Speaker 1: The scum Kings created and written by Mike Daltrey, Episode nine,
Sorting Things Out.
Speaker 2: I stalked back into camp like a thundercloud, looking for
a place to break. The comfortable haze from the feast
was gone, replaced by a self loathing so sharp it
tasted like bile in the back of my throat. The
image of the silent child of my own hand tossing
away my prize was burned into my mind. It was
a weakness, a rot, and I had to cut it out.
My crew saw the change in me the moment I
stepped into the hollow conversation trailed off Cob, who had
been humming happily while scraping the last bits of fat
from the pig skin, and fell silent. They watched me,
their eyes wary, like animals sensing an earthquake. They could
smell the rage rolling off me. I needed a target.
I needed to pour this filth out of myself onto
someone else, to prove to them and to the weak
man I'd been in the woods that I was nothing
but flint and fury. My eyes found Gicks. He was
sitting cross legged, polishing a collection of small animal skulls
with a scrap of leather. He looked up as I approached,
his painted face, splitting into that unnerving fanged grin of
his welcome back boss. He chirped, you look like you've
seen a ghost out there.
Speaker 1: That was it.
Speaker 2: That was the spark, the word ghost, the casual way
he looked at me, his damn cheerfulness. It all felt
like a mockery of the turmoil churning inside me. He
was seeing the weakness, he was laughing at it. What
did you say, I asked, my voice dangerously low. Gick's
grin didn't falter. He held up a polished rat skull.
I said, you look like you've seen him. He never finished.
I crossed the space between us in two quick strides.
I wasn't trying to have a fight. I was trying
to commit an act of violence. I grabbed him by
his ragged tunic, hauled him to his feet, and slammed
him back against the hard packed wall of the hollow.
The air went out of him in a grunt. Before
he could react, I drove my knee hard into his stomach.
He doubled over with a gasp. I hit him a short,
brutal right hand to the jaw, that snapped his head
to the side, then a left to his temple. It
wasn't a brawl, It wasn't a duel. It was a mauling, swift,
vicious and absolute. He slid down the wall and crumpled
to the dirt in a heap. The camp was utterly silent.
No one moved, no one breathed. Stigan looked on his
mouth slightly agape, not with bloodlust, but with confusion. Orso's
face was a stone mask, but his eyes were sharp, calculating,
reassessing the man he followed. This wasn't the calculated punishment
I'd given Kyle or Rat. This was a storm breaking
without warning. This was madness. I stood over Dix's prone form,
my chest heaving the rage, finally finding a release, My
knuckles throbbed. I felt better. The weakness was purged, drowned
in the beautiful, simple clarity of violence. Dick stirred. He
pushed himself up onto his elbows, spitting a gob of
blood onto the dirt. A dark bruise was already forming
on his cheek, and his lip was split wide open.
He slowly looked up at me, and he smiled. It
was the same unsettling, all knowing Grin just bloodier. Now,
glad we got that sordid boss, he rasped, his voice
thick but steady. The words hung in the air, more
chilling than any threat he could have made. He wasn't afraid,
he wasn't angry. He understood. He had looked at my sudden,
violent madness and seen it as a perfectly normal conversation.
I stared down at his bloody, smiling face, and for
the first time I felt a sliver of fear for him.
I turned away. My black mood settled, leaving behind a cold,
hard calm. But as I scanned the faces of my
other men, I saw that my storm had not passed
them by. It had settled deep inside them a new
and terrible understanding of their king. You w