Speaker 1: The scum Kings created and written by Mike Daltrey, Episode seventeen,
The Weight of Silver.
Speaker 2: 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 mannic desperate relief.
Speaker 1: Silver.
Speaker 2: 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 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. A Stigin is right about one thing, or so,
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. His finger tapped a crudely drawn circle
miles to the north, gray mark of 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. Why are you doing that, 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 whares.
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 Secure
heard 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.