For a ten-day since finding the boundary marker, they had traveled deeper.

As they sat, passively bearing the dread of the living shadow around them, they heard the occasional rustle of leaves, letting them know they were still in the world of the living.

They had something to cook, but no ambition to do so.

Sienna succinctly surmised the situation, “Our enemies should have come, eh?  They should be here right now, so you can bravely stand against them and free this land.”

Fawnlum was not going to deny it.  She just stared her vexing eyes at their surroundings.

“Given the last couple fights, they know we’re here.”

“We know they’re here,” Caitlyn grumbled.  “We don’t even need the headbands.”

“Yes,” Lucas agreed.  “This is their home now.  I didn’t know nighttime could turn so dark.  All those grunts and stirring around kept me awake.  It’s like they’re less than a stone’s throw.  They have more than enough to attack.  I wonder what’s holding them back?”

“At least we’ve had a couple fights now,” Dreighton said.  “Nice to know we didn’t come here for nothing.”

No, they had not come for nothing, Fawnlum thought, as she looked around at her friends.  They had come for a good and meaningful battle, and the timid enemy was robbing her of it.

Here she felt the effects of the darkness more strongly.  Fear and disorientation tried to creep into her mind more deeply.  She worried just a little over Lucas.  His was not a warrior’s background, and he might lose heart more quickly.  Her primary concern, however, was Caitlyn.

The smaller syiajryn was grim, and looked at every movement with hostility.  In their most recent battle, she had baited the monsters to follow her, using more slashing with her shorter scimitar, than disciplined cuts against their bulky bodies.

She sympathized with her, but she was no good to them if she hurt herself.

“Use our circle and break method,” she had said afterward.  “Don’t abandon the formation just to get yourself killed.”

“Yes, Saima.”

“Don’t break off to attack a group all on your own, either!  Don’t say you haven’t thought about it.  The odds are against us, and fate only knows when they’ll bring their full strength.”

She came close to berating her as she added, “We will not lose our strength to impulse.”

Now Fawnlum looked around, about to tell all of them to look alive.

“Fawnlum?” Caitlyn asked.

“Yes?”

“Can Lucas fight yet?”

Lucas perked up, as he looked at her expectantly.

“We’ve seen his fireballs when he practices in the daytime,” Caitlyn added, referring to the grey inkling of light that their days had become.

Fawnlum looked squarely at the young wizard.

“No.”

Lucas looked to the side with disappointment.  “I can do more,” he said.  “But I guess that’s not good enough,” he added, his voice rising.  He took a wand from his vest.  “A lightning wand,” he announced.  “It can shoot a bolt of lightning that can kill three or four – ”

“No.”

Lucas signed, then threw his wand, the precious heirloom of his dead father, to the ground.  “Only the warriors should be in the thick of it, is that it?” he snapped.  Then, looking at Fawnlum as if daring himself to say more, he added, “If I’m so useless, why did you bring me along?”

“Lucas,” Fawnlum answered quietly.  “Never speak with such self-pity in my presence again.”

Then she said to both him and Caitlyn, “I’m keeping him in reserve.  His magic is already useful.”

Sienna put a hand on the roll of twine tied to her belt.

Lucas had cast a spell over it, giving it the strength of thick rope, to use as a snare.

“And if it will help your mood,” Fawnlum concluded, “help him with his sword training.”

She saw the restrained sigh in Caitlyn’s calm face, but also her honoring of the chain of command, as she replied, “Yes, Saima.”

“So there’s a lack of business,” Sienna said.  “Maybe we should make dying noises to lure them out.  Or we can douse the fire.”

“Absolutely not,” Fawnlum told her sternly.  “We’re going to keep a fire burning, to set off our oil when they come near.”

“If they’re inside the shroom-pocket, then the magic has to let them see out the front door at least,” Lucas huffed.  “Otherwise they wouldn’t see us now and know to stay inside.”

“What if they were outside the pockets?” Sienna asked.

“Then they wouldn’t be able to see us through the shrooms, just as we can’t see them.  It doesn’t do any good to see in the darkness, if you’re trying to look through a solid object.  That’s my thinking.”

“Then we can smother the fire, and hide behind the other shrooms in ambush,” Caitlyn suggested, adding her support to Sienna’s idea.

“Again, no,” Fawnlum told her.  “We just need a battle right now.”

“A battle?” Halrick asked.  “This is a forsaken land now.  Let us find a battle with sun and moon and stars, where the enemy is only an invading horde.”

He stood up, drawing his weapon, looking at it indifferently.  “I know what this feeling is, but I’ve forgotten what to do with it.”

He looked back at Fawnlum.  “We can’t fight this,” he added, pointing up at the shadowy sky.

“It’s just an evil presence,” she replied.  “We can beat it when we stand up to it.”

“Don’t think you’re still battling your mother and have something to prove,” he said.

“A right improper thing to say to your commander,” Fawnlum said, catching herself before she snapped more forcefully at him.  It was something he would never say in front of others, if he was in his right mind.

As she had done in the Council’s chamber, she called on the strength of a calmer discipline, and smiled, kinswoman to kinsman.  “Have faith in me.”  Then she rose and drew her own saber, and faced him in a fencing stance.

“Now cross blades with me, Halrick Bearkin.  Forsake the darkness’ whispers.”

Blinking away his apathy, he joined her and faced her likewise, and made the first attack.

They traded blows as in a training routine, their sabers making sharp rings in the darkness; but she pushed him.  Like blowing embers, she saw his own fire starting to reignite, as he gave back.  The clanging of their weapons sped up, and soon they both opened up their personal repertoires, slashing and attacking in the manner of true Coastals.

Fawnlum let the action come, unafraid of the consequences of a landed blow, as she treated the combat for real, and they both struck and dodged, stabbing and parrying without restraint.

She let their match intensify, feeling the excitement growing in the rest of her comrades.

Then Halrick struck too fully with one blow, and Fawnlum’s parry got there faster, as if she had predicted it.  The inside of his sword-arm exposed, she drove through, and struck her elbow into the inner surface of his meaty bicep.

In control of her stance, she flipped him over her shoulder, and brought him to the ground with a thud.

“Saima!” Dreighton called out.  “I’ve never seen that technique used like that before.”

“None of you ever had to fight the true strength of my mother,” she answered, helping Halrick to his feet, as Sienna chuckled in the background.

“But you are all here together,” she said to them, re-sheathing her blade.  “When the odds are against you, what better blessing, than a comrade in arms?  When your heart is heavy with despair, what gives greater strength, than trusted kin at your side?

“But who does the darkness have?” she coldly asked.  “To whom does it turn?”

“Against we who have chosen honor, and stood shoulder to shoulder against the eye of a red dragon, how can the darkness claim victory?” she asked, her voice becoming more hostile and unyielding.  “It is as soulless as its originator, and Diergon’s banner of victory will fly over his broken corpse!”

Sienna was the first to respond.  She stood, drawing her weapon and holding it aloft, giving an echoing war-cry.  For several minutes, they all followed suit, yelling in defiance of the emptiness around them.

After they were quiet again, eyes lit with challenge, Sienna took the twine from her belt, and walked up to a nearby shroom.

“If not for these things,” she said, rapidly rubbing the cord across the gigantic fungus’ skin, as if trying to give it rope-burn.

“You won’t get anywhere like that,” Lucas called.  “Your line’s got no teeth.  It can’t bite in.”

“What was that?!” Fawnlum snapped, turning on him.

“Her line’s got no teeth,” he hesitantly repeated.  “It can’t bite into the thing.”

She looked from him, to the shroom in front of Sienna.

“Gather up!” she shouted.  “We’re going to see the dwarves.”

“What for?” Sienna and Halrick asked simultaneously.

“To help us cut the shrooms, and bring the monsters back to us,” she said, as she lashed her bedroll to her pack.

“How?” Sienna asked, still confounded.

“By getting them to hate me more than they fear their master!”