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The Black Company: The First Novel of 'The Chronicles of The Black Company', by Glen Cook
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Some feel the Lady, newly risen from centuries in thrall, stands between humankind and evil. Some feel she is evil itself. The hardbitten men of the Black Company take their pay and do what they must, burying their doubts with their dead.
Until the prophesy: The White Rose has been reborn, somewhere, to embody good once more.
There must be a way for the Black Company to find her...
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
- Sales Rank: #26119 in eBooks
- Published on: 1992-03-15
- Released on: 1992-03-15
- Format: Kindle eBook
About the Author
Born in 1944, Glen Cook grew up in northern California, served in the U.S. Navy, attended the University of Missouri, and was one of the earliest graduates of the well-known "Clarion" workshop SF writers. Since 1971 he has published a large number of SF and fantasy novels, including the "Dread Empire" series, the occult-detective "Garrett" novels, and the very popular "Black Company" sequence that began with the publication of The Black Company in 1984. Among his SF novels is A Passage at Arms.
After working many years for General Motors, Cook now writes full-time. He lives near St. Louis, Missouri, with his wife Carol.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter One:LEGATE
There were prodigies and portents enough, One-Eye says. We must blame ourselves for misinterpreting them. One-Eye’s handicap in no way impairs his marvelous hindsight.
Lightning from a clear sky smote the Necropolitan Hill. One bolt struck the bronze plaque sealing the tomb of the forvalaka, obliterating half the spell of confinement. It rained stones. Statues bled. Priests at several temples reported sacrificial victims without hearts or livers. One victim escaped after its bowels were opened and was not recaptured. At the Fork Barracks, where the Urban Cohorts were billeted, the image of Teux turned completely around. For nine evenings running, ten black vultures circled the Bastion. Then one evicted the eagle which lived atop the Paper Tower.
Astrologers refused readings, fearing for their lives. A mad soothsayer wandered the streets proclaiming the imminent end of the world. At the Bastion, the eagle not only departed, the ivy on the outer ramparts withered and gave way to a creeper which appeared black in all but the most intense sunlight.
But that happens every year. Fools can make an omen of anything in retrospect.
We shouldhave been better prepared. We did have four modestly accomplished wizards to stand sentinel against predatory tomorrows—though never by any means as sophisticated as divining through sheeps’ entrails.
Still, the best augurs are those who divine from the portents of the past. They compile phenomenal records.
Beryl totters perpetually, ready to stumble over a precipice into chaos. The Queen of the Jewel Cities was old and decadent and mad, filled with the stench of degeneracy and moral dryrot. Only a fool would be surprised by anything found creeping its night streets.
* * *
I had every shutter thrown wide, praying for a breath off the harbor, rotting fish and all. There wasn’t enough breeze to stir a cobweb. I mopped my face and grimaced at my first patient. “Crabs again, Curly?”
He grinned feebly. His face was pale. “It’s my stomach, Croaker.” His pate looks like a polished ostrich egg. Thus the name. I checked the watch schedule and duty roster. Nothing there he would want to avoid. “It’s bad, Croaker. Really.”
“Uhm.” I assumed my professional demeanor, sure what it was. His skin was clammy, despite the heat. “Eaten outside the commissary lately, Curly?” A fly landed on his head, strutted like a conqueror. He didn’t notice.
“Yeah. Three, four times.”
“Uhm.” I mixed a nasty, milky concoction. “Drink this. All of it.”
His whole face puckered at the first taste. “Look, Croaker, I.…”
The smellof the stuff revolted me. “Drink, friend. Two men died before I came up with that. Then Pokey took it and lived.” Word was out about that.
He drank.
“You mean it’s poison? The damned Blues slipped me something?”
“Take it easy. You’ll be okay. Yeah. It looks that way.” I’d had to open up Walleye and Wild Bruce to learn the truth. It was a subtle poison. “Get over there on the cot where the breeze will hit you—if the son of a bitch ever comes up. And lie still. Let the stuff work.” I settled him down.
“Tell me what you ate outside.” I collected a pen and a chart tacked onto a board. I had done the same with Pokey, and with Wild Bruce before he died, and had had Walleye’s platoon sergeant backtrack his movements. I was sure the poison had come from one of several nearby dives frequented by the Bastion garrison.
Curly produced one across-the-board match. “Bingo! We’ve got the bastards now.”
“Who?” He was ready to go settle up himself.
“You rest. I’ll see the Captain.” I patted his shoulder, checked the next room. Curly was it for morning sick call.
I took the long route, along Trejan’s Wall, which overlooks Beryl’s harbor. Halfway over I paused, stared north, past the mole and lighthouse and Fortress Island, at the Sea of Torments. Particolored sails speckled the dingy grey-brown water as coastal dhows scooted out along the spiderweb of routes linking the Jewel Cities. The upper air was still and heavy and hazy. The horizon could not be discerned. But down on the water the air was in motion. There was always a breeze out around the Island, though it avoided the shore as if fearing leprosy. Closer at hand, the wheeling gulls were as surly and lackadaisical as the day promised to make most men.
Another summer in service to the Syndic of Beryl, sweating and grimy, thanklessly shielding him from political rivals and his undisciplined native troops. Another summer busting our butts for Curly’s reward. The pay was good, but not in coin of the soul. Our forebrethren would be embarrassed to see us so diminished.
Beryl is misery curdled, but also ancient and intriguing. Its history is a bottomless well filled with murky water. I amuse myself plumbing its shadowy depths, trying to isolate fact from fiction, legend, and myth. No easy task, for the city’s earlier historians wrote with an eye to pleasing the powers of their day.
The most interesting period, for me, is the ancient kingdom, which is the least satisfactorily chronicled. It was then, in the reign of Niam, that the forvalaka came, were overcome after a decade of terror, and were confined in their dark tomb atop the Necropolitan Hill. Echoes of that terror persist in folklore and matronly admonitions to unruly children. No one recalls what the forvalaka were, now.
I resumed walking, despairing of beating the heat. The sentries, in their shaded kiosks, wore towels draped around their necks.
A breeze startled me. I faced the harbor. A ship was rounding the Island, a great lumbering beast that dwarfed the dhows and feluccas. A silver skull bulged in the center of its full-bellied black sail. That skull’s red eyes glowed. Fires flickered behind its broken teeth. A glittering silver band encircled the skull.
“What the hell is that?” a sentry asked.
“I don’t know, Whitey.” The ship’s size impressed me more than did its flashy sail. The four minor wizards we had with the Company could match that showmanship. But I’d never seen a galley sporting five banks of oars.
I recalled my mission.
I knocked on the Captain’s door. He did not respond. I invited myself inside, found him snoring in his big wooden chair. “Yo!” I hollered. “Fire! Riots in the Groan! Dancing at the Gate of Dawn!” Dancing was an old time general who nearly destroyed Beryl. People still shudder at his name.
The Captain was cool. He didn’t crack an eyelid or smile. “You’re presumptuous, Croaker. When are you going to learn to go through channels?” Channels meant bug the Lieutenant first. Don’t interrupt his nap unless the Blues were storming the Bastion.
I explained about Curly and my chart.
He swung his feet off the desk. “Sounds like work for Mercy.” His voice had a hard edge. The Black Company does not suffer malicious attacks upon its men.
* * *
Mercy was our nastiest platoon leader. He thought a dozen men would suffice, but let Silent and me tag along. I could patch the wounded. Silent would be useful if the Blues played rough. Silent held us up half a day while he made a quick trip to the woods.
“What the hell you up to?” I asked when he got back, lugging a ratty-looking sack.
He just grinned. Silent he is and silent he stays.
The place was called Mole Tavern. It was a comfortable hangout. I had passed many an evening there. Mercy assigned three men to the back door, and a pair each to the two
Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
and so morally grey that one can't tell the difference between good and bad to the point where it becomes simply ...
By Travis Bughi
The Black Company is a high, grim-dark fantasy that is almost but not quite in journal-entry form. It follows from the prospective of the company physician who tends to have more heart and soul than his comrades, and also an unhealthy dose of curiosity. I have to be honest. This book just wasn't written for me. I gave up about 2/3 of the way in because I just couldn't bring myself to care about what happened anymore. Let me try to explain in a way that hopefully won't dissuade you from giving this book a try.
What the Black Company does right: This book gets grim-dark well. Everything about this book feels gritty and harsh, and so morally grey that one can't tell the difference between good and bad to the point where it becomes simply "our side vs their side." This book also features some rather interesting god-like villains that are fascinating to watch and read about. Not to mention the plot. This book is straight up plot as you jump from event to event, leading down a long war of attrition being fought from within and without. It's almost "Game of Thrones light" if not for where it went wrong. Speaking of which . . .
What the Black Company got wrong (or at least for me): This book had zero finesse. I like lengthy descriptions, heavy world building, purple prose, and characters that are complex and draw me in. The Black Company pretty much falls flat on all of this as the story skips from event to event, hardly elaborating on anything in a style other than, "I went to the window. Outside I saw a mob. That's not good. I told Raven and we left." If that sort of thing doesn't bother you, than The Black Company is right up your alley but damn did it piss me off. This whole book was just a list of occurrences rather than an actual story in my opinion, and with that comes the inevitable problem I sometimes face: No character depth = no care about the characters. No care about the characters = no care about what happens to them.
And then I lose interest.
I still gave the book 2 stars because I'm certain there's a solid audience for this book out there somewhere. Not to mention I was enjoying myself for about the first half the book, so a 1 star just doesn't feel right. I should probably try Malazan.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Great story with great characters, just wish they were a bit longer
By Amazon Customer
I enjoyed this book so much that I'm now neck deep in the series.
If you're a fan of the Malazan series, then you should really give this one a shot and see what you think. If you enjoyed following Fiddler and the Bonehunters, then you'll probably feel at home following the Black Company in their escapades. It has the same militaristic feel to it, along with secret plots, back stabbing, epic battles, magic, and all in a much smaller scope than the Malazon series.
The story is told primarily from the perspective of Croaker, the company physician and annalist, and it appears that the story is essentially being told from the annals. Any time the story is being told in first person, you know it is from Croaker's point of view. Everyone else is referred to in third person, which I really appreciate because it helps you keep track of who you are following and what's currently going on.
It's a somewhat simple story in scope, at least in comparison to other Epic Fantasy novels (Wheel of Time, Malazan Book of the Fallen) but I quickly came to appreciate the smaller scope of the story. The series is still deep enough to be enticing, but not so deep that you get lost at every turn trying to make sense of it all. You don't really get any of the "fluff" either that longer books have big chunks of (or in some cases, entire books filled with fluff.)
I love the story, I love the characters, my only complaint really is that I wish they were a bit longer. I'm chewing through these books so fast, but enjoying every minute of it.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
The writing felt somewhat bad at the beginning but that's just the way the ...
By Itay Horev
The writing felt somewhat bad at the beginning but that's just the way the storyteller speaks. Don't let that deter you if it bothers you. The story itself is good and even managed to surprise me but a map would have made things much more understandable.
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