Forged in Blood I

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Wind gusted across the abandoned stadium, rattling chains on flagpoles and stirring the fresh snow coating the rows of stone benches. In the chilly, predawn air, Amaranthe Lokdon stood atop the highest wall, the cold rim of a spyglass pressed to her eye. The empty arena opened to her right, while the cold black lake stretched to the left. A million-people dense, the capital of the Turgonian Empire, long ago nicknamed Stumps for its bevy of beheaded statues, spread out in front of her for miles and miles.

One might have expected dormancy at that early hour, but numerous trolleys and steam vehicles navigated the city, and a disturbing number of uniformed people marched along the sidewalks. Some of the soldiers bore flintlock rifles, but many carried the sleek, new weapons Forge had commissioned, weapons that could fire several self-contained cartridges with no need for the separate loading of powder and ball. Out on the lake, all manner of military vessels plied the frosty waters with a number of them forming a blockade across the river to the south.

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