Just in case you’re wondering what to do now that March Madness and the NCAA basketball tournament is coming to a close, we have a suggestion: read something! Better yet, read Heroic Fantasy Quarterly Issue 12. In honor of said madness, we thought we’d offer our own sort of brackets. Well, something balanced at least. […]

CROWN OF SORROWS, by Seamus Bayne: The mistress Paracevia is the only one who knows my real name at the brothel where they find me. Those who’ve come for me think they’re clever — they wait deep into the night when they think I’ll be sotted with drink and worn from the ministrations of the […]

RHINDOR’S REMISSION,  by Russell Miller: He was pissing hot gravel. Rhindor pulled his silver beard away and looked down, just to be sure. As always, there was no molten lava or bloodied bits of razor, it was just urine; just a maddeningly weak stream of plain yellow fluid. His sunspotted hand slipped from the hem […]

BLADE AND BRANCH AND STONE, by Spencer Ellsworth: Lassan   The trees were screaming. Mortars shattered white wood that bled golden sap. The Fei looked down from the ridge with cold blue eyes, raised their muskets and hailed lead onto the human lines. Blood blossomed on white shirts around Lassan, under black-coated Imperial jackets. “Form […]

BURYING THE PLOUGHSHARE, by Bethany Powell: Failure — wide open failure, scent of hot dust and sunrays on the green of weeds baking where they’re harvested all together, walling this plot. The dark king’s warfare has salted the ground. This is expected. Nothing is coming up but the most perverse of weeds, grasses hard enough […]