Speaker 1: The scum Kings, a Broadsword Studio production created and written
by Mike Daltrey. Chapter twenty nine, Treason. I find Selaine
in the stables. She's saddling a horse, the last horse,
actually a gray mare that survived this long because she's
too stringy to be worth eating. Selaine has packed saddlebags,
light ones, traveling weight. She's dressed for the road, not
the throne room. Good, I say, leaning against the doorframe
scouting distant farms for food is a good idea.
Speaker 2: Should have thought of it before. She doesn't turn around,
just keeps cinching the saddle. There's a lot of things
you should have thought of, Dre, I told you that.
I don't reply. Selaine is sileine, and she's not going
to keep me waiting long for what she means. Finally,
she sighs and says, I'm not scouting distant farms. Then
what are you doing with my horse? Now? She turns.
Her face is calm, tired, the same face she wore
when she climbed into the bath with me, back when
I still thought I was winning. I'm looking for a
way out that won't get me and the rest killed.
The words hang there, I wait for the punchline. It
doesn't come. You're leaving, Yes, you're abandoning the kings. I'm
abandoning you a man who can't tell the difference between
a throne and a grave. She pulls the cinch tight.
The mayor snorts, I've given up on you, Dre. I
should be angry, I should be reaching for my sword,
but I'm tired too, so tired. We had something here,
say we had gold, we had walls, we had we
had nothing. She faces me fully now, and there's something
in her eyes I haven't seen before, pity. You had nothing,
You just didn't know it. I built a kingdom. She
snorts and turns back to the horse. You still don't
know it. I'm quiet again, and she picks up the
saddle bags. Keep hammering bottles, tables, paintings and people. Dre. Eventually,
you may actually find a nail that makes me mad.
But response doesn't come out as rage. It comes out
as pathetic defensiveness. You think running makes you smart, I
hear myself say. You think riding off into the trees
makes you better than us? Where the scum kings Selaine.
We don't run, we don't beg We take what's ours,
and we hold it until until what. She's at the
stable door, now leading the mare by the reins, until
the walls fall, until Stigan drinks himself to death, until
Orso puts a bolt in your back. Because you won't
listen to reason. I don't have an answer. You're a coward,
I say. It sounds weak even to me. I'm a survivor.
She swings up into the saddle. The mayor shifts beneath her,
eager to move. There's a difference, you used to know it.
I could stop her, I could grab the reins. I
could put my sword through the horse's neck and make
her stay. But I don't, because somewhere deepen the part
of me that still knows how to count the odds,
I know she's right. This isn't working. The walls are
a joke, the gold is sinking into the mud, the
dogs are dead, and the forge is cold, and the
town stares at me with eyes that have forgotten how
to fear. It's not working. But I don't tell her that. Instead,
I watch her sho