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A Game of Horns: A Red Unicorn Anthology
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Table of Contents
Book Description
Additional Copyright Information
Dedication
When Did Unicorns Turn Red?
M.Y.T.H. Rule
Killing Zombies in Rural America: A Survival Guide by Doug and Cecilia
The Dark Ambition of Oswald March
The Old Gray Mare
Now I See You
Scrapyard Paradise
Vodka Dreams
The Fall of Winter
Customer Hotline
The Sharpest Horn
The Setting Sun
The Whole of Me
Odin’s Eye
Queen of the Hidden Way
The Red Unicorn Candy Store
Vengeance for Dinner
The Trade
His Most Violent Friend
Laura’s Magic Clock
The Correlation Effect
Feeding the Feral Children
About the Editor
Edited by Lisa Mangum
Book Description
Red. The color of blood, of war, of passion—and of a new unicorn herd.
Game of Horns: A Red Unicorn Anthology has gathered 21 original stories about red unicorns from famous and soon-to-be-famous authors, including New York Times best-selling authors Jody Lynn Nye and David Farland. Some stories feature physical unicorns; most do not. Some unicorns are kind; most are not.
From a battlefield to a candy store, from zombie unicorns in rural America to telepathic unicorns on the dark side of Europa, from the fantastical past to the possible future, no creative avenue or conflict remains unexplored by these talented storytellers.
Pick a story. Take a chance. And play the Game of Horns.
All profits benefit the Superstars Writing Seminar Scholarship Fund
Baen Ebooks Edition – 2015
WordFire Press
www.wordfirepress.com
ISBN: 1-978-1-61475-353-7
Copyright © 2015 WordFire Press
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the copyright holder, except where permitted by law. This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Cover painting by James A. Owen
Cover design by James A. Owen
Art Director Kevin J. Anderson
Book Design by RuneWright, LLC
www.RuneWright.com
Kevin J. Anderson & Rebecca Moesta, Publishers
Published by
WordFire Press, an imprint of
WordFire, Inc.
PO Box 1840
Monument, CO 80132
Additional Copyright Information
“M.Y.T.H. Rule”
Copyright © 2015 Jody Lynn Nye
“Killing Zombies in Rural America:
A Survival Guide by Doug and Cecilia”
Copyright © 2015 Kristin Luna
“The Dark Ambition of Oswald March”
Copyright © 2015 Tristan Brand
“The Old Gray Mare”
Copyright © 2015 John D. Payne
“Now I See You”
Copyright © 2015 Joy Dawn Johnson
“Scrapyard Paradise”
Copyright © 2015 Brandon M. Lindsay
“Vodka Dreams”
Copyright © 2015 Falcon’s Fables LLC
“The Fall of Winter”
Copyright © 2015 Scott Elder
“Customer Hotline”
Copyright © 2015 Josh Vogt
“The Sharpest Horn”
Copyright © 2015 Travis Heermann
“The Setting Sun”
Copyright © 2015 Victoria D. Morris
“The Whole of Me”
Copyright © 2015 Gregory D. Little
“Odin’s Eye”
Copyright © 2015 Frank Morin
“Queen of the Hidden Way”
Copyright © 2015 Mary Pletsch
“The Red Unicorn Candy Store”
Copyright © 2015 Katie Cross
“Vengeance for Dinner”
Copyright © 2015 Emily Godhand and J.S. Bennett
“The Trade”
Copyright © 2015 Raphyel M. Jordan
“His Most Violent Friend”
Copyright © 2015 Gregory D. Little
“Laura’s Magic Clock”
Copyright © 2015 Robert J. McCarter
“Correlation Effect”
Copyright © 2015 Falcon’s Fables LLC
“Feeding the Feral Children”
Copyright © 2015 David Wolverton/aka David Farland
Dedication
One of our most dedicated, enthusiastic, and supportive attendees of the Superstars Writing Seminars was Don Hodge—a man who got into writing late in life, but jumped in with both feet. Despite his physical difficulties, he was a light of optimism and eagerness.
Don first came to Superstars in 2012 in Las Vegas, and came to four in a row. The last we saw him was in February 2015 at the Colorado Springs seminar. Don passed away on August 15, 2015, and everyone in his Superstars Tribe misses him.
Because he was so supportive of the cause to bring more writers to the seminar, and to help those who needed an extra hand, we are proud to dedicate this A Game of Horns to Don’s memory.
All profits from this anthology, and the previous volume, One Horn to Rule Them All, go into a scholarship fund to being less-fortunate students to the Superstars Writing Seminar. As of 2015, we have renamed that fund the Don Hodge Memorial Scholarship.
When Did Unicorns Turn Red?
I started devouring fantasy as soon as I learned to read. Sometimes I had as many as four or five books going at a time. I left them all over the house and picked up whichever book happened to be handy. I even read in bed after lights-out. I didn’t have a flashlight, so I would sneak a book under the covers and read one line at a time by the light of my electric blanket controls.
Those stories whisked me away to worlds populated by unicorns, dragons, wizards, talking beasts, knights in armor, and teens who pulled swords from stones or fought against evil on the way to becoming kings and queens.
As a child of the 1960s and 1970s, I loved all things mystical, magical, and wondrous. For me, my favorite images from that era are inextricably bound together: sunshine, puffy white clouds, peace signs, flower children, smiley faces, sparkles, rainbows—and unicorns.
In paintings and tapestries and myths, unicorns are most often portrayed as pale, ethereal creatures, so of course, I thought of them as pure and noble horse-like beings that practically glowed with magical light. They lived in forest glens and paused in their virtuous thoughts only to be petted by fair maidens in flowing dresses.
Of course, that’s not the only kind of unicorn. I used to watch Star Trek (the original series) with my dad. In the episode “The Enemy Within” there’s actually a tawny-colored unicorn dog. Not only wasn’t it a milky color, it looked nothing like a horse. So even wi
th unicorns the imagination can run wild.
As Kevin J. Anderson described in his introduction to One Horn to Rule Them All: A Purple Unicorn Anthology, he and I adopted the purple unicorn to represent a philosophy we taught: Writers should do their best work in the allotted time, no matter the writing assignment. If writers can’t respect their readers enough to do a good job, they shouldn’t accept the contract. Purple unicorns symbolize commitment to quality.
When our series editor, Lisa Mangum, and our managing editor, Peter Wacks, suggested that our next anthology feature red unicorns (complete with the perfect title from Finley Scogin), we were surprised at first and then intrigued. The color red is full of energy. Our society uses red to express so many ideas—anger, heat, love, war, danger, embarrassment, not to mention spiciness or ripe fruit—what stories would it inspire? Of course we wanted red unicorns.
So the following pages hold a wealth of red unicorn stories to entertain you.
Are red unicorns real? Just as real as all the other colors of unicorns. And I can’t wait to see what comes after A Game of Horns: A Red Unicorn Anthology.
Until the next volume,
Rebecca Moesta, Publisher
WordFire Press
A Game of Horns: A Red Unicorn Anthology is the second benefit anthology to fund Superstars Writing Seminars scholarships which covers tuition for writers who have not yet had the opportunity to attend a seminar.
M.Y.T.H. Rule
Jody Lynn Nye
“Gleep!” I exclaimed in surprise, as a sharp-pointed horn poked me in the back. I snaked back my long, sinuous, green-scaled neck to confront the wielder of that horn. “Why did you do that?”
Buttercup, my pet’s white war unicorn, a strapping, snowy equine with a pearlescent pointed protuberance jutting nearly two feet out between his eyes, eyed me grimly over the end of the leash clenched in his teeth.
“Just keep moving, Gleep,” he said. “Please.”
I sighed and kept pulling forward. The appealingly atrocious scent that I had smelled at the nearest intersection of two dusty streets full of tents would have to go unresearched, at least for the moment. I continued onward into the thick of the colorful crowd.
At the sight of a green dragon, even a youthful wurm such as myself, most of the shoppers and shopkeepers in the broad expanse of boutiques, booths, tents, and kiosks that made up the Bazaar at Deva—red-skinned Deveels, magenta-hued Imps, pale Kobolds, handsome Whelfs, even a few assorted Klahds—cleared a path to put themselves out of immediate reach.
My kind has a well-deserved reputation for being dangerous. In the wild, these creatures might have been my legitimate prey. All that prevented them from running, levitating, or teleporting to safety seeing me walking free were the reputation of my pet, Skeeve, who although a Klahd, was well-known in the Bazaar as a master magician, and the gleaming white war unicorn holding my leash. I was considered to be “under control,” when that was far from being the truth. The only reason that I permitted myself to be treated as a dumb animal was for Buttercup’s sake.
It had come to Skeeve’s attention that Buttercup was unhappy in his enforced exile from martial action. Most bipedal creatures across the dimensions concentrate far more on safety than those with four or more limbs. For the sake of his new master, Buttercup had tried to be happy in the lap of luxury, fed only the finest mash and hay, with carrots, sugar, and apples for treats, bedded down on clean straw every night, in a palatial stable and curried daily by expert stable hands, but in truth, the unicorn longed for the days when he served as a mount to Sir Quigley. Together, they had faced terrible enemies in danger dire circumstances. That knight, who had turned out to be less than a true, honest, virtuous paladin, had at least fought in battles, the life for which Buttercup had been bred and trained.
Skeeve had no wish to put Buttercup into unnecessary danger, and therein lay the dilemma. Klahds like him, raised in small villages, away from the machinations of the great and the good, didn’t understand the defense of their nations, whereas I had been educated from the egg by my mother, who was a scholar in all the martial traditions. We denizens of Draco were frequently called in by one side or often both in a conflict. War often becomes a habit. Hence, my agreement that something should be done to help Buttercup.
But Skeeve did not like to let me or the unicorn far out of his sight. I think my pet became insecure when I was away. (Thus, I never informed him when I took Pervish leave, as they say, to pursue my own interests. I always made certain to be back where he expected to see me.)
The solution, in his mind, was to occupy Buttercup within the environment that Skeeve spent most of his time: the Bazaar at Deva. It was crowded with groups who were often inimical to one another, striving for territorial or economic superiority. A great deal of underhanded negotiation and subterfuge went on here. Betrayal was commonplace. A being who was one’s ally one day could be tempted into the enemy camp the next. Danger lay around every corner, whether it was an apothecary’s tent that could blow up at the drop of a phial of potion, a tent full of dragons, a Pervish restaurant teeming with dishes that were still mobile and smelled like death, pickpockets, rogue magicians, merchants who might cut one another’s throats if and when no one was looking, and worst of all, joke shops full of magikal prank items. In other words, the Bazaar was as close to being a war zone as any declared or undeclared hostilities anywhere in the dimensions.
The exercise usually worked splendidly. Buttercup was to take me out for walkies, usually to a point some miles distant from our primary tent, achieve a task of some ilk, then return me, himself, and the object of our trip to our tent without killing anyone or being killed ourselves along the way. If trouble arose, I had been enjoined by Skeeve not to take action on my own, but to let Buttercup handle it. I agreed, although I was always ready to lend my strength and the fearsomeness of my species’ reputation should there be need. There seldom was. Even an Ogre wasn’t foolish enough to take on a war unicorn in full barding and a half-grown dragon.
Usually.
On this day, however, my friend and companion seemed edgier than usual.
“What is troubling you?” I asked him as we trotted around the next corner.
“My horn is tingling,” he said. “It indicates the presence of a foe.”
“One?” I raised the scales over my eyes in surprise and looked around me. “The Bazaar is full of inimical entities. Why haven’t you reacted before?”
“This is one of my own kind,” he said, his large brown eyes solemn. “It is following us. We must be ready to defend ourselves.”
I sniffed the air. The acrid soup that passed for atmosphere in the desert environ was laden with the odor of unwashed bodies, the aforementioned Pervish cooking, and numerous other stenches. Buttercup, by comparison, smelled of his plant-based diet, the leather and steel of his barding, and sweet-sour sweat exuding deliciously from his flesh.
Then, I scented a similar odor not far away. I spun on a claw, alarming a Whelf girl wearing a tiny white veil on her long golden hair. She beat me with her shopping basket and let out a loud scream.
Loud hoof beats erupted from nearby, growing louder by the moment.
“I will save you from this foul beast, fair maiden!” a stentorian voice announced.
The crowd parted suddenly, making way for a long, sharp horn. My reactions, being far faster than those of mere Deveels and Whelfs, allowed me to step to one side, permitting the oncoming equine to charge past me.
Buttercup had been correct. The newcomer was indeed a male war unicorn, though instead of pearly white, his coat was blood red. His eyes, too, gleamed red. Like Buttercup, this unicorn was well-muscled and armored as though for battle. He wheeled on a single polished ruddy hoof and came around again, his horn lowered and aiming for my heart.
I shook my head in disbelief. To challenge a dragon, in broad daylight, with the dragon’s full knowledge and attention focused upon him? The creature must be insane. Better to put him out of
his and everyone else’s misery. I took a deep breath, preparing to envelop him in flame.
“No, Gleep!” Buttercup whinnied.
“What? Why not?” I demanded, leaping to one side as the stranger charged me again. The red unicorn thundered past, emitting a neigh of frustration. He turned in a half circle and prepared to come back at me.
“Because your safety is my responsibility!” Buttercup dropped my lead from his teeth and galloped into the oncoming unicorn’s way. He lowered his horn and braced himself.
The red unicorn’s lips drew back from his enormous square teeth in a fearsome rictus. This seemed to be exactly what he had been hoping would occur. He pounded forward, aiming for Buttercup’s heart.
My friend might have been away from the field of battle for some time, but he had kept his skills, as well as his horn, honed to a fine point. As the red tine lunged inward, the white horn flicked underneath, then pushed it up and around in a perfect parry. The stranger countered the parry masterfully, then made his own riposte. Buttercup withdrew a pace, then lunged in his turn.
Parry! Riposte! Counter-parry! Disengage! Fleche! Remise! Ballestra!
The two unicorns slashed, drew back, lunged, countered, leaped, and thrust, each seeking the advantage against the other’s defense. The horns nearly drew sparks as they clashed and slid against one another. Their manes and tails tossed and flew like live creatures. Their nostrils flared majestically, and their eyes gleamed in the heat of battle.
I watched with admiration. Buttercup cut red lines again and again on the other’s scarlet coat. Blood, almost indistinguishable from the color, rolled down his side. The newcomer did not pay heed to his injuries, nor did he manage to draw blood even once. My friend more than held his own against the attacker, yet the red unicorn refused to retreat. I could have stepped in at any moment and ended the bout on the spot, yet I was reluctant to do so. Buttercup did not need me to intercede. Instead, I had the opportunity to observe and enjoy.