DISCORDANT FACTIONS, by Howard Andrew Jones (Excerpted from Book 3 of The Chronicles of Hanuvar, Shadow of the Smoking Mountain, coming from Baen October 2024) When their walls were breached at last, the people of Volanus fought block by block, house by house, until most fell with sword in hand. Only a thousand or so […]

DEATH UPON THE TURQUOISE ROAD: A TALE OF THE AZAlTÁN, by Gregory Mele,  pending artwork by Justin Pfeil Tehanuwak, the Land of Obsidian and Bronze, is a sweeping vista of ancient city-states in misty highlands and steaming jungles of the deep south to the vast grasslands and burning deserts of unmapped north. At this vast […]

THE DREAMS FROM THE BARROW,  By Harry Piper, artwork by Miguel Santos   They came to me like this – As a young child I had gone roaming through the forest one summer afternoon – we’d finished our labours for the day and father said we could do as we wished. My mother had warned […]

AXANDRJO THE SILVERNOSED VAGABOND, by C.D. Crabtree, artwork by Andrea Alemanno     Axandrjo of the Silver Nose often wore a disguise when traveling the slantwise length of the Shining Isles. His current glamor was a charmed wig of white wormlike curls peeking from beneath a dirty cowl, causing those he passed to think him […]

THE IRON SERPENT, by H R Laurence   ‘You’ve fought bravely, fellow,’ said the corsair chief. A string of shrivelled human ears dangled from his neck and the shaft of his bloody hatchet was studded with polished white teeth. ‘But the day is ours; no cause for making it longer now. Cast down your sword.’ Heodric […]