Speaker 1: The Scum Kings, a broad Sword Studio production created and
written by Mike Daltrey, Episode forty, the Second Front.
Speaker 2: The order to kill Phelan was a sharp, clean thing,
a clear objective, But the gutters are never that simple.
The next morning, before we could even begin to formulate
a plan, the Red Hands made their own move. It
wasn't the frontal assault I had expected. There was no
pitched battle in the alleys. It was something different, something smarter.
We saw the first evidence in the market square, a
weavers stall, one known to pay a heavy tax to Silas,
was a heap of smoking, black, charred timbers. The owner
was weeping in the street. An hour later, news came
that a cart of keep ale belonging to Silas had
been ambushed, its barrels smashed and its contents poured into
the filth of the gutter. The guards left beaten but alive.
Back in our room, Stiggin was delighted. A good for them,
he boomed, A proper fight is coming. I was less certain.
It felt chaotic, unfocused. This wasn't how a war was won.
You all think like thugs. The voice was Silins. She
was standing by our single, grimy window, looking down at
the street where people were scurrying with a new urgency.
You see a brawl, she continued, turning to face us,
her gray eyes cold and analytical.
Speaker 1: You're wrong.
Speaker 2: This isn't about blood, It's about coin. This is economic warfare.
I stared at her, Not understanding. She let out a short,
impatient sigh, the sound of a master ex explanning a
simple concept to a room full of fools. The Red
Hands know they can't beat Silas's enforcers in a straight fight.
Corvin's men are too disciplined, so they aren't attacking the soldiers.
They're attacking the kingdom. Every merchant who pays Silas for
protection is a part of his treasury. The Red Hands
just prove that protection is worthless. She walked to the
center of the room, her presence suddenly commanding. If the
merchants get scared and stop paying their tax, Silas's entire
operation collapses. He has no income, he can't pay his men,
his power evaporates. They aren't trying to break his bones, Dray.
They are trying to break his business. They're not trying
to win a street fight. They are trying to cut
his throat. In the ledger book. Her words hung in
the air, a chilling new perspective on the conflict. She
saw a lair to this war that the rest of
us were blind to. It wasn't just a battle of muscle,
It was a battle of finance. A frantic pounding on
our door interrupted her lesson. One of Silas's low level
thugs burst in his face, pale and slick with sweat.
He didn't have the calm arrogance of Corvin's usual messengers.
He was terrified. Silas wants you, he stammered, all of
you now to the gambling den a war council. He
fled as quickly as he had arrived. I looked at
Orso He gave a single, slow nod, a thin, satisfied
smile on his lips. The calm, confident machine that Silas
had built was beginning to shake apart. The red hands
were bleeding his wallet, and now he was panicking. Or
So Spark had found the kindling. Now the king of
the gutter was calling for his most vicious, most deniable
blades to help him put out the fire. We had
just been in, Invited to the heart of the conflagration,
we had created