Chapter V: (In)Sanity Is For The Weak!

Vork paced back and forth on the rim of their small camp. He had cleaned his rifle three times over by now, had disassembled it and placed everything back together. His armour had been polished, all his knifes and blades sharpened to the degree he had to fear they would break on impact.

In short: He was bored, anxious and restless. He had joined this mission on the prospect of thrilling action and what did he get? His place was a spectator's seat. Down there a battle raged. Hundreds died by the minute. The wind carried their cries and shrieks up to the plateau the squad was on. With them also came the smell of blood, of smoke and of death. As if this didn't anguish him enough already, his very being as a Dark Eldar allowed him, or, in this case, forced him to sense the fear and pain of others.

It was something he couldn't shut off, unlike the others, it appeared. Karrex was laying on the edge of the cliff and watching the battle intently. Tarsyr sat on the ground and played lazily with his Hellglaive, twirling it around. The Dark Lady herself was studying reports of all kinds about the mission, the planet, the Imperial Guard or the Tyranids. That only left Zalmon. He was sitting a bit off from the group, muttering to himself and straddling some strange device. To Vork it looked suspicious but it was not his business. He was just vat-grown in contrast to the others, who were all true-born, having real parents.

This, of course, placed him on the lowest rung of the social ladder of Dark Eldar society. He received less training, had no access to high-quality gear and practically had to fight for everything in his life. Being vat-grown also meant his genes were of poor condition, explaining his difficulties to cope with his emotions. All the disadvantages of his "heritage" also added to this effect.

Another wave of emotion battered at his mental walls. He started shivering, closed his eyes and took a deep breath, struggling for control over his mind and body. It didn't help. "Arghh," he said out loud involuntarily, "I need to kill something!" Shocked, he looked at the rest of the group to see if they noticed. Apparently they had not.

Down there a grenade exploded.

He stormed back into the camp, stopping in front of the mistress. She looked at him warily, eyeing him suspiciously. "What?" she asked bluntly. "I...why are we even waiting for the humans and the bugs to do all the killing? You yourself said we are superior!" the vat-grown reproachfully yelled.

"Did you spend enough time with Zalmon already to adopt his idiocy? Of course we have no problems dispatching humans and Tyranids, but not in the middle of a fucking battle. Your speed doesn't really protect you from explosions or flames, both of which are used extensively by the Guard. Besides, there are literally thousands of enemies down there and sooner or later you would be gunned down, probably even without the killer intending to hit you but someone else. Seriously, what did I do to deserve being surrounded by lackwits?" Rubyn turned away from him, sighing and shaking her head.

"But...You..I...I need to kill!" he shouted at her. She turned back around slowly and said with a dangerously quiet undertone: "What you need is to obey me. I say, we wait here until we can get across that cursed valley easily. You have this one chance: either you manage to restrain yourself or I will do it and you would definitely not like that. Now get out of my sight until your presence is required!"

He indeed did not want that, so there was no option left to him than to bow his head and sullenly leave the camp again. Not knowing where to go, he decided to watch the battle. Of course, this had not helped his situation at any rate. He was still suffering from the powers of the emotions he felt – his own and those of the combatants – and if that was not enough already, he was really pissed off now.

"What strange irony," he thought, "we Dark Eldar are said to be the most evil and cruel beings in the galaxy and I did not even get shot for insubordination as any Guardsman would have been by his superior."

As if to supplement his thoughts, down on the battlefield a Commissar used his bolt pistol right now to punish some soldier for cowardice. Upon seeing this and feeling the new flood of emotions something inside him broke. His eyes got dull, he seemed as if in a trance taking in every small bit of fear, pain and despair like they were nothing more than combat drugs. Suddenly, he jumped up, his eyes now burning with fiery rage, his face a distorted grimace.

Out of his mind, Vork ran back onto the clearing, looked around frantically and then his wild eyes stopped on Zalmon. He could sense the suspicions he had held against the haemonculus again.

"Vork! Do you want me to toss you off the cliff? No? Then stop to ignore my orders!" The enraged Lady called. He did not care about her words, he did not even seem to comprehend them. His mind focused only on the squad's second-in-command.

Then his eyes found something dangling from Zalmon's neck, something shiny. Vork raced to towards him, using all the speed of his kind and crashed into the old Dark Eldar, clawing at his neck.

His hands grabbed the necklace and he tore it away, ripping out the haemonculus' throat at the same time. With out a glance back, he ran off into the forest.

After a short silence, Tarsyr laughed and, in his pessimistic way, said: "We finally see some action and already lose forty percent of our squad. What a great start."