Uncle Doj

From Glen Cook Wiki

A member of the Nyueng Bao, Master of the Path of the Sword. He is very wide but extremely strong. He is a priest of sorts for the Nyueng Bao, where the Path of the Sword - a sort of martial art - is a form of meditation. He is a superlative swordsman, wielding Ash Wand, a four hundred year old blade. Uncle Doj is an extremely minor wizard as well. He hangs out with the Black Company for decades, ostensibly as a bodyguard but in reality secretly hunting for the stolen Shadowgate key. He is killed in battle fighting the Khadidas.

Rise of the Shadowmasters

There appears to be a discrepancy regarding the history of the Shadowmasters as he relates it to Sleepy in Deer Park. When Doj is described in Sleepy's account, he is described as verging on seventy. However, he says that that Shadowspinner arrived in the Nyoung Bao delta when he was a "just a boy", first learning the path of the sword; in addition, saying that he arrived when the Company was still in service in the North. Given that the Captured had lain under the plain for fourteen years, that the campaign against the Shadowmasters had lasted four years, that it took two years for the Company to reach the South, and that Lady lost her powers fifteen years after the Battle of Charm, we come up with a maximum of thirty-five years since the Company had been in service to Lady. Giving Doj the generous age of 67, he still could only be 32 years old at youngest when Shadowspinner arrived in the Delta. Moreover, since the Howler was present when the Gate was opened, and since there's no way he could have been at the other end of the world without Lady noticing, there are only two possibilities: Doj is completely wrong about how old he was, or he looks about twenty years older than he actually is. Neither seems particularly likely.