Infestation of Drashin - Tragedy and Triumph: Three Terminators forced their way forward, Thunder Hammers crackling as they swept the packed waves of Gaunts aside. A Carnifex slammed into them, the impact sending two staggering backwards as its claws sliced through the third's armour. But the intervention had bought Pugh time.Gathering the relic Power Fist Hand of Judgement into a fist, the Chapter Master stepped over the Hive Tyrant's corpse and punched forward, buckling the chitinous plates that crowned the Carnifex's head and ravaging an eye cluster.As the beast reared back in pain, several Centurions found their mark. Lascannons blazed, burning a blackened hole through the Carnifex's torso. However, even as the beast collapsed in its death throes, its mace-shaped tail scattered Pugh's bodyguard and knocked the Chapter Master from his feet.The Genestealers were on Pugh in a heartbeat, claws tearing at the ceramite of his armour. Other members of the 1st Company surged forward, Acting Captain Julan amongst them, but Julan was snatched to oblivion by a Trygon's flailing claw, and more Genestealers pressed forward to prevent the survivors' advance.Pugh lashed out again and again as he tried to regain his feet, but the foe were too many. The Hand of Judgement crackled furiously one last time, then the Chapter Master vanished beneath the betaloned tide and was torn limb from limb.With a great cry of rage and loss, Darnath Lysander forged forward through the swarms, driving the Genestealers back from his slain Chapter Master. With him came the Centurions and the survivors of the 1st and 5th Companies, their limbs finding fresh strength as they vented their fury at Pugh's death.Yet though they reclaimed the bloody ground upon which his dismembered corpse lay, they could advance no further. High above, more birthing pouches split open, disgorging ever more and ever larger bio-constructs into the fight.Lascannons were now turned on the Norn Queen, but the shots glanced off her carapace. A Chainfist could have done the job perhaps, or a Thunder Hammer, but with the target suspended so high it was impossible to bring the weapon to bear.It seemed that the Imperial Fists would have to retreat or be overwhelmed, but neither Lysander nor Hagan were prepared to trade the lives of their fallen battle-brothers for so ignominious a defeat. Yet little by little, amidst the horror and fury of that cavern, Lysander realised that the situation was far too grim for his liking. He was surrounded and outnumbered; if he didn't order the retreat, more lives would be lost.Pugh's one-time criticism of him had been correct, the captain realised -- unthinking stubbornness served no one save the Imperium's foes. Yet still Lysander could not bring himself to fall back from the fray and, as battle raged around him, he sought an alternative.The captain's eyes tracked around the chamber, coming to rest on where lava trickled in from above. For a moment, he stared blankly, knowing he had hit upon the solution but did not yet know what it was. Then, as realisation dawned, he ordered the Centurions to ignore the Tyranids and concentrate their fire on the dully glowing trail of magma.Lascannons fired as one, but to no effect. Twice, three times more they fired, but still nothing happened. Then, on the fourth volley, the ceiling buckled and a viscous stream of magma dribbled down onto the Tyranid swarm below. Still the Centurions fired. The breach widened, and the stream became a flood.The Norn-Queen hissed and shrieked as the searing rock splashed against her carapace and began to eat through, but she could not break free of her fleshy web. Magma was beginning to pool in the chamber's heart, and the Imperial Fists were at last falling back, dragging their dead with them and retreating to the higher levels where Lysander had entered the chamber.With a terrible crash, a span of the ceiling gave way, and the Norn-Queen plunged into the spreading lava pool. She was already dying, her innards incinerated by the molten rock, but she fought for life nonetheless, her limbs thrashing madly amongst the magma until finally her body sank beneath the surface.As the Norn-Queen perished, so too did every synapse creature for hundreds of Terran kilometres, killed by the shared psychic agony of their brood mother's death. On Bleak Ridge, some broods scurried for cover as their base instincts took over; others hurled themselves forward in a feeding frenzy. All perished -- if not at that moment, then in the following days when the rest of the Imperial Fists arrived at Drashin and a thorough scourging of the world began.Far away, the Tyranids assailing Drashin's remaining cities rode out the agony of the Norn-Queen's death, but the swarms withdrew all the same, vanishing deep into the jungles and caves to bedevil the planet for a long time to come. Though it had cost the Imperial Fists greatly, Drashin had been saved.