Speaker 1: The scum Kings, created and written by Mike Daltrey. Episode six, Heist.
Speaker 2: The dog's yapping cut through the dusk like a thrown knife.
We froze a pack of statues in the gloom.
Speaker 1: Or So didn't panic.
Speaker 2: His mind is a machine built of cold angles, and
it was already recalculating bryn He whispered his voice a
bare rustle of leaves. The dog silenced it. Brynn nodded
once and was gone, melting into the shadows toward the farm.
The rest of us waited, every muscle coiled tight. A
few minutes later, the yapping cut off abruptly, a single
show yelp, then nothing. A moment after that, brim shadow
reappeared at the edge of the trees. She gave a
slight nod. The path was clear. Now I breathed. We moved.
Our grand coordinated assault fell apart the moment we left
the tree line, or So and stigand reached the barn.
But the old wood of the door didn't give silently.
It groaned like a dying man, loud in the evening quiet.
The sound was answered by a shout from inside the cottage.
So much for surprise, stigin' now, I roared. The northman
needed no other encouragement. With a joyous bellow, he lowered
his shoulder and smashed into the barn door. Wood exploded inwards.
From inside came a terrified, high pitched squeal the pig.
As Gixon I reached the cottage, the door flew open,
and the old farmer charged out, a rusty pitchfork held
before him like a knight's lamb. He was thin and wiry,
his face a mask of fear and fury. He wasn't
a warrior, but he was defending his home. I almost
admired him for it. I sidestepped his clumsy lunch, but
he was fast enough to turn an aim for Gis.
Before the tines could connect, the cottage door frame was
filled by his wife, a stout woman with iron gray
hair and a bun and a heavy black frying pan
in her hand. She swung it with the force of
a blacksmith's hammer, catching Gix on the side of the head.
The clang was loud enough to wake the dead. Gicks
staggered back, a look of genuine surprise on his painted face.
The woman raised the pan for another swing. This was
not a battle. It was a brawl, a clumsy, muddy,
pathetic mess from the barn. Stiggins's laughter boomed. He'd cornered
the other farmer, who was jabbing at him with another pitchfork.
Stigan wasn't he using a weapon. He was just catching
the wooden shaft in his massive hands, treating the man's
desperate attacks like a game. Ha, there's fire in you yet,
old man. He roared, easily, twisting the pitchfork from the
farmer's grasp and tossing it aside. The old woman came
at me, pan raised. I caught her wrist, the bone
delicate under my grip. I could have snapped it like
a twig. The fight had gone on long enough, Gicks,
I snarled, and this Gigs recovered from the pant strike,
his surprise melting away into a slow, cruel smile. He
ignored the farmer and his wife. Instead, he took two
quick steps to a small coop next to the cottage wall.
He reached inside and pulled out a small peeping chick.
He held it up for the woman to see, Cradling
it gently in his palm. He looked her right in
the eye, his smile widening, then Slowly he closed his fist,
a faint, wet crunch. The peeping stopped. The fight went
out of the old woman's eyes, replaced by a profound soul,
deep horror. The pans slipped from her fingers and clattered
on the dirt. The farmer stared, his mouth agape. They
were broken. Dix took a step toward them, his fists
still closed. The other chickens would like to play two, Gix,
I said, my voice sharp as broken glass.
Speaker 1: Enough.
Speaker 2: He stopped looking at me, a flicker of disappointment in
his eyes. My gaze fell on the old couple, huddled together,
their faces pale with terror. They were nothing, less than nothing,
a loose end. But killing them felt pointless, a waste
of effort. Get the pig, I ordered, leave them dead bodies,
Draw crows in questionans. He shrugged. The moment of cruelty passed.
The five of us, cob having stayed back as our lookout,
converged on the barn and the squealing, terrified pig. Wrestling
the beast was a battle in itself. It was strong,
slick with mud, and possessed by a demon's fury. It
took all of us to finally get a rope around
its snout and another around its hind legs, and then
we were fleeing into the night, dragging and carrying our prize.
A chaotic retreat of grunts, curses, and the pig's deafening squeals.
We threw the pig to the ground, where it lay,
panting and defeated. We stood around it, chests heaving, grinning
like madmen sticking clapped me on the back, his laughter
echoing through the trees. We had done it, We had won.
The taste of failure was washed away by the promise
of roast pork. In the dancing firelight. Cob stepped forward.
He looked at the pig with a holy reverence, tears
of joy streaming down his plump cheeks. From its leather sheath.
He drew his long, wicked looking butcher's knife. He knelt down,
pulling a sharpening steel from his pack. He ignored us
all his world, shrinking to the fat, breathing prize at
his feet and the tool in his hands. The firelight
glinted off the blade as he began to sharpen it,
the sound ringing through our small, triumphant kingdom. Shick shick, shick.
It was the sound of salvation signal box. The Scum
Kings created and written by Mike Daltrey, Episode seven, The
King's Portion. Cob was no longer a coward. He was
an artist, a priest. The pig our hard won prize
was his altar. With a focus I'd never seen in him,
he set to work. His knives, now wickedly sharp, moved
with a sureness that was almost beautiful. He bled the
carcass with a clean, quick cut, and there was no
wasted motion as he skinned it and broke it down.
The rest of us scum Kings watched in reverent silence.
This was a holy moment. Then came the fire, and
with it the torture. Cob built it high and hot.
He mounted the best cuts, the loin, the belly, the
shoulders on sturdy, green branches, and set them to roast
over the flames. The first sizzle of fat hitting the
fire was like a gunshot in the quiet camp. A
collective involuntary sigh went through the crew. Then came the smell.
It was the richest, most glorious scent that had ever
graced this miserable hollow. It was salt and fat and
roasting meat, a promise of life itself. It filled the air,
thick and intoxicating, and it drove us all half mad.
The gnawing ache in our stomachs became a ravenous, demanding beast.
I watched my men. Their eyes were glazed fixed on
the browning, crisping meat. Stiggins sat cross legged, his jaw
slack a thin line of drool tracing a path into
his beard. Gicks stared with an unnerving intensity, as if
he were trying to memorize the pigs dying screams. Even
or so ever, the stoic had a tightness around his mouth,
his knuckles white where he gripped the hilt of his dagger.
We were a pack of wolves chain just out of
reach of a kill, and the chains were fraying. The
waiting was the purest form of torment I have ever known.
Minutes oh stretched into hours. The sun went down, and
the fire became the only world, A blazing orange heart
in the darkness, and at its center was our salvation. Finally,
cob his face gleaming with sweat and pride, declared it ready,
it is done. He announced, his voice thick with emotion.
Civility did not break down. It was never there to
begin with. It had only been sleeping. As Cob lifted
the first heavy branch of sizzling meat from the fire,
crow surged forward, not with cheers, but with a low,
collective growl. They crowded around the makeshift, spit, their faces
feral in the firelight. It was a tense, snarling affair,
each man jostling for position, eyes darting from the meat
to each other, assessing threats. My rule is simple. I lead,
I take the risks. I eat first. It is the
law of any pack, and it is the only law
that matters. But hunger makes men forget laws. A young whelp,
a boy we called rat on account of his twitching
nose and beady eyes, let his hunger win. His self
control snapped as I stepped forward to claim my share.
His hand darted out, quick as a snake, snatching at
a piece of crisp, crackling skin hanging from the loin.
He never touched it. I moved without thinking. I grabbed
the boy by the collar of his tunic, my knuckles
digging into his throat. I lifted him off his feet
and slammed him face first into the dirt inches from
the fire's scorching heat. He grunted as the air was
forced from his lungs. The snarling stopped, the jostling ceased.
The camp fell dead, silent, save for the crackle of
the fire and rats pained gasps.
Speaker 1: Every eye was on me.
Speaker 2: I stood over the steaming carcass, the choicest cuts laid bare.
With the tip of my dagger, I pointed at the
whelp on the ground, then slowly moved it to gesture
at the rest of them, my silent challenge. Hanging in
the hot, greasy air, I let my gaze rest on
each man, one by one. Then I spoke, my voice,
low and clear and carrying the weight of absolute law.
The King eat first signal Box The Scum Kings Created
and written by Mike.
Speaker 1: Daltrey, Episode eight, A moment of weakness.
Speaker 2: The feast was a greasy, glorious memory. For the first
time in what felt like a lifetime, the gnawing in
my gut was gone, replaced by the heavy, pleasant weight
of a full belly.
Speaker 1: The pork sat.
Speaker 2: In my gut like a lead weight, a welcome but
unfamiliar burden. I left the others to their meat drunk,
stupor round the fire's embers. I needed to walk, to
settle the food that my body had almost forgotten how
to digest. But it was more than that. A full
belly only lasts so long. The pig was a reprieve,
not a plan. My mind was already turning, grinding on
the next problem. Where do we go from here? What's
the next prize? A king can't rule from a single meal.
The high of our pathetic victory was already fading, leaving
the cold, hard questions of tomorrow. I moved through the woods,
my hands empty, my thoughts wrestling with maps and possibilities.
Do we push on deeper into the unknown of the tangle,
or turn back toward the lands we knew, where our
failure at the caravan was already a story told by
our enemies. Every path was choked with risk. I needed
another score, something bigger than a pig, something to wash
the taste of humiliation out of our mouths for good.
It was in the midst of this planning the next
act of violence, the next theft, that I saw it,
a flicker of movement in a dense thicket of elderberry bushes,
too small for a deer to deliberate for a fox.
I stopped my body going still, every sense on high alert.
I drew my dagger, its familiar weight to comfort in
my palm, and approached without a sound. Peering through the leaves,
I saw them. My first instinct was irritation, vagrance. A
woman was huddled on the ground, her arms wrapped around
a child. They were little more than skeletons draped in rags.
The woman's hair was a matted tangle, her face smudged
with dirt. When her eyes met mine, they went wide
with a terror so pure it was almost a physical force.
She made a tiny, choked sound and pulled the child
tighter against her. The child itself was maybe four or
five years old. It didn't cry, it didn't scream or whimper.
It just stared at me over its mother's shoulder. Its
face was gaunt, its eyes enormous and dark and utterly empty.
They weren't the eyes of a child. They were the
eyes of something ancient that had seen the world end
a thousand times. That hollow, silent stare hit me harder
than a fist. It was wrong, all wrong. They're not
your problem. The voice in my head Orso's voice said,
they're dead already, walk away. I should have I should
have snarled, shown them my blade, and watched them scurry
off like the vermin they were. It was the smart play,
the practical play. They were nothing. But I didn't move.
I was frozen, a silent, dead stare.
Speaker 1: Of that child.
Speaker 2: My hand, the one holding the dagger, felt heavy, useless.
What was I going to do? Threaten a ghost? A hot,
confusing wave of something washed over me. It felt like sickness,
a weakness in my gut that had nothing to do
with hunger pity. It was a foul, useless emotion. I
thought of my own men, their desperation just days ago.
I thought of the plans for violence and theft, churning
in my own mind. Weak the king in me snarled,
you're getting weak. Kill them, no witnesses, no weakness. I couldn't.
My feet felt rooted to the spot. My gaze was
locked with the child's for a long, silent moment. The
world was just the space between me and those empty eyes.
With a curse that I bit back between my teeth.
Speaker 1: My hand went to.
Speaker 2: My belt, where the greasy cloth package was tucked. The
rich savory smell of the roasted pork. The remains of
my trophy filled the air. I looked at the meat,
then back at them. My arm moved on its own.
I didn't offer it. I threw it. The bundle of
meat arked through the air and landed with a soft
thud in the dirt near the woman's feet. Her head
snapped down to look at it, her expression one of
utter disbelief. I took a step back, my heart hammering
with a strange, wild fury. The feeling of pity was disgusting,
a filth. I had to get off, me, get lost,
I snarled, my voice, a low, vicious rasp. I made
it as cruel as I could take it, and be
gone before I changed my mind. I didn't wait for
a reply. I turned my back on them, on the
silent child and his mother, on the meat I had won.
I stalked back towards my camp, furious at the confusing,
sickening wave of mercy that, for a moment derailed my
thoughts from the cold, clean business of planning our next kill.
Speaker 1: The scum Kings created and written by Mike Daltrey, Episode nine,
Sorting Things Out.
Speaker 2: I stalked back into camp like a thundercloud looking for
a place to break. The comfortable haze from the feast
was gone, replaced by a self loathing so sharp it
tasted like bile in the back of my throat. The
image of the silent child of my own hand tossing
away my prize was burned into my mind. It was
a weakness, a rot, and I had to cut it out.
My crew saw the change in me the moment I
stepped into the hollow conversation trailed off. Cob, who had
been humming happily while scraping the last bits of fat
from the pig skin, fell silent. They watched me, their
eyes wary, like animals sensing an earthquake. They could smell
the rage rolling off me. I needed a target. I
needed to pour this filth out of myself onto someone else,
to prove to them the weak man I'd been in
the woods, that I was nothing but flint and fury.
My eyes found Gicks. He was sitting cross legged, polishing
a collection of small animal skulls with a scrap of leather.
He looked up as I approached, his painted face, splitting
into that unnerving fanged grin of his welcome back, boss,
He chirped, you look like you've seen a ghost out there.
Speaker 1: That was it.
Speaker 2: That was the spark, the word ghost, the casual way
he looked at me, his damn cheerfulness. It all felt
like a mockery of the turmoil churning inside me. He
was seeing the weakness, he was laughing at it. What
did you say, I asked, my voice dangerously low. Gick's
grin didn't falter. He held up a polished rat skull.
I said, you look like you've seen it. He never finished.
I crossed the space between us in two quick strides.
I wasn't trying to have a fight. I was trying
to commit an act of violence. I grabbed him by
his ragged tunic, hauled him to his feet, and slammed
him back against the hard packed wall of the hollow.
The air went out of him in a grunt. Before
he could react, I drove my knee hard into his stomach.
He doubled over with a gasp. I hit him a short,
brutal right hand to the jaw that snapped his head
to the side, then a left to his temple. It
wasn't a brawl. It wasn't a duel. It was a mauling, swift,
vicious and absolute. He slid down the wall and crumpled
to the dirt in a heap. The camp was utterly silent.
No one moved, no one breathed. Stigan looked on his
mouth slightly agape, not with blood lust, but with confusion.
Orso's face was a stone mask, but his eyes were sharp, calculating,
reassessing the followed. This wasn't the calculated punishment I'd given
Kyle or Rat. This was a storm breaking without warning.
This was madness. I stood over Dix's prone form, my
chest heaving the rage, finally finding a release. My knuckles throbbed.
I felt better. The weakness was purged, drowned in the beautiful,
simple clarity of violence. Dick stirred. He pushed himself up
onto his elbows, spitting a gob of blood onto the dirt.
A dark bruise was already forming on his cheek, and
his lip was split wide open. He slowly looked up
at me, and he smiled. It was the same unsettling,
all knowing grin, just bloodier. Now, glad we got that
sordid boss. He rasped, his voice thick but steady. The
words hung in the air, more chilling than any threat
he could have made. He wasn't afraid, he wasn't angry.
He understood. He had looked at my sudden, violent madness
and seen it as a perfectly normal conversation. I stared
down at his bloody, smiling face, and for the first time,
I felt a sliver of fear for him. I turned away.
My black mood settled, leaving behind a cold, hard calm.
But as I scanned the faces of my other men,
I saw that my storm had not passed them by.
It had settled deep inside them a new and terrible
understanding of their king.
Speaker 1: The scum Kings Created and written by Mike Daltrey, Episode ten,
The Bottom of the Barrel. The last piece of pork
was tough chewed on for an hour to steal every
last bit of flavor, But the rich, sweet taste of
the feast was a fading memory. A faint, sour tang
had begun to haunt the edges of the meat, and
the pile of bones we'd thrown to the side of
the camp was now swarming with flies. We'd eaten like
kings for three days, but the world had sent its
tax collectors, rot and ruin wait for no man. When
the last rib was gnawed clean and thrown to the insects,
the hunger returned. Earned It was meaner this time, for
having been so recently fed. The good cheer of our
victory had vanished, too, replaced by a sullen, watchful silence.
My outburst at Gicks had seen to that. The men
moved around me with a new wariness, their eyes skittering
away from mine. They had seen the King's rage, and
now they knew it could fall on anyone, at any time,
for any reason. Morale was a cold, dead thing in
the bottom of a pit. It was Orso and Selaine
who came to me. They approached together as I stared
into the fireless pit, a united front of cold, hard
reality against my black mood. The pig is a memory,
dre Orso began wasting no time, were back where we started,
a worse Silein corrected, her voice, as crisp as a
winter morning. We have expended time, our most valuable asset.
The season turns, The nights are colder soon, and the
roads will be impassable with mud. And the only thing
left to hunt in this forest will be each other.
Her words painted a grim picture. She was right.
Speaker 2: We couldn't stay in this ditch forever.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 2: Without coin, we cannot enter a town. She continued, her
logic relentless. We can't buy a room, a loaf of bread,
or a moment of silence from the watch. We are
ghosts out here, and we will die out here. She's right,
or so added, we need a score, something with coin, anything,
just enough to get us under a roof and around
a table where we can plant a real move. I listened,
my jaw tight with a familiar, caged fury. I couldn't
beat this problem. I couldn't threaten it or break its nose.
It was the truth, and it had me cornered. We
were starving, broke, and a season away from freezing to death.
As if on cue, Brinn emerged from the trees she
had been scouting, always scouting. She stopped before the three
of us, her expression unreadable. There's a road, she said,
her voice a low rasp, far to the south, and
a shrine, just a pile of rocks with a roof.
She paused, and her next words landed like stones. One
man he wears the robes of the sea. Alone silence.
The three of us stared at her a shrine, a
lone priest, not a caravan, not a merchant, not even
a fat pilgrim, a dirt poor holy man at a
dilapidated roadside chapel. The potential loote was probably a handful
of copper spokes in a donation box, and whatever food
the priest has. I saw the pathetic desperation of it
reflected in Orso's grim face and Selaine's calculating eyes. This
was their solution, This was the best they could come
up with. Hitting a church mouse, I wanted to I
wanted to smash something, to scream that we were better
than this. But I looked past them at the rest
of my band, Cob, looking thinner and pale, Kil and
Rat huddled together for warmth, already looking like corpses. We
were not better than this. My pride was a luxury
I couldn't afford. My rage was afire, with no fuel
left to burn. All that remained was the cold, hard
fact of our survival. I met Orso's gaze, then Slaine's.
I gave a single sharp nod of fine. The word
came out flat dead. I turned and walked toward the
center of the camp to address the others. A new plan,
a new mission. The air was thick with our collective shame.
We all knew what this was. It was the bottom
and we were about to start digging at