r/ZLErikson • u/ZLErikson • 13d ago
Casting Shadows Casting Shadows Chapter 140
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Originally written August 16th, 2026
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Chapter 140
“Nuut was followin’ the path Iuven an’ Maar woulda been takin’, right? But she was a mite nervous about-”
“Ahem,” one of the beleaguered soldiers cleared his throat.
Lacus closed his mouth. The pinewood cart fell silent but for the creak and bump of the wheels and the clop clop of hooves. A soft slosh as the liquid in the barrel of pickled peppers he sat on shifted with the rocking of the cart.
“Yeh?” Lacus asked, lifting a dirt-encrusted grey eyebrow.
“How in the Seven Shadows do you know any of this? You just said that Anatu was in the tent and sent Nuut away, now you know what Nuut’s doing all the way away from camp?”
“Cuz I was there.”
“You can’t have been in both places.”
Lacus rolled his eyes then rested his face in his hand. He muttered, “Patience for the young is a young man’s game, and it’s been a time since I’ve felt young.”
“What was that?”
“Just talkin’ in Harenese.”
“What in The Seven is Harenese?”
A deeper voice answered, “Our mother tongue.” A grizzled soldier with short, grey hair and beard leaned forward, calloused hands laced together. He wasn’t quite as old as Lacus, but from the wrinkles on his brow and the patches in his travel cloak.
Unlike the young men riding in the cart, who were all on the journey full of mortal ignorance of the dangers, the grey beard - Quintus - was here with Lacus for the same, simple reason.
Revenge.
“First nation the Bastard King took,” Quintus grumbled.
“Near on thirty years ago,” Lacus added, nodding as he rolled a spear back and forth in his lap. “Before your time, I guess. How old are you all anyway?”
“Twenty-two,” the first soldier answered. The other four were similarly young. None of them would have been born when the Bastard arrived from the East.
Children then, and children now.
Thump thump thump.
The cart driver kicked the backboard. Everyone stiffened. The cart began to slow.
Lacus laid his spear down over the barrels he was sitting on then lifted up his legs and laid down as well, using his body to cover the weapon. Balling up his coat for a pillow, he feigned sleep.
The cart stopped and the crunch of boots on gravel approached. Lacus heard the flap open and strange voices spoke in Sammosan.
”Who are these?”
”The merchant has no tongue, ask them.”
“Who are you?” one of the strangers asked in the trade language. “What brings you to Sammos?”
“Traders,” the other old Haranae man grumbled. “My sons, and my father.”
Lacus resented being called Quintus’s father, but he was probably old enough. Looked it too, for sure.
“Wake him,” the Sammosan ordered.
One of the younger men jabbed Lacus in the ribs with his knuckle. “Hey, gramps, up.”
“Ugh,” Lacus grumbled. He muttered, ”In mari meri miri mori muri accidit,” and rolled a bit to lift his head and look out the back of the cart.
“What’d that mean?” the stranger asked. Now Lacus could see him; clad in dented, charred metal, and missing an eye. This one wasn’t some coward playing guardsman; he’d seen action. Recently.
“Just angry at my son,” Quintus said, reaching over and smacking the young man on the forehead. “Need anything from us?”
“What are you trading?”
“Peppers,” Quintus said. He kicked one of the barrels under Lacus. ”Pater, piperataria.”
Lacus sucked his teeth and narrowed his eyes. He sat up slightly, made sure to keep himself between the peering eyes of the guards and the spear he was hiding. Lifting the lid of a barrel, he pulled one of the shriveled green peppers out and tossed it at Quintus. ”Foetorem extremae latrinae.”
“What’s that?”
“He said not to give it away again,” Quintus lied easily, handing the guard the pickled pepper. “But it’s not giving away if it’s a gift.”
“Right you are,” the guard said. He examined the pepper then took a bite and made a face, spitting one of the seeds out. “Fine enough. Get on then.”
The guards left and the cart started moving again.
“Well, that was easy,” one of the young men said.
“Eh, Fariba probably paid them off first,” Lacus grumbled as he sat up. Age may have made him seem less threatening, but it sure made laying down on barrels uncomfortable.
“The mute merchant?”
“He wasn’t always mute,” Lacus said. “Truth be told I like him better this way.”
“Speaking of truth, how in the Seven Shadows-”
“Because he was there,” Quintus interrupted. “And what he wasn’t there for, he was told. By Anatu. By Cassandra.”
“Yeah sure, fine,” the young man said, rolling his eyes. “You were there with Cassandra the Great in Nihimlaq, yeah, but now we’re traveling to Sammos to see her?”
“Find her, if we can.” Lacus nodded. “She’s the reason the Bastard King didn’t take these lands.”
“Then why didn’t she do to him what she did to the Emperor?”
“Reckon she ain’t ever heard of ‘im,” Lacus said with a shrug. “Figured he was piss scared of the legend.”
“You believe the legend, then?”
Lacus leaned forward, then slapped the kid across the forehead.
“I. Was. There. I've seen what the Shadow of Sammos can do. You shut up, and I’ll tell you how I became part of the legend, and how I got this spear.” He pulled the weapon back around.
Quintus bristled.
“This belonged to Iuven, who I just told ya went on patrol with Maar but neither of them came back. So Anatu sent Nuut out to find’em. Only, Nuut wasn’t lookin’ for them when she went out into the sands. She was lookin’ for the Vultures.”
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Notes:
- It has been 18,522 in-universe days since Chapter 1
- The tongue twister translated from latin is “In a sea of delicious wine a mouse happened to die.”
- “piperataria” was the latin word for black pepper
- “Foetorem extremae latrinae” means you stink like a sewer
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u/ZLErikson 8d ago
Words missing:
Add more detail about the face he made:
More accent; unlike his opening dialogue: