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 […]

WILL SWORDS RISE UP, by J.R. Sparlin: Will swords rise up from the mists of time? Swords, knives, helms tossed into watery depths — at the end of the world will they be reforged? Mist rising in wisps, forming hilt and blade Swords of fire and earth rusted away, ages ago in lakes long vanished, […]

THE NORWEGIAN FARMER, by Rob Mancebo: Down from the wilds of the mountains they ravaged, lawless men in a rough, screaming horde. In from his fields Sven Carlson came, and took up his shield, spear, and sword. All ‘round the district of Østfold they rampaged, daring any fool to resist. At the fjord bridge Sven […]

EVERYWHERE THE SERPENT SLAIN, by James Frederick William Rowe: The thunderous passage of heroic feet Has crushed under heel The skulls of serpents The hills were once alive With their slithering But no more For all are dead Slain in antiquity That we might live unmolested Safe and sheltered Freed of their threat But the […]