Cyd Athens at Tangent Online reviews E.E. Knight’s Blue Pilgrim tale for Black Gate, published here on Sunday, January 13:

The Evil Overlord in E.E. Knight’s “The Terror in the Vale” is the Scripton, who is angered when the peaceful vale folk take offense that his soldiers are lifting the skirts of females to determine whether they are girls or women. He alleges that this is necessary because some adults are weaseling their way out of paying taxes by impersonating children…

As is the way of these things, the people resist and fight. This, of course, ups the stakes…

The Scripton decides to change tactics and does this story’s equivalent of releasing the Kraken — he creates a monster.

E.E. Knight is a scifi/fantasy author. He lives with his wife and three kids in Oak Park, IL. He may be contacted through his website at eeknight.com. The Blue Pilgrim was last seen in “That of the Pit,” published in Lords of Swords (2005).

You can read Cyd’s complete review at Tangent Online and “The Terror in the Vale,” a complete 9,400-word novelette of heroic fantasy, free here.

The complete catalog of Black Gate Online Fiction, including stories by John R. Fultz, Mark Rigney, C.S.E. Cooney, Donald S. Crankshaw, Judith Berman, Howard Andrew Jones, Dave Gross, Sean McLachlan, Harry Connolly, and Jason E. Thummel, is here.