Chasing Midnight is a young bandit woman and inexperienced witch who played a central role in the final pair of short stories in the On The Long Run story arc: "Bone Eaters" and "Chasing Midnight: The Dark Lord as a Teen".
"Bone Eaters"[]
- Main article: Bone Eaters
Chasing Midnight's clan – located someplace west of Rue in the northern continent – was wrecked by a series of misfortunes: "bad weather, pests, poor crops, [and] relentless tax collectors". This forced the auburn-haired girl, her twin brother Chasing Moonlight (younger by 12 minutes), her older brother (the leader of the gang, unnamed in the Annals), and 4 male cousins (later identified as Chick, Fade, Haru, Yuko) to become amateur bandits. Her older brother "wakened her keep-off-me talent", a minor sorcery that causes impotence in potential rapists.
She, Chasing Moonlight, and the 4 cousins are captured by the Black Company when they attempt to rob the Company's cleverly-disguised scout group. The leader of the gang (her older brother) is chased away by a disgusting magic illusion cast upon him by Goblin. She and her relatives are invited by Darling to join the New White Rose Rebellion.
In just a few weeks, Chasing Midnight becomes an impressive, hard-working trainee surgeon, diligently learning from Croaker, the Company's physician. She even remains after the rest of her clan deserts the group, including her twin brother. Croaker is especially proud of her when she dispassionately assists in sewing up the wounds of Rusty, a young, widely-hated Company man who had humiliated her earlier during a rape attempt that she had defeated with her keep-off-me spell.
When the Black Company and the refugee band following them are forced to approach the Village of Hungry Ghosts, one of Chasing Midnight's cousins Yuko is among the four people killed gruesomely by evil entities. She has to be physically restrained from running to save her cousin. It is she who formulates the plan for defeating this supernatural threat. She remains behind with One-Eye, Goblin, and Silent, to help keep everyone away from the Village, while Darling, Elmo, Otto, Hagop, Croaker, and Rusty use Darling's null to kill the 3 incarnate hungry ghosts. The rest of the hungry ghosts – the "discorporate" ones – are systematically trapped within livestock, where they are rendered powerless and will be killed later.
Chasing Midnight unexpectedly deserts the group after the Black Company signs a contract with the Magistrates of Rue. Later, as Croaker departs Rue, Rusty's gruesomely mutilated corpse is discovered. He had been tortured. The Annalist realizes that Chasing Midnight was behind it, and he dreads what darkness her future may hold.
"Chasing Midnight"[]
- Main article: Chasing Midnight: The Dark Lord as a Teen
"Chasing Midnight" details the young witch's activities in Rue after her departure from the protection of Darling and the Black Company.
While Midnight stakes out the Silent Owl to ambush Rusty – the young man who had attempted to rape her – she is distracted by a ghastly figure that seems to be moving supernaturally. At the last moment, her cousin Fade kills a gangster they refer to as "Monkey Butt" before the thug can seize her. She uses a minor witchery called "get small" to escape from the bloody scene. She soon learns that her brother Chasing Moonlight has disappeared in the meantime, and fears that he might be buried in the rubble of the house of a crime lord called Songo Songaghi that was mysteriously demolished. She struggles to maintain her influence over her cousins Chick, Fade, and Haru as hope diminishes that her brother may still be alive.
While the Black Company is preoccupied with Rue's war against the Dank, Midnight and her cousins investigate a bizarre lead that Moonlight is alive. She encounters the ghastly figure she had spotted before – referring to him now as Black Shroud – and eventually rescues Moonlight from the hideous wizard's abandoned fabric mill. Before the escape, Black Shroud mentions something called "the Shine", an object that Monkey Butt had also been searching for.
Midnight and her cousins immediately realize that Moonlight's personality had been erased somehow by Black Shroud. He is in a permanent infant-like mental state, and his health is badly deteriorating. As Midnight keeps everyone in hiding from roving gangsters, she is moved by Haru's continued loyalty to her (he keeps bringing food stolen from the Black Company barracks). Additionally, she realizes that Moonlight had only associated himself with Songo Songaghi for the purpose of supporting her continued independence. Their morale plummets as Moonlight's body begins to reek increasingly of death; he is apparently rotting while he is still alive.
Stalking Rusty outside the Silent Owl again, Midnight is accosted by Black Shroud, who is still desperate to find "the Shine". Fade shoots down the appalling wizard with his crossbow, and they flee the place once a second time. They discover that Moonlight has literally fallen to pieces. Later, Haru shares the speculation of the Black Company's wizards that Black Shroud and Songo Songaghi had been business partners, and were attempting to use the Shine and young victims to discover immortality. But, they had a falling out, and Moonlight stole the Shine before Songo's murder, setting the stage for their tribulations in Rue. Finally, although Midnight admits her responsibility for everything that has befallen them, she insists that they stay in the miserable city. She ostensibly wants to kill Rusty, but Chick and Fade know that she truly just wants to find the Shine.
| Chasing Midnight's clan |
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| Chasing Midnight • Chasing Moonlight • Chick • Fade • Haru • Yuko |