For six months I led my squad of men westward, across the chaos and anarchy of the collapsed empire. We had to fight most of the way, against bandits, against villagers and farmers, against other desperate squads of former soldiers like ourselves.

Soon enough we discovered the remains of a refugee caravan. It had been attacked by bandits. The dead were strewn across the ground like a child’s broken toys. My wife and sons were not among them, thank the gods. I learned from one of the wounded guards who had been left to die that those who survived the attack were being herded to the slave market at Troy, far to the west, on the coast of the Aegean Sea.

Slaves. Slavers wouldn’t keep two little boys, they’d kill them on the spot. Aniti, my wife, what of her? I wondered. A woman isn’t responsible for what happens to her when she is in captivity, but still … a slave, powerless, defenseless. I had to squeeze my eyes shut to blot out the visions that came to my mind.

I thanked the dying guard and eased his way into the next life with a dagger to his throat. Then I searched the ground once again, until it was too dark to see, but my sons were not among the bodies scattered across the wreckage of the caravan.

So I pushed my men onward, toward Troy. They grumbled as soldiers always do, but they had no real choice. Together we were a formidable band of men, armed and disciplined. We lived off the land, became little better than bandits ourselves.

Bad dreams filled my sleep: dreams of my infant boys lying broken and dead in a roadside ditch. Dreams of my wife on the auction block of the slave merchants.

Some nights I dreamed of Hattusas, saw the city in flames while ravaging mobs looted and raped through the streets. In my dream I saw the old emperor die, poisoned by his own sons, and I was powerless to help my emperor. Try as I might I could not move, could not even shout a warning to him.