Flashbacks and time jumps made the story fragmented and hard to follow. It's nice to visit with these old characters and there are some good moments, but it wasn't one of the better books in this series. ( )

nothing happened
( )

«Me llamo Murgen, portaestandarte de la Compañía Negra, aunque cargo con la vergüenza de haber perdido el estandarte en combate. Me encargo de los Anales porque Matasanos está muerto, Un Ojo no quiere y pocos más saben leer o escribir. Seré tu guía durante algunos meses, o semanas, o días, lo que tarden los hombres del Maestro de las Sombras en llevar la presente situación a su inevitable final».
Así escribe Murgen, curtido veterano de la Compañía Negra, que ha arrebatado el control de la fortaleza de Borrascosa a los malvados Maestros de las Sombras, señores de la oscuridad provenientes de los confines de la tierra. Ahora comienza la espera, ya que, agotada por el asedio, hostigada por la hechicería y completamente superada en número, la Compañía parece encaminarse hacia su final.

Unlike the first four Black Company books, these later ones seem less like standalone (if subsequent and related) novels and more like episodes in a longer tale. This isn't something I mind, really, but it does mean evaluating a single volume on its own merits is difficult, there not being much in the way of an ending -- or indeed, a beginning -- to this book. It picks up where the duology "Book of the South" left off, its only real claim to being a new series at all being a change in narrator.

And the new narrator, Standardbearer Murgen, is indeed what gives this book its own identity. He's admittedly as cynical as Croaker (though he himself, perhaps, doesn't think so), if less paranoid, but his perspective is very much that of a much younger man. Adding further idiosyncrasy to the change in narrator voice, Murgen's consciousness is also being cast back and forth in time throughout the novel due to mysterious forces unexplained. In these flashbacks (which make up the bulk of the novel) we follow him during the long siege that took place during the previous book, while in the later time frames the story continues forward. There is also a small, but vital, subplot of Murgen's falling in love and getting married over the course of this span of time, and I found this well executed (though I would have liked to learn a little bit more about his eventual wife's personality).

The tough guy humour, sardonic remarks and cutting comebacks is as present as with Croaker's books, if not more so, and the pace of the novel -- the odd time jumps aside -- is rather fast, considering most of it is spent stuck in a city under siege. The progressions to the overall storyarc of the series are small but essential, and as the book ends with little to no closure, I'm still on the edge of my seat to continue into the next one. And I expect that to be the case throughout this series until I finally arrive at the last volume, where the ending will retroactively taint or glorify these earlier novels depending on how satisfying I will find it. ( )

A different style than previous books, and makes it hard to get into, but well worth the effort. ( )