Speaker 1: The Scum Kings created and written by Mike Daltrey, Episode
thirty eight, The Kindling Burns.
Speaker 2: The morning air was cool, but the gutters were already
starting to stink as the sun warmed the previous day's filth.
We were perched on the flat, tarred roof of a
derelict floffhouse, a king and his court looking down on
their new, unwitting kingdom. We weren't waiting for a score.
We were waiting for a war. The waiting was a
special kind of torment for stiggand he paced the small
rooftop like a caged bear. Nothing, he grumbled, staring down
at the waking slum. We steal their trinkets and nothing happens.
We should have just killed them all patients were so said,
without taking his eyes off the alleys below. He was
as still as a gargoyle, his face a mask of
cold concentration. He was watching his experiment, waiting for the
first sign of a reaction. I watched with him, a new,
strange feeling churning in my gut. It was a feeling
of power, but it was a cold and distant thing.
The old me, the one who lived in the wilderness,
would have been down there, axe in hand, taking what
I wanted, but Orso's poison had taken root. I was
learning that the man who starts the fire sometimes has
more power than the flames. The reaction came just after
the morning rush had begun to fill the market square.
It started with a shout, then another. A group of
a dozen men, tattered red sashes tied around their arms,
stormed into the square.
Speaker 1: They moved with.
Speaker 2: The raw, angry energy of a mob. They weren't trying
to be quiet. They wanted an audience. Their target was
a merchant manning one of the large stalls.
Speaker 1: Look at that.
Speaker 2: Stigin growled his hand, gripping the empty space on his
belt where his axe would normally be a proper fight
We should be down there. He took a step toward
the edge of the roof, his whole body tense with
the urge to join the fray. I grabbed his arm,
my grip like iron. No, he turned on me, his
eyes blazing. Let go of me, dre that's a battle,
and we are not soldiers in it, Stigand I said,
my voice low and hard. We are the men who
gave them a reason to die. Now watch our work
He stared at me for a long moment, his chest heaving,
before slowly, grudgingly he relaxed down below. The scene exploded
into chaos. The Red Hands overturned the stall, sending piles
of expensive goods onto the filthy ground. They beat the
merchant senseless, while his two hired yards tried to intervene.
It was a messy, brutal brawl, all wild swings and
furious shouts. It was exactly the kind of stupid, pointless
violence Orso had planned on. The fight ended as quickly
as it began. The Red Hands were more numerous and
more savage. One of the guards went down with a
knife in his gut. The other fled. The Red Hands
didn't pursue. They had what they wanted. One of them
stood over the dead guard, raised his bloody blade for
all to see and screamed a name for the whole
market to hear. Silas they kicked over what was left
of the stall and retreated, leaving the body sprawled in
the middle of the square as a clear bloody message.
The gutters erupted into an uproar of screams and panic.
The Cold War was over. Orso, who had watched the
entire scene with a calm, clinical detachment. Turned to me.
A thin, satisfied smile touched his scarred lips. The kindling
has caught, he whispered. Now we watch it burn.