’s back legs kicked with ferocity, its fury on the unwelcome rider clear in each jump and shudder of attempt to regain independence. 

Venn knew the tricks, but the animal’s sheer bulk made it difficult to stay in the nonexistent saddle. Twice his blood ran cold when it reared, the powerful back limbs raising its body near vertical, threatening to crush him if he fell. Somehow he managed to stay on the beast’s back until it tired, much to the commissar’s barely concealed bewilderment. 

‘Now ain’t you a right stubborn piece of… a grox,’ Venn said, scratching the beast’s head. 

‘A grox?’ the commissar repeated, his brow rising as the realisation kicked in.

‘Aye, sir. And charming in a way only a mother could love,’ he said, appraising the creature and removing his belt to form reins, finding it too short. ‘May I borrow your belt, sir? The sergeant had me deliver the report. This one will make the trip faster, sir.’ 

Commissar Strech looked at him with a blank expression, now both eyebrows up frozen in bemusement. His jaw tensed and relaxed several times, and the inner fight lasted about three seconds before he unbuckled his belt and tossed it to the private. ‘Emperor’s speed, private,’ he finally said, considering how to file it in his report. 

Subai Khan was just outside the command post, finishing his habitual bike maintenance when he felt the tremor through his boots. The ground quaked softly. Then the sound arrived, louder and louder thuds signalled the approach. Whatever was coming, it was in haste. His men felt it too, and soon he had his company by his side.

‘By the Khan… what is this?’ asked the youngest of them and donned his helmet. 

‘A squiggoth. An adolescent by the looks of it,’ Subai Khan replied, as his lieutenant appeared behind his left side. ‘With a mortal as its rider.’

The company stood still. Some looked at one another, their expressions hidden behind the helmets for a full second before breaking in laughter, reining in before the mortal reached them with one glance from the Khan’s unshielded face. 

When Venn arrived he slid down, tied the beast to the nearest post and gave it a ration bar. 

‘M‘Lord! Report!’ the grox herder said, saluting broadly and producing the dataslate from a breast pocket, his back arching at an uncomfortable angle as he tried to look up at the White Scars. 

‘Noted.’ The Khan plucked the dataslate and tilted his head in the direction of the ration-chewing beast ‘Fine steed. Capricious by the looks of it, but served its purpose.’

‘Aye, m’lord,’ Venn agreed proudly. ‘Herded grox with worse temperaments but the local ones are feisty.’ He finished and earned an amused look from the Astartes Captain.

‘Indeed.’ The corner of his mouth twitched up. ‘Mount up. We ride!’ He ordered his men and donned his helmet. ‘Commendations for you, young man. You are a fine herder.’

‘Thank you, lord!’ Venn cried as pride swelled in his chest, followed by a low bellow from the tied-up beast.

The report later stated: 

Venn, Breck (Pte.), assigned permanent and indefinite herding responsibility for the company’s livestock (species: grox, local variant, headcount: 1, designation: Oswald).

Addendum: logged alongside battlefield commendation transmitted by Captain Subai Khan of the White Scars Adeptus Astartes, citing “exceptional beast-breaking capabilities.”

Note for future deployment: do not allow Private Venn near Death-world wildlife.

Commissar Ebenezer Strech.