Soldiers Live

Soldiers Live is the ninth novel in Glen Cook's Black Company series, published in 2000. The series follows an elite mercenary unit through roughly forty years of its long history and mixes epic fantasy with a much darker view of war.

Croaker has given up being dictator of Taglios and captain of the company, and has returned to his old job of recording its deeds as annalist. Sleepy is the captain now, and the company has enjoyed the rare luxury of four years without a death in battle. The quiet ends when the company's oldest adversaries try to bring about an apocalyptic event they call the Year of the Skulls, which places the unit and everyone who has tied their fortunes to it at risk of destruction.

The Black Company novels are narrated from inside the ranks, so soldiers, medics and wizards matter far more than the causes they are hired to serve, and the series has spent decades accumulating debts and surviving characters. This volume brings a long arc to its conclusion for readers who have followed the company a long way.