The departure of the other sergeants was brief. The longer Cecilia’s recruits dwelled in one spot, the less energy they’d have for crossing the Penumbra. Most of the time was spent exchanging gear to give the best chances of crossing the Penumbra and farewells in case those precautions weren’t enough. There were a few last minute attempts to swap groups. Five volunteers too many meant five people who had been willing to risk it were leaving for Freeport right now, and a few of them were tryingt to convince their friends to take their place. It was heartwarming, in a very dark way, and largely ineffective. Those who had chosen to voyage were resolute. Cecilia and her twenty recruits set out and by the time they might want to look back, the other Sergeants and recruits had gone.

  The first twenty minutes had gone well enough, but the relief was plain when the break was called. Cecilia probably could’ve kept pushing the recruits, but she was hoping that stopping before their limits would mean that they could keep this pace for longer. As they rested, she walked around and checked on the recruits. They were still determined, and the bleak gray and nature of the plain hadn’t sapped their determination yet. Cecilia kept the pride off her face, tempering it with the knowledge that this was only the first leg of twelve.

  By the fourth stop, the small talk and banter had started to fade, a sure sign of the Penumbra creeping into their minds. The mental lethargy would fester, spreading to their legs, breaking momentum. Cecilia hadn’t quite fallen that far yet, but she could feel the itch to lay down and take a nap starting to tickle at the edge of her thoughts.

  What they needed was a task to keep them engaged, focused, but Cecilia’s normal distractions of spotting games and spotting game weren’t viable options in a realm made almost entirely of shifting grays. She could start a conversation, but carrying an engaging conversation with twenty people was nearly impossible.

  No, there was only one option left to her, and that was singing.

  Marching cadences were traditional ways of keeping soldiers engaged, but Cecilia loathed them with a passion most couldn’t quite fathom. The fact that she was bad at singing, awful really, wasn’t a problem since cadences weren’t songs. She hated them because they distracted from situational awareness, meant you needed more water, and she couldn’t keep a vocal rhythm to save her life. She used a magical horn to sound out beats while she marched instead of doing the cadence herself so she didn’t have to call out.

  Cecila considered ordering one of the recruits, Atonia had a lovely voice, to lead the cadence, sighed and set it aside. This was her command, which meant it was her duty and without her magical horn, she had only one option.

  “From the walls of our citadel,” she started, wailing like a dying duck. Around her the recruits looked curiously, a few with open concern. Embarrassed, Cecilia continued.

  “To the sunned fields afar.

  We stand with glory and honor

  And all know who we are.”

  It was silent. She idly wondered if they didn’t know the chant, being new recruits and all. Cecilia paused, mustering the courage to continue when a voice in the back picked up the chant. Atonia, bringing up the rearguard, smiled as she sung, eyes turning bright as she carried Cecilia’s warble forward.

  “Knights in obsidian armor

  Fighting against dark foes.”

  Slowly, the voices added in, building it from a duet to a full chorus.

  “Scholars and mages of shadow

  weaving to others woe.

  Defenders from the dark horrors

  That threaten everyone

  The Order of Sacred Shadows

  Do all that need be done.”

  There was a hearty cry as the song ran out, their spirits lifted, at least for the moment. Cecilia, turned and faced the crowd.

  “Now,” she yelled, “I can’t sing,”

  “We noticed!”a heckler cut in. Cecilia glared in that direction, and caught a recruit ducking behind another. Mollified, she continued.

  “Which means I don’t know any other songs. And while I can sing our warsong all day, I figure that might get boring. Who else has a song?”

  The problem, of course, being that most of the great sing-along songs are either very simple, for the children, or very bawdy. There was a moment, the recruits considering the bounds of propriety before Anvars cried out, “DOWN IN THE HOT AND WILDS JUNGLES BELOW!” Immediately, nineteen voices belted back in response, leaving decency far behind.

  “DOWN IN THE HOT AND WILDS JUNGLES BELOW!”

  Because sometimes, you just have to sing along. Even if it’s the filthiest tavern song most people had ever heard.

  ***********************************************************

  Singing carried them through the next two marching hours, and even though it got harder, the cheer made it manageable. There were some awkward moments, especially during the rowdier songs, but at the end the survivors were as friendly and bonded as most squads of squires were after the first year of training. And though the good cheer was starting to fade, as all things did in the Penumbra, and there would be a desperate need for rest and recuperation, they were on course to make it out of the Penumbra.

  In fact, it seemed the longer they marched, the easier the journeying went, their bodies adapting to the hostile environment. It was still draining and potentially deadly if they didn’t make it out of the Penumbra soon, but it would make the rest of the march easier. A sort of early and forced initiation rite, Cecilia supposed. Most of the penumbric infusions that were part of becoming a knight were done in controlled environments with direct injections. But quantity had a quality of its own. She smiled as she looked over the group, because even though she had started this journey thinking it was foolish and risky, the outcome was starting to look decidedly positive.

  Which is of course why the shadespawn attacked.

  There wasn’t any warning. One moment they were walking through a muted field of gray and the next Canain was coughing up blood. The specks splattered onto a harsh grouping of lines revealing a collection of hard edges that made up a shadespawn’s skewer.

  Thinner than parchment, a shadespawn could slip between the gaps in chain and deliver lethal blows. Worse, due to being amorphic they were impossible to immobilize or corral and were all but invulnerable to anything but themselves and the shadow-bane, obsidian.

  That was why every recruit was equipped with obsidian weapons, reinforced and enchanted to survive multiple blows, to fight off the shadows. Granted, surviving attacks was much easier for a knight with their obsidian plate which deflected shadespawn attacks like rocks in a stream, but the recruits only received that when they became Knights.

  Cecilia took a half-second to plan the method forward. Elf sized spawn, like these, were intelligent enough to use basic tactics, such as encircling the enemy and ambushes. Which meant they weren’t the only ones. “Rolling wedge, blades out,” she ordered, “I’ll take the rear, Atonia take the center!”

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  The wedge was typically a penetration formation, which would be vital if the shadespawn had massed before them, like Cecilia suspected. The recruits moved as quickly as possible, scrambling around Canain’s fading body and the materializing gray spikes. Blades whipped free of scabbards, axes hefted, and they all pointed outwards making a wall of pain for any shadespawn that tried to assault them. And while the wedge was all faced forward, nominally leaving their back open, Cecilia planted herself there greatsword drawn and across her chest defensively.

  Two of the spawn raised up from the landscape, their bodies stretched into sinewy strands with thin protrusions that shaped into claws.

  “Forward, half-time” Atonia cried with a ringing voice. Her voice, which had until recently been leading the group through most of the tamer call and response songs, was perfect for directing the wedge and keeping their rearguard informed. Cecilia took a half-step backward, sliding along with the wedge as they moved.

  The shadespawn on her right slid forward, low to the ground before shooting high to bring the claws crushing down on her. Normally, Cecilia would’ve stepped forward, into the claws and buried her sword in the chest, but that wasn’t the point of this fight. Instead, she took a half-step to the left and brought the greatsword across in a spacing swing.

  The blade clipped the spawn and it sacrificed the tip of its claw for a rapid retreat. The severed bit dropped to the ground and then faded from view, recombining with the Penumbra. She let the blow go wide, to force the creature back a full step and to halt the rush of the second spawn. Finding itself risking running directly into obsidian, the left shadespawn was forced to pull back from its slithering charge, just barely stopping short of her greatsword. Amorphic didn’t mean free of momentum.

  Her enemies off balance Cecilia called out, “STEPPING!”

  “TEN!” came the reply and then Cecilia stepped backwards, keeping her guard up, for ten steps and rejoined the wedge. By the time she had rejoined, the shadespawn were weaving forward for a second attack. This time, they spread out, looking to force her to choose between which edge of the wedge she was going to protect.

  Steeling herself for but a second, Cecilia channeled the Penumbra through her body and into the blade. In the physical world, the extra essence would provide a small increase to power, increasing the width and length of the blade, extending her reach just enough to make dodging harder while simultaneously wreathing the blade in shadows that made identifying the edge difficult to do, creating a twofold advantage. However, in the Penumbra, where the essence she channeled was plentiful and at hand, her greatsword erupted in shadows and doubled in length with no increase in mass, allowing her swing to hit both shadespawn with a single stroke. This time she scored solid hits on both of the spawn.

  But that wasn’t without a cost. Channeling destructive power of the plane that literally destroyed anything physical took a toll on her body and would’ve damaged the blade if it wasn’t for the obsidian that had been worked into it. The way the damage manifested was different for each person, but in Cecilia’s case it was always a spreading blackness, similar to frostbite, that would blossom across her skin. That short use would only be a single spot, but if she kept infusing her blade with the Penumbra, it would eventually slow, then cripple, and eventually kill her.

  The spawn on the right recovered first, so Cecilia gave it her full attention for a moment. Her sword slashed down, driving the creature back and drawing her hands close to her body with the sword low. Before the creature could reconfigure itself, she stepped forward and thrust the sword forward, driving the blade into the center of mass.

  Around her blade the creature sizzled and burned, its body convulsing in pain. She ripped the sword out and the puncture spread upwards, splitting the creature in two trading one large and somewhat intelligent creature for two smaller and dumber ones that would be incapacitated while they divided.

  Leaving the splitting spawn behind, she turned back to the other, only to find it barreling towards her. Unable to dodge, she instead planted her feet and changed her grip to keep her hand on her sword, bracing to let her armor do its job.

  The spawn shifted at the last moment, flattening its head into a battering ram and knocking her onto her back, sending her sliding across the shadowed plain. The spawn’s head let off a faint wisp of essence from where it contacted her obsidian plate, but didn’t hesitate before slithering towards the unaware and easier pickings of the wedge.

  She spared but a moment’s glance at the wedge, ten paces away. Standing, she started to draw large swaths of the Penumbra into herself, packing it down into a concentrated mass. It chilled her blood and she could feel the frostmarks tracing her veins as she pulled the shadowy energy in. Right as the chill crossed into her chest, she yelled “CONTACT BEHIND!” and let the energy out of her in a burst of gray.

  In all directions waves of shadow essence ruptured forth, racing out from her and tearing into the spawn. The two smaller spawn she had made earlier were torn apart in the wave, but the larger one was merely rocked by it.

  Thankfully, her call had been heeded and while Dontonos wasn’t able to completely avoid the spawn, it had turned a killing blow into a survivable gash. He and the two recruits on his sides buried their obsidian blades in the creature, dissipating it, before turning back to the wedge and yelling “CLEAR!”

  Cecilia dismissed the Penumbra energies from her blade and moved to catch up. At half-pace, the wedge was easy enough for her to catch up with. The back of the encirclement had been eliminated, but that didn't change the only real way out was forward. “Regrouped,” she declared upon arriving.

  There was no verbal confirmation, but the nods at the center of the wedge told her that they had heard. When they got out of here, Cecilia would have to be sure the recruits learned proper communication patterns.

  But for now, she focused her eyes forward, finding the growing mass of shadespawn she had known there would be. Most of the spawn were elf size, though a few smaller ones were mixed in, making a double thick line that the wedge had to punch through.

  “Orders?” Atonia asked from the center of the wedge.

  Cecilia breathed, feeling the drain of the Penumbra keenly after her exertions. “It’s your wedge,” she responded, moving at the half-pace. When it came to a fight, she was better served at the edges doing the hard fighting than as voice in the center.

  There was a moment’s pause before Atonia started yelling orders. “Knight to the front, open us a hole. Formation, prepare for full charge.”

  “YES MA’AM,” the wedge shouted in unison.

  Cecilia cursed to herself. Sure, it was a sound plan, using her as a heavy troop to punch through the line, what Cecilia’s plan would’ve been had she been in charge of the wedge, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t going to be tiring.

  “Make sure you don’t get too close,” Cecila said with a sigh as she started running to the front, and then in front, of the wedge.

  A standard military might ask questions about why someone was so far out of formation and done something to stop her, especially with the display earlier. But these were shadespawn, and while they had some intelligence they weren’t quite quick enough to learn, at least not at this size. So, instead, the lines massed at the point she was charging towards and the edges of the circle, well crescent shape really, began to collapse on the wedge. It’d take them a bit to fully fall on the group, but as long as the wall held, they’d be able to pick the recruits apart at their leisure.

  Which is why Cecilia was going to break the wall. She moved from full-time, which barely let her outpace the wedge, to double-time. Running in full-plate was never fun or pretty, especially after a long march, but it was often necessary. As she closed the distance, she began to gather Penumbric essence in her sword, lengthening it again and causing fresh blackmarks to blossom.

  Twenty feet from the wall, and sixty feet from the troops, she slowed down so that she had enough time to start gathering essence for a secondary nova. Again, drawing essence from the Penumbra itself, she could feel the chill racing up her legs and through her arms, faster than before. Holding that essence for as long as she could, she sprinted into the mass of shadespawn, trusting that her armor would protect her from the worst of it.

  Limbs in the shape of claws, spears, and a few things odder lashed out. Most bounced off her armor, but four found their way to somewhere fleshy. Minor knicks, but they would bleed and impair her movement given enough time. She might’ve been worried about it impairing her ability to hold the cold energy within her, but she had reached her destination.

  A wave of gray burst from her, blowing away the smaller spawn and significantly damaging the stronger ones. She fell to a knee, winded by the effort and the amount of damage holding the Penumbra after such a long march had done to her body. All she wanted to do was rest, lay down and sleep, but there was still work to do.

  One of the larger spawn was bearing down upon her. From her knee, she swung the greatsword nicking the creature and causing it to abort the attack. The larger spawn had been weakened, but were still active enough to be a nuisance for the wedge, maybe even slowing them down enough to let the walls crash in. And that? That would not be acceptable.

  Letting the Penumbra in her sword go, Cecilia breathed deep, gathering the essence one last time. She could feel her skin cracking, blistered by the destruction inherent to the plane and scaring her arms from finger to elbow, but pushed through the pain long enough to gather enough power for one last burst. The spawn were bearing down, but in the moment of crippling agony, she didn’t care. She had done her job. The wave ripped from her, knocking her to the ground, unable to defend herself.

  Normally a mistake, but not a lethal one because the shockwave had done its job. The larger spawn, already weakened, were obliterated and there was a hole in the ambush circle large enough to march a battalion through.

  She smiled, alive but exhausted. There was an errant thought of getting up to meet the wedge, but she couldn’t quite make her limbs coordinate well enough to stand up. She needn’t have bothered. The wedge swept up to her, breaking around her and then two of the recruits picked her up, carrying her full-time out of the ambush circle and towards the gate home.