Bard City B-Sides

By Nathaniel Webb

Finished Bard City Blues and hungry for more Gally and Alix? This collection is for you! Bard City B-Sides contains four short stories featuring the Lifted Gate crew—three prequels and a sequel—plus a chapter-by-chapter playlist to accompany the novel! Warning: Bard City Blues spoilers ahead! Don't read this until you've finished the novel.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wyngraf
• Release date: Nov 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215556887

Nathaniel Webb

Nathaniel Webb (aka Nat20) is an author, musician, and the editor of WYNGRAF, the magazine of cozy fantasy.His novels include the geek mystery A CONVENTIONAL MURDER, the GameLit adventure EXPEDITION: SUMMERLANDS from Level Up Publishing, and the Veil of Worlds urban fantasies from Vulpine Press. His music biography MARILLION IN THE 1980s was a bestseller for Sonicbond Publishing. He has published numerous short stories and novellas in such genres as litRPG, steampunk, cozy fantasy, mystery, and sword & sorcery.As a lead guitarist, Nathaniel toured and recorded extensively with Grammy-nominated soul singer Jana Mashonee, played on Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Beth Hart's 2010 album MY CALIFORNIA, and co-produced and played guitar on Colombian pop singer Marre's 2013 album SOMBRAS DE LUZ. His band Talking to Walls toured up and down the east coast, and their 2010 release WE WERE NOT SO TALL reached CMJ's Most Added chart.His game development credits include adventures and supplements for the tabletop RPGs SHADOW OF THE DEMON LORD and GODLESS.A graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy and Wesleyan University, where he was editor of the humor rag THE AMPERSAND, Nathaniel lives in Portland, Maine with his wife and son under a massive pile of cats. He can be found at @nat20w on Twitter, where he mostly talks about cats, writing, and obscure progressive rock.

Book preview

Bard City B-Sides

BARD CITY B-SIDES

NATHANIEL WEBB

INTERIOR ILLUSTRATIONS CRIS PUGA

MAP MIKAEL ASIKAINEN

COVER PAINTING LUCAS MARQUES OLIVEIRA

Wyngraf

Copyright © 2023 Nathaniel Webb

Wyngraf copyright © 2023 Young Needles Press

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Cover by Lucas Marques Oliveira

Interior art by Cris Puga

Map by Mikael Asikainen (www.orbigraphia.com)

CONTENTS

A Gift to Suit

The Underbender

Kid Gloves

The Sea King’s Eyes

Bard City Blues Official Playlist

About the Author

Kickstarter Backers

This one’s for all the writers, reviewers, and (most of all) readers who have supported Wyngraf. Thank you for sharing my cozy dream.

Lackmore city map by Mikael AsikainenMay

A GIFT TO SUIT

May Featherlight wiped her hands on her apron, gazed around the shop, and nodded with satisfaction. She had named it Immaculate Miscellany when it opened two years ago, and today it really did look immaculate. Just like a soap shop should.

The teak floors shone from a fresh mopping, the heartwood columns and rafters showed not a speck of dust, and the four tables that ran the length of the room were pin-straight. The tables were the perfect height for a halfling like May, which meant her customers from the taller folk had to stoop a little, but that was fine by her. A double row of wooden bowls marched down each table—May had just finished dusting and nudging them into tidy lines—each holding a different aromatic ingredient for soapmaking. Vanilla and lavender, chocolate and coffee, cut grass and jasmine… they all mingled together in the air of Immaculate Miscellany’s smellroom, making a warm and welcoming blend, but May’s discriminating nose picked out every note.

She nodded again, making her auburn curls bounce. Everything was perfect.

Maylily Dogblossom Featherlight! howled a voice from the closet near the back of the smellroom. The door was only slightly ajar, but that voice had a way of carrying. What is all this junk?

May sighed, her good humor dissolving swiftly. What junk, Mum?

She pulled a kerchief from an apron pocket and tied her hair up as she crossed the smellroom. Of course her mother would find something to criticize. Mum had come to Lackmore from the Reeve—upriver all the way, and with winter coming on, no less!—to help with May’s seasonal cleaning, and to Pansy Featherlight, helping and criticizing were one and the same.

All those boxes and bags and things! The closet door swung open and out rolled Mum, brushing dust from her best blue travelling dress. I was nearly buried under all that.

Buried? May stopped short. Did the pile topple over?

Mum raised her chin. Her own curls, though more gray now than auburn, had lost none of their springiness and bounced proudly around her face. No, but it could have.

But it didn’t?

You know, said Mum, if you had someone tall around here to lend a hand—a man, maybe—they’ve got all sorts in the big city…

Mum!

Her mother shrugged, the picture of maternal innocence. I’m not criticizing. Running a shop on Coin Hill’s an awful lot for one halfling girl to handle all on her own, that’s all. It’s only an observation.

We’ll just leave those things where they are, then, May said. It’s nothing I need for the shop.

If not, we should toss them.

No—

Then what is all that? I raised six good halfling children, Maylily, and I know none of them’s a hoarder.

May sighed. Mum had a way of wearing you down. They’re gifts.

Maylily Dogblossom, the manners on you! You’ve not even opened them!

I opened some of them, May said miserably. She edged around her mother toward the closet. Those are the ones I haven’t. There’s too many, Mum. At first I thought I’d just store them as they came in, and open everything once a week or so, but they just kept coming, and I kept stowing them away, and before I knew it… She shut the closet door with a clunk. Well, you saw.

Oh, May. Mum stepped forward and took