Contents

Elaine Cunningham… Speaking with the Dead

Dave Gross… A Walk in the Snow

Monte Cook… The Rose Window

James Lowder… The Club Rules

Mary H. Herbert… Thieves' Justice

Steven "Stan!" Brown… Ekhar Lorrent: Gnome Detective

Jeff Grubb… The Devil and Tertius Wands

Richard Lee Byers… H

Keith Francis Strohm… Strange Bedfellows

J. Robert King… Whence the Song of Steel

Brian M. Thomsen… An Unusual Suspect

Peter Archer… Darkly, Through A Glass Of Ale

Thomas M. Reid… Lynaelle

Ed Greenwood… The Grinning Ghost of Taverton Hall

The sun began to disappear behind the tall, dense pines of the Cloak Wood, and the colors of an autumn sunset-deep, smoky purples and rose-tinted gold- stained the sky over the Coast Way.

Tired though they were from a long day’s travel, every member of the south-bound caravan quickened his pace. While splendidly mounted merchants urged their steeds on and drovers cracked whips over the backs of the stolid dray horses hitched to the wagons, the mercenary guards loosened their weapons and peered intently into the lengthening shadows. The trade route was dangerous at any time, but doubly so at night. Truth be told, however, most of the caravan members lived in greater fear of their own captain than of any chance-met monster or band of brigands. Elaith Craulnober was not an elf to be trifled with, and he had bid them make the fortress by nightfall.