The first book of A Pitiless Rain will be Lies Weeping
A Pitiless Rain – or, The Orphan’s Tale – is the title of the forthcoming 4-part story arc of Glen Cook's Black Company series. The novels are: Lies Weeping, They Cry, Summer Grass, and Darkness Knows. Lies Weeping is scheduled for publication on November 4, 2025; They Cry is scheduled for November 3, 2026.
The narrative will follow on after the events of Soldiers Live, which was published in August 2000 (whereas 2018's Port of Shadows turned out to be an interquel set within the time frame of the first trilogy).
2024 Black Gate interview[]
In a long-awaited update in April 2024, Glen Cook revealed that A Pitiless Rain will be divided into 4 volumes. At the time of the interview, the first 3 volumes were finished, and the fourth was halfway completed.
2011 Utopiales interview[]
- Source: external YouTube link
For many years, most of the scant details available about the novel was that it will involve "the children" and "the god Croaker" (mentioned shortly after the 20:00 minute mark). It is a near-certainty that "children" refers to Baku and Shin, two youthful supernatural entities introduced in 2018's Port of Shadows who repeatedly claimed to be the children of Croaker and Lady. The pair reappeared with the aliases "Lacksluck" and "Luckless" in the 2021 short story "Cranky Bitch", and still referred to Croaker as "Dad".