Speaker 1: The scum Kings, a broad Sword Studio production created and
written by Mike Daltrey. Chapter eleven, The splintered gate gravity
was our cavalry. The slope leading down to the main
gate of Vance's Folly was steep, a muddy shoot of
slick grass and gravel. We didn't march down it. We
let the weight of the gold take the lead. We
got the wagon rolling, the iron rimmed wheels grinding, and
then we jumped on. It became a two ton sled,
a runaway vault, hurtling toward the valley floor. I stood
at the front, gripping the iron rail of the driver's bench,
my boots slipping on the wood behind me. The crew
clung to the pile of loot like ticks on a
charging boar. The gate was coming up fast. It was pathetic,
rotting timbers together with old rope, leaning drunkenly in the mud.
Two guards stood there, leaning on rusty spears, rubbing sleep
from their eyes. They looked up. They saw a black
armored nightmare barreling down the hill, the sun flaring off
our stolen sea breastplates. It didn't even have time to scream,
Brace yourselves, I roared. We didn't knock, We didn't slow down.
Crack a sound was like a tree snapping in a storm.
The wagon tongue punched through the center of the gate,
and the rest of the wood simply disintegrated. Splinters the
size of spears flew into the air. The wagon bucked violently,
hopping over the debris, and slammed down into the mud
of the main street. We were inside the town of
Vance's folly, woke up to the apocalypse. We skidded through
the mud, the wagonfish tailing, smashing through a chicken coop
in a flurry of feathers and squawks clear the way.
I screamed, laughing. It was the laughter of a man
who has stopped caring about survival and started caring about impact.
The guards, the few who hadn't been on the gate,
were scrambling out of a guard shack, fumbling with their belts.
They were amateurs, farmers with badges. Stiggan didn't wait for
the wagon to stop. He was fueled by mountain rage,
stolen wine, and the sheer joy of violence. He leaped
from the top of the gold pile, a massive, black
armored meteor. He landed on the first guard. He didn't
use his axe, he used his boots. There was a wet,
sickening crunch, and the guard simply folded into the mud
stigand roared a sound that shook the shutters on the windows,
and backhanded the second guard with a gauntleted fist. The
man's jaw shattered and he spun away, spitting teeth. They
are the scum kings, Stigan bellowed, grabbing a third guard
by the throat and hurling him into a water trough.
Neil Or Bleed fought the wagon, wrestling the tongue to
keep us upright. We plowed through the market square. Stalls
loaded with winter turnips and cheap pottery shattered under our wheels.
I drove over a cart of cabbages, the wagon slowing
but still lurching as we crushed it into paste. Tavilians
were screaming, diving into alleys, pressing themselves against the mud
walls of their hovels. They looked at us and saw
the stern guard of the Radiant Sea gone mad. They
saw gold spilling from the chests in the back. They
saw demons. Dix was cackling, throwing stones from the wagon
bed at anyone who looked like they might be thinking
about being brave or so, was shouting targets, his crossbow
thumping rhythmically. I hauled back on the brake lever, the
iron screeching against the wheel. The wagon drifted sideways, carving
a deep furrow in the muck, and slammed to a
halt in the center of the square, right in front
of the town well. The silence that followed was heavy,
broken only by the groans of the guard stigand had broken,
and the spin of a single, loose wagon wheel. I
stood atop the gold my sword drawn, towering over the
cowering town. I looked at the muddy peasants, the broken stalls,
the shattered gate. It was ugly, it was messy. It
was perfect. My name is Dre, I shouted, my voice,
echoing off the timber buildings, And I am the new
Law