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 […]

PAGAN FIRES, by Rev. Joe Kelly, artwork by Karolína Wellartová   1   The peaceful still of the mire burst apart with the pounding splashes of panic-winged feet. Small furry animals scrambled for cover, little wading birds tittered and took flight, as the lad tore through the rushes, his streaming sweat half-frozen, his lungs aching from […]

EVERYDAY SOMETHING TRIES TO KILL ME, by Todd Honeycutt, artwork by Andrea Alemanno   Timo had left the Queen’s court three weeks ago, too long for such a simple errand. “Bring me a giant’s eye,” the magician had requested. “The left one, of course, is preferable.” As if the side of anything mattered. Two days […]

JACK O’ WRAITHS, by Phil Emery, with audio by the author, artwork by Karolína Wellartová     Jack stretched out beneath the afternoon sun and chewed a stem of wheat and drifted back to Nell’s face above his in the barn that morning. Motes of hay dust had floated down onto his bare chest and […]