Speaker 1: The Scum Kings, a broad Sword Studio production created and
written by Mike Daltrey. Chapter sixty one, The Madman's Map.
The adrenaline was of filth in my mouth, tasting of
copper and cold iron. The fight was over. The mountain.
Silence rushed back in, broken only by the wet sounds
of our victory. Stigand was roaring a true Northern battle laugh,
though it ended in a wet cough. The sea Bastard's
sword was still buried in his shoulder, the hilt sticking
out like an ornament. He didn't care. He'd found a
full wine skin on one of the bodies, and had
already wrenched the stopper out with his teeth, pouring the
dark red stream over his tongue and into his beard.
Wine dray, he bellowed, thrusting it at me. By the Gods,
it's not swill. Cob was on his knees, openly weeping.
He wasn't looking at the bodies or the blood. His
hands were buried in an open supply pack. He held
up a small cloth bag in one trembling hand, and
a brick of dried meat in the other. Salt he
whispered his voice, cracking, dra they have salt and heart attack, real,
real food. Brynn was already at the horses, three decent animals,
running their hands over their legs, calming them with low hisses.
DICKX was humming some discordant tune, nudging one of the
sea soldiers with his boot. Shame, He chirped, this swan's
vest is quite nice, but it's ruined, just soaked. I
let the wine burn a path down my throat and
handed the skin back to Stigan. My eyes were on Orso.
He wasn't celebrating. He hadn't touched the food. He was
crouched by the cartographer. He was systematically pragmatically going through
the man's belongings, his movements as clean as a butcher's.
He tossed aside a prayer book, a compass, a half
eaten apple. Then he found it, a heavy tube of
oiled black leather, capped at both ends with bronze stamped
into the side. Was the sea's blazing sun. But this
one was severe, judgmental. The stern visage more paper to
light the fire. I grunted, walking over, or So didn't
look up. His hands stained with the cartographer's blood worked
at the bronze cap. This isn't paper, Dre. He slid
a heavy roll of vellum from the tube. He spread
it on a flat gore slicked rock, weighing the corners
with stones. My breath caught. This wasn't some shit smeared
sketch from a flop house drunk. This was a military map, clean,
perfect lines, showing every ridge, every stream, every patrol route
for fifty miles. This was the sea's own view of
the world, a map made by the masters. This thing,
this was worth more than the horses, more than the food.
Or So's usual cynical calm was gone. His eyes were wide, hungry.
His finger, still dripping, traced the lines of the stone
fence mountains, the precision. He muttered, Look at this. They've
mapped the goat tracks, the springs. They his finger stopped,
It just froze. Resting on the vellum, he stared. I
saw his throat work as he swallowed. What is it,
I said, my voice sharp, Another patrol, a garrison. He
didn't answer. He just tapped the map one twice, Dre.
His voice was tight, unfamiliar. I leaned over his shoulder,
my shadow falling across the map, I followed his finger.
It was resting on a high altitude valley, boxed in
on all sides by impassable jagged peaks, a place you
would never find unless you knew to look, A perfect
kill box or a perfect fortress. There drawn with arrogant
technical precision, was a symbol, not a village cross, not
a watch tower. It was a compound, high walls, a
central keep gate, a fortress. And beneath it, in the
sea's clean flowing script was a name, A name I'd
heard screamed in a stinking flophouse, a name I'd dismissed
as a fever dream. The abbey of the Stern Visage.
The madman's words slammed into me, knocking the wind from
my lungs. A fortress of gold disguised as a house
of prayer. It wasn't a ghost story, it wasn't a rumor.
It was real, and now we knew exactly where it was.
The scum Kings, a Broadsword Studio production created and written
by Mike Daltrey, Chapter sixty two, The Prophet of Gold.
The fire snapped and hissed the sound out of triumph.
It was the first real fire we dared to light
in a week, and the warmth was a drug. The
smell of roasting meat, real salted dried meat from the
patrol's packs, was thick in the air, a scent so
good it was almost painful. Cob was a mess. He
was crouched by the fire, rocking back and forth, grinning
as he stirred a handful of hardtack into a pot
of melted snow. He kept holding up the little bag
of salt like it was a holy relic. He had
salt drey. His laughter was maniacal. The gods are good.
He had salt stigand was a different kind of animal.
He'd ripped a strip of cloth from a sea cloak
and packed it into the sword wound in his shoulder.
Now he was three quarters gone on their wine, his
face flushed and his beard glistening. He held the wine
skin aloft, his massive form swaying the madman's whine. He roared,
his voice, cracking the mountain silence. It's the best I've
ever tasted. A toast, A toast to the old mad bastard.
He drained half of it, the dark liquid spilling over
his chin and staining the crude bandage the crew was electric.
The starvation, the weeks of being hunted, the festering despair.
It was all gone, burned away by a full belly,
a gut full of wine, and the certainty of gold.
That map had changed everything. The abbey wasn't a coast
story anymore. It was a target. This, this was the
scum kings. I knew this hungry, half mad, dangerous energy.
This was a weapon. Only also sat apart. He had
the map spread on his knees, his face a mask
of cold concentration in the firelight. He ignored the food
Cob offered him, ignored Stiggins's roar. He was just tracing
the lines on the vellum. I walked over, tearing a
piece of meat from the rack. What's wrong or so
you don't like winning? He finally looked up, his eyes sharp.
This is good, Ray, he said, his voice low. He
tapped the map. But it confirms were in the heart
of their territory. These patrol routes, they're layered, they're tight.
We're not on the fringe anymore. We're a mouse in
a snake's den. I snorted, Snatching the map from his hands,
I rolled it up the vellum crackling in protest, and
shoved it deep into my belt. We're not my sore,
so I turned to face them all the firelight caught
their eyes. Stiggined, drunk and bleeding dicks, his filed teeth
shining brin, watching me silent Selaine, her gaze fixed on
my belt, where the map was hidden. They were looking
for the next word. They were mine wolves, I said,
my voice, cutting through the celebration and the sea are
fat sheep who've been sleeping in a pen of gold.
They left the gate open for us. They drew us
a map to the slaughter. I grabbed the wine skin
from Stiggins's hand and held it up, the firelight shining
against its metal top like a beacon rest. I commanded,
eat your fill, get your strength back, because tomorrow we climb,
and then we take what's ours. The roar that answered
me was pure savage, and shook the snow from the
high branches. The Scum Kings a broad Sword Studio production
created and written by Mike Daltrey. Chapter sixty three, The
White Lie Two days, two days of climbing. After that
first night of triumph, the captured wine was a sour
memory in our dry mouths. The last of the sea's
heart attack was a scattering of crumbs and cobbs pack.
The manic energy of the map's discovery had burned away,
leaving only the grim, hard ash of determination. The mountain
was a brutal, vertical nightmare. We weren't walking. We were climbing,
using hands and feet, dragging ourselves over leagues of broken
shale and icelicked rock. The wind was a constant scream,
a physical and that tried to peel us from the cliffs.
Cob was a wreck, his body completely giving out. He
was sobbing, a high, thin sound that the wind tore
away stig and his face gray with pain from his
festering shoulder. Was just an engine of grim resolve, hauling
Cob up ledges like a sack of grain, his every
breath a rattling groan. Even Orso's cold pragmatism was wearing thin.
His face was raw from the wind, his lips cracked
and bleeding. He'd just stare at the map, then at
the wall of rock in front of us, and say
nothing that was worse than his complaining. We were following
the map to the letter. A madman's scripture I called
a halt in the lee of a granite spire. The
crew didn't stop. They collapsed, a pile of rags and misery.
Stiggins slumped against the rock, his eyes closing, his hand
clamped to his shoulder. Cob just lay where he fell,
his chest hitching. Dondre Gig's hissed, his usual humor replaced
by a raw, scraping edge. This is it a fine
place to die, very scenic silent. I grunted. I looked
at Bryn. She was the only one who looked alive.
Her green eyes were bright, her senses on fire. She
was in her element. She tasted the air. I didn't
need to give the order. I just jerked my head.
We left the others. We didn't speak, We moved. She
was a shadow, a whisper of leather on stone. I
was just a man, but I was a man who
knew how to be quiet, a man fueled by a
promise of gold. We climbed, moving along a goat track
that was little more than a rumor. For an hour,
we climbed, the wind trying to tear our gloves from
our hands. The rock was sharp, like broken glass. Bryn froze.
She held up one hand. I stopped, my breath, catching
in my chest. She pointed up the ridge, the final one.
We didn't walk, We crawled. We crawled the last fifty
feet on our bellies, the ice toothed rocks tearing at
our knees and elbows. The wind was a roaring giant
up here. I pulled myself to the edge, my heart
a cold hammer in my chest. I parted a clump
of frozen thorny brush, and I saw it. I let
out a breath. It wasn't a laugh, not quite. The
madman was a poet. It was nestled in a perfect
high altitude valley, a perfect bowl of green, untouched by
the wind. It was beautiful, and that one word filled
me with a pure, cold blooded rage. It was white.
The walls were not the gray practical stone of a
northern fortress. They were gleaming, polished white limestone. They shined
in the thin mountain sun, an arrogant declaration of wealth.
This wasn't a wall to keep enemies out. It was
a wall to make peasants feel small. The guard towers,
four of them, were slender and fluted, disguised as ornate
bell towers, capped with bronze roofs that gleamed like fresh gold.
But I saw them, the arrow slits, narrow and dark,
hidden in the scroll work, and the gate by all
the gods. The gate, it was an obscenity thirty feet high,
carved from a single massive piece of dark, ancient wood.
It was a perfect giant carving of the stern visage itself,
the severe, judgmental face of their god. The deep set
eyes were the watch ports. The snarling, downturned mouth was
the murder hole. A fortress, I muttered, a fortress disguised
as a house of prayer. Brynn and I lay there
for a long time, just watching. We were the wind,
We were the rocks. We were the hunger they'd all forgotten.
I saw them, fat monks in clean robes, walking on
manicured gravel paths, gravel in a garden up here. They
weren't cold, they weren't hungry. I saw the guards. Their
armor was polished black and gold, ceremonial. They carried spears,
but they carried them like priests carrying icons. They paced
the white walls, but they weren't watching, they were parading.
They were bored. Then I saw it, the thing that
sealed their fate. A guard on the east wall stopped.
He stood there, looking out over the valley, his back
to the world. He took off his helmet. He took
his helmet off on patrol. He pulled a cli off
from his belt, and he started polishing it. He polished
it for ten minutes, admiring his own reflection in the black,
lacquered steel. I felt Brynn's breath, a cold puff of
air near my ear. She'd been watching the towers soft,
she whispered. The word was a knife's edge, pure contempt.
They ring bells, they don't watch the rocks. She was right.
They built their fortress, and then they forgot why. They'd
been safe for too long, counting their gold, polishing their armor,
and looking up at their god. They never ever look out.
I kept watching the guard. He was still admiring himself.
A wave of pure cold certainty washed through me. This
wasn't anger, it was clarity. They're not soldiers, I whispered,
the wind, stealing the words. Brynn looked at me. A slow,
cold smile spread across my face. It wasn't a smile
of humor. It was the smile a wolf gives the lamb,
Their pigs fattened for us. I looked away from the
guard and back at that massive, arrogant, carved wooden gate,
at that judgmental face. I couldn't wait to see it break.
We're not sneaking in Bryn. Her green eyes, feral and
bright met mine were kicking the door down the scum kings.
A Broadsword studioduction created and written by Mike Daltrey, Chapter
sixty four, The Hammer of Faith. We slid back into
the camp like ghosts, but there was no life to
greet us, just a huddle of misery. The sun was dying,
dragging its bloody guts across the western peaks. The cold
was setting in, a cold with teeth. Cob was shivering
so hard as bones rattled. Dix was just staring at
his knives, his face a gray mask. They all looked up.
Their eyes were hollow, desperate. They were waiting for me
to give them a reason, a reason to get up,
or a reason to lie down and die. I let
the silence stretch, I let them feel the cold, I
let them remember the hunger. I've seen it, I said.
My voice was a rasp or so looked up his
sharp face all angles in the gloom. The abbey. Aye,
I crouched by the dead fire pit. It's a fortress.
White walls, bell towers that are really arrow slits, a
gate thirty feet high. A sound, half grown, half sob
came from Cob. Then we're done, he whispered. We're done.
The guards, I continued my voice, flat wear armor of
black and gold. They're fat. I watched one polish his
own helmet for ten minutes. The monks walk in gardens, gardens.
I looked around at my crew, these starved, filthy, half
broken animals. The plan is simple, I said, striking a
piece of flint. The spark was a tiny, angry star
in the dusk. We hit the front gate hard fast,
no sneaking. We charge it, we break it, We kill
everyone inside, and we take the gold. Or So was
on his feet in an instant. He didn't shout, He
never shouts. He spoke in a low, furious hiss, a
sound more dangerous than any roar. That's not a plan,
dre that's a suicide note. He jabbed a finger toward
the valley, now invisible in the dark. That is a fortress.
Those bell towers will rain death on us. That thirty
foot gait will have a bar on it as thick
as Stiggins's chest. Those fat guards still have spears. We'll
be pincushions before we get within fifty yards. It's a
kill box. It's stupid, it's a lie. I cut him off,
my voice a snarl. I stood up to meet his gaze,
jabbing a finger into his chest. That's what you don't see,
you see walls and wood. A lie. It's a vault
dressed as a church. It's a coward's treasure chest, and
they've painted a mean face on it, hoping no one
would ever call their bluff. I turned to the others.
Dix was watching us, a flicker of something amusement in
his dead eyes. Selaine was just watching me, calculating. They
expect you, or so, I said, pointing back at him.
They expect a shadow, a sneak, brinn over the wall,
a little poison in the well. That's the smart play,
and they're ready for it. What they don't expect, what
their soft, fat, preying minds cannot even imagine, is us.
They don't expect seven starved, half mad animals to charge
out of the dark. They don't expect a Norseman with
an axe. They don't expect the scum kings. My gaze
settled on Stigin. He was sitting apart, his massive back
against the rock. He'd been quiet, his head down, nursing
his bad shoulder. His axe was on the ground beside him.
The whole camp was quiet, waiting the wind, the hiss
of Orso's breathing. Stiggind He looked up. His eyes were
dull with pain. But I saw the coal glowing in
there that gait, I said, my voice, quiet now, but
hard as the rock. He was leaning on, that carved
up face. Can you break it? The crew held its breath.
Orso stared at me, his face a mask of cold fury.
This was it, the pivot, the moment Orso's logic shattered
against the pure, simple fact of violence. Stiggin looked down
at his axe. He flexed his good hand. He glanced
at his wounded shoulder, and a little grimace of pain
crossed his face. He looked back at me. He grunted
its wood. He reached down, his knuckles white and his
fingers wrapped around the haft of his axe. He used
it to pull himself to his feet. A mountain of
a man rising in the dark wood breaks. That was it.
I saw the shift, I saw the doubt, and Gigx's
eyes burn away, replaced by that hungry, vicious gleam. I
saw Cobs stop shivering. I saw Selaine, a woman who
prized logic above all, do a new calculation and nod,
just once her mind made up. They were starved, they
were desperate. They were standing at the door of paradise.
They didn't want or so slick, careful plan that might
take days. They wanted this over. They wanted a final plan.
They were with me. Or So saw it. He saw
the madness I had lit in their eyes. He saw
that he'd lost. He was a pragmatist. He knew he
couldn't stop this train. He could only steer it. He
let out a long, slow breath, a puff of white
in the cold. He shook his head, and then he
drew his blade. The shing of it was the only sound.
Then by all the gods dray. He hissed, his voice
like gravel. If we do this, we do it now.
He pointed at the black, resinous sap weeping from a
near by tree. No dawn, we go while their bellies
are full of dinner, and their minds are on their pillows.
We use the chaos of the dark. His eyes met mine,
cold and sharp, and we use fire. The scum Kings
a broad Sword Studio production created and written by Mike Daltrey.
Chapter sixty five, The Breaking of the Visage. 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. Orso took the third, gicked nimble
as a spider scrambled up behind stiggand 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 Selaine 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
stigand 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 hoofs
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 gis 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 near
the main bell tower. A guard his hand just reaching
for the hole 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. Dix was cackling a sound of
pure unholy joy. He lit his first pitch pot and
hurled it the winskin tumbled end over end and lumped
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 leapt.
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 Dix, 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.
Stiggin 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 have 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.