The latest Wisecraft Publishing anthology Fantastic Schools, Volume 13 just popped into availability yesterday, August 19th and features my fantasy short story The Battle of New Satins Castle (having nothing to do with stains).

The story has an interesting history. It was originally written for another Fantastic Schools anthology but didn’t quite make the cut (it has a “soft acceptance”). The publisher liked it but needed to find a place for it to live.

Time passed and I figured it had dropped through the cracks. Then indeed, this “general” anthology in the series (which is growing by leaps and bounds) came along and “New Stains” found a home.

The story is set in what I loosely call my Dragon Wars World. I’ve set other fantasy stories in the same universe but it won’t really take off until I find a publisher who will accept my first novel in that series. Then everything will begin to come together.

By the way, New Stains Castle is (almost) a real place (I changed the name slightly), the ruins of a castle in Scotland. Of course, I’ve highly fictionalized it and added plenty of ghosts and other supernatural beings. Scotland seems the right place for them.

Here’s an excerpt, the very beginning of the story to whet your appetite:

“Griffin squad, Griffin squad, come in. We’ve been cut off. Over.” Sergeant Daniel Watson was screaming into his vintage World War Two walkie-talkie. He was trying to be heard over the artillery explosions surrounding him and the war cries of advancing battalions of Orcs and zombies.

“It’s no use,” he yelled at his companions. “I’m only getting static.”

“You take Emily,” cried the other witch. “I’ll buy us some time.”

Dan let his sister’s nearly limp body fall into his arms and he struggled to half-drag her up the grassy hill. The frigid night sky was brilliant with green and violet auroras. He knew that meant another time shift was coming.

“What are you going to do?”

Tamika didn’t answer him, already gliding back down the way they had come, facing the undead barbarian hordes alone.

Another shell exploded a hundred yards to his left. Dan and Emily fell.

“Come on, Sis. We’ve got to get up. There’s cover not too far ahead.”

He pulled her to her feet. Emily was his younger sister, just turned eighteen, but ever since they were little, she had been the more powerful of the two.

Daniel examined the inside of her right forearm again. The skin around the long scratch was black and dark veins of necrotic flesh were spreading. If she hadn’t been so weak from using her power, the zombie’s filthy claws wouldn’t have done this to her.

He heard a cry and turned. There was Tamika manipulating what looked like a piece of paper. It ignited in her palm and then it leapt into the air. Seconds later, what he recognized as a phoenix expanded into living flame and began raining fiery destruction on the pursuing swarm.

“Keep running,” she yelled. “I don’t know how long the spell will hold them.”

“Let’s go, Emily.” Dan slung one of her arms around his neck and then hobbled with her uphill. There was a castle in the distance. It was little more than a hollowed-out shell, but it might conceal them.

“I’m so tired,” she mumbled.

“No time for that, Sis. You need to stay awake. Tamika’s reserving a healing spell. Once we get to shelter, she’ll fix you right up.”

The sub-machine gun strapped across his other shoulder kept banging against his hip. He was wearing down, both because of all the running and carrying heavy equipment and for other reasons. If only they hadn’t been separated from the rest of the squad. He hoped they were still alive, especially now that their only two magic users were with him.

The artillery barrage had thankfully stopped, but the curtains of light were getting brighter. They were the cause of his modern Army gear being retrograded to an earlier era. Even the enemy throngs were outfitted like 16th century Scottish dragoons.

Dan was beginning to think they were going to make it when he heard the loud buzzing from overhead. He looked up to see the silhouettes of propeller-driven aircraft in the night sky. He couldn’t tell if they were allies or enemies, not until one disengaged and began diving.

“Keep going,” cried Tamika. “That bloody Red Baron’s starting a strafing run.”

She had almost caught up to them, but the castle walls were too far off. “We’ll never make it,” he yelled. Setting Emily on the soft loam, he raised his bolt-action Thompson and tried to sight on the aircraft. In spite of what Tamika said, it looked more like a Messerschmitt than a Fokker triplane.

“That won’t work,” Tamika said breathlessly. “I’ve got one more spell left in me.”

“No, you were going to use it for…”

“Shut up, Soldier boy.” She wheeled about low, scooped up a handful of gravel, and then threw both arms out toward the aircraft.

The mechanical clattering of the plane’s machine guns and the roar of its engine were deafening. Dan pushed Emily down when he saw twin bullet impacts throwing up clouds of dirt and heard the ricochets. Seeing Tamika’s small rocks expanding and multiplying in the air, he draped himself over his sister.

There was the sound of large stones or boulders crashing into metal, the airframe squealing as it screamed overhead. Dan looked up long enough to see the Messerschmitt 109 veer east, just missing the castle, sailing over the cliffs, and then down toward the North Sea.

“Come…on…” Tamika was panting, nearly exhausted from this last effort. “We…haven’t…”

“I know. Not much time.” Daniel stood and pulled Emily up again. She wasn’t quite lucid but was able to move. He looked behind. The fire from Tamika’s phoenix was going out and in the shadowy distance, the armies of the nemesis were recovering.

The sky burned like cold fire in hues of emerald and crimson. The ground shook and the sound of airplanes vanished. In their place were cannons but not nearby. Explosions tossed up geysers of dirt and stone transforming the terrain between them and the Orcish horde into a no man’s land.

“Where are we?”

At the height of the Second Dragon War, our reality collides with several others including the higher planes where the dragons and their mystical allies are battling for dominance. In our world, time and space have become chaotic and the planet itself fights for survival.

Among all of this, in one part of Scotland, Two sorceresses and one ordinary soldier are cut off from their Army unit and forced into a conflict with a necromancer in his castle lair. Time is running out and not all of them will escape the castle alive.

Buy a digital copy of Fantastic Schools, Volume 13 now or wait a little bit if you want the paperback.

Please write an honest review of the anthology including my short story and most of all, enjoy the adventure.