Nathaniel Garro
From Lexicanum
Nathaniel Garro was the Captain of the 7th Great Company of the Death Guard Space Marine Legion. A veteran Space Marine warrior who would remain loyal to the Emperor at the outset of the Horus Heresy, Garro is most notable for commanding the frigate Eisenstein through several perils in a successful attempt to escape the Isstvan system and bring warning of the Great Betrayal to Terra. His eventual fate is currently unknown.
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History
Sometimes referred to by the initially mocking nickname of 'Straight-Arrow Garro', Garro's rank is more precisely expressed as Battle-Captain. This title was a traditional mark of honour in the Death Guard, given to the commander of the 7th Great Company. The tradition dated back to the Unification Wars on Terra, to when an officer of the XIV Legion had distinguished himself in front of the Emperor and was given the honourific as reward. Garro was proud to bear the title and approved of upholding the traditions of the legion, including the retainment of a housecarl (Kaleb Arin) to act as his equerry.
Concordant with the title of Battle-Captain, Garro was allowed to wear a unique ceramite and brass cuirass as part of his Mark IV Power Armour. When worn, an eagle, wings spread and head raised as if to take flight, projected from the breastplate of his armour, with another eagle rising about his shoulders from the backplate. Unlike the eagle-heads of the Aquila both eagles on the cuirass were sighted, giving rise among the more superstitious helots and servants of the Death Guard a tale that they allowed the wearer foresight, or acted as a charm against incoming harm.
Despite the pride at he took in bearing these honours and occasionally having the favour of his Primarch Mortarion, Garro did not believe in looking for glory or further honour in battle, and did not go out of his way to impress. He rather believed above all in simply doing his duty to the Emperor as a member of his Death Guard legion.
Somewhat striking in appearance, Nathaniel Garro was completely bald, his head covered with light scarring inflicted in battle. His eyes looked older than the rest of his face, and his skin was extremely pale, although not as pallid as some Death Guard complexions could be, due to Garro's Terran origin. Born in the region of that world known as Albia, Garro was stoic and determined in nature, and proved to be a marine of long service; he fought in the Death Guard legion before the arrival of Mortarion, when the XIV was known as the Dusk Raiders.
As his primary weapon, Garro carried a potent power-sword. Called Libertas, it had a heavy monosteel blade and was fashioned in the style of a broadsword. An old Terran weapon, elements of it existed before the birth of its wielder. Garro thought of Terra as his home, rather than the Death Guard homeworld of Barbarus, and it pleased him to carry a weapon from that planet.
A veteran of many campaigns, Garro had great experience of both enemy forces and his fellow Legions. Notably, he knew Captain Garviel Loken of the Sons of Horus legion from fighting alongside him during the Krypt campaign against Orks and was the sworn honour-brother of Captain Saul Tarvitz of the Emperor's Children. Both marines had small eagle emblems carved on the vambraces of their armour in such a way that, were they to clasp hands, the eagles would meet. Their closeness was formed during the Preaxior campaign, where they had saved each other's life.
Garro distinguished himself when fighting alongside a detachment of Sisters of Silence at the end of the Great Crusade; their leader, Amendera Kendel promised to present his name to Malcador the Sigillite in recognition of his dutiful service. Similarly, she spoke well of him to Mortarion, who rewarded his Battle-Captain by selecting him for the tradition of sharing his cups. Mortarion also chose this moment to subtly sound Garro out about where he and his men might position themselves in the face of rebellion against the Emperor. Upon learning that Garro was unwilling to join the warrior-lodge within the Death Guard, Mortarion decided to take Garro to the meeting with Warmaster Horus at the initiation of the Isstvan campaign as his equerry, in an attempt to ensure Garro's loyalty.
The 7th Great Company were part of the taskforce assigned to secure Isstvan Extremis, the outermost world of the Isstvan system, ahead of the Isstvan III massacre. During this battle, Garro was wounded by the enemy leader and lost most of his right leg, necessitating an augmentic replacement.
The Flight of the Eisenstein
The wound meant that Garro could not be declared fit for combat duty, and he was instead posted to the Death Guard frigate Eisenstein alongside Commander Ignatius Grulgor. It came to pass that Garro was in command when Saul Tarvitz made his attempt to reach the surface of Isstvan III and warn the legions there of Horus' betrayal. Garro aided his honour-brother in reaching the surface and so learned of the beginning of the Horus Heresy. With the betrayal on the planet came also betrayal in the stars, as Commander Grulgor and his detachment of Marines attempted to kill Garro and the men of the 7th attending him. Mainly thanks to the sacrifice of Kaleb Arin, Grulgor and his men were defeated. Not long after, the Eisenstein took aboard other victims of the betrayal, including Iacton Qruze from the Sons of Horus and Euphrati Keeler, whose conversations with Garro in the time afterwards strengthened his belief in devotion to the Emperor.
Attempting to flee the system and warn the Emperor of Horus' betrayal, the Eisenstein was crippled by the Death Guard battleship Terminus Est and barely made the jump into the Warp. Once there, she attracted the predations of the Chaos God Nurgle. The Chaos power resurrected Grulgor, his dead Marines and the ship's crew who had sided with him, creating some of the first Plague Marines. The ensuing battle between infected Warp creatures and Loyalist Marines resulted in the death of the ship's navigator and forced the Eisenstein to make an emergency exit from the Warp.
Stranded hundreds of light years from inhabited space, Garro ordered the Eisenstein's captain to overload her warp engines and jettison them into space. The ensuing explosion echoed across the warp and acted as a beacon for Rogal Dorn and his fleet, who had been becalmed by Warp Storms. Dorn rescued Garro and his men and took him back to Luna aboard the Phalanx.
Even upon reaching Luna, and with the news of the betrayal delivered, Garro was still not safe, as one of his marines, Solun Decius, had become infected with Nurgle's Rot and fell to Chaos. Garro was forced to battle him throughout a Sister of Silence keep and out onto the surface of Luna itself. He eventually bested the daemonic ruin of his comrade and banished the entity he had become.
Afterwards, Garro, Qruze and Amendera Kendel were approached by Malcador the Sigillite and told that they would be needed to form the beginnings of an organisation which would utilise "men and women of inquisitive nature, hunters who might seek the witch, the traitor, the mutant, the xenos".1
Garro's Fate
Index Astartes - Death Guard, the first Warhammer text in which Garro appeared (predating the Flight of the Eisenstein novel), outlined several seemingly contradictory rumours on the fate of Captain Garro2. In the course of the novel, most of these 'rumours' end up occurring in some form:
- Captain Garro, said to have secretly continued to fight against Chaos Space Marines in his original Death Guard colours, does help found a secretive group to resist/combat enemies of the Emperor.
- Garro does not rennounce warfare and devote himself to the Apothecaria Majoris of Terra, to try to find a cure for Nurgle's Rot, but one his Eisenstein comrades, Apothecary Voyen, does.
- Garro does not succumb to Nurgle's temptations and become the Daemonic "Lord of Flies", but one of his Eisenstein comrades, Solun Decius, does.
- It is yet to be revealed, however, whether a form of the last "fate" (in which Garro and his comrades, due to the fact that their parent Legions rebelled, languish in an Imperial prison, awaiting the Emperor's personal forgiveness) will occur - however, they are all confined in a Sisters of Silence keep for some length of time, which may fulfill this part of the rumoured fate.
- It is suggested at the end of the novel Flight of the Eisenstein that Garro, Qruze et al may the first members of the newly formed Inquisition. The Regent of Terra, Lord Malcador, tells Garro that "The Imperium requires men and women of inquisitive nature, hunters who might seek the witch, the traitor, the mutant, the xeno's...a duty to vigilance"
