Boop, David (ed) - Straight Outta Tombstone / Буп, Дэвид (ред) - Из могильной плиты [2017, epub, ENG]

Bubba Shackleford's Professional Monster Killers novelette by Larry Correia Trouble in an Hourglass short story by Jody Lynn Nye The Buffalo Hunters short story by Sam Knight The Sixth World short story by Robert E. Vardeman Easy Money short story by Phil Foglio The Wicked Wild short story by Nicole Givens Kurtz Chance Corrigan and the Lord of the Underworld short story by Michael A. Stackpole The Greatest Guns in the Galaxy short story by Bryan Thomas Schmidt and Ken Scholes Dance of Bones short story by Maurice Broaddus Dry Gulch Dragon short story by Sarah A. Hoyt The Treefold Problem short story by Alan Dean Foster Fountains of Blood short story by David Lee Summers High Midnight short story by Kevin J. Anderson Coyote short story by Naomi Brett Rourke The Key short story by Peter J. Wacks A Fistful of Warlocks / За пригоршню чернокнижников novelette by Jim Butcher

The children were wailing, his wife was sobbing, and that pitiless sliver of scum that walked like a man and called himself Potter Scunsthorpe (the individual with whom Owen was arguing fruitlessly) remained as merciless as a bull fixated on chewing three days’ worth of unmasticated cud. To add to the human cacophony at the forest’s edge, a pair of ravens flew past overhead, cackling like a pair of perambulating witches intent solely on taunting Owen Hargrave in his present misery. Scunsthorpe let the farmer stem-wind for several minutes longer before raising a commanding hand for silence. He had the look of a successful undertaker, did Scunsthorpe, coupled to the unctuous mannerisms of a banker who could squeeze an orange in one hand, a nickel in the other, and get juice out of both. Slender as a reed, his skin the color of wild rice, he was clad in a finely tailored black suit entirely out of keeping with the present woodland surroundings. A black top hat one size too small clung to his white-fringed scalp with grim determination. The single red silk ribbon that protruded from the hatband was the color of blood. From the front of his immaculate white shirt, a gold watch chain dribbled into a bulging pocket. Only his scuffed and dirty boots marked him as a citizen of far Wisconsin and not more civilized New York or Philadelphia. His two troll-like lackeys flanked him, disinterested and anxious to be away. The subject of the animated and decidedly inequitable discussion between the two men was an inundation of unbroken verdure, a veritable mantle of virgin forest that stretched as far to the west as one could see. White and red pine stabbed at the heavens, interspersed with stout woodland guardians of northern and red oak, red and sugar maple. Here and there a solitary basswood made an appearance, and where sunlight was sufficient, dense thickets of blueberry, wintergreen, and partridgeberry burst forth in energetic tangles. ...