Speaker 1: The Scum Kings created and written by Mike Daltrey, a
Signal Box Studio production.
Speaker 2: Episode four, The Hunger. A hunger is a quiet poison.
It works its way into you, slow and patient. After
three days with nothing but Cobb's foul grog and a
few strips of squirrel, the rage in my gut had
cooled and curdled into a tight, cramping knot. Every rock
started to look like a loaf of bread. Every gust
of wind sounded like a mocking laugh. We were kings
of nothing but this hollow, and our thrones were our
own empty bellies. The camp was a picture of slow decay, stiggind.
The great mountain of a man was reduced to a
grumbling heap. I'd kill a man for a heel of
stale bread, he groaned for the tenth time that morning.
I'd kill two men for a sausage. The pain in
his shoulder was forgotten, replaced by the deep, insulting ache
of starvation. Cob Ever, the Optimist was trying to create
a feast from filth. He had a fire going, a
pot of water bubbling over it. Into this, he was
shaving thin strips of bark from a dead tree. It's
all in the broth, he announced to no one in particular,
stirring the brown water with a stick. The bark has
an earthy flavor, full of fortitude. He threw in a
handful of the same bitter roots that had failed to
improve his grog. The resulting soup looked like running mud
and smelled like wet rot. No one moved to ask
for a bowl. Even Gis had lost his edge. He
sat apart from the others, listlessly throwing a sharpened rock
at a tree stump. There was nothing to torment, nothing
to break. His creative cruelty needed an audience, a victim,
and all he had was the crushing boredom of starvation.
I sat with Orso on the edge of the camp,
watching the slow motion collapse of our crew. His face,
with its web of burned scars, was as grim and
logical as ever. We have two choices, he said, his
voice low. He drew a line in the dirt with
the tip of his dagger. We can follow this ditch east.
In three days, maybe four, we'll stumble out of the
tangle and hit a village. We'll be half dead with
nothing to trade, but we'll be alive. And do what.
I shot back, the words, tasting like ash in my mouth,
beg for scraps hire ourselves out of scarecrows. We're the
scum kings, or so not the scum beggars. The name
felt absurd, saying it now a bitter joke. He drew
another line, heading west, deeper into the blank space on
our mental map. Or we push on into nothing. We
have no idea what's in that direction? The math says
we die. We run out of water in two days,
and our own bodies in three. The math was wrong
about the caravan too. I countered the anger flaring up,
hot and weak. It said we'd be rich. The math
wasn't wrong, or so, said his voice, dangerously quiet. The
plan was My point? Is this a chance of humiliation
is better than a guarantee of death. We swallow our pride,
We survive, We find a new score. Pride doesn't fill
your stomach. Pride is all we have left. I stood up,
too agitated to sit still, I paced the length of
our pathetic camp. If we crawl out of this forest
like beaten Dawugs were finished, every cheap gang boss and
tinpot Barren will know we can be broken. We push on.
There is always another score, there has to be. Or
so looked up at me, his eyes cold and clear.
Hope is not a strategy. Dre Before I could answer,
a shadow fell over the camp. Brynn was back. She
had been gone for two days, melting into the woods
at dawn one morning, and promptly forgotten. She moved with
a weary purpose, her feral energy banked low like coals.
She didn't speak. She walked straight to me, past the others,
her gaze locked on mine. She stopped at my feet
and opened the small sack she carried. A single, scrawny
rabbit tumbled out, landing in the dirt with a soft,
pathetic thud. Its fur was modeled, its body thin. A
meal for one, maybe an insult for seven. A collective
sigh of disappointment rose from the men sticking just groaned
and rolled over. It wasn't enough, it was nothing. But
I wasn't looking at the rabbit. I was looking at
Brynn's eyes. They weren't the eyes of a hunter who
had struggled for two days to catch a single, worthless meal.
They were bright, sharp, focused. They held the thrill of
the chase. She had dropped the rabbit at my feet
as a token of formality. Her gaze was fixed on
the horizon, and it was telling me, clear as any words,
that she had found something else. She had found bigger
prey signal box people who