Speaker 1: The scum Kings created and written by Mike Daltrey, Episode
thirty seven, A Gift for the Red Hands. The night
air and the gutters was cold and heavy, with the
smell of the river and the rot of a thousand
miserable lives. This was not a night for a brawl.
This was a night for ghosts, and we were about
to become them. We moved through the labyrinthine alleys, a
silent procession of shadows. It was Brynn who led us.
Trapped in the city, she had been a caged, sullen thing,
but here in the darkness she was reborn. The shadows
were just a different kind of forest to her. She
didn't walk, She flowed her feet, making no sound on
the slick cobblestones. The rest of us and me were
clumsy bulls crashing through a world of glass. Without her,
we would have been caught a dozen times. She led
us to the abandoned tannery, a skeletal ruin on the
banks of the sluggish black River. We took up positions
in the deep shadows of a crumbling wall, overlooking a
small secluded courtyard, and we waited. The silence began to
wear on Stigant. He was a man of action, and
this quiet, patient scheming was a language he didn't understand.
He shuffled his feet and leaned over to Orso, his
voice a low, confused growl. Or So, what's the score here,
he whispered, We steal their blades? What good does that
do us? Can we even turn them into coppers? Who
are we arming? Or So didn't take his eyes off
the empty courtyard. We aren't keeping the blades, Stigand, he hissed,
his voice full of a cold, weary patience. We are
making them disappear. Think for a moment, who in the
gutters has the power, the men, and the sheer arrogance
to blatantly take an entire crate of steel? Who would dare?
Stigand was quiet for a long moment, the gears turning
slowly in his head. Silas, he finally grunted exactly, or
So replied. The Red Hands will find their crate gone,
and their minds will jump to the only possible suspect.
Silas will deny it and assume the Red Hands are
inventing a story to start a fight. Their own hatred
will do the rest for us. We are not stealing
weapons tonight, stigand we are stealing their peace. Before stigand
could ask another question, we heard them, the Red Hands.
They were sloppy, talking in loud whispers as they carried
a heavy wooden crate into the courtyard. They dropped it
with a heavy thud, covered it with a ragged piece
of oilcloth, and left two men to stay and a
lazy watch. They settled in for a long, boring watch.
From our hiding place, I saw Orso's jaw tighten. This
was a complication. Our window to act was not opening.
It was Brinn who solved it. She was a coiled
shadow beside me. I can move them, she whispered, her
voice a bare rustle of sound. Before I could even nod,
she had melted back into the deeper darkness of the alley.
We waited. A minute passed. Then from across street, a
good fifty paces away, came a sudden crash of shattering pottery,
followed by a man's angry, drunken shout and a woman's
convincing scream. It was the perfect soundscape of a petty
crime in progress, a drunk rolling a whore, an easy score.
The two Red handguards looked at each other, their boredom
instantly replaced by a greedy, predatory interest. I saw them hesitate,
a brief, silent argument passing between them. The promise of
some easy coin and brutal fun won out. Confident their
hidden stash was safe for a few minutes, they drew
their blades and jogged off toward the sound of the
disturbance Bryn had created. Now, or So hissed, Brynn had
bought us our window. It was small, and it would
not stay open for long. Stigand and I moved in.
The crate was heavy, but the big norseman lifted it
with a grunt, his muscle straining. We didn't open it,
we didn't inspect it. We simply took it a silent
act of piracy in the heart of the city, and
vanished back into the darkness. We dropped the crate and
the stinking river, joining corpses, shit and urine. Our work
was done. As we walked back, or So allowed himself
a thin, satisfied smile. The spark is lit, he whispered.
The war had started, and all it had cost us
was a quiet night's war. You will