Glen Cook

Après leur victoire contre le Dominateur, les survivants de la Compagnie noire se séparent. Toubib, à la tête d'une maigre troupe, part en direction d'un lieu mythique où il a pour mission de restituer les Annales. …

….embedded in the trunk of the scion of the godtree, it contains the essence of the maddest of the Ten Who Were Taken…The Dominator.
Defeated by the Lady and cast from this world, all that was left of him was a foul trace of lingering evil. But the graveyard that was once the Barrowland contains more secrets than dead. All who would possess the power of the Dominator are drawn to the spike. A foolhardy band of thieves is the first to reach it, and a rapacious and malign spirit is unleashed on an unwary world. The forces gather, sides are drawn, and mortal men can only die as the Dark Lords battle for domination.

Croaker has fallen and, following the Company's disastrous defeat at Dejagore, Lady is one of the few survivors - determined to avenge the Company and herself against the Shadowmasters, no matter what the cost. But in assembling a new fighting force from the dregs and rabble of Taglios, she finds herself offered help by a mysterious, ancient cult of murder–competent, reliable, and apparently committed to her goals.

Having risked their lives and souls to capture the fortress of Stormgard, a band of weary soldiers known as the Company witnesses their commander's descent into madness and await the reemergence of their ancient gods.

The wind whines and howls with bitter breath. Lightning snarls and barks. Rage is an animate force upon the plain of glittering stone. Even shadows are afraid. At the heart of the plain stands a vast grey stronghold, unknown, older than any written memory. One ancient tower has collapsed across the fissure. From the heart of the vastness comes a great, deep, slow breath like that of a slumbering world-heart, cracking the olden silence.

She is the last hope of good in the war against the evil sorceress known as the Lady. From a secret base on the Plains of Fear, where even the Lady hesitates to go, the Black Company, once in service to the Lady, now fights to bring victory to the White Rose. But now an even greater evil threatens the world. All the great battles that have gone before will seem a skirmishes when the Dominator rises from the grave.

After the devastating battle at the Tower of Charm, Croaker leads the greatly diminished Black Company south, in search of the lost Annals. The Annals will be returned to Khatovar, 8,000 miles away, a city that may exists only in legend…the origin of the first Free Companies.