Zombies, machines relics, prehistoric beasts, angels and heaven, and knights. These things may not seem like they would belong together, but for this story they do. Guy Haley has taken these seemingly unrelated items, and put them together to create a truly fantastic world and history. Abney and his mother are leaving their home of New Karsville to join their cousin in Winfort. After the war, the angels set a plague of the unliving loose in Virginia, and that destroyed their home. On their way off, they are picked up by a mail-carrier to escort them – to help protect them on the road – but he soon suffers an accident which brings his death. Abney and his mother, now alone on the road, with a broken carriage, seem to be doomed to wait for either zombies or other humans to end their life. Lucky for them, their first wanderer is a knight from a Dreaming City. It is a steep price to pay for his services – half of Mrs. Collin’s bridal price she’d saved – but it is a price they must pay if they wish to survive the unliving, the road, and the other half of the Emperor’s Punishment:…