A Hollow Victory

The lone traveler is not a rich merchant, but a simple, elderly pilgrim. When the ambush is sprung, the old man fights back with surprising skill and a strange, weary sadness, showing no fear of his attackers. The fight becomes a cruel game until Dray steps in to end it with a single, brutal blow. But as the crew stands over the body in the dying light, the silence is deafening. For the first time, a victory feels entirely hollow.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
The scum Kings created and written by Mike Daltrey, Episode fifteen,
A hollow victory. The black speck on the horizon resolved itself, slowly, painfully.

(00:26):
The fading sun was in our eyes, and for long
minutes the figure was just a dark shape moving through
a sea of shimmering heat. Hope and hunger made us
imagine a fat merchant, a knight on a fine horse,
a wagon full of goods. As it drew closer, the
fantasy evaporated, leaving a bitter residue of disappointment.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
It was an old man, that was all. He wore
the simple, dusty robes of a pilgrim, and leaned heavily
on a thick wooden walking staff. He moved with a slow,
steady rhythm, not of a man in a hurry, but
of a man who has been walking for a very
long time. There was a strange peace about him, a

(01:12):
serenity that seemed utterly out of place in this desolate landscape.
I heard a low groan of frustration from stigand Gecks
chuckled softly, a dry, predatory sound. Not a night or,
so stated his voice.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
Flat.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Not a merchant, no, I said, watching the old man's
steady approach. But he's here. He was our only prospect,
our only chance. After days of marching and a full
day of starving in the sun. We were not going
to let him pass. It didn't matter who he was.
He was prey and we were the wolves. He reached

(01:50):
the felled tree that blocked the road and stopped surveying
it with an untroubled gaze. I gave the signal from
the rocks, and the scrub roses won a sudden, silent
irruption of dirty, desperate men. Stiggined in Gis on the
road before him, or So and Slaine to his flank,
bre in a silent shadow on the rocks above. I

(02:13):
stepped out behind him, cutting off his retreat. We had
him surrounded. The pilgrim did not startle, he didn't cry out.
He simply turned his eyes, taking us all in. And
in those eyes I saw no fear. There was only
a profound, weary sadness, as if he had been expecting

(02:34):
us his entire life. He sighed a soft exhalation of
breath and tightened his grip on his walking staff, holding
it like a quarter staff. The fight, when it came,
was short and ugly. Rat The young thief was the
first to rush him, eager to prove his worth. The
pilgrim moved with a surprising, fluid grace. He sidestepped the

(02:57):
boy's clumsy charge, and the thick staff half whipped around,
cracking hard against Rat's knee. The boy went down with
a yelp of pain. Stiggin bellowed and charged next, swinging
his axe in a wide arc, meant to end it,
but the old man was nimble. He used his staff
to deflect the axe head, the wood groaning but not breaking,
and spun away from Stiggins follow through. He was good,

(03:21):
but he was still just one old man. Gigs darted
in then, not with a killing blow, but with one
of his jagged little knives. He wasn't trying to end
the fight, he was trying to start his game. He
fainted and laughed as the pilgrim parried his thrusts, trying
to inflict small, tormenting cuts. I watched from the side,

(03:43):
a sour taste in my mouth. This was pathetic. The
old man was fighting with a strange, quiet dignity, and
Gigs was turning it into a side show, a cruel
cat and mouse game for his own amusement. There was
no art in it, no efficiency. It was just ugly.
My own act of mercy in the woods, the weakness

(04:05):
that had shamed me flashed in my mind. This felt
like the other side of that same coin, pointless dix.
I snarled, my voice, cutting through his laughter enough he
glanced at me, his smile faltering with disappointment. I didn't
wait for him to obey. I pushed him aside and

(04:26):
stepped in myself. The pilgrim turned his sad eyes to me,
his staff held ready. I didn't give him time to
use it. I closed the distance, parried his staff with
my forearm, and drove the pommel of my sword into
his temple. It was a single, heavy, brutal blow. There
was a dull thud, and the fight went out of him.

(04:49):
The staff clattered to the dirt. He crumpled to the
ground without a sound. Swift, silent, and deeply, deeply unsatisfying.
We stood over the pilgrim's body in the middle of
the empty road. The sun was a sliver of burning
red on the horizon, casting long, bloody shadows. The sudden

(05:10):
silence was deafening. No one cheered, no one spoke, for
the first time a victory felt entirely hollow. We had
just murdered an old man for the dust in his pockets.