Speaker 1: The scum Kings created and written by Mike Daltrey, Episode sixteen,
The Worthless Icon. The sun died and the world was
left in shades of purple and gray. We stood over
the pilgrim's body, the silence of the empty road a
heavy shroud. The brief, ugly violence had solved nothing. The
hollowness in my gut was back, and it had nothing
to do with hunger. Celaine I nodded toward the dead pilgrim.
See what we've earned. She needed no encouragement. With the
practiced efficiency of a butcher dressing a carcass, she knelt
beside the body. There was no hesitation, no squeamishness. This
was business.
Speaker 2: The rest of us crowded around a tight circle of vultures,
our faces illuminated by a single torch.
Speaker 1: Gigs had lit. She was thorough.
Speaker 2: Her nimble fingers searched every pocket, every fold in the
old man's robes. First she found a small, hard lump
of stale bread and a half empty water skin, which
she tossed to Cob without a word. Then her hand stopped.
She had found something in a hidden pocket sewn into
the lining of the robe. It was a small leather pouch,
but it was heavy, deceptively heavy. She untied the draw string,
her movements precise and unhurried. The torchlight reflected in her cool,
calculating eyes. She tipped the pouch into her open palm.
The sound was like a long forgotten song, not the
pathetic rattle of copper, but the deep, satisfying clink of
real silver. Several heavy coins, each stamped with the radiant
sun of the sea, gleamed in her hand, and silver
solari real money enough to buy our way into a town,
to buy food and wine, and a proper roof over
our heads. A collective breath was released. The grim tension
that had held us shattered in an instant. Ha Stiggins's
booming laugh broke the silence. Silver, real silver. Cob was
actually weeping with joy, muttering thanks to God's he'd been
cursing an hour before, even also allowed himself a thin,
rare smile. The hollowness was gone, washed away by the glorious,
beautiful weight of our prize. The murder was forgotten. It
was no longer a crime. It was a profitable transaction.
As the men celebrated Selaine. Ever, the professional continued her search.
There's something else. She pulled a final object from the
pilgrim's robes. It was a piece of carved ivory, about
the length of her hand. She held it up to
the torch. The carving was of a man's face, severe
and judgmental, with a stern, unforgiving mouth. The stern visage
the same icon that had been nailed to the wall
of the priest's hovel. It was old, the ivory, yellowed
and smooth from years of handling. Selaine turned it over
in her hands, her brow furrowed in appraisal. She waited,
tapped it with a finger nail, then let out a short,
sharp scoff of dismissal. Worthless, she declared, her voice, cutting
through the men's cheerful chatter. Ivory, Yes, but the carving
is crude. No collector would want it. It's a token
of a dying faith. Without a second thought, she tossed
it aside. It landed in the dust near my boot.
The men's attention was already back on the silver, but
I found myself staring at the discarded icon. Something about
it held my gaze. I crouched down and picked it up.
It felt cool and smooth in my calm, heavier than
it looked. As my fingers closed around it, a strange
cold feeling washed over me, a sense of foreboding that
I couldn't place. It was just a worthless piece of ivory,
but it felt like a key or a stone that,
once thrown, could never be taken back.
Speaker 1: The scum Kings created and written by Mike Daltrey. Episode
The Weight of Silver. The night was cold, but the
silver was a fire in our hands. The grim silence
that had followed the Pilgrim's death was shattered by a
wave of manic, desperate relief. Silver Stigin roared, his laugh
echoing off the dark hills. He clapped Dicks on the back,
hard enough to make the smaller man stumble, real solid
silver enough for a month of ail. Cob was on
his knees, his face streaked with tears, muttering prayers of
thanks to any God who might be listening. The rest
of the crew buzzed with a giddy energy. The weight
of weeks of failure and starvation suddenly lifted. We were rich,
but I felt none of their joy. Their celebration was
a distant noise. My attention was fixed on the ivory icon.
Speaker 2: In my palm. Its smooth carved surface felt unnervingly cold,
and the severe face of the stern visage seemed to
be judging me. In the flickering torchlight, a sense of foreboding,
heavy and shapeless, pressed down on me. This worthless token
felt more significant than all the silver in the world,
and I didn't know why enough. A sharp voice cut
through the noise. It was Selaine. She stood with Orso,
her face set in a mask of grim purpose. The
celebration died in an instant. Stiggin is right about one thing, orso,
said his voice, A cold splash of water on our
good cheer. This is enough enough to get us out
of this God's forsaken wilderness. He knelt and spread his
cracked leather map on the ground, the rest of us
gathering around. We need a city, a place with walls,
crowds and opportunities, a place to turn this silver into
a real foundation. Is finger tapped a crudely drawn circle
miles to the north, gray mark a fortified town, big
enough to get lost in, rich enough to have marksworth hitting,
and far enough away from our recent messes. With the silver,
we can get inside, get a roof, over our heads
and plan a real move a city. The word itself
felt foreign. It was a world away from the dirt
and desperation we had known. I looked from the map
to the silver coins in Selaine's hand, then to the
unsettling icon in my own. It was a distraction I
didn't need, but I didn't toss it into the brush
like I should have. I shoved it into the small
pack at my waist. Orso's map speaks a truth we
can't ignore. We go to Graymark, I said. The decision
made a fresh wave of relief went through the men,
but Selaine held up a hand, silencing them. If we
are going to a city, then we will do this properly.
This is not a prize to be squandered. It is capital.
This was her domain.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: We watched as she knelt. She took several small scraps
of cloth from her pack and began to wrap each
coin individually.
Speaker 1: Why are you doing that.
Speaker 2: Stigand asked, confused, because I am not an idiot, and
you are a man walking with a jingle of a
dozen coins is a target. A man walking with the
jingle of a couple dozen salari in the northern territories
is a dead man. She looked up, then, her gray
eyes pinning each of us in place. Listen to me.
This is c currency. It tells a story. Spending one
of these carelessly is like lighting a signal fire that
says Southern thieves are here with a fresh score from
this moment. This is not your money to be spent
on ale and it is the company's capital. I control it,
I account for it, I dispense It is that understood.
No one argued her cold competence was a comfort, a
promise that this treasure would not be wasted. For the
first time, we had a plan and a treasurer. There
was one last piece of business. We dragged the pilgrim's
body into a ditch off the road and covered it
with rocks and dirt. There was no ceremony, no words.
It was the disposal of a problem. As the others
turned to leave, I stood over the shallow grave for
a moment longer I felt the weight of the icon
at my waist, the source of my unease. But then
I heard the soft, muffled clink of the wrapped silver
coins as Selaine secured them in her pack. The silver
had won the argument, I once again ignored the icon
in my pouch and turned my back on the dead man.
We set off down the dark road. Our faces turned north.
We were leaving the wilderness behind, marching toward the distant,
smoky promise of a city.
Speaker 1: The Scum Kings created and written by Mike Daltrey, episode eighteen,
The March of the Kings.
Speaker 2: The Silver changed us. It was an antidote to the
despair that had settled deep in our bones. For the
first time and as long as I could remember, we
marched with our heads up. The sullen, shuffling silence was gone,
replaced by a current of restless energy. For the first time,
we were marching towards something, not just a way. The
change was most obvious in Cob, the cook, who had
been a whimpering shadow for weeks, now walked with a
bounce in his step, chattering endlessly to anyone who would listen.
A real market, he'd say, his eyes wide with a
feverish dream. Imagine it gets carrots, onions, maybe a turnip,
a real mere pois. We could buy a bit of
salted pork, render the fat a stew so rich it
would make a bishop weep Stiggan had rediscovered his laugh.
To hell with Stu Cob. I want ale, they say.
The ale in gray Mark is black as mud and
twice as thick, and the fighting pits a man with
a strong arm can make a real name for himself. There,
coin and glory, all for a few broken knuckles. They
were no longer just surviving. They were a band with
a purpose and for the first time, a payroll. They
were dreaming of the future. That night we made a
proper camp. We lit a fire, not just for warmth,
but for comfort. Its cheerful light pushed back the darkness,
and for a moment we were not hunted animals, but
travelers resting on a journey. Stiggan raised his waterskin as
if it were a horn of prize.
Speaker 1: Winning mead to gray Mark.
Speaker 2: It boomed to beds that don't have roots in them,
and women who don't smell of the farm. From across
the fire, the soft rhythmic sound of a whetstone on
steel was the only reply. Or So didn't look up
from sharpening his dagger, his scarred face a mask of
concentration in the firelight. To Graymark. He said, his voice
a low, cutting murmur, to the corrupt city watch that
will happily slit your throat for the rings and your beard,
to the cutthroat guilds who control every drop of that
ale you're dreaming of, And to the spies in every
tavern who are already marking you as a loud mouthed
northerner with more muscle than sense. Stigan just laughed, completely
untroubled by Orso's grim accounting, you worry too much, or So.
A strong arm and a heavy axe are worth more
than a fat purse in any city. A sharp knife
in a dark alley beats a strong arm in a
bar brawl every time, or So countered, pausing to test
the blade's edge with his thumb. The city is not
a fighting pit, Stiggin. The rules are quieter and all
the referees are on the take. It's a different kind
of brawl. He looked up, then, his sharp eyes sweeping
over all of us. We are walking into a web.
Don't be the fool fly that gets himself caught. The
first night, the march continued for two more days, the
excitement of the city pulling us forward. On the final afternoon,
the woods began to thin, the trees, giving weight to
rolling open hills. We were moving through a landscape that
felt tamer, more touched by the hands of men. Brynn
had been scouting ahead, a silent ghost flitting through the trees.
She reappeared as suddenly as she had vanished. She didn't speak,
she just stopped in our path and pointed. We followed
her gesture through a gap in the trees. Miles in
the distance, but clear as a carving against the horizon,
we saw them, the high stone walls of gray Mark,
a city, a real city. It was no longer a
half believed story on a cracked leather map. It was
a destination. The promise of the Silver was now a
fortress of stone waiting for us.
Speaker 1: The scum Kings created and written by Mike Daltrey, Episode nineteen,
The Shadow of the Wall.
Speaker 2: We crested the last hill and the world changed. For weeks,
our world had been nothing but gray trees, empty roads,
and the dirt beneath our boots. Now laid out before
us in the valley below was gray Mark. We had
been marching toward a name on a map, an idea,
But an idea doesn't prepare you for the reality of
forty foot stone walls. It was a true city, bigger
and more imposing than any story had described. Massive stone walls,
scarred by age but unbroken, encircled it completely. Watchtowers flew
the banner of a local baron, a snarling badger on
a field of green. At the main gate, a steady
river of humanity flowed in and out, merchant wagons, farmers
with their carts, travelers on foot. It was a display
of order, wealth, and power, unlike anything we had seen.
The handful of silver Solari and Selaine's purse, which had
felt like a king's ransom on the road, suddenly seemed
like a beggar's pittance. I looked at the faces of
my crew, and I saw the city reflected in their eyes.
Cystigan stared, his mouth slightly agape. It wasn't fear I
saw on his face, but a warrior's awe. He was
a Northman looking at a mountain made by the hands
of men, and he respected the hell out of its strength.
To him, those walls were a challenge, a testament to
a power he understood. Cob was another story. He shrank
behind Stiggins's bulk, his eyes wide with terror. It wasn't
the walls that scared him. It was the people, that endless,
noisy river of them. To cob it was a tide
that would surely drown him. Celaine saw neither walls nor people.
She saw costs. I could practically hear the numbers clicking
away in her mind. Two coppers per man for the
gate toll, a silver to bribe the sergeant to ignore
our weapons, the price of a room, the price of information,
the cost of being noticed. Her face was a mask
of cold economic calculation, and Bryn Bryn hated it, every
part of it. The distant noise, the smell of so
many men and beasts packed together, the unnatural scar of
the city on the land. She was a coiled spring,
her hand resting on the hilt of her knife, every
instinct screaming at her to flee back to the silence
of the woods. She looked a gray mark, like a
wolf looks at a trap. We stood there for a
long time, a pack of ragged predators staring at a
beast far larger than ourselves. It was also who finally
brought us back to the grim reality. He let out
a short, dry huff that wasn't quite a laugh. We
can't afford the city, he said, his voice cutting through
our thoughts.
Speaker 1: Not yet.
Speaker 2: He pointed, not at the grand main gate with its
banners and guards, but to the west, where a sprawling,
chaotic shanty town clung to the city's outer wall like
a festering disease. It was a chaotic maze of mud
and wattle huts, leaning timber buildings, and smoke choked alleys.
Our kingdom starts there, he said, his voice flat. He
pointed down into the slum and the gutters. The final
sliver of our hopeful optimism died. We were kings without
a kingdom, rich men without enough coin to even be
called poor. We left the clean dirt and the quiet
of the wilderness behind and began our descent. We walked
down into the shadow of the walls, toward the noise
and the filth. We had finally clawed our way out
of the bottom of the world, only to find ourselves
standing at the gates of a bigger, deeper gutter.
Speaker 1: The scum Kings created and written by Mike Daltrey, episode twenty,
The Gutter Gate.
Speaker 2: The descent was like walking into a grave. The clean
air of the hills vanished, replaced by a wall of
stench so thick it felt solid, a foul soup of
unwashed bodies, human waste, wood, smoke, and rotting garbage. The distant,
muted roar of the city we'd heard from the hill
became a deafening, chaotic cacophony of shouting merchants, screaming children,
and the constant, unnerving babble of a thousand conversations at once.
We were in the gutters. The alleys were a claustrophobic maze,
a web of leaning timber and wattle huts that blocked
out the sun and pressed in on all sides. The
ground was a treacherous muck of mud and filth, and
everywhere there were people, a crushing, shoving, desperate sea of humanity.
I watched my crew, and I saw the wilderness being
scoured from them by this new, filthier reality. Stiggins Awe
had been replaced by a grim scowl, his hand resting
on his axe as he shouldered a path through the throng.
Brynn was a ghost at my shoulder, her eyes darting everywhere,
her body coiled like a spring. This was her ultimate nightmare,
A trap made of people. Celaine's face was a mask
of cold concentration, her eyes cataloging not just the poverty,
but the brutal, desperate economy of it all. Cob was
coming undone here in the press of the crowd. His
fear was no longer a distant dread, but a physical,
suffocating force. He was pale and sweating, his breath coming
in short, panicked gasps. Every shove from a passerby made
him flinch. He clung to Stiggins's cloak like a child,
his eyes wide with the terror of a man who
feels the walls closing in. He wasn't just in a crowd,
he was being buried alive by it. For hours, we
pushed our way through this hell, lost and exposed, the
weight of the Pilgrim's silver, feeling less like a treasure
and more like a tombstone in our pack. Every face
that passed was gaunt, every eye suspicious and hungry. Finally,
wedged between a tanner's shop and a collapsed hovel, we
saw it, a single grimy sign depicting a laughing crow
hanging crookedly over a dark doorway.
Speaker 1: The crooked keg it.
Speaker 2: Looked no better or worse than any other pit in
this hell, that's it. I grunted, my patience worn thin.
It was our only option for a moment's respite. I
put my hand on the hilt of my sword, took
a breath of the foul air, and pushed the door open,
leading my kings into the Gutter's heart.