Speaker 1: The scum Kings, a broad Sword Studio production created and
written by Mike Daltrey. Chapter sixty five, The Breaking of
the Visage.
Speaker 2: We didn't wait. There was no second guessing, no final
quiet moment. There was only Orso's cold, pragmatic fury. He
had cobbed slather, the black sticky tree pitch onto a
dozen arrowheads. He took the three captured sea wineskins, emptied
them and refilled them with oil from our lanterns and
more pitch, stuffing rags in their mouths. Crude, but they
would burn. Mount up. I grunted. We took the three
sea horses. Stiggant, his face a mask of pain, hauled
himself onto one. I swung onto the second. Or So
took the third. Gicked nimble as a spider, scrambled up
behind Stiggant, his arms full of the pitch pots, his
bow slung. He looked like a cackling demon child clinging
to the back of a bear. Brin Celaine and Cob
were on foot. They were the clean up crew. Their
job was to follow in the hole we made. We
trotted the horses to the edge of the valley, the
high grasses muffling our approach. The abbey was a white
tomb below us, silent, arrogant, sleeping. A few torches burned
on the walls. I looked at stiggand he nodded once,
his hand tight on his axe. Now, I said, my
voice barely a whisper. I kicked my heels in. It
wasn't a charge, It was an eruption. The three horses
lunged forward, a black wave of muscle and desperation, rolling
down the grassy slope. The wind tore at my cloak,
the thud thud thud of the hooves, a drum beat
in my chest. This was madness, It was glorious. One
hundred yards fifty we were almost on the stone apron
when a voice finally shouted from the wall, a thin,
reedy sound. What in the gigs was first? He stood
up on the back of the charging horse, balancing like
a flophouse acrobat. His bow already drawn, he loosed his
first fire arrow. The flaming dart hissed across the gap
and thwacked into the chest of the sentry. The man
screamed and toppled backward. Then the sound came clang, clang, clang.
The bell or so roared from my left, they've seen us.
I scanned the wall Bryn, Where was Bryn? I saw
a shadow detach from a deeper shadow.
Speaker 1: Near the main bell tower.
Speaker 2: A guard his hand just reaching for the pole rope stiffened.
He gurgled, clutched his throat, and slumped over the parapet.
An arrow was buried in his neck, but it was
too late. From the other side of the abbey, a
second bell tower, one we hadn't seen, picked up the call. Clang, clang, clang.
The alarm was raised. It doesn't matter, I screamed, the
blood roaring in my ears. Faster we hit the stone
courtyard apron. The clatter of hoofs on limestone was deafening.
Arrows started to rain down thwip thwip thunk. One of
the horses screamed a high, terrifying sound, but it didn't fall.
Gicks Fire, or so bellowed. Gickx was cackling a sound
of pure unholy joy. He lit his first pitch pot
and hurled it. The wine skin tumbled end over end
and warmped against the wall, splashing burning oil over two archers.
Their screams were a beautiful, sharp harmony to the ringing bells.
We were at the gate. The horses reared, panicked by
the fire and the noise. Stigan didn't wait. He leaped.
He launched himself from the back of the still moving horse,
A three hundred pound man turned into a cannon ball.
He hit the gate with his bad shoulder first. The
thud of the impact was so loud I thought he'd
broken every bone in his body. He roared a sound
of pure, bottomless agony and rage, and swung his axe crunch.
The massive axe head sank six inches deep into the
carved wooden eye of the stern visage, or so with me.
I was off my horse, the animals screaming and bolting.
We slammed our shields up, huddling at the base of
the gate. Arrows shattered against the wood above us. A
spear jabbed from the murder hole in the visage's mouth.
I caught the point on my shield, the wood splitting.
Stigan didn't see it. He didn't see any of it.
He was a beast. His world was that thirty foot
wall of wood. He wrenched the axe free, a shower
of splinters exploding into the night. He swung again, crunch
right into the snarling lip of the god. Crunch. He
swung again. He was ignoring the spear that grazed his arm,
ignoring the arrow that skipped off his pauldron. He was roaring,
with every impact, a wordless, guttural sermon of pure destruction.
More fire, I bellowed, ducking his hot oil dripped from
above dicks. His horse, now dead, was on the ground.
He lit another pot and hurled it. It smashed against
the gate itself, splashing burning pitch all over the carved face.
The god burned. The wood was old oiled, and it
caught fast. The wood groaned. The fire was spreading, eating
the carving. Its cracking or so yelled, his voice tight.
Stigan raised his axe one last time. He put every
ounce of his life, his pain, and his nihilistic rage
into the swing. He aimed for the great splintered, burning
crack where the lock mechanism had to be crack. The
sound was final. The axe was buried to the haft.
The massive bar on the other side must have shattered.
Stiggined his beard, singed, his face a mask of blood
and soot, put his good shoulder against the burning wood,
and pushed for a heartbeat. Nothing. The gate held then,
with a long, tearing scream of tortured wood and breaking metal,
the massive face of the visage split in two. The
two halves of the gate scraped open, fire and smoke
billowing out. We were in the courtyard was chaos. Monks
and night shirts were running, screaming, and right in front
of us, scrambling to form a line, were a dozen guards.
They were half armored, their eyes wide with terror and sleep.
They'd been expecting a siege, not a storm. They were
used to prayers, not this. I raised my sword, the
steel reflecting the fire of the burning God's face. Scum kings,
I roared, my voice, raw and triumphant, bleed them dry.