Artwork from The Black Company Campaign Setting depicting Dejagore at the time of the Battle of Dejagore
Dejagore (also called Jaicur by its natives and Stormgard by its captors) is a major, fortified city in the Shadowlands of the southern continent. It first appeared in the Annals of the Black Company at the end of Shadow Games, when the Battle of Dejagore was fought. As the site of the notorious months-long siege which followed, it was a central location in both Dreams of Steel and Murgen's supernatural flashbacks of Bleak Seasons. It was also the birthplace of the future Black Company Captain, Sleepy.
The city is at the center of an artificially-flattened plain which is surrounded by a ring of hills; the land beyond the hills is higher than the plain, which enabled the city to be disastrously flooded during the siege. Dejagore is located about 300 miles south of the larger city of Taglios, and about 200 miles south of both the surging Main river and the town of Ghoja on its south bank that is found between both cities. A much less significant location called Pityus might be roughly 265 miles east of Dejagore, because Willow Swan specified that Pityus is about 400 miles southeast of Taglios. Dejagore is 400 miles north of Kiaulune (formerly "Shadowcatch"); the huge Dandha Presh mountain range is found between them, but much closer to Kiaulune.
The people of Dejagore, the Jaicuri, were primarily Gunni but the city also featured Shadar and Vehdna minorities, as well as a noteworthy neighborhood of approximately 1,800 Nyueng Bao De Duang pilgrims who set up in the city not long before the Black Company first arrived in Shadow Games. As the headquarters of one of the four Shadowmasters, Dejagore was a key city of the Shadowlands. The city's master was the mysterious Shadowmaster called Stormshadow. The identity of this masked sorceress would be exposed to be Stormbringer, one of the fugitive Ten Who Were Taken from the distant northern continent.
"Dejagore" is the name for the city in the Taglian language, and for that reason that name appears most commonly throughout the Company Annals. The exception is Water Sleeps, the Annals for which were written by Sleepy, a native Jaicuri who referred to her home city by "Jaicur", its native name.
Before Shadow Games[]
Conjectural map of the lands around Dejagore
Years before Shadow Games, the conqueror called Stormshadow sacked the original city of Jaicur. Scant details are found in the Annals about Jaicur before it was conquered. Stormshadow then forced slave labor to undertake the massive project of building a new city directly above the old, which she made her headquarters:
| “ | First Stormshadow raised a mound forty feet high on top of the ruins of captured Jaicur, at the heart of a plain she had flattened absolutely by slaves and prisoners of war. Earth for the mound came from the ring of hills completely surrounding the plain. With the mound complete and faced on its outer sides with several layers of imported stone, Stormshadow built her new city up top. And that she surrounded with walls another forty feet high. She did not overlook the latest theories about towers for enfilading fire and barbicans to protect her elevated gates. [...]
Dejagore has four gates. Each stands at one point of the compass rose. Each is at the end of a paved highway running straight in from the hills. |
” |
Stormshadow raised an earthen mound around the old ruins forty feet above the new floodplain, and built a new city above the old, calling it Stormgard. She raised walls at its pinnacle another forty feet above the hill itself. The result was a tremendously impressive fortified city. Despite its increased height above the new floodplain, the city was still actually below the level of the country beyond the hills, where modest rivers ran to both the west and the southeast. Two major canals from these rivers fed water to Stormgard's multiple aqueducts, and "large, deep, very stagnant cisterns" were installed within the city.
Shadow Games[]
Battle of Dejagore by Didier Graffet
- Main article: Battle of Dejagore
After the Black Company defeated a major Shadowmaster army at the Battle of Ghoja Ford, they continued southward to Dejagore ("Stormgard"). There, they encountered its impressive walls – behind which Stormshadow remained hidden – as well as an unexpected and sizable military camp commanded by Shadowspinner outside Dejagore's south wall. The next day, there was a pitched battle outside the walls during which the Shadowlanders were badly defeated, and that night, Croaker sent in a large force of armed, vengeful, and recently-liberated Shadowlanders, who took the city for him. But, the following day, the Black Company and its Taglian legions would be defeated in another pitched battle outside the walls after Moonshadow arrived with a new army. This was the 2-day Battle of Dejagore which took place at the end of Shadow Games.
Dreams of Steel and Bleak Seasons[]
- Main article: Siege of Dejagore
The Siege of Dejagore was then maintained by the Shadowmaster called Shadowspinner. Mogaba, the ranking officer of the Black Company within the city, along with his Nar, formed a faction which was in increasing opposition to Company's Old Crew. Shadowspinner's besieging armies were beset by Mogaba's numerous and aggressive sorties, an unexpected ambush by Soulcatcher disguised as Lifetaker, and Lady's effective actions with her small relief army. This forced Shadowspinner to reroute nearby canals and form a lake around Dejagore, flooding the city. Those inside of Dejagore suffered miserably due to disease and starvation, while the feud between the Nar and Old Crew factions increased and soon came to include the Old Crew's new allies the Nyueng Bao, who were also trapped in the city.
During this time, future Company Annalist and later Captain, Sleepy, was rescued from rapists in her family like Rafi by the sergeant called Big Bucket. She began her membership with the Black Company shortly afterward, disguised as a young Shadar man.
Siege of Dejagore by Didier Graffet
The Old Crew populated a secret warren of tunnels under their section of Dejagore to access the old city below, on top of which the new city had been built. Under the direction of their reluctant leader Murgen, they maintained portions of it to hide within. Meanwhile the Nar occupied the bastion, where Mogaba committed human sacrifice and cannibalism.
Dejagore remained under siege after Lady killed Shadowspinner and took command of the Shadowmaster's bedraggled army. She did this to support her claim as Captain of the Black Company and to prevent Mogaba from escaping and pressing his claim. The siege was eventually ended once Croaker resumed the Captaincy. Dejagore was slowly restored to its previous state and repopulated. The city reaped immense economic benefits after the Rock Road linking it directly to Ghoja and Taglios was paved. This road was later extended southward to link up with the major city of Tragevec.
Soldiers Live[]
After the events of She Is the Darkness, Dejagore became part of Soulcatcher's Taglian Protectorate, a wide-ranging empire. Sleepy and her Black Company army recaptured it during the Protectorate war in Soldiers Live using key intelligence from a local shopkeeper, Sugriva Singh, the older brother of Aridatha Singh. The operation went so smoothly that the only injury sustained by the Company was a single broken arm. The Protectorate's Southern Army attempted to invest the city, but they were tormented by Unknown Shadows and soon badly fragmented by heavy desertions. Later, the Company cavalrymen occupying Dejagore scattered the Southern Army's steadfast core without outside help.