Speaker 1: The Scum Kings, a Broadsword Studio production created and written
by Mike Daltrey, Chapter fifty.
Speaker 2: Five, The Pitch. I walked back to them. They were
huddled around orso, their backs to me, a tight knot
of conspiracy. They were planning their escape, planning how to
divide the last of our meager supplies, planning how to
leave me behind. My footsteps on the gravel were the
only sound, and they stopped talking. One by one. They
turned and I saw the look in their eyes. It
was not fear, It was not respect. It was pity,
the look you give a dog that's been hit by
a cart just before you take a stone to its head.
Or So stood up, place himself between me and the
rest of them. The new leader of the pack dre
He said, his voice flat, trying to be gentle, which
was worse than any insult. It's done. Don't make this
any harder one last council, I said. My voice was quiet,
but it was not the voice they had heard before.
It was not the bark of a failed leader, or
the snarl of a cornered animal. It was calm. It
was certain. It unnerved them. What is there to talk about?
Selaine asked her voice brittle. We have a plan. It's
the only plan. You have a plan, I said, to
die slowly. I have a plan to live. I didn't
wait for them to argue. I didn't threaten them. I
just began to talk. The madmen in the flophouse, I said,
my gaze sweeping over them. The acolyte with the fever
and the shakes sticking grunted, What about him? He was
a lunatic, we all thought, so I agreed, nodding. I
told him to shut his mouth or so called his
story illogical. We threw him out into the alley to die.
We were wrong. I let that hang in the air.
Think about it, I said, my voice, gathering a low,
feverish intensity. The one eyed priest a crumbling shrine in
the middle of nowhere, and he chains his offering box
to the stone floor, a fortress level defense for six
copper coins. We called him a fool. I stepped closer
to them. The pilgrim, a simple holy man walking a
dead road, and he's carrying a purse of high sea silver,
enough to buy his way into any guild in gray Mark.
We called that our good luck. I saw the confusion
on their faces. They saw the pieces, but they didn't
see the thread. The madman, I said, my voice, dropping,
the priest, the pilgrim, they all have one thing in common,
one thing we saw, and one thing we were too
stupid and too blind to understand. I opened my hand.
There in my palm lay the ivory icon. This, I said.
The priest served the stern visage. The pilgrim died with
this in his pocket. And the madman, he was clutching
one just like it as he raved. I saw Orso's
eyes narrow. He was putting it together, but his mind
was fighting it. Dre Orso said, his voice a low
warning growl. You're building a house on a cloud. It's
a coincidence, a common religious token. You're chasing a fever
dream because you can't accept that we've failed. It's madness.
Selaine agreed. Stepping forward, she held up her hand. Pinched
between her fingers was the single gleaming silver selary. This
is real, This is food, This is a path back.
What you have is a carving. She was right. Her
plan was sane, it was logical. It was survival. And
I laughed. It was a dry, rasping sound that clawed
its way out of my chest. It was the laugh
of a man who has seen the end of the
world and found it amusing. They all stared at me,
their faces a mask of confusion and fear. They thought
I had finally broken You're right, I said, my laugh,
dying into a grin that felt strange and new on
my face. It is madness, it's a one and a
million chance, it's a lunatic story. It's a ghost. I
pointed at the silver coin in Selaine's hand, and what
is your plan? You'll buy what a few days of hardtack.
We'll go back to being bottom feeders, hiding in another
ditch until the next Corvin, or the next caravan guard,
or the next one eyed priest finds us and beats
us for our scraps. That isn't survival, Slaine, That's just
a slower, more pathetic way to die. I let the
silence stretch, forcing them to feel the truth of that
miserable future. Then I closed my fist around the icon.
We have two choices, I said my voice, now, a
ringing iron command. We can die here splitting scraps in
the mud as the forgotten, beaten dogs of gray Mark,
or I held up my fist, the icon hidden within it.
We can march to the Stone Fence mountains. We can
find this abbey of the Stern Visage, and we can
see if the madman was telling the truth. I looked
at each of them, or So, the man of logic,
at Stigandt, the man of strength, at Selaine, the woman
of coin. I am not offering you a long life,
I said, I am not offering you safety. I am
offering you a glorious death, or a prize that will
make us legends. The wind howled around us, the only
sound in a world that had suddenly gone still. The
crew was stunned, their faces pale in the twilight. They
looked from Orso and his one sensible silver coin to
me and my burning, beautiful, insane hope.