Ah, April. Finally, finally perhaps the damn cold and snow will relent! Hey — we talked about March Madness and NCAA basketball and cerebral awakenings this time last year, so why not talk about the weather this year? Yep, HFQ Issue 16 is here and there’s not a better time than now to read it. […]

LORD OF THE TATTERED BANNER, by Kristopher Reisz: By the time they took Orsten Keep, the pretender had already escaped over the mountains with half her army. After the battle, the smell of blood and smoke lingered. It was a strangely fertile smell, like fresh-tilled earth. Fengr Tall-As-A-Mounted-Man felt his war-rage cool, leaving him with […]

NICOR, by Matthew Quinn: Crows cawed in the distance. The Danes sitting in the longship began muttering ominously. Geiri Jorgenson, a dark-haired beardless boy of thirteen summers, leaned forward to listen. “Is that the other ship over there?” he asked his friend Halvor Skallagrimson, a big red-bearded man who sat across the aisle. Halvor nodded. […]

THE LION AND THE THORN TREE, by J.S. Bangs: My husband’s voice came through the door of our house in the night. It was a ghost voice, muddled with the baying of wild dogs, and so I knew he was dead. I was four months pregnant. I followed the echo of his voice for half […]

DIANA’S JUSTICE, by Adele Gardner: The maiden hies off to the woods: On a moon-pale steed she rides, Decked out in doublet, hose of black, A sword all by her side. She goes to meet her own true love With lips pursed in a frown, And rides beneath the greenwood boughs Until the sun goes […]