Then he meets Thalia, an alluring but troubled dancing girl who offers him a way out—if he’ll help her kill a powerful nobleman. With the Guild falling apart, it just might be worth the risk. But when you live, breathe, and love in a world that’s forever flirting with death, the slightest misstep can be poison.

     But light casts shade, and in the shadow of the spires the baseborn struggle, eeking out an existence amidst the cast-offs of their betters. This is Low Town, a sprawling warren of side streets and back alleys, of boarded-up windows and false storefronts. Here the corner boys do a steady trade to the dead-eyed and despairing, and a life can be bought with a clipped copper penny. Low Town is an ugly place, and its champion is an ugly man. Once a war hero and intelligence agent, now a crime lord addicted to cheap violence and expensive narcotics, the Warden struggles to maintain some semblance of order in a corner of the world where chaos is the natural state.

    All three are tales of pirates, yet all three are distinctively Howard. Interwoven with the pirate swash and buckle are glimpses of lost dead cities protected in bizarre ways, of devil-haunted caves, and weird revenge.This volume includes "Swords of the Red Brotherhood", previously unpublished, the longest and best of Howard's non-Conan pirate stories, an exciting departure from the normal pirate yarn."The Isle of Pirate's Doom" and "Black Vulmea's Vengeance" fill out this oversized volume.

    Ruth Wyatt grew up in an orphanage after she lost her parents in a stage coach robbery. The family had thought she had also died in that robbery until 16 years later, someone told her cousin that they had seen a girl who could be his sister. From there, the family tracked her down and sent her a train ticket to come home. But it wasn't as easy as that.

    I’m just like you. Susanna has an incredible gift: she can heal ailments with just the touch of her hand.  People travel from far and wide based on their faith in her abilities. But Susanna’s power only works in certain cases—it’s a semi-miracle. And as she grows into a woman, and tries to build a life of her own, her calling to fix and cure becomes more of a burden than she could ever have imagined. Why is she able to take people’s pain away sometimes, and not others, not when she needs to most of all? With the balm of time, and the wisdom of experience, Susanna must learn to live with the mysterious nature of her miracle. Available to readers for the first time since its initial publication, this is a wry and moving story by an American master.

    

    Instead, Tarkin must forge a tense alliance with Count Vidian, the Empire’s newest rising star and a most capable rival. Matching wits and risking betrayal at every turn, the two powerful Imperials duel to gain the upper hand…and elude, at all costs, the price of failure.Short story in The Rise of the Empire.

    

    It was subsequently included in The Son of the Wolf, a story collection published in 1900.The White Silence is set in the unforgiving winter landscape of Yukon Territory, Canada. The story chronicles the travels of three people across the Northland Trail on the Yukon, as they try to reach civilization before spring. The story deals with the fragile relationship between man and nature, and also between man and animal. Its title is a phrase that London used frequently in his descriptions of the frozen northern landscapes in his stories.

    Lucy James, the daughter of Sherlock Holmes, and Dr. Watson are the co-narrators of the story. They hope this baffling mystery will bring Holmes out of his obsession with the killer who eluded capture in their previous case. But the cases are linked, and the danger to the Baker Street team is very real.The Sherlock and Lucy series combines a classic Holmes with gripping intrigue. For fans of cozy mysteries, historical mysteries, historical fiction. Get it now!

     ABOUT THE SHORT STORY’S PRICE: Hello, you lovely people. Odd to talk about money straight up, but I know that some of you might be thinking, £1.99 is a lot for a short story. Let me explain how it works. A rate of 20% VAT (Value Added Tax) applies to eBooks in the UK. This doesn’t apply to ‘real’ paper books. That means 33p of the £1.99 goes straight to the British government. Amazon takes around 2p to deliver the story to your Kindle, then takes another 48p as its cut. The remainder, £1.16, goes to me. That's not a great deal, I hope you agree. In these times of falling sales, and authors losing their contracts, and only one in seven traditionally published authors being able to write fulltime, stories like this are a vital way of YOU supporting the authors whose books you enjoy. So THANK YOU for your support! Think of it in terms of a pint of beer or a cup of coffee: they cost £2-4, depending on where you live. This story will give you more enjoyment (I think!) than either of those things, and last for a longer time, and cost you less money. This is only the second time I have self-published a short story. (Massive thanks here to Pete Simpson, who designed the cover for me!) It’s been an exciting project since the day I did the poll on Facebook, asking you lovely people which of my characters you wanted me to write about. Centurion Tullus won out, narrowly, and this is the result. The one hundred and something people who backed the Kickstarter campaign got to read this story almost 7 months ago, but now you can too. Enjoy the story, and please email me if you have any questions about it or anything else – ben@benkane.net Ben

    Rex McReady joined the Crew to survive in prison, but he also killed two of his onetime brothers to save Laurel, the woman he loves. Now in the witness protection program, he is trying to sort things out in his tempestuous on-again, off-again relationship with Laurel. He loves her, she loves him, but the breakups and makeups go on and on. After one of their all-too-frequent fights, Laurel is tracked down by Mose, a Crew enforcer. Rex comes by to try to patch things up with Laurel and, with eyes only for her, Rex allows Mose to get the drop on him, too. Is death the only way out of the Crew for Rex and Laurel?

    Stacey Tanner flees a stalking psychopathic ex-boyfriend and confronts all of her worst fears in one fateful evening.

    Think Clark Gable with larceny in his heart and a price on his head. A price put there by the German Gestapo. But Blacky's always got an angle, and this time it s as audacious as they come. He'll hide in plain sight, impersonating the crowned head of a Balkan kingdom. He'll become The Iron Duke.Can he pull it off? Win the love of a country...and of a beautiful woman? All Blacky has to do is risk everything and, for once in his life, find a way to do the right thing. Get in on the deception as the audio version of The Iron Duke puts you in the middle of the royal con game. "Filled with realistic sound effects...and a classic film noir atmosphere, this inspired and well-polished entertainment will immerse listeners." —Publishers WeeklyHubbard and Gable were fast friends and fellow adventurers. While Hubbard was writing for Columbia Pictures in 1937, the studio often called upon him to doctor scripts for Gable—giving him a unique knowledge of the man and inspiration for characters like Blacky Lee.*An AudioFile Award Winner

    Mist Encounter is a short story written by Timothy Zahn and illustrated by Doug Shuler, originally published in Star Wars Adventure Journal 7 by West End Games in August 1995.