Speaker 1: The Scum Kings, a Broadsword Studio production created and written
by Mike Daltrey.
Speaker 2: Episode forty one, The War Council. The back room of
the Gambling Den was a different place. The calm controlled
atmosphere of our first visit was gone, replaced by a thick,
ugly tension. Silas was not sitting behind his desk. He
was pacing a restless force of nature, his knuckles white
where he gripped the hilt of a short sword at
his belt. Corvin and his other lieutenants stood grim faced
against the walls. The map of the Gutters lay on
the table, but now it was surrounded by wetstones and
unsheathed blades. This was not a business meeting. This was
a war council. They think they can choke me, Silas
snarled as we entered, his voice a low, dangerous growl.
The cool, calculating man was gone, stripped away by the
attacks on his income. In his place was the brutal
warlord he had built his empire upon. They burned my stalls,
they attack my merchants. They are dogs, rabid dogs, and
you do not negotiate with them. You put them down.
He stabbed a finger at the map at a section
marked as the Red Hands is territory. We end this
tomorrow night a single decisive strike. We go for the head.
We hit their main compound, We kill their leaders, and
we burned the rest to the ground. His plan was
a thing of pure brute rage. There was no subtlety
to it, no cunning. It was the roar of a
wounded animal, and it was my chance. I knew I
had to play my part. I stepped forward, letting a
look of eager brutality spread across my face. My men
are fresh, I said my voice, rough. We are not
from this city. We have no loyalties except to the
man who holds our leash. Give us the hardest part
of the fight, the front gate. My northman stigand will
break it down himself. While I spoke, my mind was
a sponge soaking in every detail. I saw the way
Silas's guards were positioned. I noted which lieutenants he trusted
and which ones he didn't look at. I saw the
path he was tracing on the map, the route himself
would take to oversee the battle. I was gathering the
intelligence or so needed, all while playing the part of
a loyal bloodthirsty hound. He's lost control. I thought Seligne
was right. They attacked his wallet and it broke his mind.
He's not a king, He's just a thug with a ledger,
and now he's angry. Angry men make mistakes. My performance,
my feigned loyal pleased him. He saw in me a
reflection of his own rage, A simple tool for a
simple job. He clapped me on the shoulder, his eyes
burning with a feverish light. Good, he snarled, I like
your hunger. He dismissed the rest of his counsel with
a wave of his hand, but he held me back.
When we were alone, he pointed at the map one
last time. Tomorrow night, we burned the red hands out
of my gutter for good, he said, his voice dropping
to a conspiratorial hiss. You and your crew, you will
be my vanguard. You will be the first ones through
the gate. It was the worst place to be, the
tip of the spear, the first into the battle, the
first to slaughter. Silas didn't mind if we died. He
just wanted us to do the job. But it was
also the best place to be, the tip of the spear.
He was placing us at the heart of the chaos
was about to unleash, giving us the freedom to move
and strike as we saw fit. He had just handed
me the torch to burn down his rival's house. He
had no idea I also planned to burn his own
house down to.
Speaker 1: The scum Kings. A Broadsword Studio production created and written
by Mike Daltrey, Episode forty two, The Point of No Return.
Speaker 2: I returned to our squalid room, smell of Silas's ambition
and rage, still clinging to me. My crew was waiting,
their faces a mixture of fear and anticipation. They looked
to me for answers, for a path. I gave them
the intel. I told them of Silas's plan, a full
scale assault on the Red Hands compound, with us as
the vanguard, the sacrificial tip of the spear. When I
was done, the room was silent. It was Orso who
finally spoke. He knelt on the floor once again, laying
out his crude map of the gutters. He has given
us a choice, or So said, placing a dark stone
on Silas's headquarters and a pile of twigs on the
Red Hands's territory. He looked up at me, his eyes
sharp and clear path one. We do as we're told.
We lead the charge. We bleed for Silas. We kill
his enemies for him. We prove ourselves to be his
most effective loyal dogs. We survive, we eat, we collect
our share, and we remain on his leash until the
day he decides to shorten it. He paused, letting the
grim reality of that path settle over us. Then his
hand moved across the map. Path too, he said, his
voice dropping to a low, dangerous whisper. He is sending
his entire force. He swept the dark stones towards the
twigs to attack them here, which means, for a short window, he.
Speaker 1: Will be here.
Speaker 2: He tapped Silas's own headquarters with only his personal guard.
The city will be a storm of chaos and fire.
In a storm, no one notices a single drop of rain.
We use the attack on the red hands as the
ultimate diversion. He looked at me. We strike at the
head of the snake. The two options lay before us,
a long life on our knees, or one night with
a chance to stand on a throne. Or so laid
out the risk with his usual brutal honesty. If we
choose path too, and we fail, Corvin will make an
art form of our suffering. There will be no quick death.
My mind was a storm. Orso's logic was a razor's
edge between a kingdom and a screaming, endless death. But
I was tired of surviving. I was tired of eating
another man's scraps, of taking another man's orders, of the
shame of the beat down, and the.
Speaker 1: Weight of the leash.
Speaker 2: We came to this city to get rich, not to
be servants, I said, my voice, quiet but hard as steel.
My gut level decision was made.
Speaker 1: We go for broke.
Speaker 2: I looked at my crew, my king's challenging them to disagree.
Stigand was the first to speak. A slow, savage grin
spread across his face, the first real smile I had
seen on him in days to hell with Silas, he boomed,
I would rather die fighting a king than live my
life serving one.
Speaker 1: I'm in.
Speaker 2: The risk is substantial, Selaine said, her voice, a cool,
calm calculation. But if we succeed, the entire treasury is ours.
The potential return on investment is absolute.
Speaker 1: I'm in.
Speaker 2: Geks just giggled, a high, unhinged sound of pure joy.
Two kings in one night. It's a festival. Oh, this
is going to be so much fun. Brinn gave me
a single sharp nod, her loyalty absolute. Cobb and Rat,
terrified but seeing no other path, nodded as well. We
were united. The rest of the hour was a tense
final planning session. We used the details I had gathered
to pinpoint the exact moment Silas would be most vulnerable,
the precise path we would take through the chaos of
the city wide battle. The die was cast. There was
no turning back. The plan was set. I looked at
the seven faces in the dim light of our squalid room.
My killers, my strategists, my monsters, my kings. We were
bound together in this single, insane purpose. Tonight, I said,
my voice, low and steady, we kill a king.
Speaker 1: The scum Kings. A Broadsword Studio production created and written
by Mike Daltrey, Episode forty three, A Hammer for a King.
Speaker 2: The night was alive with the sounds of our work,
distant screams from the east where the Red Hands compound
was under assault shouts, and the sharp clash of steel
from the Market Square. The gutters were tearing themselves apart,
just as Orso had planned, and in the heart of
that chaos, we moved like ghosts toward our own true target.
Silas's command post was a large stone and timber warehouse
near the river, fortified and protected by his best men.
Two guards stood at the heavy iron banded main door,
their eyes nervously scanning the chaos in the city. We
took our positions in the shadows of an adjacent alley.
This was it, the culmination of all our planning, all
our humiliation. Brin moved first. She slipped away, a phantom
in the dark. A moment later, there was a loud
crash of shattering glass from the far side of the warehouse,
followed by a convincing, panicked scream. The two guards at
the door looked at each other, hesitated, then drew their
blades and jogged off to investigate the disturbance. It was
the same act Brynn had used earlier, and it was
just as effective now, or so, hissed. The moment the
guards were gone, stigging to hit the main door not
with an act with his shoulder. The sound was like
a thunderclap as the heavy bar splintered and the doors
flew inward. We poured into the darkness after him. This
was not a clumsy brawl, This was an execution. For
the first time since the caravan raid, we were working
as a single, deadly unit. Balcony left or so barked,
and a crossbow bolt from one of Silas's guards whistled
over our heads. Bryn, already inside and hidden in some
dark corner I couldn't see, loosed an arrow of her own.
The guard gave a choked cry and tumbled over the
railing Dicks was a blur of terrifying motion. He used
the chaos, the stacked crates and deep shadows to his advantage,
appearing from nowhere to slit a throat or hamstring a swordsman,
before melting back into the gloom, his quiet, unnerving laughter
the only sign he had been there. Stiggan was the hammer.
He moved through the center of the warehouse, a whirlwind
of pure destructive force, his massive fists breaking shields and
bones with equal ease. He was the anchor of our assault,
drawing the enemy's attention while the rest of us cut
them apart from the flanks, and I was the tip
of the spear. I moved with him, my own blade,
a sharp counterpoint to his brute strength, cutting a bloody
path through Silas's elite. We were no longer servants, we
were no longer victims, were the scum kings, and we
had come to claim our kingdom. The fight was desperate
and bloody. Silas's men were good, the best in the gutters,
but they were caught by surprise, and we were fighting
with the fury of men who had nothing left to lose.
We pushed them back through the main floor, up a
flight of stairs to the last heavy oak door at
the back of a catwalk, Silas's command room. Stiggand I roared.
The big northmen needed no other command. He lowered his
shoulder and hit the door with the force of a
battering ram. The wood groaned, splintered, and after another blow,
flew from its hinges. I was the first one through
the breach, my sword held ready, my body thrumming with
the hot, clean energy of battle. The room was quiet,
lit by a single steady lantern, and there he was Silas.
He stood alone in the center of the room, turning
from a large map on the table, a clean, sharp
blade already in his hand. There was no surprise on
his face, no fear, only the cold, appraising look of
a king who has been waiting for the final challenge
to his throne. The Scum Kings a Broadsword Studio production
created and written by Mike Daltrey. Episode forty four, The
King is Dead. The chaos of the warehouse fellow, the
sounds of the distant, city wide battle of faint echo
here in this small quiet room. The world had shrunk
to the space between me and the man who thought
he was my master. The air was thick with the
promise of a final, bloody accounting, So Silas said, his
voice calm, almost conversational. He gave a slight, dismissive shake
of his head. The dogs have finally slipped the leash.
I must admit I underestimated your ambition. I thought you
were just thugs. My mistake. He didn't wait for a reply.
He lunged. He was not a brawler. He was a swordsman.
His movements economical and deadly. His blade was a blur
of silver, aimed not at Stiggins's bulk, but at my throat.
I parried a clash of steel, deafening in the small room.
What followed was not a glorious duel. It was a desperate,
ugly struggle for survival in a cage. Stigand roared and
tried to bring his massive strength to bear, but the
room was too small. He swung his axe and a
bit deep into the heavy oak table, getting stuck for
a precious second. Silas used the opening, his blade, darting
out and leaving a long, shallow cut on Stiggins's arm.
Dicks was a phantom trying to find an angle in
the chaos, but Silas was always aware, always moving, using
the table as a barrier, never allowing us to fully
surround him. It all came down to me. This was
my fight, My humiliation at the crooked keg, the memory
of Kle's pathetic death, the shame of taking this man's orders.
It all boiled up in my gut as a hot,
cleansing rage. Every time my blade met his, it was
a repayment. Every block, every perry was me taking back
a piece of what he had stolen. He was better
than me, a more skilled swordsman. Hell, he was a
more skilled fighter. His movements were precise, Mine were fueled
by raw fury. He cut my arm, a deep gash
that sent a jolt of fire to my shoulder. He
pressed his advantage, driving me back against the wall. His
face a mask of cold concentration. But he didn't have
my desperation. With a roar, I kicked out, not at him,
but at the leg of the heavy map table. It tilted,
unbalanced and slid toward him. He side stepped, his balance,
thrown for a fraction of a second, it was all
I needed. I didn't try to meet him with skill.
I crashed into him like a wild animal, a pure
act of brute force. We went down in a tangle
of limbs, my sword knocked from my hand. It was
no longer a fight of blades, but of teeth and
nails and raw strength. We wrestled on the floor, two beasts,
trying to tear out the other's throat. His fingers clawed
at my eyes. I smashed my forehead into his nose.
His blade was still in his hand, and he tried
to bring it to bear, to drive it into my gut.
I caught his wrist, my muscle screaming with the effort.
With my free hand, I fumbled for the dagger at
my belt. I pulled it free and drove it once
hard into the soft flesh of his neck. His eyes
went wide with shocked surprise. A wet, gurgling sound escaped
his lips. The strength went out of him. The King
of the Gutter was dead. A look of shock surprise
still on his dead face, his own blood pooling on
the floor of his command room.
Speaker 1: I had won.
Speaker 2: I pushed his body off me, my chest heaving, gasping
for breath, a triumphant roar building in my throat, ready
to savor the victory. But Stiggand wasn't savoring anything. His
fight wasn't over. He was a storm of fury that
had not yet broken. He looked around the room, his
eyes wild, landing on the legs, the maps, the crates
of fine goods, everything that Silas had built, everything that
had been used to control us. It wasn't enough that
the man was dead. He wanted his entire world unmade.
He strode to the map table and seized the heavy
oil lantern, the room's only light. I saw the madness
in his eyes and scrambled to my feet. Stiggant, I
roared my voice, raw, no stop, the gold, the supplies,
It's all ours now. But it was too late. He
had already thrown the lantern at a pile of crates
full of spirits that had been stored against the wall.
The triumphant roar in my throat died, replaced by a
choked gasp as a wall of fire erupted with a
deafening whoosh, and the room was suddenly impossibly as bright
and as hot as the sun. Our prize, our victory,
all of it was now being consumed by a fire
lit by our own hand.
Speaker 1: The Scum Kings, a Broadsword Studio production created and written
by Mike Daltrey, Episode forty five, The Reckoning Fire.
Speaker 2: The heat was a physical blow. It seared the air
from my lungs and cooked the skin on my face.
The triumphant roar in my throat was choked off by
a wave of black, oily smoke. O our victory, our prize,
The entire world we had fought to conquer, was being
consumed by a beast born from Stiggan's rage out. Find
a way out, I roared, my voice, lost in the
deafening thunder of the growing inferno, fueled by packing straw
and alcohol. The main door we'd entered through was a
solid wall of flame. The room was a death trap.
The heat so intense it felt like the air itself
was on fire the window. Or So yelled, his voice
a raw bark. He pointed to a small barred opening
high on the back wall, barely visible through the swirling smoke.
It was our only chance. Stiggant, his face a mask
of horrified regret. Acted without thinking. He shoved a heavy
crate against the wall, used it to launch his massive
frame upward, and gripped the hot iron bars. With a
scream of pure desperate effort, he tore the entire frame
from the crumbling mortar and stone. Go, he bellowed. Or
So and I shoved the others through the opening. Celaine
cob gix before scrambling through ourselves Brin right behind us.
We dropped ten feet into the alley outside, landing hard
on the slick cobblestones. The smoke was everywhere, a thick,
choking black cloud that turned the night into a blind maze.
I could barely see my hand in front of my face.
I grabbed Selaine's arm, pulling her along this way, Stay together,
I yelled into the chaos. A scream cut through the
roar of the fire. It was thin and terrified, full
of a boy's panic. Rat I turned trying to peer
back into the smoke filled alley we just left, but
there was only a wall of roiling blackness and the sudden,
sharp crack of a collapsing roof beam. Drey, he's gone,
Orso's voice was a harsh command in my ear, his
hand gripping my shoulder.
Speaker 1: We have to move now. He was right.
Speaker 2: There was no going back for him. Rat, the boy
who had survived on scraps and fear, was now just
another victim of the fire we had lit. His death
was a pathetic footnote in the disaster we had created.
We fought our way through the alleys, the world around
us a hellscape of burning buildings and screaming people. The fire,
fed by the dry, cheap timber of the shanties, had
leaped from the warehouse to the surrounding blocks with terrifying speed.
The gang war we had started was over, forgotten. We
had created a new, hungrier war, a war of flame
against the entire city. We finally spilled out of a
narrow alley into the relative open of the market square,
falling to our knees, gasping for air that wasn't pure smoke.
But there was no safety here. The whole world was
fire and embers, and then through the roar came the
new sound. It started faint, then grew louder, cutting through
the chaos with a cold, sharp clarity. Horns not the
chaotic bleeding of a panicked mob, but the clear, disciplined,
coordinated blasts of real soldiers. The sound of the city
guard mobilizing from behind the main walls, the sound of
the cage door slamming shut