In a modern day Britain where the Roman Empire never left, Dai and Julia solve murder mysteries whilst still having to manage family, friendship and domestic crises…

Idibus Augustus MDCCLXXIX Anno Diocletiani

Julia Llewellyn was on her way home from the Asclepieion on Ynys Mon at last. She had been there, or thereabouts, for most of the last two months and hard as it was, she pushed down the turmoil of emotions which revolved in her stomach every time she thought about that and focused hard on the future.
 Firstly, she had endured a very difficult pregnancy from mid-term on, requiring extensive bedrest and the inevitable boredom and frustration that had meant. Despite all that, her son, Rhodri, had still been born six weeks early needing to be hailed off to an incubator. Then he was discovered to have a hole in his diaphragm requiring immediate surgery. Several sleepless nights followed with herself and her husband keeping watch over his tiny form, before he was declared on the mend. And then Julia had to wait for him to grow big enough to leave his incubator and come home…
She was glad for more than the obvious reasons. Her husband, Dai Llewellyn was a Submagistratus for the region of Demetae and Cornovii and she knew he was keeping something from her, holding back to protect her, as he would think. It was hard to pin him down in his brief visits, once home she was sure she would get to do so.
At last the great day had come and she was seated decorously in the back of a burly all-wheel being piloted by her friend and bodyguard, Edbert. If she had been an expecting sort of a woman, she would have expected Dai to be sitting beside her.  But he was conspicuous by his absence. She sighed a tiny sigh and kissed the downy head that rested on her breast.
“Not his fault.” Edbert’s unfeasibly deep voice broke gently into her reverie.
“What’s not who’s fault?” Julia kept her voice even for fear of waking Rhodri.
Edbert laughed softly. “It’s not Dai’s fault that he isn’t sitting beside you, you cross-grained little person.”
Julia found herself relaxing. “Catch a hot case did he?”
“Nope. Having refused to see or speak to Dai, or either of his Senior Investigators – Bryn or Gallus – for the best part of a month, Magistratus Sextus Catus Bestia called a meeting for this morning. Messaged just before we were setting out to fetch you.” His voice dripped sarcasm. “If I didn’t know better I’d think it was timed to cause maximum inconvenience.”
Julia sighed again. “He is such a petty man. I keep hoping things will improve. But it’s not likely.”
“Isn’t. And his attitude to ‘servants’ is beyond despicable.”
Julia held the baby carefully as she leaned forward and put her hand on his shoulder. 
“Bestia really is a piece of work, isn’t he? But he is just petty and that can’t hurt us.”
“I wouldn’t place any bets on that.”
“Me neither, honestly. But I can’t afford to think like that.”
“No. Nor you can. My bad. How is the little one standing up to the journey?”
“He’s fine. Had his prandium before we set out. Sleeping now. The medica said something to me just before you rolled up that was very comfortable. ‘Rhodri Ddu is a fighter and as tough as they come’. She says not to treat him any different to any other baby now. He’s all healed and a hundred percent fit.” One tear escaped and ran down her cheek, but it was a tear of thankfulness not sorrow. Her precious baby was well and could take his place in the nursery where he and his sister Aelwen would be in the care of the nursery maid Luned, who was as brave as a lioness and as tender as the touch of silk. All things considered, Julia thought today was a good day, even if the pinpricks from Dai’s boss were getting sharper and less disguised. She wondered if they were what was behind her beloved’s withdrawn mood.
The rest of the ride home passed in silence, save for Rhodri’s tiny snore. 
Just before they were due to turn onto the private road to the Villa Papaverus, Edbert stopped the car and screwed around in his seat to look at Julia with deep wisdom in his winter grey eyes. 
“A word of warning. There’s about half a hundred people waiting to greet you. If I was you I’d wait in the all-wheel and hand the little one off to Luned before you get out. What with dogs and in-laws, and that madwoman Domina Lavinia, it would be easy for you to take a tumble. Luned and me put our heads together and she has found a big old high-wheel baby carriage so everybody can see young Rhodri without crowding.”
For a moment, Julia didn’t know what to say and she felt her throat constricting. Edbert smiled and touched her cheek with the back of one huge hand.
“All a bit overwhelming ain’t it?”
“It is. And thank you my friend.” 
“Always got your back small stuff.”
“Always got yours, you big ape.”
With the shoals of emotion successfully navigated Edbert started the engine again.
He might have exaggerated ‘half a hundred’, but not by much. There was all Dai’s family, from his mother and step-father, to his brother Hywel and sister-in-law Enya with their four boisterous boys and adopted teenage daughter, close friends like Bryn and Gwen Cartivel and Lavinia Lucia who was a friend Julia had made from her puellae who prandium circle, with her lawyer husband Paulus, not to mention the entire household from Cookie to the youngest apprentice gardener. However, Elfrida, their indomitable housekeeper, had taken a hand and the waiting crowd was being policed by her two gigantic sons who would allow nobody to exit the building further than the steps. There were only two figures on the apron of raked gravel that fronted the villa – Luned with the promised baby carriage and Dai who held a wriggling Aelwen in his arms. As the all-wheel rolled gently to a halt Dai leapt forward, opening the rear door and smiling gently in. ​“I’m sorry love. I should have been…”
​Julia stopped his mouth with a kiss to a cheer from the onlookers and Aelwen’s obvious delight.
​“Mam kiss Da,” she announced before leaning in and kissing her mother and her sleeping brother. “Aelwen kiss Mam and Dri.”
​Luned stepped forward and Dai moved out of the doorway for a second, allowing Julia to hand the sleeping baby over. Dai dropped a kiss on his brow as she did so, passing a tender hand over the roundness of his skull before settling him in the old-fashioned conveyance.
“There,” Luned said, with briskness not entirely camouflaging deep thankfulness, “he’s home safe now and so is his mam.” ​Once Julia’s arms were empty, Dai and Aelwen swarmed into the all-wheel where they all indulged themselves in a group hug with Edbert grinning at them from the driver’s seat. Julia was pleased that he allowed them a few moments of joy before poking Dai in the back.
​“Get off her now, because I’m going to release the screaming horde.” ​
“Let me get my feet on the gravel before you do,” Julia attempted to sound severe, and scrambled out of the vehicle with Aelwen and Dai close behind her. Aelwen held her mother’s hand tightly.
​“People, Mam.”
Julia bent and picked her up. “Yes love, lots of people.”
​Edbert leaned on the horn of the all-wheel and Bran and Col released the happy throng.

From Dying to be Innocent by E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago 

Glossary of Latin and Other Terms
Please note these are not always accurate translations, they are how these terms are used in Dai and Julia’s world.
Asclepieion – healing spa, hospital
Demetae and Cornovii – Wales and several English Midland counties including Shropshire
Ddu – dark, as in hair and/or skin
Domin-a/us – Ma’am/Sir. Used to superiors both in rank and social status
Magistratus – senior official with legal jurisdiction over an area
Medic-a/us – doctor
Prandium – brunch or lunch
Submagistratus – a more junior official with legal jurisdiction over an area, under the authority of a Magistratus
Villa Papaverus – Poppy House. Dai and Julia’s residence.
Ynys Mon –  or the Isle of Anglesey

Because life can be interesting when you are a non-player character in an online video game…

Having made the fruit tea in a small pot on her own hearth, Milla poured it into a pottery bottle and put a stopper in the top. Then armed with cookies and tea she headed back to do battle negotiating with the drakkonettes to enter the pyramid.
They had been right about Visitors.
Pew was hiding behind a clump of palm trees, peering nervously around the trunks at the drakkonettes. He spun round staff held high as she approached then relaxed again, looking very relieved.
“I thought they must have kil… um kidnapped you. I was close to reporting the quest as bugged.”
Milla resisted the urge to point out it was not she who had been killed. “If you wait here I’ll talk to the guards and then we can go in.”
“But…”
Milla fixed him with the most menacing glare she could muster. The same glare One Eye always managed when she tried to slip an extra fish to Ruffkin without him noticing. Only as she had two eyes she was pretty sure her glare would be twice as menacing.
Pew’s crest flattened and he swallowed hard. “Yes. Fine. I’ll wait here then.”
The drakkonettes were delighted with what she gave them.
“That’s so kind of you, dear,” the maternal one said and puffed a small smokey breath. “So much nicer than the ten raw terraraptor eggs we used to get in the Gorge, don’t you think Gordon?”
The other drakkonette had taken the stopper from the pottery bottle and inhaled the steam with his eyes closed. “Much. And why did we have to have a jar of water from Rancid Pond?”
“It was horrible, wasn’t it?”
“Picnic, Abigail?”
The two leaned their polearms against the gate posts and wandered off claw in claw.
Pleased with a job well done, Milla hurried back to where she had left Pew and was disturbed to find him talking to a very odd looking ryeshor. The stranger had a purple flush to his skin with orange tinted scales and a crest that seemed much too spikey and much too green. He was wearing a sparkling chainmail tunic, belted with a rune-woven sash, a gleaming peacock and phoenix feathered cloak, and sandals that seemed to have black wings sprouting from the ankles.
“It has to be a shareable quest. Stop messing me around you ratstab!”
“I’d share if I could, but there’s no way to do it.”
The stranger saw Milla approaching before Pew and started shouting at her as she walked towards them.
“Hail Milla! Hello Milla! Greeting Lady Milla!” He stamped his foot. “Why won’t you answer me? Fraggin en-pee-cee.”
She stopped, wrinkling her snout. She was not sure what she was being called but she was pretty sure it was some kind of insult.
“Who is this?” she asked Pew, but even before he answered she knew what he would say.
“It’s String. He made a ryeshor alt and spent a load of gold on the auction market to twink it. I can’t believe he did that.”
The String ryeshor convulsed in a peculiar way and then hawked and spat.
“Well look at that? Even the lizards can do it.” He wiped his mouth with the back of one hand and leered at Milla. “So, sexy lizard lady, you gonna share your sweet, sweet quest with me?”
Milla took a step back. The thought of having anything to do with this rude and ugly man made her feel ill.
“If you want to help me find Ruffkin you need to be able to do something useful.” She gestured to the other ryeshor. “At least he can do something useful, can’t you Pew?”
There was no answer.
“Pew?”
He continued staring into the distance as if she wasn’t there – or he wasn’t.
“He’s ninjad,” String said then hawked and spat twice in quick succession.He grinned as if immensely pleased with himself.
“Ninjad?” Milla found her snout wrinkling in confusion.
“Back now.” Pew stretched and grinned at her. “Had to take a fast afk for a bio before we go into the dungeon. We’d better get moving or the mobs on the gate might reset.”

Log on to Wrathburnt Sands by E.M. Swift-Hook for the 7th Quest next week.

‘Wrathburnt Sands’ and ‘Return to Wrathburnt Sands’ were first published in Rise and Rescue: A GameLit Anthology and in Rise and Rescue Volume 2: Protect and Recover.

Though the biggers never see it, there is much going on in their own backyard where the ‘nomes make their home…

The biggers must have had one hell of a party. Big came into the garden with both arms full of cardboard and bright paper. Stopping only to vomit in the herbaceous border he disappeared.
Little Frankie puzzled out the words on one of the discarded boxes.
“Fes Tiv Fa Ther Chris Mas G-Nome. Wassa G-Nome.”
“It’s a nome. The G is silent.”
Frankie stared incredulously at the oldest nome who sat on her toadstool knitting purple bedsocks.
“Is you Ranny then?”
Only the quickness of Big Bertha’s hamlike fists stopped ‘Ranny’ from hurling Frankie into the cement pond.

Jane Jago

A dictionary for the bemused by Jane Jago…

abotu (noun) – tribe of directionally challenged nomads

amind (noun) – the inability to think

beign (noun) – colour between beige and green often seen in the cardigans of off-duty geography teachers

bif (adjective) – descriptive of overweight men on gymnasium equipment

cotrive (verb) – cooperative toe sucking

doign (noun) – in architecture a big fat lump of stone serving no apparent purpose

ealier (comparative adjective) – of fish, longer

ewere (noun) – computer savvy half wolf

godness (noun) – pagan deity known for shortness of temper and thick ankles

irrlevent (adjective) – of authors motivated by angst and poverty

migth (noun) – biting insect similar to the Scottish midge, but native to the underwear of skinny women

myslef (noun) – small supernatural being with chronic anxiety

ne4ed (adjective) – being in possession of four knees

otu (noun) – Zimbabwean marsupial subsisting on beer and rich tea biscuits

presetner (noun) – woman on daytime TV who sits on the sofa next to an oily creep without cringing

pruruent (adjective) – of porridge being flavoured with prunes

shulk (verb) – to remove the calloused skin from the feet by means of a handy cheese grater

someoen (adjective) – of dogs or women, fond of an afternoon nap and liable to bite if rudely awoken

terhe (noun) – language spoken by the inhabitants of a small island in the North Sea whose attempts to enlarge the gene pool have led to some unfortunate encounters with irritated marsupials

zomie (noun) – a zed list homie

Disclaimer: all these words are genuine typos defined by Jane Jago. The source of each is withheld to protect the guilty.

Because life happens…

Exploring the mysteries of life through the versatile medium of limerick poetry.

Life is a glorious dance
Where your partner is much down to chance.
You might find your true mate
On a casual date
Or from friendship develop romance.

E.M. Swift-Hook

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV takes time from his immensely important life to proffer profound advice to those who still struggle on the aspirational slopes of authorhood…

Face the front, class and present your fingernails for inspection.

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV is in the room. Your beloved pedagogue has arrived. For those, newly joined here, whose education may have skipped over the genius that is one, I am the orchidaceous creator of that classic of superlative speculative fiction ‘Fatswhistle and Buchtooth’, and the selfless purveyor of wisdom whose tablets of stone bring you ‘The Thinking Quill’ – wherein one strives against almost overwhelming odds to bring to your dreary little scribblings some iota of the polished grandeur of one’s own published words.

It’s a lovely autumn day, and the crispy, crunchy leaves make your Teacher think of the golden flakes in his breakfast bowl, drenched with icy-cold milk. We were, if memory serves, going to discuss the essential points of cover art, but my mood is too lightsome for such an arduous task today and my spirit is too refined to be constrained by such febrile chains of commitment. In brief, I can’t be arsed.

Instead, we shall touch upon a topic so close to my soul as to be all but embedded in my skin. Yes, my children, rejoice, rejoice. Today we shall speak of verse…

The Write Wrhyme

Oh what joy it is to write in the iambic pentameter. Oh how one’s soul rejoices at the birth of a sonnet. How the haiku spears one’s very vitals, and how the execution of the perfect marriage of rhyme and metre donates a pleasure as visceral as masturbation.

We shall begin with the haiku. Hands up if any child in the class can tell me what this exquisite word connotes.

Yes. The rule of seventeen. What joy. What bliss.

A flower petal
Weighted down under raindrops
Visceral delight

The purity of oriental form within that which enriches the soul must be expressed in seventeen syllables. Five. Seven. Five. With nary a drop wasted. The distillate of overwhelming emotion into a corseted form that screams of pain and coercion. Think, thou of forcing the white wobbliness of English thighs into the snug elastication of skinny jeans. Feel that pain, but think of the sculpted beauty that emerges from the chrysalis of dimpled flesh and apply that sharp constriction to your work.

Too difficult? Do not fret, mes petites, haiku is the quintessence of the poetic form and not a plaything for the amateur.

Very well. Let us look instead at rhyme and metre.

Hibiscus bloom of palest pink
I have not words, I have not ink
To speak of love’s bepetalled face
Watch from afar who walks in grace
Who walks in beauty as the dawn
Who in my breast true love doth spawn
Who shines like effervescent gold
Who shall not wither, nor grow old
Hibiscus bloom thy petals ope
And face the sun and dash my hopes
Hibiscus bloom of palest hue
Who murders hope with lies untrue
Hibiscus bloom of stainless steel
Who stamps my love beneath her heel

Read this, the least of my works, aloud and ponder my skill with the runaway horse that is metre. Admire my virtuosity as I wrestle the alligator of rhyme. Beguile your commonplace little intelligences with the mind-pictures drawn by a pen whose skill you can never hope to emulate. See how the hibiscus blooms in your very soul as you read and envy….

Then try a little verse of your own.

Should you be pleased with your tiny efforts then by all means post them on my Facebook page where I shall be sure to make the effort to read them. If I am not too busy.

Until a sennight. Dormez bien and ecrit bon.

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

You can find more of IVy’s profound advice in How To Start Writing A Book courtesy of E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.

February comes with snowdrops
Green spears through frost-shot soil
As reaching up through snow and ice
Their small white flags uncoil
Proud banners soon a-flying
The vanguard of the spring
They hold the first pure promise
Of what the year will bring
Like resurrected martyrs
In dresses all of white
Beneath the ground just yesterday
Then rising overnight
The ones beside my window
I look for every year
To see the modest stand return
And know that spring is near

E.M. Swift-Hook

Caer sat on his pony looking at the dead body on the ground and wondering if he should send more scouts back towards the road, almost a day’s trek behind the caravan. This man had been alone, half-mad and no threat to the caravan, but others might even now be following the same path that they had taken from the road and for the same reason they had taken it: others who were scouts for brigands, bandits or bigger caravans than his own.
He spat in the dirt and narrowed his eyes as he looked past the file of wagons, ponies and people. It was late afternoon and his breath misted slightly in the air. The long cold winter was over, but in the barren Wastelands, spring was always slow to come. The air still carried a biting chill, even in the heat of the day and the distant peaks kept their mantle of snow and ice, tinged with crimson by the light of the huge red sun. Spring was having to claw its way free of winter’s greedy clutches so that Temsevar could bask in an all too brief season of warmth and growth.
The Wastelands were vast and magnificent. Here and there, standing proud and alone in the plain, like the lost sentinels of a forgotten age, were towering flat-topped mountains of rock, some so massive they were too big to cross in a day on foot. It was as though at some point in the distant past the ground had simply dropped away, leaving the high plateaux stranded above, like giant stepping stones, creating a two-tier terrain. If in the winter, these high grounds were the coldest and most exposed, in the spring they seemed always flushed with new vegetation before any managed to creep out of the more parched stones below.
Caer made his decision. With the work to be done, the four men he already had out scouting their back trail were all he could spare for the moment. He called to one of the mounted men who was riding with the caravan.
“Shevek, we are camping here.”
The man he spoke to wheeled his pony away and rode at a brisk pace towards the front of the train of wagons and animals, issuing sharp orders to make the night’s camp around the rocky debris beneath the steep cliff face of one of the high monoliths. Caer felt a familiar sense of satisfaction as those orders turned the straggling ranks of moving people, ponies and wagons into a brief flurry of chaos, before brightly coloured awnings, tents and pavilions sprung up from the chaos, like strange blossoms. Caer and his men rode through the quickly forming encampment, shouting instructions, solving problems, helping secure ropes and encouraging any who were slow to respond with the whips they carried curled in their belts.
In a remarkably short time, the caravan resembled a miniature town with streets and open spaces, stables, and pens. Fires were being kindled, children tending the animals as women kneaded dough and cut the vegetables for the evening meal. Toddlers screamed and got underfoot or rolled like puppies amongst the big, sharp-toothed dogs, which ignored them and begged for scraps with soulful eyes and then turned on each other snapping and snarling when an unsavoury morsel was cast their way.
Once the familiar routine was well established, Caer’s men guided their mounts towards the middle of the camp. The ponies’ short stubby ears, thick coats, wall-eyed glares and powerful necks, made them far from beautiful to look upon, but their split hooves could splay to grip surefooted even on snow and ice or could run fast on firmer ground. It was their broad backs which carried the burden of human traffic in both trade and war with a sturdy strength and agility which, for Caer, had a beauty all of its own.
The men who rode were as tough as their ponies. The older ones amongst them wore their hair long, stained red and tied back into a heavy braid, the greater length of the braid telling of ever greater age and experience. The youngest men had their hair shaved so close to the scalp as to seem bald. They were not even allowed to begin to grow a braid until they had served a year of apprenticeship with the caravans. All the men wore coats made from a brightly coloured heavy-felt cloth, over shirts with billowing sleeves, patterned skirted jerkins made from fleeced hides and plain felt britches which gathered loosely into calf-high boots. All were armed: every man wore a bandolier of wooden cartridge boxes over one shoulder and carried a crude pistol; one or two had a long-barrelled musket or rifled carbine, on their backs and each wore a long-bladed knife with an ornately carved hilt and whips hung looped at their belts.
These men were of the Zoukai, a brotherhood of warrior guardians, hiring themselves to protect the caravans which carried the trade of Temsevar. Named after the swift and ruthless, red-plumed predatory birds which hunted from the skies in these very wastes, they were bound by a strict code of honour which placed loyalty to their captain and their caravan above all else.
There were around thirty men in all, talking in loud boisterous voices, their breath misting in the cold air, laughing together at crude jokes, whilst passing wine-skins from hand to hand. They had gathered in front of the central pavilion, where a clearing gave some measure of status and privacy to the impressive tent of their employer the caravansi – the owner of the caravan, its wagons, its slaves and much of its cargo. When Caer finally rode into the clearing, his check of the camp completed, one of the Zoukai called out:
“Here, Captain.”
Catching the wineskin, Caer let the warm liquid cut the dust of the day from his throat, swilling out his mouth and spitting, only then swallowing a single mouthful before replacing the stopper and passing it on. Then he nudged his pony forwards and moved amongst his men, sending four more out to join the scouts and a handful of others to support the pickets who were already guarding the outskirts of the camp. He wanted to be extra careful today. Then he moved on, talking briefly to each of the others as he passed: a word of praise here, a question there, advice and the occasional sharp reprimand, all delivered with an easy authority.
A sudden stillness, as sharp on the senses as any loud sound, made Caer turn towards the pavilion, already knowing what to expect. The flap was being held up by a slave girl and a woman had just stepped out of the shady, incensed interior. It was her appearance that had silenced the horsemen and Caer understood why. Alexa the Fair they called her on the roads and the title was well deserved. Caer had lived twenty-five years and had never seen a woman he thought more beautiful. Her mere presence was enough to draw every male eye and deprive a man of his next breath.
She was tall, very tall for a woman and slender with it – long necked, long limbed and lithe, almost boyish with narrow hips and small breasts that barely lifted the sheer satiny substance of the emerald robe she wore. Beneath the magnificence of her dark auburn hair, her face with its clear skin and high cheek bones lent her an ageless beauty. Her violet-blue eyes swept imperiously over the Zoukai and when they came to rest on Caer, he felt the impact as if she had reached out and physically touched his skin.

The opening of The Fated Sky the first part of Transgressor Trilogy, and the first book in Fortunes Fools by E.M. Swift-Hook.

Because life can be interesting when you are a non-player character in an online video game…

Milla left Pew muttering to himself nervously and marched up to the drakkonettes.
“You shall not pass,” one said. He hawked and spat then looked a bit surprised as if the action were new and unfamiliar to him. “What the…?”
His companion looked across at him strangely.
“You feeling alright there, dear?”
The first drakkonette blinked a bit then nodded a few times.
“Right as rain my hunny-bunny.” He stiffened his spine and glared down at Milla again. “You shall not pass!”
“I have to. My dog, Ruffkin, he’s inside and I’ve got to rescue him. Isn’t there some way we could come to an agreement? Like…” She tried hard to think of other such agreements she knew of in and around Wrathburn Sands. “Like I bring you ten locks from sandylion manes, or ten landshark tails, or ten vials of dog spit, or…”
The drakkonette pulled a face.
“What would we do with any of those?”
“I – I don’t know,” Milla stuttered. “It’s what some of the people around the village ask Visitors to bring them so I thought…”
“It’s alright, dear,” the other drakkonette said. “We don’t need any of that kind of thing, but I’d love a pot of fruit tea, if you could manage it. Then we might be able to look the other way for a moment.”
“And a couple of flyberry cookies would be good to go with that,” the first one put in. “It’s hard to notice people going through the gate when you’re dunking a cookie.” One of his eyes dropped shut in a wink.
Milla wondered where she might get those then remembered seeing a pile of some kind of cookies in One Eyes’s store and she could brew up a fruit tea on her hearth at home. She opened her mouth to tell them that was fine when a loud yodelling cry came from right behind her.
“Leeeeeroy Jenkins!”
Pew was charging towards them, robes tangling around his legs, staff in one hand with its shimmer extending before him like some kind of magical shield, and a dagger in the other.
It was over so fast Milla barely had time to yelp, she squeezed her eyes shut and heard a loud thump and a groan. When she opened them again, the drakkonettes were standing back in their guarding pose and the noble Firecaster Pewpowerpwnsyou lay in a crumpled heap of shimmering robes at their feet.
“Is he…?”
“He’s a Visitor,” the first drakkonette said contemptuously. “I’ve seen it all the time when we were up at Terraraptor Gorge. Charge in. Blat. Blat. Faceplant. Give them a few moments they go away and then they come back a bit later on and do it all over again.”
The other drakkonette made a maternal clucking sound. “Don’t you worry about him, dear. Just go and fetch us the tea and cookies and he’ll be right as rain when you get back, I promise you.”
Feeling a little uneasy but not really able to see any other course of action open to her, Milla headed back to the village and the provisions shop.
“Flyberry cookies?” One Eye grunted. “I have the very thing. Good you’re not a Visitor though, young’un. If you were I’d have to be asking you to harvest me some flyberries before I could be letting you take these.”
“But there are no flyberry bushes around here.”
“Well no. It means the Visitor has to head out to the Mirage Oasis where they grow and find some there.”
“But that’s on the other side of the Many Miles Mountains. It would take them ages. And that just for some cookies?”
One Eye nodded. “Aye. That’s the thing with Visitors, they do stuff no one in their right mind would bother with normally.” He wrapped the cookies for her and held them out. “Here you go. Good luck on your venture. Hope you find Ruffkin.”

Log on to Wrathburnt Sands by E.M. Swift-Hook for the 6th Quest next week.

‘Wrathburnt Sands’ and ‘Return to Wrathburnt Sands’ were first published in Rise and Rescue: A GameLit Anthology and in Rise and Rescue Volume 2: Protect and Recover.

Though the biggers never see it, there is much going on in their own backyard where the ‘nomes make their home…

Big Bigger crouched in the herbaceous border, in the pouring rain, wearing only his jimjams and a look of terror.

“Wossee doin’?” Bernard was puzzled. 

Big Bertha snorted. “You just watch.”

Mother Big appeared in the doorway. She had a shotgun in one hand and a bag of something in the other. Putting the bag down on the veranda she hefted the shotgun and the sound of birdshot hitting grass made Bernard wince.

“If that’s still there in the morning, the next shot is your balls.”

“Let that be a lesson to you, Bernard, never buy your wife costume jewellery.”

Jane Jago