THE BARGHEST REVENGE, by Adam Vine   I. The Barghest rose from stirring gloom Through creeping shadows of my room The dangling keys about his wrists Like tiny bells foretelling doom. O’er to my bed he slithered, black His skin mottled like mordant wax All tufts of hair in ancient cysts Sprouting from nose, toes, […]

GREAT POET EMPEROR, by Meg Moseman   The Great Poet Emperor sways on his throne, borne on filigreed pillars by twenty-foot djinn across the wide ocean the octopus roams– across the wild blue sea! The Great Poet Emperor ceaselessly scribbles the tower of paper he conjured from hell with a bottomless bottle of lavender ink– […]

Gæscligcrymblingas, by Ariel Bolton   Hwæt! A is for Alhwin, whom nematodes ate That’s not an untypical Old English fate And Æ is young Ælfred, attacked by his thanes B is for Byrhtnoth, beheaded by Danes C is for Cynewulf, caught with a wench D is for Dufenal, duped by the French E is for […]

Hello and welcome to Heroic Fantasy Quarterly’s 33rd issue!  We have scoured the world–again!– from the high shining cities, to the outlying hamlets, to the dark corners of wastes and procured for you the rarest vintage of great fiction and poetry.  Heck, we even added extra poetry! Before we delve into those treasures, we have […]

BETWEEN SEA AND FLAME, by Evan Dicken Hummingbird ran. Branches whipped across her arms, the shouts of her pursuers eclipsed by the huffing gurgle of the thing tearing through the forest behind her. There was a loud crack as one of the Sea People fired his weapon, the shot tearing through the leaves nearby. Hummingbird […]