DRAGONS, by Anna Remennik, Art by Karolína Wellartová   taxonomy: The smaller land-bound drakes have vestigial wings and are not true-breed dragons. And the serpents of seas and lakes are amphibious, unrelated, indeed not dragons at all. But the vast true wyrms, six-limbed and armored ventrally in scales, are classified as dragons. For these terms, see dragons, […]

FENRIR, by Adam Stemple, Artwork by Miguel Santos   Let the moon slide down your throat, nephew. Pale light and cold stone, it is the last thing you will taste before me. And I am no savory morsel, no feast for a king. Not even your subjects (scavengers, mongrels, curs) would care for this banquet. […]

ARABELLA AND THE KRAKEN KING, by Gretchen Tessmer, Art by Andrea Alemanno     the captain’s widow is mad with grief her dress stained in saltwater spray her skin glowing blue-violet in moonlight and sparks from the mast St. Elmo’s fire hovers in her hair drenched, unpinned wild and everywhere, in static strands like tentacles […]

THE LAST KING OF MERCIA,  by David Barber, Artwork by Miguel Santos   The old king is dying. Around the death bed his brood of sons wait their chance to seize the crown. The Witan divided. Words spoke in secret. The treasure room keys, hard glint of silver. Pouncing on weakness, Welsh raid the border. Kinfolk […]

NIGHTMARE VOYAGES, by Jennifer Crow, Art by Gary McClusky     On the storm’s third night, winds howling through torn sails and waves washing across the tilted deck, the sleepless crew stumbles from rail to line as the captain screams with profane desperation into the teeth of the gale. None of the men has seen […]