SHADOWS AND FOXFIRE, by R. Michael Burns    “Everything in this world is but a marionette show.” –Yamamoto Tsunemoto, Hagakure, ca. 1700   That night, the gods raged. Fūjin’s winds lashed the towering pines, bowing them before him.  Raijin slammed the narrow valley with fists of rain, his thunder-bellows shaking the earth.  Caught in the heart […]

FEATHERS, by Andrew Knighton Hal stood on the track out of Olbry, feeling the wind whip off the moor, watching a dark shape soar on rotten wings. He heard the cawing of the raum crow and the whimpering of his son from their hut. The cawing filled him with anger, but the other sound ripped […]

HANDFUL OF SPRING, by Charles Paysuer Mina watched each step fall into the snow, those brief shadows around her feet the only landmarks in the shifting white. Directly behind her she felt Natham stumble again, heard his curse as she was forced to stop, to wait, her arms full of spring. “How much farther?” Natham […]

A MATTER OF GOATS, by Ben Fenwick:   An eerie call fell down the wind from the dark mountainsides. It was a high-pitched tone that fell slowly into a humanlike, ululating sob. Anton Le Bouveret felt the hairs on his forearms and the back of his neck prickle. The dark, rugged, Balkan shadowland surrounded them […]

LADY CARDULA AND THE GRYPHON, by Shawn Scarber:     Duncan hated human-sized books. Sadly, they were about the only tomes created and though he wrote long letters to the monks who lived in the Sambata monastery imploring them to copy larger editions, his letters often went unanswered. “If I were a dragon, they wouldn’t […]