A quarter million men died at Charm. Never was there a battle so vast or grim, nor of outcome so definitive. Even the Dominator's bloody failure in the Old Forest consumed but half as many lives.

Fate compelled us to switch sides-once there was no one left to help us in our fight.

One-Eye's wound was as clean as he claimed. I cut him loose, ambled off to my quarters. Word was, Darling wanted the patrol rested before she accepted its report. I shivered with premonition, afraid to hear their tidings.

An old, tired man. That is what I am. What became of the old fire, drive, ambition? There were dreams once upon a time, dreams now all but forgotten. On sad days I dust them off and fondle them nostalgically, with a patronizing wonder at the naivete of the youth who dreamed them.

Old infests my quarters. My great project. Eighty pounds of ancient documents, captured from the general Whisper when we served the Lady and she the Rebel. They are supposed to contain the key to breaking the Lady and the Taken. I have had them six years. And in six years I have found nothing. So much failure. Depressing. Nowadays, more often than not I merely shuffle them, then turn to these Annals.

Since our escape from Juniper they have been little more than a personal journal. The remnant of the Company generates little excitement. What outside news we get is so slim and unreliable I seldom bother recording it. Moreover, since her victory over her husband in Juniper, the Lady seems to be in stasis even more than we, running on inertia.

Appearances deceive, of course. And the Lady's essence is illusion.

"Croaker."

I looked up from a page of Old TelleKurre already studied a hundred times. Goblin stood in the doorway. He looked like an old toad. "Yeah?"

"Something happening up top. Grab a sword."

I grabbed my bow and a leather cuirass. I am too ancient for hand-to-hand. I'd rather stand off and plink if I have to fight at all. I considered the bow as I followed Goblin. It had been given me by the Lady herself, during the battle at Charm. Oh, the memories. With it I helped slay Soulcatcher, the Taken who brought the Company into the Lady's service. Those days now seemed almost prehistoric.

We galloped into sunlight. Others came out with us, dispersed amidst cactus and coral. The rider coming down the trail-the only path in here-would not see us.

He rode alone, on a moth-eaten mule. He was not armed. "All this for an old man on a mule?" I asked. Men scooted through coral and between cacti, making one hell of a racket. The old-timer had to know we were there. "We'd better work on getting out here more quietly."

"Yeah."

Startled, I whirled. Elmo was behind me, one hand shading his eyes. He looked as old and tired as I felt. Each day something reminds me that none of us are young anymore. Hell, none of us were young when we came north, over the Sea of Torments. "We need new blood, Elmo." He sneered.