SHAMELESS PROMOTION DEPARTMENT

The past few weeks have been something of a bonanza for me, with various bits of fiction appearing here and there, most notably in the first issue of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Silver Blade and The Absent Willow Review.

So, by way of promoting both myself and a number of very fine magazines…



The Bone House: Beneath Ceaseless Skies # 20
I like to carve. I like to sculpt. But the ironwood trees in the forest shatter even the finest blades. Father says that the war has changed them, that the magic of the battlemages has infected the land, and I have no cause to doubt him—he has been my educator and my window on the world. Bone is easier to shape.
http://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/story.php?s=42

The Black Flowers of Sevan: Heroic Fantasy Quarterly # 1
Carrion feeders scattered at our approach. Crows and buzzards, their bellies swollen with meat, took to the air with an ungainly flurry; wild dogs slunk away, glowering at us with red-rimmed eyes. The stench of violent death hung thick in the air, a ripe, sickly smell that even the heaviest rain could not wash away.
http://www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com/?p=196

The Dark Blessing: Silver Blade #3
There are shadows on the salted plains. Even in the darkest of nights and the dullest of days they are there, moving over the rocks and scrub. Furtive things they are, as befits their nature, fleeting things man-sized and man-shaped, but with a greater substance than mere shadows should possess.
http://www.silverblade.net/issue3/shortstories7.html

All That Grows: The Absent Willow Review June 2009
By right, none of these plants should have survived their transplantation: for the ancient earth was no longer an hospitable place, even to those who had been born on her surface, but the love and care furnished by the old man upon his alien plants, supplemented by dark incantations supplied by His Eminence Cardinal Kirill, brought forth such blooms as had never been seen before in the history of the world.
http://absentwillowreview.com/archives/all-that-grows

The Sins of the Land: Dark Fire # 40
The tavern was empty, no sign of Madelina or the elderly cook. A faint metallic tang hung in the air and there was dust on everything — coating the tables and chairs, crunching under his boots as he walked to the door.
"Alesandro."
The sound of her voice startled him. He turned and looked at her standing behind the tavern counter — she was pale and drawn, her skin sallow as if she, too, were covered in dust.
“What happened here?” he asked.
“The storm got in,” she said.
http://usersites.horrorfind.com/home/horror/darkfire/fiction_2.html