From Glen Cook, the godfather of Grimdark, comes The Return of the Black Company , an omnibus comprising of Bleak Seasons and She is the Darkness ―the third omnibus volume of the bestselling fantasy epic Chronicles of the Black Company, with millions of copies in print. "Let me tell you who I am, on the chance that these scribblings do survive. . . "I am Murgen, Standardbearer of the Black Company, though I bear the shame of having lost that standard in battle. I am keeping these Annals because Croaker is dead, One-Eye won't, and hardly anyone else can read or write. I will be your guide for however long it takes the Shadowlanders to force our present predicament to its inevitable end. . ." “With the Black Company series Glen Cook single-handedly changed the face of fantasy.”― New York Times bestselling author Steven Erikson Chronicles of The Black Company The Black Company (The First Chronicle) Shadows Linger (The Second Chronicle) The White Rose (The Third Chronicle) The Silver Spike Shadow Games (The First Book of the South) Dreams of Steel (The Second Book of the South) Bleak Seasons (Book One of Glittering Stone) She Is the Darkness (Book Two of Glittering Stone) Water Sleeps (Book Three of Glittering Stone) Soldiers Live (Book Four of Glittering Stone) Port of Shadows Lies Weeping (Book One of A Pitiless Rain) Omnibus editions: Chronicles of the Black Company (comprising The Black Company , Shadows Linger , and The White Rose ) The Books of the South (comprising Shadow Games , Dreams of Steel , and The Silver Spike ) Return of the Black Company (comprising Bleak Seasons and She Is the Darkness ) The Many Deaths of the Black Company (comprising Water Sleeps and Soldiers Live ) “With the Black Company series Glen Cook singlehandedly changed the face of fantasy―something a lot of people didn’t notice and maybe still don’t. He brought the story down to a human level, dispensing with the cliché archetypes of princes, kings, and evil sorcerers. Reading his stuff was like reading Vietnam War fiction on peyote.” ―Steven Erikson, author of Gardens of the Moon 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 Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop. Since 1971 he has published a large number of Science Fiction and fantasy novels, including the occult-detective "Garrett" novels, and the very popular "Black Company" sequence that began with the publication of The Black Company in 1984. After working many years for General Motors, Cook now writes full-time. He lives near St. Louis, Missouri, with his wife Carol. The Return of the Black Company By Cook, Glen Tor Books Copyright © 2009 Cook, Glen All right reserved. ISBN: 9780765324009 Incessant wind sweeps the plain. It mutters across grey pavements that sweepfrom horizon to horizon. It sings around scattered black pillars, a chorus ofghosts. It tumbles leaves and scatters dust come from afar. It teases the hair of acorpse that has lain undisturbed for a generation, mummifying. Impishly, thegale tosses a leaf into the cadaver’s silently screaming mouth, tugs it away again. The wind carries the breath of winter. Lightning leaps from pillar to ebon pillar like a child skittering from base tobase in a game of tag. For a moment there is color on that spectral plain. The pillars might be mistaken for relics of a fallen city. They are not. They aretoo few and too randomly placed. Nor has a one ever fallen, though many havebeen gnawed deeply by the teeth of the hungry wind. 1 . . . fragments . . . . . . just blackened fragments, crumbling between my fingers. Browned page corners that reveal half a dozen words in a crabbed hand, their context no longer known. All that remains of two volumes of the Annals. A thousand hours of labor. Four years of history. Gone forever. Or are they? I do not want to go back. I do not want to relive the horror. I do not want to reclaim the pain. There is pain too deep to withstand right here, right now. There is no way to recapture the totality of that awfulness, anyway. The mind and heart, safely over to the farther shore, simply refuse to encompass the enormity of the voyage. And there is no time. There is a war on. Always there is a war on. Uncle Doj wants something. Just as well to stop now. Teardrops make the ink run. He is going to make me drink some strange philtre. Fragments . . . . . . all around, fragments of my work, my life, my love and my pain, scattered in this bleak season. . . . And in the darkness, shards of time. 2 Hey, there! Welcome to the city of the dead. Don’t mind those guys staring. Ghosts don’t see a lot of strangers—at least of a friendly persuasion. You’re right. They do look hungry. That happens during these siege things. Try not to look too much like a lamb roast. Think that’s a joke? Stay