![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Mercy-and-the-Mercenary-2.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Silent hisses of\u00a0sellsword!<\/em>\u00a0assail him<\/p>\n as he takes his measure<\/p>\n from the tankard and watches them<\/p>\n through hooded lids, though none dares<\/p>\n look in his direction<\/p>\n save the newly arrived holy man<\/p>\n Are you proud, my forbidding fellow,<\/p>\n of what you have done?<\/p>\n Pride does nothing to serve a man<\/p>\n unlike a certain reputation<\/p>\n to make opportunists hesitate, priest<\/p>\n Yet are you not at all sorry?<\/p>\n Tis only my enemies who repent<\/p>\n I would hire you for the Church, then<\/p>\n One should not smile wryly at such, of course<\/p>\n And would you not then be as guilty as me?<\/p>\n Not if in the service of God:<\/p>\n thus this work will offset your sins<\/p>\n I’ll need more payment than that,<\/p>\n preacher, and your deity must live<\/p>\n with their own conscience<\/p>\n Tell me of these dark deeds<\/p>\n you desire to commission<\/p>\n but buy me a drink first so<\/p>\n I will have other entertainment<\/p>\n while I listen to your furious faith.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n ________________________________________<\/span><\/p>\n A J Dalton is a UK-based writer. He’s published the Empire of the Saviours<\/i>\u00a0<\/a>trilogy with Gollancz Orion,\u00a0The Satanic in Science Fiction and Fantasy<\/i>\u00a0<\/a>with Luna Press, the\u00a0Dark Woods Rising<\/i><\/a>\u00a0poetry collection with Starship Sloane, and other bits and bobs. He lives with his monstrously oppressive cat named Cleopatra.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Caterina Gerbasi is a transgender painter and writer from Argentina obsessed with grimy knights and nasty monsters. Also loves to dress in bright pastel purple. Her favourite color is brow<\/span>n.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" MERCY AND THE MERCENARY, by A.J. Dalton Silent hisses of\u00a0sellsword!\u00a0assail him as he takes his measure from the tankard and watches them through hooded lids, though none dares look in his direction save the newly arrived holy man Are you proud, my forbidding fellow, of what you have done? Pride does nothing to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[89,3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-issue-64-archive","category-main","category-poetry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4415"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4442,"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4415\/revisions\/4442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}