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 […]

THE GOOSE AND CRADLE, by David Austin: Fewer and fewer people were stopping by the Goose and Cradle.  Everyone that had anyone was at home holding them close, waiting for the walls to crumble.  Mirsare was under siege, and massive chunks of rock rained steadily down.  The walls were strong; the boys could hold them […]

THE PRINCESS TRAP, by Peter Darbyshire: Saleema was an orphaned sheepherder until her seventeenth year, when a talking dragon landed in the mountain meadow one summer day and ate all her sheep. Then Saleema was just an orphan. Saleema, however, liked to imagine herself not as a mere orphan, or even an orphan sheepherder, but […]