Out of Control, by Matt Gilbert

3868.CE

Golekh Skinflayer tried to remain calm. He needed to think. He needed the red mist clouding his vision and thoughts to disperse so he could try and salvage some kind of optimism from the debacle unfolding before him. A victory? That was going to be a stretch, but shout at someone long and loud enough and, with your reputation to back you up, history could certainly be written by the loser.

But he wasn’t a loser. He was just angry. Angry, and in a challenging situation. Yes, that felt like a better version of the truth. He definitely wasn’t losing. For some reason he couldn’t fathom, his ‘superiors’ had unreasonably forbidden him from taking full armies of vermin into battle, and now he was being forced to play bit-part roles while others grabbed all the glory.

He turned the crank on the cage next to him, and its occupant screamed pitifully. Pain was soothing. At least other people’s pain was. Golekh didn’t like it so much himself, but he was very passionate about other people helping him quell his disturbed mind. Sometimes, when the voices inside started arguing and he couldn’t get them to stop, he’d have to dispose of numerous slaves just to get them to shut up. The more the voices argued, the more it hurt, and so the more his helpers had to experience increasingly gruesome ways of dying just so Golekh could get through the day.

Idly kicking a pathetic creature grovelling at his feet, he raised the spyglass once more and scanned the battlefield below him. The corrupt forces of Basilea had broken through the glorious army of Diew in several places and were now trying to solidify their gains by cutting off the brave dwarfen warriors from each other. His roaming eye swung past and then double backed to watch a golem smashing apart several knights with its massive fists. In his head, Golekh heard the crunches and squelches of wet meat, and it made him giggle. A surprised groan from the cage snapped him out of his reverie, and another turn of the crank calmed him down.

Returning to survey the battle, he watched with increasing frustration as the large contingent of vermin he’d promised Overmaster Brikrim would perform brilliantly, milled around in confusion, before heading the wrong way entirely. Two large hordes of the imbecilic scum started heading backwards, while two others turned on themselves, and a fifth ran into a solid wall of humans in their sickeningly polished armour, and started dying in droves. Crank. Squeal.

Yelling at his runners, he issued the orders to release the Tunnel Runners. The vermin might be pathetic, bleating, flea-ridden, worthless little curs, but they could perform some interesting feats of engineering – if you could call it that – at times. Tunnel Runners were machines that really shouldn’t be possible, but somehow, here they were, and now they were bouncing and careering down the hill in a seemingly erratic and reckless scramble to reach the human lines. Golekh winced as they didn’t turn quite fast enough and ploughed through the corner of one unit of ratmen before flattening several blacksouls, causing the rest of their unit to scatter in a panic of self-preservation. Crank. Scream.

Another mad invention, the death engine, fascinated Golekh. There was something particularly delightful about torturing one of the larger rats and fusing it with the machine to live out the rest of its miserable life in unimaginable agony while powering the contraption. As it churned its way through the mud towards the enemy lines, the blightcraft-infused rattlecannon roared out across the killing ground, turning once-pristine ranks of snivelling Basilean false-god worshippers into a satisfying red pulp. Focusing his scope on the crew of the engine, he watched their obvious excitement turn to frenzied desperation and the wild yanking of levers. One engineer began to jump up and down and point frantically ahead. The other fell backwards and got unsteadily to its feet, a broken lever in its hand. Moments later, the death engine found the large trench the crew hadn’t accounted for, where it gracefully nosedived, and then, very slowly, tipped over, crushing the hapless crew under it. Crank. Crank. Crank. Crank. Crank.

When no sound came from the cage, Golekh cursed his victim for not having a satisfactory amount of stamina. You just couldn’t get the quality of volunteers these days. What the situation now called for was some personal intervention and some healthy persuasion. Flaying was a very effective motivator.

He jumped up into his chariot. He definitely wasn’t losing. He was just winning differently. Turning back to the mewling rat-whelps chained to the back of the carriage, he grinned. He could watch them fail to keep up and be dragged along behind. They’d no doubt perish, but at least it would be an enjoyable watch. Something to kill the time before he got to the front lines. His mood lifted. Not losing was going to be fun.

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