Aniti. I tried to remember how much time we had spent together in the years we had been married: a few months, all told. Enough to father two sons by her. She was a pleasant enough woman, not given to anger, never sullen. But I could not recall the color of her eyes, nor the sound of her voice.

The rain became heavier, making rivulets that flowed among the cobblestones. The roof of the house crashed down in a shower of sparks and flame, as if the gods honored my father’s grave with sacred fire. I pulled my cloak tighter around me while I stood in the chilling rain and waited for my men to return.

As it grew darker they began to show up. One, then a pair of them, then another three. By the time it was fully dark eighteen of the twenty were standing in the rain-soaked street, their cloaks over their heads.

“Nerik isn’t coming, Lukka,” said Magro, usually the jokester among my men. He wasn’t joking this day. He looked miserable beneath his dripping cloak. “I saw him go off with some of his friends from the barracks.”

“And Hartu?” I called to them. “Anybody seen him?”

Head shakes and mumbles. Hartu had family in the city, I knew. He was the eldest son; his parents probably needed him more than I did—if they still lived.

We were eighteen men, eighteen soldiers of an army that no longer existed. As individuals we would be as helpless as any fleeing refugee. But if we stayed together we might be able to survive. As one lone man I could never hope to find my sons. But with my squad of disciplined spearmen …

I made a decision. “All right. Form up. We march.”

“March?” asked big, slow-witted Zarton. “To where?”

“To find my sons,” I told them.