The Black Company / Shadows Linger / The White Rose

The Black Company is a mercenary outfit in its last days of service to the Syndic of Beryl. Then it signs a contract with the sorceress Soulcatcher, and the job pulls the soldiers into a much larger war.

Croaker, the Company's physician and Annalist, narrates most of the story. His task is to record the Company's history, and the longer the campaigns run, the more deeply he is caught up in what he is writing down.

The soldiers fight brutal campaigns across the Sea of Torments and into the Lady's Empire. The war builds toward the large-scale Battle at Charm. The Company buries its doubts along with its dead, and it keeps taking the work.

A prophecy stirs as the fighting goes on. Somewhere in the world walks the White Rose, a reborn incarnation of good, destined to stand against the darkness of the Lady.

This omnibus gathers three novels: The Black Company, Shadows Linger and The White Rose, the opening of the series. They are military fantasy, and the protagonists are morally compromised mercenaries rather than knights or wizards. The tone is hard and grim, told from inside the ranks by a man who writes the record as he lives it.