Fall of Kings

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A bright moon shone low in the sky above the isle of Imbros, its silver light bathing the rocky shoreline and the Mykene war fleet beached there. The curve of the bay was filled with ships: some fifty war galleys and more than a hundred barges drawn up so tightly that there was not a handbreadth between them. On the beach the Mykene army sat around scores of cookfires, eight thousand soldiers, some preparing their weapons, sharpening swords, or burnishing shields and others playing dice or dozing by the flickering fires. The beach was so crowded, many of the sailors had remained on their ships rather than jostle for a strip of rocky ground on which to lay their blankets.

Agamemnon, king of the Mykene and warlord of the western armies, stood outside his canopied tent, his gaunt frame wrapped in a long black cloak, his cold eyes staring out to sea toward the east, where the sky glowed red.

The fortress of Dardanos was burning.

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