Short Story: Rock Bottom (2026)
You put on the headset before you jump.
There are so many people who will tell you not to jump, but they’re handing you a poisoned chalice, and the poison won’t be slow to act: you’ll feel everything on the way down; you’ll feel it all.
Ignore the ones who tell you to fall. They’re rooting you out, and I’m rooting for you. I leave you this note and swear my allegiance to you purely because we have never met, and I wish to pay my own fortune forward. Any others you read are a form of calculated malice. You must not FALL.
Serial: Beaks Bloody Part 1 (2026)
The Roost Coaching Inn spanned most of the bridge at a point where the Winter River divided two large expanses of forest in the Northern Territory.
The traveller climbed down from the coach and watched the horses drag the dilapidated heap beyond the screen of trees before hauling his own heavy carcass to the inn’s oddly uninviting doorway.
He tried the handle, which was stiff and refused to turn.
‘You can’t get in that way.’
Novella: Bad Apples (2023)
Prologue
Dimple had suspected that something bad would happen sooner or later...but this? This was beyond belief.
The cottage window exploded in a shower of glass, firing the tufted mass across the garden like a rogue cannonball. Sprouting a pair of little furry legs in midair, Baby Bear hit the ground running and didn’t stop until he’d reached the screen of trees that marked the fringe of the forest.
Novella: The Shinbone Shadowhunter (2024)
It was midnight in Shinbone and a fine rain peppered the streets, disturbing the pale reflection of the crescent moon in puddles the size of lakes and gently soaking the crowds of drunks that gathered in tavern doorways all over town.
In an ancient study at the top of a rickety house on the edge of one of the oldest streets in the rich district, Fulbert Fairwhack removed his spectacles and pinched the bridge of his nose as he strained to examine the document on the candlelit table before him. He’d been concentrating on it for the best part of an hour, pausing only once to usher away three large and exceedingly ugly birds that had landed on his windowsill.
Novelette: The Swallowfalls Spinecaster (2015)
It was high summer, a season inexplicably translated by the environmental lunacy of Fogrise into thick, meandering mists, a fine coat of rain dust and the sort of chill you only get when a small handful of snow is suddenly deposited in your underpants. Everyone was miserable, but arguably no one more so than visiting Princess Envy of Rappohallodran.
'This place makes me weep,' she said, staring despondently from the windows of Fogrise Keep at a village square that, judging by the clutter of ugly architecture, it seemed several different builders were to blame for. Even the ornamental well looked ready to collapse, but this hadn't stopped the local children from playing a variety of difficult and dangerous games around it. The one going on now involved two of the bigger, more rotund teenagers trying to dangle a skinny ginger one over the side without dropping him. A short scream signalled that they had failed.
Novelette: Curse of The Kingslayer (2015)
‘How long has the throne been empty?’
Gordo Goldeaxe cast a glance around him and tried to fix an accusatory stare on the nearest sentry.
‘Just over a week, Sir,’ said the man in question, a trembling youth who had been on active duty for less than half that time. ‘King Teethgrit told us you were only to be summoned and appointed to lead us in the event of his being declared absent for more than three days.
‘But you waited seven?’ Gordo frowned and raised an eyebrow. ‘Why was that, exactly?’
The guard looked around at his cohorts, but found no signs of support so ploughed on: ‘Well, King Teethgrit’s been gone for a week, Sir: that much is true. The thing is, er, Captain Teethgrit’s only been gone for three days.’
Short Story: The Dullitch Assassins (1997)
If you could accept that killing people was a necessary part of the job, and that getting your hands dirty generally meant you ended up covered in your own blood as well as other people’s, then you were going places…though - admittedly - via the morgue. The problem with being a standout killer at Crumb Lane was knowing that you were a standout killer among a hundred or so other death-dealers who probably hadn’t had the luck or the opportunity to surpass you… yet.
Victor Franklin was a standout killer for all the wrong reasons. He’d passed his first exam because Beau Bledling had fallen backwards out of a window, he’d aced his second final because Peacock Legrand couldn’t hold his poison, and he’d scraped through the third with a critical victory over Beth Paison, which had more to do with her gammy leg than his ability to spot a lurking patch of quicksand. As far as he was concerned, Victor Franklin had never killed anybody. However, all that was about to change. If Victor didn’t kill someone this evening, there would be no windows, no poisons, and no quicksand. There would just be death, and this time…the icy fingers wouldn’t be touching anyone else.
Short Story: Lair of the Leviathan (2014)
Sunlight washed over the southern island of Lick, lending a terrible scene the sort of sharp contrast most of the observers could have done without.
It was like some sickening jigsaw of a man: all the pieces were there, they just didn’t quite fit together in the right way. This was mainly because the edges were wrinkly and, in several places, enthusiastically chewed.
Hieronymus Blush, journeyman magician and newly initiated outreach merchant for the southern islands, stepped between the two grizzled fisherman in order to get a better look at the corpse.
He’d seen a lot of tragic accidents in his five years as an apprentice at the Magician’s Proving Ground, but these mostly involved the victims disappearing without a trace. For some reason, the look of complete shock on the face of the corpse was particularly unsettling.
Nevertheless, Blush made a valiant attempt to pull himself together: something the poor native on the beach would never get another go at.
He focused on the sand, drawing a small circle distractedly with his big toe while pointing a thin finger at the body. ‘I don’t understand why he’s…complete?’