Speaker 1: The scum Kings, a broad Sword Studio production created and
written by Mike Daltrey.
Speaker 2: Chapter sixty six a sermon in red. We poured through
the burning, splintered face of the God like a river
of filth. The courtyard was a pig pen of panic.
The guards, the stern guard I spat, were a joke.
They were fumbling with helmets, tripping over the hems of
their own night shirts. Their polished black and gold armor
was for parades, not for a three am brawl with
seven devils. They held their spears like farmers hold rakes,
hold the line. One of them shouted, a man with
a gold plumed helmet. He looked like an officer stigand
a walking wall of soot, blood and burning. Rage just laughed.
He didn't slow down. He hit their line like a
boulder hitting a fence crack. He smashed the officer and
the two men beside him to the ground in a
single fluid motion of his axe. The line didn't just break,
it evaporated. This wasn't a battle, It was a sermon,
and we were preaching with steel gicks was a whirlwind.
He'd lost his bow, so he'd taken to his knives,
he was dancing. I saw him slide under a guard's
clumsy spear thrust, giggling, and come up behind him, planting
both of his jagged blades deep into the man's kidneys.
The guard screamed Gix's laughter. A high, discordant shriek cut
right through it. Or So was the cold, calculating center
of the storm. Dre left two on the stairs. I turned,
catching his spear thrust on my shield, shattered the man's
knee with a kick, and buried my sword in his throat.
Or So was already moving his own blade a flicker,
dispatching the second. He doesn't just kill, he solves a problem.
I looked up. A thwip sounded from the cloisters above.
A guard trying to rally a new group suddenly gurgled
his eyes wide. He looked down at the gray fletched
arrow buried in his throat, and toppled over the balustrade,
landing with a wet crunch on the marble below. Brinn
she'd found her perch. She was the ghost cleaning up
the stragglers. The rest of them broke. They just turned
and ran a full on, panicked rout. They fled from
the courtyard back into the opulent halls of their abbey.
They were leading us right to the heart of it.
Run him down, I roared, tasting the blood in the air.
We chased them through halls that were richer than any
king's palace. The floors were polished marble, slick with our
muddy foot prints and their blood. The walls were covered
in gold leaf mosaics of their stern, joyless God. We
were a pack of wolves in a treasure box. Monks
screamed and ran, their soft, pale bodies, comical in their terror,
stigging just swatted them aside like curtains. We rounded a
corner and I saw a flash of steel. A guard
braver than the others had gotten separated. He had Cob
cornered against a statue of a weeping saint. Cob was pathetic,
holding a pot he'd snatched from a burning kitchen like
a shield, weeping. Please, No, I'm just The guard raised
his spear for the killing thrust. He never made it. Selaine,
she was there. I hadn't even seen her move. She
stepped in front of Cob. The guard shocked, lunged. She
didn't back up, She didn't flinch. She moved like a
vesper and dullist, not a bookkeeper. Her body twisted her dagger,
a thin needlelike thing I'd never seen her draw, flashed up.
She didn't stab his chest. She went under his arm,
deep into the armpit where the armor was thin. It
was a precise, silent, economical blow. The man's eyes went wide,
he dropped his spear, his mouth opening. She pulled her
blade free, let him slump to the marble, and then
calmly wiped the blade on his clean white robe. She
looked at me, her face a mask of cold, precise fury.
Her chest was barely heaving. Cob was blubbering behind her.
She wasn't protecting him. She was protecting her investment. She
was protecting the numbers, the rations, the gold. She was
protecting the order of our chaos. I gave her a
sharp nod, pragmatism. It's a beautiful thing. The last of
the guards fled through a set of massive, twenty foot
tall golden doors at the end of the hall, the
central chapel. Stigan didn't bother with the handle, He just
put his shoulder into it. The doors exploded open. The
place was obscene.
Speaker 3: It was a.
Speaker 2: Cavern of gold and white marble. The ceiling was a
painted dome, and at the far end, on a raised
dais was the last of them. Eight of them, the
real stern Guard. This was the elite. Their armor was
polished black steel, trimmed in gold, gleaming in the light
of a hundred candles. They stood shoulder to shoulder, tower
shields interlocked, spear points bristling. They weren't running, and behind
them his face, a sweating, pale blob of terror, was
a fat high priest in robes of gold thread, clutching
a golden staff. This was their last stand. Stigant, or
so said his voice. Calm the wall break it gicks
and brins. Arrows bounced uselessly off the interlocked shields. This
one was on us, stigand roared. He didn't have a tactic.
He was the tactic. He charged a three hundred pounds
beast of muscle and rage and slammed into the shield wall.
The clang of it was deafening. A shield buckled, A
spear jabbed out, catching stiggand in the side. He grunted,
ignored it, and brought his axe down, cleaving one of
the tower shields. In half the gap. Or So and
I were in it before they could react. This was
a meat grinder. These Stern Guard were good, they were fast,
They knew how to fight, but they never fought us.
They fight for a god, They fight for pay. We
fight for the air we breathe. I buried my sword
in a guard's belly, tore its sideways. Or So ducked
a sword swing, slit the man's throat from behind. Gecks
was under the shields, stabbing at ankles and groins, laughing.
It was a ten second flurry of screams and steel.
It was a butchery. Then silence, save for the huffing
of our breaths. Eight elite guards lay dead or dying
at the foot of their altar. The High Priest was
on his knees. He dropped his staff. He was babbling,
his hands raised backed against the far wall. The wall
was a single, massive, thirty foot high carving of the
Stern visage, cut from solid black stone. You are damned,
You are damned the sea. The sea will send legions.
You will be I was.
Speaker 3: Tired of his voice.
Speaker 2: I stalked forward, my boots echoing on the marble, and
shoved my sword slick and dripping right under his fat,
quivering chin. The point dimpled his skin. Where is it,
I snarled, Where is what?
Speaker 3: The gold? Take it?
Speaker 2: Take the chalices, the icons, the horde, I said, pressing
the point harder, the madman said, behind the face of stone.
The priest's eyes, wide with terror, darted. They flicked from
my face to the massive carved stone wall he was
pressed against. He didn't even need to speak. I looked
at the wall, solid, impassive, a god of stone. I
looked over my shoulder stigand was leaning on his axe,
his chest a heaving wreck. He was bleeding from a
dozen new cuts. He looked like he was about to
fall one more, I said. He looked at the wall,
He looked at his axe. He spat a wad of
blood under the white marble floor, and he nodded. The
scum Kings a.
Speaker 1: Broadsword Studio production created and written by Mike Daltrey, Chapter
sixty seven. The vault beneath the god's face or So
didn't wait for my order. He shoved the blubbering high
priest aside. The man skittering away on the bloody marble
like a crab. He ran his bare bloody hands over
the massive stone visage. The priest was a whimpering, useless
ball by the altar. It's not a a single piece,
or so muttered his fingers, tracing lines. I couldn't see.
The carvers were masters. It's three but the seam. He
pressed on the carved snarling lip.
Speaker 3: Nothing.
Speaker 2: He pressed on the eye, nothing, he said, Key, I growled.
I looked at the priest, who just shook his head.
Snot running from his nose, he said key. Stiggin grunted,
his voice a low rumble. He stepped forward. I've got one.
He jammed the blade of his axe, the axe that
had broken the gate, that had cleaved the shield wall
into the thin hairline crack. Or so had found the
seam where the gods carved cheek met the wall. Or
so stand back. Stiggin put his boot on the wall,
his good shoulder against the axe's halfed. He leaned his muscles,
cabled and straining bunch under his torn mail. The veins
in his neck stood out. The only sound was his
rattling animal grunt, a groan, a sound of stone grinding
on stone, A sound that set my teeth on edge.
It's moving Dick's hissed, his eyes wide, scree each. A
puff of dust, ancient and black, exploded from the seam
stigand roared a final guttural burst of power. The mechanism,
whatever it was, broke. The wall slid. The entire five
ton thirty foot high face of the Gods scraped sideways,
disappearing into a recess in the wall. It revealed a
black square opening a set of stairs, descending into perfect
cold darkness. The air that hit us was a physical thing.
It wasn't the hot, smoky, incense choked air of the chapel.
It was cold, it was still. It smelled of dust,
of time, and of metal gicks. His mind, moving as
fast as his knives, was already at the Grand Candelabra.
He ripped a burning taper from it and lit the torches,
or so it stuffed in our packs. He handed one
to me, or so put a hand on my chest.
Dre traps. Their trap was the wall, I said, shoving
his hand away. They never thought we'd get this far.
They're arrogant. I stepped into the black. I held the
torch high. The rest of them followed a chain of bloody,
exhausted shadows, stiggand his axe now just a heavy piece
of steel. He dragged or so, his blade still out,
his eyes scanning every shadow, brin a ghost at our backs,
and Selaine, her eyes gleaming in the torchlight, her face
a mask of pure, fervent anticipation. Gicks prodded Cob down
the stairs ahead of him.
Speaker 3: We went down.
Speaker 2: The sound of the battle above, the screams, the clang
of the distant alarm bells, it all faded, muffled by
the stone. The only sound was the scrape of our
boots on the bedrock steps. It was silent, a tomb.
The stairs ended a low stone archway. I stepped through,
holding the torch high. The room wasn't a chapel, It
wasn't opulent. It was a vault, a low, rough hewn ceiling,
stone walls. It was a warehouse. My torch light it
didn't just illuminate, it shattered. It was a thousand points
of reflected light, a universe of glittering dead stars. I
stopped my breath, just left. The madman wasn't mad. He
was a liar. He had undersold it. The crew filed
in behind me, their torches joining mine. The room blazed
into view. It wasn't a.
Speaker 3: Horde, It was a treasury.
Speaker 2: Piled in glittering shoulder high heaps were gold ingots, thousands
of them, each one neatly stamped with the sea's sun,
stacked against the far wall like firewood. Beside them, open chests,
dozens of them, overflowing not with silver, but with a
sea of gold coins. And the shelves, the gods, the shelves,
they were groaning with the plunder of a thousand towns,
jeweled icons, solid gold, chalices, platters, and relics, scepters, crowns.
Cob took two steps in his eyes wide and staring
rolled back in his head. He made a small wet
oh sound and just fainted. Collapsed in a heap on
the stone floor, gecks nuts with his boot, nothing stiggant.
He was leaning on the doorframe, his body erec He
stared his axe, the key that had opened the world,
slipped from his numb fingers and clattered to the stone floor.
He didn't seem to notice. A low, awed laugh rumbled
in his chest, A single, disbelieving huh.
Speaker 3: Bring was like a sleepwalker.
Speaker 2: She walked past me, her feral eyes wide, her hand outstretched.
She'd never seen this much of anything in her life.
She reached out and just touched her scarred, dirty fingers
rested on a single, cold, perfect gold ingot. She just
held her hand there, as if feeling its heart beat.
I looked at Gicks. His smile was gone, the manic, cackling,
blood mad smile was just gone. His face was a
mask of raw, pure, terrified hunger. His lips were parted,
his eyes were wide, darting from the piles to the chests, coveting.
It was the most unsettling thing I had ever seen.
And Selaine, she was shaking her whole body. Her hands
were clasped at her chest, trembling violently. Her lips were
moving a silent, frantic whisper. I leaned closer. She wasn't praying,
she wasn't cursing. She was counting ten ingots to a stack.
She whispered, her voice, a reedy, cracked thing. God's fifty
stacks to a pile, twelve thirteen piles, the chests, the solari,
the weight, the weight. She was in a pure religious
ecstasy of arithmetic. I walked past them all I felt
like I was moving under water. I walked into the
center of the room. I was breathing the air of kings,
our one blunt instrument, our rage, our nihilistic faith. We
hadn't snuck, we hadn't planned. We had kicked in the
front door of a god, and we had hammered the
world until it broke open and bled. This I reached down.
I picked up a relic, a small statue of the
stern visage, solid gold. It was heavier than a man's head.
The weight of it, the power of it in my hand.
We were no longer scum. We were kings. I stood there,
blood soaked, battered, victorious in a tomb of gold. The
crew was silent, each lost in their own shock. Cob
was unconscious, Stiggins's quiet laugh had died. Selaine whispered her mouth.
It was a perfect, stunned, victorious silence. And in that
perfect dead quiet I heard it, faint distant from the.
Speaker 3: Valley, far far below.
Speaker 2: Baha ah woom, a single clean horn, note long and low,
a military horn, not a panicked bell. My head snapped up.
Orso's eyes met mine wide with a terrible sudden understanding.
Bahar a woom, another one answering from the east. Bah
wom bah Wom bah Wom.
Speaker 3: A third closer.
Speaker 2: The sea patrol, drawn by the bells, drawn by the
smoke from the burning gate. The army was at the door.
The Scum Kings a broad Sword Studio production created and
written by Mike Daltrey. Chapter one one, The Golden Anchor.
The sound of a military horn is a funny thing.
It's designed to put ice in your veins. It's designed
to make you feel small, to remind you that a
machine is coming to grind you into paste. I stood
in the center of the vault, the torchlight dancing off
a mountain of gold ingots that reached my waist, and
listened to that horn. It should have terrified me. We
were seven exhausted, wounded rats trapped in a hole, and
the cat was scratching at the door. But I didn't
feel fear. I felt the gold. I reached out and
picked up a chalice. It was heavy, studded with rubies
the size of my thumb nail. It felt like an anchor.
It felt like the only real thing in a world
of ghosts. They're coming, orso said his voice. Wasn't panicked.
It was cold, flat, the sound of a man reading
a death sentence. He was standing by the archway, his
sword drawn, looking back up the dark stairs. We'd just descended.
That's a heavy patrol, Dre. Maybe a vanguard. They saw
the fire at the gate. They'll be inside the walls
in ten minutes. Selaine didn't hear him. She was on
her knees in the pile of loose solari scooping handfuls
of coins and letting them cascade through her fingers like water.
Her face was a mask of terrifying religious ecstasy. It's
too much, she whispered, her voice cracking the math, the weight.
We can't. The logistics are impossible. We leave it, or
so snapped, turning to me, Dre, listen to me. We
take a handful each, enough to live, like kings in
the South, and we run. We slip out the back
while they're breaching the front.
Speaker 3: We live.
Speaker 2: It was the smart play, the logical play, the rat play.
I looked at Stiggant, the big Northman was leaning against
a stack of gold bars, his axe dripping blood onto
the pristine floor. He was staring at the wealth with
a glazed, drunken look. He wasn't seeing money, he was
seeing a scoreboard. He was seeing the proof that he
was better than the world that had burned his hands.
I looked at Gicks. He had found a golden crown,
a delicate thing of filigree and pearls, and jammed it
onto his head. He was giggling, looking at his reflection
in a silver platter. We don't run, I said. My
voice sounded strange in the vault, deadened by the acoustics
of the gold. Or So took a step toward me.
Dre use your head. We cannot fight an army. We
cannot carry this. If we stay, we die in this room.
I looked at him. I saw the fear behind his logic.
He was afraid of winning, he was afraid of the weight.
I didn't break down a god's door to steal a
few scraps. I snarled, the rage flaring up, hot and bright.
I kicked a chest of coin, sending gold spilling across
the stone. This is ours, all of it, by right
of conquest, by right of blood. And how do you
propose we move two tons of gold through a mountain
pass with an army on our heels. Or So shouted,
his composure, finally cracking. I didn't answer him with words
I turned to Stigand the wagons, I said. Stiggin blinked,
pulling his eyes away from the gold. The What the
court yard, I said, the plan forming in my mind
like a fist. I saw them by the stables, heavy
transport wagons for hauling grain up the mountain road.
Speaker 3: Or So threw his hands up. Wagons.
Speaker 2: You want to load wagons in the middle of a raid,
It will take an hour. The patrol will be here
in ten minutess then buy me the hour, I ordered.
I walked up to Orso, crowding his space until I
could smell the old blood on his tunic. Take Bryn,
take gicks. Go back up those stairs. Collapse the tunnel
behind you. If you have to hold the courtyard. If
a single sea soldier gets down here before I say so,
I will kill you myself. Or So stared at me.
He looked at the madness in my eyes, and he
looked at the gold behind me. He weighed the odds,
and as always, he chose the path that kept him
alive for five more minutes. He spat on the floor.
Gis Brin move. Then they vanished up the stairs, back
toward the fire and the night. Stiggin I barked Selaine Cob.
Cob was still unconscious on the floor. I grabbed him
by the tunic and hauled him upright. He sputtered, eyes
rolling wild. I slapped him hard. Wake up, cook, I hissed.
You wanted food, you wanted safety. It's heavy. Start carrying it.
We became animals. We didn't treat the gold with reverence anymore.
We treated it like bricks. We stripped off our cloaks
and made sacks. We filled chests, stiggined, ignoring the sword
wound in his shoulder, hoisted a chest that would have
broken a mule's back, and staggered toward the stairs. I
grabbed an armful of ingots, the metal cold and slick
against my skin. I was sweating, panting my muscles, screaming
bah whom. The horn was closer louder I could hear
shouting from above. Now the clash of steel or so
was buying my time with blood. Selaine was weeping as
she worked, shoving jeweled icons into a sack. We can't
take it all, she sobbed. We have to choose. The
silver is heavy. Leave the silver, take the gems, take
it all. I roared, thrown a gold plate onto a pile,
every last ounce. I won't leave a copper filing for
those bastards. We hauled, we sweated, we bled, We dragged
the wealth of an empire up those stairs, back into
the smoke choked chapel, back out into the burning courtyard.
We found the wagons. They were heavy, iron rimmed things.
The horses were panicked, screaming in their stalls. Stiggined, bleeding freely.
Now smashed the stable lock and dragged two terrified dray
horses out, harnessing them with clumsy, brutal efficiency.
Speaker 3: We threw the gold into the wagon beds. It wasn't neat.
Speaker 2: It was a pile of chaos, goblets crushing crowns, ingots,
sliding over loose coins. An arrow whistled past my ear
and thudded into the side of the wagon. I spun around.
Or So was backing into the courtyard, his sword a blur,
parrying a thrust from a sea soldier who had breached
the gate. Gigs was on the roof, dropping stones on
a squad trying to form a shield wall. Dre or
So screamed, we are out of time. I looked at
the wagon. It was full. It was groaning under the weight.
It was a mountain of gold on wheels. I vaulted
into the driver's seat. I grabbed the reins, get and
I bellowed everyone in stiginghauled Selaine and Cob into the
back on top of the gold. Or So and Brin
scrambled onto the running boards. Gigs dropped from the roof,
landing on the pile of loot, the cackle the gate.
The broken face of the stern visage was a wall
of fire. The sea soldiers were pouring through the breach.
I snapped the reins. The horses screamed and lunged. The
wagon groaned, the wheels grinding against the stone. For a
second I thought it was too heavy. I thought my
greed had anchored us to this spot to die. Then slowly, heavily,
it moved. We didn't flee like thieves. We rolled like
a landslide. I steered the horses straight for the burning gate.
We smashed through the wreckage of the timber, sparks showering
over us. We burst out onto the mountain road, the
wagon skidding on the gravel, the weight of the gold
threatening to tip us into the abyss. Behind us, the
abbey burned. The horns were screaming. Now angry, confused, I
looked back. I saw the fire, I saw the gold
shining in the wagon bed. I saw my crew clinging
to the horde like barnacles. We were slow, we were loud.
We were a beacon to every thief, soldier, and killer
for one hundred miles. But we were rich. I threw
my head back and laughed, a sound that got lost
in the wind. We weren't hiding, we weren't sneaking. We
were the scum Kings, and we were taking our kingdom
with us.
Speaker 1: The scum Kings. A broad Sword Studio production, created and
written by my Dull Tree. Chapter two, The Bleeding Trail.
Speaker 2: The wagon didn't roll, it screamed. Every rotation of the
iron rimmed wheels was a shriek of tortured wood and
metal grinding against the loose stone of the mountain road.
The sound echoed off the canyon walls, a deafening announcement
of our presence that traveled for miles in the thin air.
We were slow, painfully, terrifyingly slow. The two dray horses
we'd stolen were strong, but they were pulling the weight
of an Empire. Their flanks were slick with white foam,
their heads bobbing with the strain. We moved at the
pace of a funeral procession, dragging our golden corpse behind us.
Dre Orso walked up beside me, his face pale beneath
the grime. He had to shout over the groaning axles.
We have to lighten the load, the copper the statuary,
dump it over the side. No, I grunted. I was
walking beside the lead horse, my hand resting on the
sweaty leather of the harness. A necessity and rocky terrain
with horses that were already skittish, we are a target, Dre.
We're moving at a crawl. If they catch us on
an incline, then they catch us. I snapped, not looking
at him. We didn't bleed for this, Just to throw
it into a ditch because the horses are tired.
Speaker 3: Climb up there and whip them harder. I looked back
at the wagon.
Speaker 2: Stiggan was perched on top of the pile, his axe
across his knees, looking like a gargoyle on a cathedral
of gold. Gicks was hanging off the back, watching our trail.
His legs swinging idly. Then Bryn appeared. She didn't come
from the road. She dropped from a rocky outcrop above us,
landing lightly in the dust. Her chest was heaving, her
eyes wide and sharp dust. She gasped three miles back
fast riders. The blood went cold in my veins, followed
instantly by a flush of heat. How many, I asked,
twelve light cavalry vanguard. They aren't tracking anymore, they're galloping.
They hear the wagon pod orso spun on me, his
eyes wild with vindication. You hear that the vanguard, the
heavy lancers won't be far behind.
Speaker 3: We have to hide.
Speaker 2: He pointed to a jagged ravine splitting off to the left,
choked with scrub, brush and shadow. We run the wagon
into the cut, we cover it with brush. We take
position on the ridge and ambush them when they pass.
It's the only way. It was a sensible plan, it
was a smart plan. It was the plan of a
man who was used to surviving. I looked at the ravine.
It was a dark, narrow hole, a place for rats
to scurry into when the hawks screamed. Then I looked
at the road. It was wide here, cutting through a
flat shelf of rock before dipping down into the next valley.
It was open, exposed, arrogant. I looked at the wagon,
my gold, my throne, no, I said, or So stared
at me, his mouth falling open.
Speaker 3: Dre Are you mad?
Speaker 2: Twelve riders against seven of us on foot? If we
stand here, if we hide, we tell them we're afraid,
I interrupted, my voice, low and dangerous. If we hide,
we're thieves running with stolen goods. I'm done being a thief.
Or So, I drew my sword. The steel sang in
the cold air. We don't hide, I roared, addressing the crew.
We stop right here, in the middle of the road.
We unhitch the horses. You want to fight them in
the open, Selaine shrieked from the back of the wagon.
I want to invite them to dinner, I snarled. I
pointed to the wagon. That isn't a burden, it's bait.
They're chasing a panic. Let's show them a wall. We
worked fast. We unhitched the dray horses and slapped their rumps,
sending them trotting off into the scrub. We turned the
wagon sideways, blocking half the road. It looked like a breakdown,
a disaster, a prize waiting to be claimed. Stiggined, I said,
under the tarp with the gold. The big Northman grinned
his teeth red with wine stains. He slipped under the
heavy canvas covering the hoard, disappearing into the mound of treasure.
Brin gicks under the wheels. Make yourselves small. Slaine crouched
behind the wagon, ready to leap into the action, while
Cob crouched beside her, ready to flee or beg for
his life. I stood in the middle of the road,
directly in front of the wagon. I leaned on my sword, casual,
like a man waiting for a friend, or so, cursing
under his breath, took his place beside me. He hated it,
but he stood. Ten minutes later the thunder came. They
rounded the bend in a cloud of dust and gravel,
twelve of them sea out riders. They wore light chain
mail and yellow taverns, their horses sleeking fast. They saw
the wagon, They saw the two men standing alone in
the road. They didn't slow down, they didn't scout, they
didn't form a tactical line. They saw prey. They saw
a broken down cart and two fools, and they spurred
their horses, leveling their spears, screaming their war cries. They
thought we were terrified, They thought we were panicked.
Speaker 3: They were wrong.
Speaker 2: They closed the distance two hundred yards one hundred fifty.
I could see the whites of their eyes. I could
see the on their faces. Now I roared. The canvas
on the wagon exploded upward. Stiggin rose from the gold
like a demon from hell. He didn't just stand, he
roared a sound that shook the stones. He had a
heavy gold chalice in one hand and his axe in
the other. He hurled the chalice. It caught the lead
rider square in the face with a wet crunch, knocking
him backward out of the saddle. At the same instant,
Dicks and Bryn rolled out from under the wagon. Thwip, thwip.
Two arrows loosed at point blank range. Two horses went down, screaming,
tumbling into the dirt and creating a wall of thrashing
limbs and metal. The charge shattered. The riders behind slammed
into the fallen, their momentum turning against them. Chaos swallowed them,
and then we fed. I stepped forward, ducking under a
wild spear thrust. I hamstrung the horse as it passed,
and as the right fell, I finished him before he
hit the ground. Or So was a surgeon, stepping into
the mess, his blade, finding the gaps in their armor
with cold precision. But it was Stigand who owned the day.
He leaped from the wagon bed onto a mounted soldier,
tackling him off the horse. He didn't use his axe,
He used his head, his fists, his teeth. He was
a force of nature, a landslide of violence that could
not be stopped. It wasn't a battle, It was blood
and chaos. The surviving horses bolted. The surviving men there
were none. We cut them down in the dust, the
gold in the wagon rattling with the vibrations of the fight.
When the dust settled, twelve bodies lay twisted on the road.
The silence returned, heavy and sweet. I wiped my blade
on the tavern of a dead man. I looked at Orso.
He was breathing hard, a splash of blood across his
scarred cheek. He looked at the carnage, then me. He
didn't say I was right. He didn't have to strip them.
I ordered weapons, food, boots, and the bodies, Seline asked,
her voice trembling slightly as she peered over the edge
of the wagon. Do we hide them, drag them to
the ravine. I looked at the bloody mess we had made.
I looked at the road stretching out behind us, back
toward the abbey.
Speaker 3: No, I said.
Speaker 2: I grabbed the nearest corpse by the ankle. Stack them,
I commanded, in the middle of the road. Make a wall.
Stick their spears in the ground, points up. Why, Bryn asked,
pulling an arrow from a dead horse. I looked her
in the eye. Because the heavy lancers are coming, I said,
a cold smile spreading across my face. And when they
get here, I don't want them to think we're running.
I want them to know exactly what is waiting for them.
We built our monument of meat and iron on the road,
a warning the dare. We rehitched the horses, The wagon groaned,
and we rolled on. We weren't fleeing anymore. We were invading.
Speaker 3: The scum.
Speaker 1: Kings a Broadsword Studio production created and written by Mike Daltrey.
Speaker 2: Chapter three, The Paranoia of Kings. The Gray Tangle didn't
welcome us back. It spat in our face and kicked
us in the balls. We rolled the wagon off the
exposed flint of the high road and into the suffocating
embrace of the ancient forest. The canopy knitted together overhead,
a ceiling of gnarled branches and gray leaves that blotted
out the sky. It was good cover. The heavy lancers
of the sea wouldn't find us easily in this gloom.
The hawks couldn't spot the glint of gold through the
weave of dead wood. But safety has a price. The
world shrank down to the size of the wagon and
the ten feet of mud surrounding it. The air grew
still and stale, smelling of rot and wet earth, and
in that confined, crushing silence, the gold began to speak.
It didn't whisper promises of comfort anymore. It whispered threats.
I walked at the head of the team, my hand
resting on the hilt of my sword, listening to the
wagon grown behind me. It wasn't just the axels complaining.
It was the crew, the camaraderie of the raid, the
shared adrenaline of the butchery on the road. It had curdled.
The gold was no longer a prize we shared. It
was a thing that possessed us. I looked back. Stiggin
sat atop the canvas covered mound, a mountain of filth
and dried blood. He hadn't slept in thirty hours. His
eyes were red rimmed, holes burned into his soot stained face.
He held his axe across his lap, his knuckles white,
his head snapping left and right at every snapping twig
bear around him smelled sweetened foul. The sword wound in
his shoulder, stiggand Brinn said. Walking alongside the wheel, she
reached up, a clean rag in her hand. The dressing
needs changing. I can smell the rot from here. Stigan
didn't look at her. He didn't look at his wound.
He swung the haft of his axe around, cracking it
against Bryn's wrist. Not a playful tap, a warning. Touch
me again, girl, and you lose the hand, he growled.
It wasn't the voice of a man, It was the
growl of a dog guarding a bone. Brin hissed, clutching
her wrist and fell back, her eyes narrowing. She wasn't afraid,
but she was calculating stigand wasn't guarding us. He wasn't
guarding the perimeter. He was guarding the pile. He had
convinced himself that if he closed his eyes, or if
he let Bryn tend to him, the gold would vanish.
He was rotting alive to keep his seat on the throne.
I didn't intervene. A paranoid guard is a good guard,
even if he smells like death. I looked to the
rear of the wagon. GX was sitting on the tailgate,
his legs dangling. He had rated one of the chests
on his head, sitting askew over his matted, greasy hair,
like the one he had worn in the abbey.
Speaker 3: Was a crown.
Speaker 2: It was a delicate thing, spun gold and sapphires, made
for a princess or a fet bishop. On gis it
looked like a joke told in a graveyard. He held
a silver communion platter in his lap, staring intently at
his own distorted reflection. Yes, your grace, he whispered, giggling softly.
Of course, your grace. The peasants are revolting, well, they've
always been revolting. Flay them, Oh, wonderful idea. He tilted
his head, watching the sapphires catch the dim light. He
wasn't guarding the gold, he was consumed by it. He
had looked into the shiny metal and seen a version
of himself that was royalty, and the real world was
rapidly becoming a boring distraction. We made camp in a
hollow beneath the roots of a massive, dead ironwood tree.
We didn't light a fire. The darkness was absolute. Sat
with my back against the wheel, spoke feigning sleep. My
eyes slid open. I watched them, the scum kings, my
cord of madness. Stiggan was propped up against the gold,
axe in hand, eyes wide and unblinking, fighting exhaustion like
it was a physical enemy. Digs was polishing his crown
in the dark. Or So and Selaine were huddled apart, whispering,
likely plotting how to spend money they hadn't secured yet.
Speaker 3: Then there was cob. He was moving.
Speaker 2: He was trying to be quiet, but he had the
stealth of a cow. He crept toward the back of
the wagon, near the tailgate where the canvas was loose.
He looked around, his eyes darting, terrified. He thought he
was invisible. I watched as he reached into a gap
in the canvas. He fumbled for a moment, then pulled
his hand back a fistful of uncut emeralds and rubies
stolen from a reliquary. He sat down, quickly pulled off
his left boot and shoved the stones inside. He was
hedging his bets. He was stealing from the horde in
the old days, two days ago, I would have broken
his fingers. I would have made an example of him.
Theft from the crew is death. That is the law
of the gutter. Stood up, my boots, crunched softly on
the dead leaves.
Speaker 3: Top froze.
Speaker 2: He looked up, one boot still off, his face a
mask of pure terror. He saw me towering over him
in the gloom. He started to shake. He knew what
was coming. He waited for the fist, He waited for
the blade dray, He squeaked. I my foot. I just
looked down at him. I looked at the boot bulging
with sharp stones that would cut his foot to ribbons
if he walked a mile. I looked at stiggand rotting
on his perch. I looked at gicks lost in his reflection.
They were terrified, terrified because they didn't believe they treated
the gold like it was a dream that would wake
up at any moment. They were grabbing handfuls of sand
before the tide came in. They were stealing scraps because
they couldn't conceive of owning the feast. I didn't hit him,
I laughed. It was a low, dry sound that seemed
to startle the darkness. Cob flinched as if I had
struck him. Put your boot on, Cob, I said, my
voice quiet, amused. He stared at me, trembling. You you
aren't put it on. I said, walk on them, feel
them cut you with every step. Let them remind you
of how small you are. I turned away from him,
looking at the wagon, at the mountain of wealth we
had dragged into the dark. You steal because you're afraid
it's going to disappear, I said, loud enough for Stigging
to hear, loud enough for or So to stop whispering.
You think this is the end, You think this is
the getaway. I leaned in close to Cob, grinning in
the shadows. You're hiding pebbles in your shoe because you
think you're a thief running away with a prize. I
straightened up, resting my hand on the cold iron of
the wagon wheel. I'm not hiding anything because I'm not
a thief anymore. I'm a king moving his treasury. I
walked back to my spot at the head of the
wagon and sat down.
Speaker 3: Sleep.
Speaker 2: Cob, you'll need the energy to limp tomorrow on your pebbles.
I closed my eyes, listening to the forest breathe. Let
them be paranoid, let them go mad with fear and greed,
let them doubt. I didn't need to hide gems in
my boot. I owned the wagon, and I was the
only one strong enough to drive it.