The Silver Spike
THE SILVER SPIKE
...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.
Glen Cook
Glen Cook is the author of dozens of novels of fantasy and science fiction, including The Black Company, The Garret Files, Instrumentalities of the Night, and the Dread Empire series. Cook was born in 1944 in New York City. He attended the Clarion Writers' Workshop in 1970, where he met his wife. He currently makes his home in St. Louis, MO.
A Chronicle of the Black Company
The series follows an elite mercenary unit, The Black Company, last of the Free Companies of Khatovar, through roughly forty years of its approximately four hundred year history. Cook mixes fantasy with military fiction in gritty, down-to-earth portrayals of the Company's chief personalities and its struggles.
A Chronicle of the Black Company consists of nine primary books, and includes two additional books that complement the series but are not considered mandatory reads. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.
Related series The Black Company (omnibus editions)
Related series A Pitiless Rain