Skulls with eye-sockets filled only by weird shadows, by presence and absence: six of them atop six clattering sets of backbones. Six skeletons held together by nothing. No nerve, flesh, brain. Bone touching bone, bones tapping on bone, grinding against bone, turning and swaying. Diccon watched the six skeletons dance their way down the […]

  The hob-goblins sat at the edge of the torchlight, and seemed to grin at him. It was a trick of the light playing on their fangs, Gregory told himself. The same way their red eyes glittered in odd colours; not red only but now gleaming copper and now gold. “Do you understand me, any […]

Due to ill health, I was unable to complete today’s post. I’ve put up what I’ve got, and will have it completed soon. UPDATE: Feeling much better, and the post is up. (A final editing polish will follow yet later.)

  In fragments, Enheduanna remembers: The wheel of the dance, around and around. Walking a mortal road, with a duty more important than her brief life. Laughter among elves. Seeing him, that first time, his skin grey; iron. On a mountain peak, gowned, myrtle-crowned, she is taught the motions of the lights in the sky: […]

  Hochelaga thought the Demonstration was amusing, in a petty way, but not as impressive as she’d hoped. She stirred, in the close church air that smelled of sweat and incense, staring at the steep-angled rays of ætheric light filtering through the window. The canons weren’t interested in using language either to tell the truth […]

  Kezia told them the truth, because it seemed simplest to her. Why lie? And there was an elf among them, too; that was significant. Mahalath listened to her, of course. The mortals, Colyn and Dobyn, were less inclined to trust. Little Colyn, who Kezia had seen from across the salt pool, only glared at […]

  Clickclack went the bonemen, and Amanos turned to find four of the skeleton dancers, each with a scythe. She grinned, matching their skullsmiles, and attacked. Behind, Geoffrey bellowed, caught in the net.   My soul yearns to be on its way, said the ghost. I have been too long in Fell Gard. “This is […]

  Aloof stands Hwitwic, and eyes the fray. His allies strike down the foe. Whereupon come two mortals more, and with them a corpse-that-walks. Now one of the mortals casts a spell, and Hwitwic’s friends fall a-dreaming. Though Hwitwic knows, for he can scent it, that one of the sleepers is shamming, awaiting who-knows-what, being […]

  Monoloke had not expected the dragon. The rest of it, yes, to a point. The high cave. The distant sound of war. The stink of blood. Hob-goblins, running this way and that, in their units of thirteen. He had even had an idea that there would be goblins, at the heart of it all; […]

  Ulixa was more tired and frustrated than ever in her life. She had appointed watchers and scouts, and tried to prepare tactics, and nobody wanted to listen. No-one wanted to hear about hob-goblins returning, not after dragons and angels and all else. So she sat on the stoop of the inn, looking on the […]