Introducing The Scum Kings

Hello Thieves, gild fans, Our friends at Signal Box Studio reached out to us and said that they were launching a daily grim dark fantasy podcast, and we loved it so much we agreed to showcase it as a special episode. Meet the scum Kings, a dysfunctional band of bottom feeding marauders led by the ruthless Drey. They are not clever masterminds or noble rebels. They are a pack of beaten dogs, driven by hunger and greed, whose every attempt at villany seems to end in fresh wounds and humiliating failure. They are the fever in a sick world, a symptom of the rot. The scum Kings is a daily short form serial grim dark fantasy audio drama told from the perspective of their captain. Each ten to fifteen minute episode is a ground level chronicle of survival, following the crew through their desperate heists, ugly victories, and insane gambols. Check out the description for links to subscribe or for more information, but for now, let's immerse ourselves in the Scum. The scum Kings created and written by Mike Daltrey, a Signal Box Studio production. Episode one Retreat. The forest floor is a tangle of thorns and grasping roots, and it's trying to swallow us whole. Every step is a fight. Branches whip in my face, leaving stinging cuts that I barely feel. The only thing I feel is the hot, coiling rage in my gut. It's a familiar friend. Faster. My voice is a raw bark lost in the blackness between the skelet old trees. You want their dogs to run you down? Move behind me. I hear the grunts and curses of my men, my so called kings of the gutter. We're just slugs right now, crawling through the mud with our tails between our legs. Steigan is the loudest, of course, he is the big Northman is leaning heavily on Orso, his massive frame, a dead weight, A crossbow bolt, short and ugly, is still lodged in the thick muscle of his shoulder. Cowards, he roars, his voice, thick with pain and fury. Fucking arches in the dark. Let me face them, let me split one skull. Or so just grunts with the effort of holding him up, his face a mask of cold concentration. Save your breath, stiggined, you'll need it to bleed. His voice is as sharp and practical as the dagger he favors. He's already moved past the rage and is on to the grim math of survival. I see it in the way his eyes dart around, not looking for enemies, but for a path, an advantage, any small thing to salvage from this disaster. We were supposed to be rich. The plan was simple, a merchant caravan, fat with goods from the coast, moving slow on a forgotten road and easy plucking. But the merchants had hired professionals, hard faced men who didn't flinch. They had crossbows and discipline, and they met our wild charge with a wall of quiet, efficient death. We broke against them like a wave on rocks. Two of my men are now just carrying on that road, And for what a sob cuts through the night. It's Cob, of course, the fat cook is stumbling behind us, his face slick with tears and snot. They're gonna kill us, all, Oh gods, we're all gonna die out here. Shut your mouth, Cob, or I'll shut it for you, I snarl over my shoulder. Fear is a disease. If I let it fester, it'll kill us faster than any crossbow bolt. Gix shoves the cook forward, a wide, unsettling grin plastered on his painted face. In one hand, he's dragging our only prize from this whole debacle, a single scrawny caravan guard we manage to snatch. In the chaos, the prisoner stumbles along a rope around his neck, his eyes wide with terror. Gix finds the whole thing hilarious. Don't worry, cook, Gix cackles, his voice, a dry rasp. If they catch us, I'll give you to them first, A nice plump distraction. He yanks the prisoner's rope, making the poor bastard gasp and trip chaos. Gix lives for it. From the trees ahead, a shadow detaches itself from the deeper gloom brin. She moves without a sound, a phantom in the woods. Her green eyes glitter in the sliver of moonlight. She gives a short, sharp jerk of her head. Clear for now, she clips her voice. Like stones grinding together, they stop following a mile back. They're not coming into the tangle at night. Not this deep relief washes over the man, a palpable wave of sagging shoulders and ragged breaths. Not me. They stopped because they know we're no longer a threat. We're just wounded animals, bleeding into the darkness. We're not worth the effort. That stings worse than a clean defeat. Find us a place. I order her, something we can hold with cover. She just nods and melts back into the trees. She's the rest of us are just trespassers. We follow a miserable procession of failures. Steigan's groans, COB's whimpers, gicks is quiet, unnerving chuckles as he torments our prisoner. It's the music of my kingdom. An hour later, Brin leads us to a shallow hollow, a sort of natural ditch, carved out by ancient water and choked with the gnarled roots of a dead ironwood tree. It's not a fortress, but it's defensible. The thorns and rock falls on the approach will slow anyone down and make them noisy. It'll have to do here, I grunt, shrugging off my pack. No fire, not a spark. Drink what you have double the watch The men collapse, groaning, Stigan slumps against the roots, his face pale and slick with sweat. Bryn is immediately at his side, her knife out, not to threaten, but to work with a brutal efficiency that makes my teeth ache. She slices the cloth around his wound. Stigan bites back a roar of agony, his knuckles white where he grips a root or so, watches his face grim that bolt needs to come out. Brynn glances up, her expression feral, I know hold him. I turn away. I don't need to see it. I can hear it. The thick, wet sound of the bolt being worked free Stigan's strangled gasp, and then a low hiss of pain. I find a spot on the edge of the hollow, my back against the cold earth, and watch my broken crew. Gix has tied the prisoner to a tree and is now quietly sharpening one of his jagged blades, humming a tune that sounds like a dirge. Cob is curled into a ball, trying to disappear. Silange, the keeper of Coin, is sitting apart from the others, her ledger already open on her lap, though there's barely enough light to see She's always counting, always assessing. I run a hand over my face, the stubble scratching my palm. I can still see it, the way our charge broke, the disciplined line of guards, the glint of moonlight on crossbow heads, My plan, my failure, My rage had cooled, leaving behind something harder and colder, a stone of pure black fury in my gut. A few minutes pass in near silence, broken only by stiggins pained breathing, and then foot steps in the dirt sea lane stops in front of me, her form a slim silhouette against the slightly less black sky. She doesn't need much light to deliver bad news. She crouches down, her voice a low, clinical whisper, devoid of panic or accusation. It's worse that way. It's just the truth. Two men dead. She begins, not looking at me, but at the numbers. Only she can see that's Joik and Finn. We used a quarter of our remaining arrows. Brynn is down to her last dozen bodkins. The medical kit is nearly empty now just for stigging. We have two days of water, maybe three if we don't wash. She finally looks at me, her gray eyes as cold and hard as iron slags. Dre she says, and the word hangs in the air between us. Before the attack, we were poor, we were desperate, but we were whole. She pauses, letting the weight of it settle in the dark. Now we are poor, we are more desperate. We have one useless captive, and we are bleeding men in resources into the dirt. We have gained nothing, we have lost ground. I don't say anything, and Selaine shakes her head and walks away. There is nothing to say. Signal box