Oct 12, 2026 · 48 min · 9 segments
War has arrived. A month after the betrayal at Hastarl, Ronan & Kelvin fight to keep Cromm's Hold safe. Plans are set into motion that will either save his people, or condemn them to death. Music…
[grunting] Lift, you sorry sods.
Lift, or I'll bleed you myself.
The squat, bald-headed man clad in blackened boiled leathers bellowed at the soldiers with venom in his throat.
His fury mounted as he circled the full wagon, crippled as not one but every wheel sank deep into muck.
This was the third wagon lost.
They had already unloaded and lumped what supplies they could manage onto other carts, but they could no longer.
With every cart down, the others grew heavier.
The men grew weaker and more tired.
In the dirt beneath, in the shadow of the looming mosswood trees with their curtains of hanging finger-like branches, laid a young soldier.
Alfie's muscles screamed in open rebellion.
He didn't care that he was chest-down in the mud.
It felt cool to his skin, and it formed around him, accepting his exhausted body without complaint.
If he closed his eyes, perhaps he could drown the shouts of the Zhentarim commander who screeched at him and his brothers in arms.
Perhaps Stavenson would simply forget he was there and leave him mercifully behind, he thought.
Would it be so cruel? Alfie rolled his head meekly, his eyes searching the tilted wagon beside him.
Come on, boys.
Lift.
The three other Daggerford soldiers strained, pushing the cart with their backs and digging their heels heedlessly into the swamp as it drank their toil and effort and gave nothing in return.
At only fifteen, Alfie was just barely a man when he was conscripted into Daggerford's reserves.
He remembered the day the soldiers, real soldiers, true daggers with their blue and white gambesons, feathered helms, and castle-made steel, arrived at his doorstep.
He remembered the letter they carried, the way his mother cried, the way his father said nothing and would not look at him.
Alfie read the notice over and over again that night, committing the duchess's orders to memory.
And now, more than a month later, the words still lingered fresh in his mind.
His father taught him to read letters, after all.
As a son to a tool merchant, Alfie learned to count numbers too, to weigh accounts, to understand the measure of coin as well as bartering without.
[grunting] Lift, you sorry sods.
Lift, or I'll bleed you myself.
The squat, bald-headed man clad in blackened boiled leathers bellowed at the soldiers with venom in his throat.
His fury mounted as he circled the full wagon, crippled as not one but every wheel sank deep into muck.
This was the third wagon lost.
They had already unloaded and lumped what supplies they could manage onto other carts, but they could no longer.
With every cart down, the others grew heavier.
The men grew weaker and more tired.
In the dirt beneath, in the shadow of the looming mosswood trees with their curtains of hanging finger-like branches, laid a young soldier.
Alfie's muscles screamed in open rebellion.
He didn't care that he was chest-down in the mud.
It felt cool to his skin, and it formed around him, accepting his exhausted body without complaint.
If he closed his eyes, perhaps he could drown the shouts of the Zhentarim commander who screeched at him and his brothers in arms.
Perhaps Stavenson would simply forget he was there and leave him mercifully behind, he thought.
Would it be so cruel? Alfie rolled his head meekly, his eyes searching the tilted wagon beside him.
Come on, boys.
Lift.
The three other Daggerford soldiers strained, pushing the cart with their backs and digging their heels heedlessly into the swamp as it drank their toil and effort and gave nothing in return.
At only fifteen, Alfie was just barely a man when he was conscripted into Daggerford's reserves.
He remembered the day the soldiers, real soldiers, true daggers with their blue and white gambesons, feathered helms, and castle-made steel, arrived at his doorstep.
He remembered the letter they carried, the way his mother cried, the way his father said nothing and would not look at him.
Alfie read the notice over and over again that night, committing the duchess's orders to memory.
And now, more than a month later, the words still lingered fresh in his mind.
His father taught him to read letters, after all.
As a son to a tool merchant, Alfie learned to count numbers too, to weigh accounts, to understand the measure of coin as well as bartering without.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
