DUEL, by R. M. Gulaya, artwork by Lilith Graves       This was a magnificent place to spill blood. The clearing here was not a natural thing, but rather a scar, blasted out of the thick pine forest by magical fires of war some fifty years ago. Kael marveled at the scene, so familiar […]

DRAGON TEARS, by Caleb Williams, pending artwork by Simon Walpole   An elbow struck my side and woke me from an alchemical slumber. My limbs were bound to the mast of some ragged naval vessel. A boy held tight to the rigging. “Sorry. Captain orders.” Across the sea, royal ships from Alma’Riha shot fireworks across […]

THE CURSE OF BLOODBONE ISLAND, by Adrian Cole, artwork by Miguel Santos A tale of Elak’s Atlantis Prologue   Under the watchful eye of the Atlantean moon, the Arrow, a sleek privateer craft, was at rest at the quayside of the small port of Ulumar, far from the main sea lanes of the young Empire. […]

RED-AUTMN SEEKS HIS FATHER’S BONES, By Jonathan Olfert, art by Miguel Santos   At forty winters, Red-Autumn climbed into the forbidden tomb with an old man’s carefulness, clumsy in the dark. Engraved stone chewed his fingertips raw. There’d be worse pain tonight, succeed or fail. He caught his breath at the top of the carved […]

THE BLADE’S BARGAIN, by Robert Luke Wilkins, with audio by The Bard     Savander and the First Blades screamed out from the line of date-palms and swept into the oasis on camel-back, past the wooden placards painted with the green eye of Inari the Trickster. The cultists panicked, three dozen peasant men and women […]