SHE IS THE DARKNESS: Vol. II of Glittering Stone

Second book in the current trilogy (Bleak Stones, 1996), and eighth overall, about the Black Company, a band of mercenary warriors attempting to survive in a world of contending sorcerers, gods, ghosts, assassins, and whatnot. Once again the Company (the Old Man, the Lady, One-Eye the sorcerer, the standard-bearer and narrator Murgen, and so on) battle a rival faction of cannibals and devil-worshippers, distracting them from their real enemy, the Shadowmaster Soulcatcher and her hordes of Stranglers--whose evil plots unfold against a landscape so bleak and blasted by war and magic that readers can't help but wonder where, for instance, the Company's food comes from, or who can afford to pay them. Fascinating, no doubt, for the fans; all but impenetrable to outsiders.