Speaker 1: The Scum Kings created and written by Mike Daltrey, Chapter
twenty one, Silver and Scorn. The inside of the crooked
keg was a pit. The air was thick enough to chew,
a foul stew of cheap pipe smoke, spilled ale, and
unwashed bodies. A dozen tables were crammed into the low
ceilinged room, each one occupied by men with the kind
of hard, empty eyes that have seen everything and value nothing.
They were a gallery of gnarled knuckles, scarred faces, and cheap,
patched up armor. This wasn't a place for cheer. It
was a place for men to wait for their next
bad decision. We pushed our way through the gloom to
the bar, a solid block of stacke zane dark wood
that had soaked up a century of misery. We moved
as a unit, a tight, defensive pack of wolves and
a den of other leaner wolves. For a moment, the
sheer relief of being off the street and under roof,
however squalid, was enough. But relief doesn't fill your belly
or buy you a place in the world. I had
seen the way the men looked at me after our
retreat from the priest, after our long march. They needed
to see their leader take control. They needed to feel
like kings again, not just survivors. I saw the barkeep,
a hulking man with a milky white blind eye and
a web of scars where the other should have been.
He looked at us with the weary indifference of a
man who has seen a thousand crews like ours come
and go. This is how you take a new city.
You walk into its heart, You make your presence known,
and you show them your teeth. In the wilderness, that
meant a sharp back. Here, it meant coin. I reached
into my pouch and pulled out a single, heavy silver salari,
one of the few that Selaine had begrudgingly handed to
me when I demanded them, With a confidence I didn't
entirely feel, I slapped it down on the grimy bar.
The clean, solid clink of real silver on wood cut
through the tavern's low grumble. It did not bring the
respect I expected. It brought silence, a sudden, predatory silence.
The conversations didn't just trail off, they were strangled.
Speaker 2: Every eye in the room turned toward us. They weren't
looking at Stiggins's bulk or gigs's knives. They were looking
at the coin. Their gazes were heavy, speculative, not with awe,
but with a cold, hungry calculation. I had thought the
silver was a shield, a declaration of our power. I
realized in that instant that I had just painted a
target on our backs. I had mistaken a room full
of sharks for a herd of sheep, and waved a
bloody piece of meat in their faces. Before I could
retrieve the coin, a figure detached itself from a dark
corner and moved toward the bar. He was of average size,
dressed in simple worn leather, but he moved with a quiet,
deadly purpose. The other patron shifted subtly, clearing a path
for him without being asked. He had a handsome face
ruined by a lattice work of old burn scars that
crawled up one side of his neck. He stopped beside
me at the bar. He didn't look at me. He
looked down at the silver solari gleaming in the grime.
He calmly placed his hand over mine, his grip surprisingly
gentle but firm as iron. With slow, deliberate pressure, he
pushed my hand and the coin beneath it. Back from
the center of the bar. He finally turned his head,
and his sharp, intelligent eyes met mine. That's a beautiful coin,
he said, his voice a soft, dangerous rumble. You should
put it away before someone gets the wrong idea.