The pale body lay within a soiled cloak under a busy swarm of flies. The family of vegetable merchants who had found it in the roadside ditch near the City of Iron sat in their open wagon, the father insisting his wife and children keep their eyes away from the corpse. Against his own advice he mustered furtive glances to make sure it did not stir with daemonic life.

He knew not how the man had died. The body wore the armor of a Legion foot soldier, but if his soul had been replaced with a Hellbourne seed that began to grow, the merchant would see how fast his sway-backed mule could pull. If it were up to him, he’d get a fire going and the body would be ash before nightfall. The dead could no longer be trusted to stay so. Continue reading Steampunk Prologue →