No one is more excited about this issue than me, because it contains my VERY FIRST PAID PUBLICATION!  Woo  hoo!  So let me thank the Wizard of the Crystal and everyone else at Flashing Swords for overlooking the cardboard characters, cliched plot, and overwrought language (just kidding!). 

I'm very happy to supply an excerpt, because, conveniently enough, I wrote my story with a teaser:

THE CROOKED BLADE

No one saw the figure approach; before they knew it, it was upon them, sword flashing red in the dying sunlight.  Markl and Brand fell before they could do more than raise their weapons.  Marrish saw his son's severed head strike the ground and roll to his feet.  >>

> >

Grabbing his spear from the back of their little cart, Marrish yelled to his wife to flee.  She whipped the reins and the cart jerked into motion as he turned to face their attacker.  >>

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He had no more than the impression of a wide-brimmed peasant’s hat and a dark cloak before the apparition was upon him.  He thrust, trying to retain the advantage of reach, but his opponent sprang aside, his cloak swirling like bat’s wings.  Then he brought his blade down upon the haft of Marrish’s spear.  The sword sang and the stout oak snapped like a twig.>>

> >

Marrish took a few steps backward and shifted the spear haft into a quarterstaff grip.  His opponent darted toward him and he brought down the staff in a skull-crushing blow.  But the cloaked figure caught it on an upraised forearm, and though there was the sound of bone breaking, there was no response from the cold eyes which glinted beneath the wide hat.>>

> >

Instead, the figure ducked forward and brought up his blade under Marrish’s guard.  Fire exploded in Marrish’s belly as the sword thrust deep into him.  He held his killer’s eyes for a heartbeat; then the blade was withdrawn and he crumpled slowly to the ground.>>

> >

As he lay there feeling his life’s blood seep into the dirt, Marrish turned his head and with satisfaction saw the cart with his wife and youngest child receding rapidly into the distance.  He heard the crunch of boots upon the dirt road, then the sound of something heavy being dragged toward him.  With an effort he flipped his head back over to see the lifeless eyes of his second son staring into his own.  Then a dark-clad figure sat down upon his son’s corpse, as if it were a stool.  >>

> >

Marrish tried to speak, but discovered his mouth was full of blood.  He spat it out and gasped one word: “Wh-why?”>>

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The hat turned as the figure gazed in the direction of the receding cart.  “Is this the road to Bellifas?” rasped an inhuman voice.>>

> >

Marrish’s cheek scraped against the dirt as he nodded once, twice.  Then, as if expecting his courtesy to rewarded in kind, he asked again: “Why?”>>

> >

“I am going home,” was his killer’s only reply.

>[OPENING CREDITS]>

I'm incredibly thrilled to be a part of this! I am not really sure what to post as an excerpt so I will post the beginning...

Moronar's Chosen

By Sarah Wagner

 Two piercing whistles split the day open as Synova called to her tekamoc. The bird swooped down to the mountain meadow, his broad gray wings casting her in shadow. “Good boy, Daekuh.” She pulled herself up onto his back and fastened the harness she wore securely to the straps around him. “Home.” With gentle ease, the large bird lifted up into the air and flew south towards Mocinol, the center of the Jaffine Nation.

 Synova loved the view of her home from the sky. Even in her haste to reach the Matriarch’s Temple, it calmed her. The expanse of the crop fields, the tendrils of water sectioning the land, the great stone temple in its center, all familiar like the lines on her palm. Dense foliage to the north, mountains to the west, and the sea to the south and east protected the Jaffine Capital.

 The moment Daekuh landed in the Temple gardens, Synova unhooked her harness, leapt from his back and ran for the flat-roofed stone pyramid that jutted up from the center of the village. She pulled the ties on her split-skirt as she ran, freeing the panels and returning it to a proper skirt form.

 Pausing to brush a hand over the three faces carved in the entry, she rushed into the Temple. Cumnar, the Matriarch and her two closest advisors, Kalmar and Regor stood, huddled at the stone altar in the center of the temple, whispering.

 “The Hartaanian Converters,” she dropped to her knees before them, “they’re coming!”