The Scum Kings: Vol. 10 [Uncut] - Chapters 46-50

The Scum Kings, a Broadsword Studio production created and written by Mike Daltrey. Episode forty six, Escape from Graymark. The horns of the city Guard were the sound of the world ending through the roar of the inferno we had created. They came not a disorganized mob, but disciplined squads of men in steel and leather. Their shields locked, their spears a hedge of glittering death. They moved through the fire and smoked like a single iron scaled beast, and their orders were simple. They were not making arrests. They were cleansing the gutters. Any man with. A weapon in his hand was to be put down. We were no longer conquerors. We were not even gang members. We were just more fuel for the fire, hunted rats in a burning maze of our own design. Scatter, I roared, my voice raw from the smoke to the river go in the chaos. We were broken apart. I had Orso and Slaine with me, and we plunged into a side alley, the screams of the dying echoing behind us. We saw a squad of guardsmen corner a group of red Hand thugs and execute them with a cold brutal efficiency that made our own violence look like a child's tantrum. This was a different kind of enemy, an enemy we could not beat, We could only run. It was a nightmare of running through smoke choked alleys, of dodging collapsing, flame eaten buildings. We found Bryn first. She was a ghost in the inferno, using the chaos to her advantage, and she guided us through a series of twisting paths I never knew existed. A roar of defiance led us to Stiggant. He was a berserker, a glorious, suicidal whirlwind of muscle and rage, holding off four guardsmen at once in the middle of a burning street. It was a magnificent sight. It was also the end of him if he stayed stiggand I bellowed over the flames, to me, that's an order. He turned his face, a mask of blood and joyous fury, and for a second I thought he would refuse. Then his loyalty went out. He broke a guardsman's shield with a final mighty blow and charged after us. The surviving soldiers wisely letting the madman go. We found Gicks on a rooftop, perched like a gargoyle throwing burning brands down onto a squad below. His laughter a high, unhinged counterpoint to the screams. He was not trying to escape, He was redecorating hell. It took a direct command and the promise of more amusing chaos elsewhere to get him to move. We gathered the last of us a terrified, weeping cob, and with Brin leading the way, we found our desperate path out, a storm drain that emptied into the river, a filthy tube of salvation that smelled of piss and death. We emerged on the far side of the river, crawling from the water like half drowned rats, and we didn't stop running until we had put a mile of dark wilderness between us and the city. We stood on a cold, silent hill, the seven of us that were left. We had come to the city with silver in our pockets and dreams of conquest in our heads. We left with nothing but the clothes on our backs, the blood on our hands, and the stench of our own failure. We were battered, empty handed, and now likely wanted as mass murderers and arsonists. In the distance, the city of Greymark was a wound on the horizon, the gutters a brilliant, terrible glow against the night sky. We had lit a spark to start a war, and in the end the only thing we had managed to burn to the ground was ourselves. The scum Kings a Broadsword Studio production created and written by Mike Daltrey. Episode forty seven, The ash Stained Dawn. We didn't stop running until the flames were just a bitter orange memory, and our lungs were raw from smoke oak. We crawled from the filthy river, seven half drowned rats, and collapsed on a cold, silent hill. The wilderness we had tried to escape now our only sanctuary. The adrenaline was gone. It had burned away with the city, leaving behind a cold, deep and throbbing pain. The night was still. The only sounds were the drip of river water from our clothes and the quiet, ragged gasps of our own breathing. We were alive, but we had nothing else, no silver, no food, two men dead, and a city of soldiers and bounty hunters who would be hunting us by sunrise. I looked at my hands. They were slick with a mixture of mud, river water, and another man's blood. My victory over Silas felt like a lifetime ago. It was a hollow, worthless thing. I looked at Stigant. The big Northman was sitting apart, his back to us, staring at his own hands. They were covered in angry, weeping burns, the skin raw and peeling from where he had hurled the lantern. He was silent his rage. The thing that had cost us everything had finally burned itself out, leaving only the quiet pain. And then there was Cob. He was weeping, but it wasn't his usual pathetic sniveling. This was a different sound, a low, hopeless, gulping sob that came from the very bottom of his soul. It was the sound of a man who had truly finally broken. I can't, he whispered, his voice trembling. I can't do this anymore. Shut your mouth, Cob, I grunted, my voice hoarse. I didn't have the strength for his whining. No, his voice rose as he scrambled to his feet. I won't. I'm done. I'm not like you. I'm not a killer. I'm just a cook. I just want to be warm. I'm leaving. I'll take my chances. I'll go to a village. I'll I'll turn myself in. I don't care. It's better than this. He was going to leave us, leave us with one less king among the scum. My first thought was practical, who will cook? My second thought was a spike of pure cold fury. A rat leaving the ship a sign of weakness, an infection that would spread. If he could walk away, then the pack was broken. Then or So could leave. Then Bryn. Then the scum kings were just a bad memory. It was a catastrophic failure of my leadership, and I would not allow it. I was on my feet before he had taken two steps. I grabbed him by the front of his tunic and slammed him back against the trunk of a dead tree. You're leaving, I hissed, my face inches from his where. Back to the gutters. They'll hang you as one of us, to a village. They'll turn you over to the watch for a single copper coin. You are marked, you fool, We are all marked. I tightened my grip, my knuckles digging into his collar bone. You don't leave because you're tired. You don't leave because you're scared. You leave when I say you can leave, you die. When I say you can die, you are mine. I threw him to the ground, and he collapsed in a weeping heap, the fight gone from him. The challenge was over, but the rot was still there. I could feel it in the silence of the others. The long, miserable weight for dawn ended. The first gray light of morning crept over the horizon, revealing a greasy, black pillar of smoke in the distance, the grave of our ambition still smoldering. The full weight of our failure settled on us. I looked at the six broken figures, My kingdom of ashes, get up, snarled my voice a rasp. Or so looked at me, his face a mask of grime. Where are we going, dre away from here? I said, just away. I forced them to their feet, and we began to march, our backs to the burning city, with no destination, no food, and no hope. The Scum Kings a Broadsword Studio production created and written by Mike Daltrey. Episode forty eight, The Barren Land. The fire was a three day old memory, but the hunger was a fresh howling wolf. We had been walking for days, pushing west from Graymark into the barren rocky hills that formed the footstools of the stone fence mountains. This was not the tangle. This was a graveyard of flint and dead scrub. The wind was the only living thing, a cold, constant razor that sliced through our rags and left a shivering There was no game, There was no water, there was no cover. We were just seven ghosts wandering aimlessly through our own purgatory. On the fourth morning, the march stalled. Cobs stumbled and fell, and this time he didn't get up. Stigan just leaned on his axe, his burnt hands wrapped in dirty cloth, is breathing heavy. The rest of the crew just stopped, a silent, shuffling procession of my own failures. Cobb's mutiny from the first night was no longer a threat. It was a shared, unspoken fact. They were done. I had to give them something. A leader, even a failed one, has to point the way. Look, I said, my voice, a dry rasp. I pointed to a high rocky pass miles ahead of us. Over that ridge. The land will change, it has to. There'll be trees, water. I can smell it. It was a lie. I smelt nothing but dust and our own despair. They looked at me, their eyes as dead as the land around us. They didn't believe me, not really, But the lie was better than the truth, which was that we were walking in circles until we died. I turned to our only real hope, Bryn. She met my gaze, her own full of a cold, feral frustration. She hated this land more than any of us. It was a place where her skills were useless. Go I ordered Scout ahead to that ridge, find us something, water, a rabbit. Anything. She did nod. She just turned and vanished into the rocks, a faster, quieter ghost than the rest of us. The rest of the day was the weight. It was not a passive thing. It was a form of torture. I had sold them a scrap of hope, and now we had to sit in our fireless, miserable camp and see if it was as worthless as everything else. We huddled behind a few boulders, out of the worst of the wind. No one spoke. The tension was a living thing. An eighth member of the crew, or so, sat apart, sharpening his dagger against a piece of flint, his movement slow and methodical. He was already planning for the inevitable failure, his cold logical mind accepting a truth the rest of us couldn't. Stigan just sat with his head in his hands, staring at his bandaged, weeping burns. It was a broken giant, haunted by the fire he had lit. Every hour that passed, the hope I had sold them got thinner. Every gust of wind sounded like a hollow laugh. My entire leadership, what little remained of it, was staked on what Brynn found over that ridge. The sun began to dip, painting the gray rocks in shades of blood and purple. The air grew colder, the hope was gone, replaced by the grim, cold certainty of another hungry night. Then a shadow detached itself from the gloom. Bryn. She walked back into our camp, her movements heavy with an exhaustion I had never seen in her before. Her shoulders were slumped, her hands were empty. She stopped in front of me, her green eyes blazing with a cold, desperate fury. She had failed, and she hated it. She hated the land for making her fail, and she hated me for asking her to try. She opened her hand and threw a small pathetic cluster of gnarled, bitter looking roots at my feet. The land is dead, she snarled, her voice a low, vicious rasp. There is nothing The scum Kings a Broadsword Studio production created and written by Mike Dalton Tree, Episode forty nine, The Blame Game. The words hit the small cold camp like a hammer blow. The land is dead. Bryn's words, a final, bitter snarl of defeat, extinguished that the last tiny ember of hope I had been peddling. The lie I had told of water and game over. The ridge was now exposed, leaving me a fool and the crew with nothing. We sat there in the deepening twilight, a collection of failures, huddled among the gray rocks. The silence that followed was worse than the wind. It was the sound of seven kings giving up their pathetic crowns. It was Stigand who finally broke it. He was on his feet, his massive frame shaking, but not from the cold. He was a. Volcano of quiet, simmering rage that had finally found its moment to erupt. He wasn't looking at Brynn. He was staring at Orso, who sat calmly inspecting the edge of his dagger. You, Stigand growled his voice, a low, gravelly thing that promised murder. Or So didn't look up me. This all of this, Stiggins's arm, his hands still wrapped in dirty, weeping bandages, swept out to indicate the barren hills, our starving crew, the whole of our pathetic failure. This is your doing. Or So finally raised his head, his scarred face impassive in the gloom. I'm listening your clever plan. Stiggins spat the word like it was a curse. Your whispers. We make them fight each other. You said we burned the latter. You said we're not kings, We're just rats in a ditch, and you let us here. He took a heavy, menacing step toward Orso. My way, my way is simple, I fight, I take we would have died like men, or we would have been rich. But this, that, this slow, smart death, this is your gift to us. The accusation hung in the cold air, thick and undeniable. Or So stood up slowly and deliberately. He was a head shorter than Stiggand and half his weight, but he didn't flinch. He met the big Northman's gaze with a cold, dead certainty that was more dangerous than any berserker's rage. My plan worked, or So said, his voice a sharp cutting blade. We won. We beat their enforcers, we killed their king, and we had our hands on his entire treasury. My plan accounted for everything. He paused, and his eyes flickered down to Stiggins's burned, bandaged hands, everything, or So repeated, his voice dropping to a hiss, except your colossal animal stupidity. My plan was to take his throne. You were the one who had to burn the whole kingdom down around us. The truth of it, so cold and so precise, was more than Stigand could bear. It was a truth he could not argue with, only destroy. With a roar that was more beast than man, Stiggan drew his axe. I'll kill you for that, you scarred faced snake. In the same instant, Orso's dagger was in his hand. He didn't raise it in a challenge. He held it low, like a surgeon, ready to gut the giant. The moment he stepped close try the crew was on its feet. The fragile pack instantly split in two. I saw Sileain and Cob take a half step back, their lot. Cast with Orso's cold logic, Brenn and Gix stood apart, their eyes wild, drawn to the promise of violence, like moths to a flame the scum King's. My entire world was about to tear itself apart over a truth couldn't swallow. I was done. My leadership was a joke, My authority was ash. But I would not let this be the end. I drew my own sword. The sound of steel and leather screaming in the quiet, I stepped between them, the tip of my blade level, unwavering. The next man who moves, I snarled, my voice raw, with a fury that matched both of theirs dies. The scum Kings, a Broadsword Studio production, created an written by Mike Daltrey, episode fifty, The March to Nowhere. The blade went back into my sheath. It was not a victory. It was a pause. Stigand and Orso stood apart, chests heaving, their eyes still locked on each other with a pure, murderous hatred. The rest of us stood in the cold, gray twilight, a circle of seven broken warriors. The fragile bonds that held us together now permanently severed stigand his face a mask of rage. Finally spat a thick glob of bloody saliva at Orso's feet before turning his back. Or So, cold and impassive as ever, simply bent down and began to methodically clean his dagger on his boot, as if the entire confrontation had been nothing more than an inconvenient interruption. The silence that fell was worse than the argument. It was the silence of a grave. I looked at their faces, Selaine staring into the middle distance, her entire purpose gone with our silver Bryn, a shadow already detached from us, her eyes scanning the horizon for an escape route. I knew she was considering GX for the first time, looked bored, his manic energy extinguished by the sheer, grinding, hopelessness of our situation. Cob a weeping, shivering mound on the rocks. I knew, with a certainty that was as cold and hard as the flint beneath my feet, that if I let them sit here, if I let them make a fire and stew in their own poisons, I would wake up in the morning to find either or So or Stiggin dead, and the crew dissolved, or I wouldn't wake up at all. There was only one thing I had left, one last blunt instrument of leadership. Get up, I snarled. No one moved. Stiggin didn't even turn around, or so continued to wipe his blade. I said, get up, I roared, kicking Stiggins's boot hard enough to make him stumble. We're moving. Stiggin turned on me, his eyes blazing. Moving where dre to another patch of nothing, to die on our feet instead of on our arses. There is nothing out there. We're moving west, I said my voice, a low, hard command, away from Graymark's patrols. Now, it wasn't a plan. It was just motion away, to keep the blood flowing, to keep their hands busy with walking instead of finding each other's throats. They obeyed, not out of loyalty, not out of hope. They obeyed out of a deep, weary habit, and because the act of marching, however pointless, was marginally better than the suffocate tension of the camp. And so the grim, silent slog began. I led them into the barren rocky Hills, a king of ashes leading an army of ghosts. The sun rose a pale, watery eye in a gray sky, and it brought no warmth. There was no sound but the crunch of seven pairs of boots on the gravel, and the incessant cold wind that tore at our rags. This was the lowest I had ever been. My leadership was a lie. I was not a king. I was not a leader. I was just a man with a sword who was slightly more afraid of stopping than he was of moving forward. I had no grand strategy. I had no riches to promise them, no food to give them, no hope to offer. All I had was my own unyielding, ferocious will, my own animal refusal to lie down and die in this ditch, and I would drag them all with me, whether they liked it or not. I watched them as we walked, a tattered, silent procession of my own failures. Stiggin was a wounded beast. He walked with his head down, his steps heavy and uneven. His burnt hands were wrapped in scraps of cloth, and I could see the dark, wet patches where the wounds were festering. The fire in his eyes was gone, replaced by a dull, hateful resentment. He blamed Orso, but I knew, in that quiet, broken part of him, he blamed himself, and he blamed me for not letting him find his honor in a final, bloody death. Or So walked apart from us, his pace quick and precise. He was in his own world, his eyes constantly scanning, his mind, calculating. He was not my man anymore. He was not part of this pack. He was just a man of cold, hard logic, and logic told him to keep moving. He was a coiled spring, and I knew he was just waiting, waiting for me to fai again, finally and completely, so his own path would be clear. Brynn was a phantom, scouting ahead, not because I told her to, but because it was the only thing she knew how to do. She moved from rock to rock, a shadow of the hunter she had been in the tangle, But this land was dead and she knew it. She was still performing her duty, but it was a mechanical act, a pantomime of a purpose that no longer existed. Selaine, she was a ghost. Her entire purpose had been the ledger, the coin, the plan. Now there was no coin and no plan. She was just a woman in the wilderness, her intellect a useless weapon in a war against starvation. She walked with her eyes on the ground, just another body I was forcing onward. Even Gis was broken, the chaos was gone, the laughter was gone. Dix thrived on the spark of madness, on the edge of violence. But this, this was not chaos. This was despair. This was a slow, grinding, gray emptiness, and it bored him to his soul. And then there was Cob, the physical manifestation of all our misery. He wept as he walked, his sobs a quiet, constant counterpoint to the howling of the wind. He stumbled, he whimpered, he was awaight. We all had to drag the raw, bleeding nerve of our shared defeat. All day we marched, We crossed one barren ridge, only to be met by another. The lie I had told them that the land would change was proven false. With every step, the sun began to dip toward the jagged black line of the mountains, and the air grew colder. And then it happened. The thing I had been dreading, the march stopped. I heard a thud, a clatter of a dropped cook pot I turned. Cob was on the ground. He hadn't just stumbled, he had collapsed. He was on his knees and hands in the gravel, his whole body shaking with a despair so profound it was a physical sickness. The crew ground to a halt. This was it, the moment I had been trying to outrun all day, the physical act of stopping. Cob was sobbing, his voice small and broken. No more, I can't, I can't get up, Cob, I said, my voice flat. No. He wept. He looked up at me, his face a mess of tears and dirt. Just leave me, please, I'd rather the wolves have me. I'm done. He collapsed on to his side, curling into a ball. There's no point, he whispered. And there it was the truth, the poison that I had been fighting all day. Now given a voice. The crew didn't move, They didn't urge him on. They just stopped. They looked at Cob, and in him they saw their own hopelessness. Stigan leaned on his axe, his face empty or so, just watched me, his face a cold, unreadable mask, his eyes asking and now, king, what is your next great plan? My authority? My will, my entire leadership. It had all run out. I had nothing left to say.