Kitiara Club

The Black Company · The Annals · The Company

The Missing Night in the Annals

Archive Guest · 6 pages

Comic

The dead don’t care for the Annals. But the living do.

A muddy dawn at the Company camp; Croaker kneels beside Harp’s corpse, Harp’s hand clutching a rain-soaked page. The camp is a mire of tents, fires dying, and weary men moving among the dead.
Establish mud, death, the Annals, and Croaker’s burden1 / 6
One-Eye, muddy and scowling, points at the blank page in Croaker’s grip as Goblin stands behind, arms folded, face unreadable. Croaker stands stiff, jaw tight.
You missed a night, Croaker. Paper caught up with him.One-Eye
You’ll have to write it. He’s waiting to move on.Goblin
Close on Croaker’s hands, muddy and ink-stained, gripping the Annals and the wet page. His face, tired and resentful, in the background. The campfire behind him smokes.
The dead don’t care about my scribbles.Croaker
Brothers demand Croaker write the missing night2 / 6
Raven stands apart from the others, arms crossed, watching Croaker with dark, unreadable eyes. The Lady’s black standard hangs limp in the muddy background.
What’s the Annals for, Raven? A grave, a weapon, or a lie?Croaker
Croaker and two silent Company men lift Harp’s body, dirt and blood at the frame. The men’s faces are grim, anonymous in the Company’s black.
Set him by the fire. He goes with the rest.Croaker
Inside Croaker’s tent, the Annals open on his knees. The blank page stares up at him; rain streaks the canvas. Croaker looks haunted.
What do I write, Harp?Croaker
Pressure mounts: Raven watches, the burden grows, Harp’s body is prepared3 / 6
Croaker sits alone, pen poised. One-Eye’s shadow falls through the tent flap. Outside, voices murmur, rain tapping.
Don’t make him a saint. Just make him seen.One-Eye
Extreme close-up: Croaker’s ink-stained hand writes in the Annals, words visible: 'The night of the blank page, Harp held the west gap until dawn...'
Turn: Croaker faces the choice—truth or mercy4 / 6
The Annals, written and open, sit on Croaker’s knees in the dim, firelit tent. Croaker’s face is reflected in a pool of rainwater by his boot: tired, relieved, guilty. The world outside is gray, but the page glows with amber candlelight.
We remember him as he was: tired, stubborn, a brother in the mud.Croaker
Climax: The Annals page fills; Croaker’s choice is made5 / 6
Outside the tent at day’s end: Croaker steps out, Annals under arm, passing one of the pyres where Harp and others burn. The Lady’s black standard is distant; rain begins again.
The page is no longer blank. The Annals outlive us, as they must.Croaker
Close on the Annals: Harp’s name written among dozens of others, edges stained, the ink still wet. A droplet of rain lands on the page, blurring a letter.
Aftermath: The Annals endure, the war goes on6 / 6
Chapter prose
I found him at dawn, sprawled in the mud behind the surgeon’s tent. Silent, mouth open, one hand jammed in his coat as if he’d made a last desperate grab for warmth or memory. The name was Harp, which no one used; he’d played the pipes when he was drunk, and I suppose the Company liked the joke. He’d been alive last night, alive enough to curse the rain, then gone. He held a scrap of parchment, half-soaked, the ink running. I recognized my own hand. The words were not mine, yet the shape of them was familiar—like a song heard through a wall. A date, the day before, left blank. The Annals are my burden, my shield, my shame. They are also the Company’s memory, and sometimes its only proof that we existed. I had not written last night. Too much brandy, too little hope. The siege had gone wrong. Men died in the mud, and Harp died with them. The others gathered around as I pried the parchment from his fingers. One-Eye snorted. "You missed a night, Croaker. Guess it caught up with him." Goblin, sullen, eyes like bruises: "You’ll have to write it. He’s waiting to move on." I bristled. "The dead don’t care about my scribbles." But Raven, distant, was watching. He said nothing, just looked at me as if the ledger of the Company’s truth had gained a page and lost a man. The Lady’s black standard hung limp in the rain. The Annals are not holy writ, but men treat them that way. Without them, we’re dust, forgotten between sieges. I set Harp’s body aside for burning, with the others. Back in my tent, I took up the Annals and stared at the blank page. What should I write? The truth? That I’d curled up drunk and let the night pass unrecorded, that a Company brother died unseen? That there was nothing brave about the way the world turned? Or should I write what the men needed: That Harp died a song in his throat, holding the line while the Taken burned the sky? That he mattered? That the Annals are a grave, not a ledger? The Lady’s empire does not traffic in sentiment. But we are not the Lady. We are the Black Company, the men whose names are written only if I choose to write them. I listened to the rain, the mutter of men outside, and the scraping of One-Eye’s staff as he cursed the weather. I wrote: "The night of the blank page, Harp held the west gap until dawn. He died with his pipe in hand. The Company will remember him as he was: tired, stubborn, a brother in the mud. The rain did not stop. Neither did we." Afterward, I sat with the Annals open on my knees, feeling the weight of the lie, or the mercy, or both. The page was no longer blank. Outside, the sun struggled against the clouds, and the men stacked the dead. The war went on. The Annals outlived us, as they must.
Original idea

The Annals path: A Company brother dies holding a page Croaker never wrote. The surviving men insist the missing night be entered anyway. Croaker has to decide whether the Annals are a weapon, a grave, or a lie the Company needs.

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