Mogaba

From Glen Cook Wiki

Mogaba is the leader of the Nar contingent which joins the Black Company at Gea-Xle. He is a tall, dark black man with perfect musculature "like a fictional hero". Leadership among the Nar is determined by athletic competitions and combat, and Mogaba is the best of them all.

The Nar are descendants of the original Black Company, and Mogaba is ecstatic to rejoin the standard as Croaker marches south in search of Khatovar. Mogaba is a superlative warrior and excellent general. However, he is also a megalomaniac. The Nar have maintained a different set of traditions than the regular Company, traditions which are also distorted versions of the original but are darker - they include eating the hearts and livers of one's defeated enemies, for example.

Mogaba serves the Company well until the battle at Dejagore, where Croaker is captured by Soulcatcher and believed dead. Mogaba is trapped in the city, beseiged by Shadowspinner's army for months, and becomes a ruthless and despised dictator. The old Company members from the north (One-Eye, Goblin, Murgen, etc.) split from Mogaba, who believes he should be the new Captain. The rift is never healed, and Mogaba switches sides, joining the Shadowmasters.

When the principals of the Company are captured and interred in the Plateau of Glittering Stone, Mogaba becomes the military leader of Taglios, the "Grand General", under Soulcatcher ("The Protector"). He remains an excellent general but eventually comes to find life under the capricious rule of Soulcatcher unbearable; he secretly plots to kill her. The plot fails, and Mogaba realizes that the Black Company, marching on Taglios again, will not stop until he is caught. Finally setting aside his own ego for the sake of the city, he quietly leaves the city, only to be ambushed and killed by Shadows sent by Tobo.