Changes: Croaker

Revision as of 20:00, 22 June 2018

“	Soldiers live. And wonder why.	”
–Croaker, Soldiers Live

Croaker is one of the central figures of the Black Company during the roughly fifty year period of its history explored in the Books of the North, Books of the South, and the Books of Glittering Stone. He was established as the Company's primary physician and also its respected annalist by the time the Company is in service to the Syndic of Beryl, and, he served in these capacities through the Battle of the Barrowland. It is during this period that he first meets the Lady. Initially terrified of her and her seeming malice, Croaker eventually begins an enduring romance with the Lady, which persists despite dramatic developments.

Following the reduction of the Black Company to merely seven men after the final battle with the Dominator, Croaker is voted to become Captain. He remains in command until being imprisoned in the Cave of the Ancients underneath the Fortress With No Name by Soulcatcher. Upon his release, he no longer considers himself mentally sound, so he surrenders command. He does resume his duties as physician and annalist until his final encounter with the ancient golem Shivetya. He acts as the main narrator during the Books of the North, Shadow Games and Soldiers Live.

Before the Annals

Croaker reveals few details about his life before the Company was in service to the Syndic of Beryl. As he travels south in Shadow Games, he writes that he is from Padora, a major trading crossroads south of the Jewel Cities. He recalls hiding under tables as a child when his father would have his frequent, but brief, flashes of explosive rage. He would inherit this, albeit to a lesser extent, from his father. In Dreams of Steel, his wife Lady writes that at the age of approximately 45, his face still bears the scars of a childhood pox, as well as "more than a few memories of acne".

In The White Rose, Croaker reveals that he learned medicine from a "toothless ancient". When he joined the Company, his friend Elmo had been his sponsor. He was hired to be the Company's physician, and took on the role of Annalist later. His predecessor as Annalist assured Croaker that Silent formerly used to speak, but by the time of Croaker's arrival, Silent had taken his mysterious namesake vow.

Because of his natural curiosity and his role as annalist, Croaker directly inserts himself into many of the Black Company's more significant operations.

Books of the North

The Black Company

On the route north toward Oar, Croaker searches a burnt-out town with Raven and Elmo. There, they discover that some of the Limper's men have been torturing and raping the populace. He and Raven forcibly break up a particularly gruesome scene and rescue a young girl named Darling and Flick, her aged grandfather. Although the Captain arrives to defuse the situation, most of the Limper's men leave the scene alive.

He insists on personally accompanying Elmo and others in Oar after their supply patrol, headed by Raven, does not report back on time. As a result, Croaker meets the Taken known as Shapeshifter as part of a greater plan to discredit and embarrass the Limper, as well as dealing a blow to the Circle of Eighteen. Along with Raven, Elmo and Shapeshifter, Croaker infiltrates a Rebel stronghold to extract the Limper's favorite enforcer, Colonel Zouad. Limper appears in person to attempt to rescue the good Colonel, but is buried beneath the collapsing Rebel structure by Shapeshifter with Croaker's help, beginning in earnest the enmity between the Company and the Limper.

Croaker also accompanies a party of Company soldiers - and the wizards One-Eye and Goblin - to the city of Roses where, with the help of Soulcatcher, they lay a trap for a troublesome Rebel general named Raker. Using several of Raker's hairs, the wizards set up a throne-like pedestal in a busy intersection along with a fortune in gold and silver, offering the bounty to anyone who delivers Raker's head to the pedestal. Tensions mount in Roses as Croaker and his companions watch from the periphery while Raker loses credibility by the day.

Eventually, Raker knifes longtime company man Hagop, and Croaker and Raven go after him. Between the two, they slay Raker, and claim Soulcatcher's bounty for themselves. Soon after, Limper arrives, claiming that the money was wrongfully taken from his own war chest, and demanding its return. Soulcatcher comes in soon after, however, wondering why Limper has abandoned his post, which suffered an uprising in his absence. Embarrassed and afraid of being punished by the Lady, the Limper flees, once again having gotten the worst of a run-in with the Black Company.

Near the Forest of Cloud, Croaker was able to read some documents recovered by the Company from a Rebel division they had ambushed and massacred. Instantly, he recognizes that they have recovered the entire campaign strategy of the top Rebel commander, Whisper, and he commands a more detailed search of the area. Further searching unearths a trove of older documents that contain information from the age of the Domination. He is told by Soulcatcher that the documents contain her own True Name, as well as those of several other Taken, and perhaps that of the Lady as well.

Because Croaker's coup in recovering the documents for the Lady's side, he is assigned along with Raven to personally deal with Whisper and the Limper, who after a long string of failures has decided to take his chances with the White Rose rather than face the Lady. The two men lay in hiding with special arrows and then jump out of hiding, incapacitating both Whisper and Limper. Croaker witnesses the arrival of the Lady, of whom he is in awe, as well as the Taking of Whisper, the first time the spell had been performed since the Dominator took the last of his own generals during the Domination. He also witnesses Limper being borne away by the Lady for punishment.

During the defense of the Stair of Tear, Croaker and Raven are once again tapped by Soulcatcher for a special forces raid. They accompany Soulcatcher as well as Stormbringer and the Hanged Man to assassinate the Rebel general Harden. Croaker begins to see the Taken's strategy, as they focus on wiping out the Rebel leadership, the so-called Circle of Eighteen, leaving the White Rose Rebellion without the sorcery necessary to battle back against the Lady and her minions. Although Harden is assassinated almost without a hitch when he falls into a trap set by Shapeshifter, he hurls his sword in desperation, which takes the Hanged Man in the chest. After Harden's death, Croaker is witness to the other Taken leaving the Hanged Man to die. He is threatened into silence by Soulcatcher, and readily agrees that he saw nothing. However, from this point forward, Croaker is afraid that what he knows will put him in danger.

Before the Battle at Charm, Croaker accompanies a group led by the Lieutenant to capture Feather and Journey, new inductees into the Circle of Eighteen. The Company infiltrates the town where the couple are honeymooning and takes them without trouble. However, during the return trip to Charm, they nearly run afoul of a Rebel regiment, and a mysteriously off-target sorcery, a length of lime-green thread deadly to the touch. They are eventually evacuated by the Howler on his large flying carpet, but Croaker is left with the impression that at least some of the Taken no longer have his best interests at heart.

At Charm, Croaker is nearly killed once again when a siege ballista, being set up for the inevitable Rebel assault, goes off without explanation and takes him in the shoulder, severing an artery. Fortunately, an Imperial guardsman at hand applies a tourniquet and rushes Croaker to an Imperial physician. After receiving treatment, Croaker is taken before the Lady. He meets her in the depths of the Tower at Charm, an enclosed block of stone which can only be entered at the Lady's invitation. She shows him a comfortable image, from a romantic portrait of the Lady that he had written some time before, and subjects him to a deep probe of his thoughts. Afterward, however, she heals his serious injury and returns him to the Company.

During the Battle of Charm, Croaker is summoned by the Lady once more. She tells him to record events in a factually correct way, so that in at least one account, her story will not be marred by the bias of historians. She also presents him with a magnificent silver bow and a quiver of special black arrows much like the ones he and Raven were issued to incapacitate Limper and Whisper in the Forest of Cloud. At the battle's finale, Croaker personally accompanies the Lady as she pursues the fleeing Soulcatcher. Croaker hits Soulcatcher with arrows, and then, in a fit of rage, he delivers a massive two-handed sword stroke that decapitates the Taken. He is deeply shaken, however, when he examines Soulcatcher's body and discovers that she is, in fact, the Lady's sister, making two such sisters that the Lady has killed off.

In the aftermath of the battle, Croaker and Silent discover for certain that Darling is actually the reincarnation of the White Rose, the female general who defeated the Dominator and the Lady and interred them in the Barrowland, a secret that is worth far more than their lives. Although it saddens Croaker to part ways with two people he counted as friends, he understands when Raven takes Darling and flees.

Shadows Linger

After Charm, Croaker and the Black Company go about the business of purging the White Rose Rebellion wherever they may still be found. He notes that the Company does not really believe in the Lady's cause, and that after the unimaginable bloodshed of Charm, there seems to be a malaise creeping over the whole brotherhood. They are beginning to lose the spirit that is part of what makes them so formidable. Before he can conjure up a solution to the problem, Croaker is whisked away to a far-off city called Juniper along with a party of Company men, including Elmo and Goblin, at the Lady's request.

In Juniper, Croaker learns about the growing threat of the Black Castle, a strange fortification being constructed by creatures in the service of the Dominator. Using dead bodies, for which they pay a hefty fee, the creatures are planning to construct a portal through which the Dominator can be summoned out of his enchanted barrow, returning at full strength to the world. Croaker is assigned to learn who is selling bodies and put a stop to the whole business. Unfortunately, Croaker discovers that Raven selected Juniper to flee to, and he strongly suspects - correctly - that Raven has been doing the body selling in order to finance his escape from the Lady's empire.

Working more to put the Taken off Raven's trail than anything, Croaker engineers a raid upon a handful of White Rose survivors in Juniper. Although they had also sold a handful of bodies, the Taken quickly determine that the Rebels are not the main source of corpses that is powering the Black Castle. Croaker and his team try to locate Raven, but are unsuccessful, as he first goes into deep hiding, and then escapes from the city. With Raven gone, the Company turn their attention toward isolating the Black Castle. Croaker personally takes control of a roadside observation post along the road up to the fortress. Although several more bodies are delivered, they eventually capture Marron Shed and Lisa Bowalk, the last corpse sellers in business. From Shed, Croaker learns most of the details of what had transpired in Juniper, which he believes were important enough to the Company's dealings and eventual fate that he transcribes Shed's account into the Annals.

The rest of the Black Company arrives in Juniper and, together with the Taken, lay siege to the Black Castle. Croaker runs a field surgery with a good view of the battle and is in a good position to observe most of what occurs during the Battle of Juniper. Near the end of the battle, Croaker receives secret instructions from the Captain by way of Silent, ordering he and most of the 'old' Company brothers to flee the city immediately on a ship headed south, because Limper and Whisper are planning to make good their revenge with the Dominator's threat ended.

The Lieutenant and most of the Company who are either wanted by the Limper or know information dangerous to the Lady manage to escape south. However, the Captain is unable to slip away, and instead he steals the Lady's carpet and crashes it into the ocean, leaving the Lady without a good means of pursuing the fleeing Black Company. She appears to Croaker in his dreams, asking him to return, but he answers, in essence, that being betrayed by the Taken was the last straw for he and his fellows.

Left with no other real options, the Black Company defect to the side of the White Rose. Making their escape, they encounter Limper once again, whom they drag from his horse. Croaker literally hacks the Taken to pieces, which they distribute randomly, before fleeing, once again underestimating Limper's incredible vitality.

The White Rose

Croaker and other survivors form the core of the new White Rose movement hidden within a cavern called the Hole in the Plain of Fear. There, they slowly organize, building contacts in cities under the Lady's control, in what they consider to be a fairly hopeless campaign to ultimately topple the Lady. In addition to their political strategy, Croaker has also brought the documents recovered from Whisper to their hole, which he works tirelessly to translate and search, in an effort to discover the Lady's True Name.

During this time, Croaker begins to receive oil-skin packets containing a narrative written and sent by an unknown party, which detail the work of the wizard Bomanz in the Barrowland. Bomanz is known to have released the Lady from imprisonment, who then turned against her husband and sealed him still more completely, before releasing the Taken into her service. However, the account of Bomanz's work is strikingly personal, and reveals a great deal of new information about his final days, and how the Lady came to be free. Although interesting, Croaker initially cannot see much purpose in the narrative.

Eventually, however, Croaker realizes that some of the documents recovered from Whisper are missing. He believes that the story of Bomanz is being drawn from those documents, and suggests an expedition to the Barrowland. Darling quickly realizes the necessity of the idea, and sends Croaker, along with Goblin and One-Eye, and the mysterious Tracker and Toadkiller Dog, to the Barrowland.

Once there, Croaker and his companions quickly discover that the author of the story and the sender of the packets is none other than Raven, returned from faking his death yet again, and frantically researching both the Lady and the Dominator. They also discover that the Great Tragic River is in constant flood and is literally eating away the Barrowland, and that for reasons unknown Raven attempted to penetrate the Barrowland in an astral form. Shortly after, the team's cover is broken. Tracker, Toadkiller Dog and the wizards manage to escape following some confusion, while Croaker is captured by the Taken.

Briefly imprisoned, Croaker manages to stave off his death at the hands of Whisper and Limper by asking the Lady for help. Considering him valuable for reasons that Croaker seemingly does not wish to see, she arrives in time to save his life, and bears him off to the Tower at Charm. There, she once again probes his deepest memories, and demands to know what sort of monsters he and his companions set loose from the Barrowlands. Confused, Croaker has no answers for her.

the Lady offers Croaker a deal. Since it is now too late to stop the Dominator from eventually emerging from his prison, she wishes to search Croaker's document stash for the Dominator's True Name, as well as to negotiate at least a temporary peace between her forces and the White Rose. Croaker initially balks, not trusting her motives, but is easily convinced when the Lady offers to personally accompany him into Darling's magic absorption field to do her work in person.

Croaker escorts the Lady back to the hole, where she poses as a traveling companion familiar with old languages named, in a fit of black humor, 'Ardath' after the Lady's own dead sister. While on the Plain, the Lady and Croaker's relationship grows closer. Croaker believes that, if he had the stones for it, he could have become 'more than a pretend boyfriend' to her. In spite of all of her power, her dark nature, and her near-immortality, the Lady has never had a friend, and is as smitten with Croaker as he continues to be with her, though neither party will admit to it.

Croaker is present at the negotiations between the Lady and Darling, but does not recall their details, as the Lady modifies his memory afterwards. He personally accompanies the Lady, along with the forces of the White Rose and the Empire to the Barrowland to see the matter of the Dominator put to rest. There, he comforts the Lady as she is finally forced to confront - perhaps for the first time - the real possibility of her death. Although both are terrified, they draw strength from one another, and once again the Lady provides him with black arrows that can actually wound the Dominator.

During the battle, Croaker stays right by the Lady's side. When Limper finally betrays her, incorrectly naming her as Credence and shooting her with a crossbow, he goes into a mad fit of rage and 'kills' the Limper once more, kicking his severed head into a pit. After the Lady names Darling's name and in turn is named by Silent, removing both of them as great powers of the world, Croaker defends the Lady's right to live. In the end, when Raven moves to kill the Lady, Croaker even shoots him in the hip.

With the Black Company dramatically reduced to only ten brothers, Croaker is elected as their new Captain by unanimous vote during their official convocation at the Blue Willy inn. He claims that he does not want the job, but it seems that all the others want it even less. As Captain, Croaker, perhaps already being lightly influenced by the Dark Goddess, Kina, sets the Company on the road south to Khatovar.

The Books of the South

File:Croaker by isskottr-d38s1vm.jpg

Shadow Games

On his way south Croaker escorts Lady back to the Tower at Charm, helping her conceal the fact that she is no longer a sorceress. She wishes to join their journey to Khatovar, but has a lot of things to take care of. Croaker is given the rank of general and is named a diplomatic legate answerable only to the Lady herself. To accept these commissions, the Lady insists that he supplies his birth name, but he has been known as Croaker for so long that he actually has to take a moment to remember it. After two weeks in the Tower and feeling threatened, the Company loses patience and leaves her there. Croaker promises her that he will wait for her at Opal. Lady eventually arrives and they leave her empire together. Outside the imperial borders Croaker officially makes her a soldier of the Company. He also starts having visions of a mysterious figure, surrounded by flocks of ravens, which nobody else notices.

On their way south the Company finds several new recruits. In Gea-Xle they are joined by a group of elite soldiers, called the Nar, led by Mogaba. The Company boards a ship and faces the fearsome river pirates. The Howler who was thought to be dead, is behind the pirates' attack. Shapeshifter who had rejoined the Lady disguised as "Eldon the Seer", intervenes and slaughters many of the Howler's pirates.

Croaker and his men reach further south to the city of Taglios. The Prahbrindrah Drah, its prince, recruits them to defeat the Shadowmasters, a group of powerful sorcerers who are controlling the territories on the way to Khatovar. Croaker organizes a scouting mission without notifying the prince. They are attacked and Croaker is separated from the rest. He follows the strange figure he has been seeing for months to a ghostly-looking forest and receives an arrow with a warning message.

He is eventually reunited with the rest of the Black Company. They return to Taglios and start training an army. They create three legions and appoint their best Gea-Xle recruits, Mogaba, Ochiba, and Sindawe as legion commanders. Afterward they face the Shadowmasters in the Battle of Ghoja Ford. The battle is won and Croaker advances to Dejagore. The Black Company suffers a crushing defeat. Few of them retreat to the city. Croaker is shot with an arrow and loses consciousness.

Dreams of Steel

The mysterious figure with the ravens turns out to be Soulcatcher and the Annalist becomes her prisoner. She makes Croaker stitch her severed head back to its place. Croaker is about 45 years old at this time. After recovering from her wounds she steals the Widowmaker armor and orders Croaker to wear it. Disguised as the Widowmaker and Lifetaker they attack the Shadowmasters' army besieging Dejagore. They return to Taglios where Soulcatcher pretends to be Lady. She is kidnapped and Croaker is freed.

He mobilizes some of Lady's soldiers and heads for Dejagore. Shadowspinner who is leading the Shadowmaster army is killed. Mogaba who is commanding the remainders of the Black Company surrenders Dejagore to Croaker. He is eventually reunited with Lady, but their daughter is taken away by the Stranglers.

The Books of Glittering Stone

Bleak Seasons and She is the Darkness

About four years later Croaker finishes his preparations and leads the final attack against Longshadow, the last of the Shadowmasters. He is victorious in the Battle of Charandaprash and the Siege of Overlook and his foe Longshadow is captured alive. Soulcatcher is also captured, but manages to trap Croaker, Murgen, Lady, and several others in stasis on the glittering plain. Without its commanders the Black Company is almost eliminated.

Water Sleeps and Soldiers Live

However under the new commander, Sleepy, the Company manages to free the captured after 15 years worth of covert efforts. Croaker resumes the efforts of defeating Soulcatcher and Kina and recovering his daughter, now called Booboo as a half-joking attempt to give her a name other than Daughter of Night. He is eventually successful but at a price. After Croaker destroys Kina with the help of the re-animated wizard Goblin the enraged Daughter of Night attempts to strangle her mother with a deceiver strangling scarf. In an effort to save his wife, Croaker mortally wounds his daughter, but Lady suffers damage and is left in critical condition. With the help of one of his adpoted daughters Arkana, Croaker packs Booboo's body in ice and brings her to the Unnamed Fortress in the case that she may possibly be bought out of stasis and saved one day. In the Unnamed fortress, Arkana leaves Croaker stranded so the annalist spends several weeks communing with Shivetya, plotting how Croaker will keep his promise to the demon to allow it to leave its post as the guardian of the glittering plain. After tying up some loose ends, Croaker's plan to honor his agreement with the Demon is revealed. The annalist and Shivetya have agreed to switch bodies: Croaker takes on the immortal form, allowing him to endow Lady with her old powers, while the Demon can finish its own days in a dying man's body. Croaker passes on his role as annalist to his adopted daughters, laying the pen down and accepting his new role as the undying and all-knowing guardian of the plain.

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 === ''Shadows Linger'' ===
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 After Charm, Croaker and the Black Company go about the business of purging the White Rose Rebellion wherever they may still be found. He notes that the Company does not really believe in the Lady's cause, and that after the unimaginable bloodshed of Charm, there seems to be a malaise creeping over the whole brotherhood. They are beginning to lose the spirit that is part of what makes them so formidable. Before he can conjure up a solution to the problem, Croaker is whisked away to a far-off city called [[Juniper]] along with a party of Company men, including Elmo and Goblin, at the Lady's request.