Contains "Water Sleeps" in which the members of the Black Company, having survived the disaster at Taglios, plot to free their fellow warriors and learn the true origins of their group, and "Soldiers Live" in which Croaker and the other members of the Black Company fight their enemies to prevent an apocalypse.

"It is eleven thousand years from now. A lot has happened, and yet a lot is still very familiar. Ariel is a boy in a small town under a wizard's rule. Like many adventurers before him, Ariel is called to explore a world full of unimaginable glories and challenges: unknown enemies, a mission to save the world, a girl. Here, as they say, be dragons. But none of this happens before Ariel comes across an artifact from an earlier civilization, a sentient,...