The plain was no longer a plain. It had become a furnace of dust and shouting, a storm of men and metal that swallowed the horizon. The air shimmered with heat, and every gust carried the stench of sweat, iron, and fear.
From the ridge, I could see them — the Greeks, packed tight in their bronze shells, trying to hold a shape that no longer made sense. The line was there in theory, but in truth, it was a patchwork of terrified men clutching splintered spears and broken rhythm.
And then came the sound.
At first, it was distant — a soft rolling thunder beneath the screams. Then it grew. The ground quivered. The dust trembled. And through that living fog, I saw them: the Trojan chariots, gleaming like moving stars, horses wild-eyed, nostrils flaring steam.
Two men to each — one holding the reins, the other ready with javelin or bow. They didn't charge headlong like fools; they danced. Circling, striking, vanishing again before the Greeks could answer. Every movement was precise, every wheel-turn measured.
So that's how they fight, I thought. The Greeks built walls. The Trojans build storms.
The Greeks tried to stand their ground, shields up, spears ready, but they were fighting air. The chariots never gave them a target — they cut wide arcs, let loose a rain of arrows, and faded before the counterstrike. Men dropped their shields to cover their faces. Once the rhythm broke, panic slipped in quietly, almost politely.
Beside me, the blind old man stood motionless. The boy squinted against the glare, and the dog whimpered, tail low.
"The wheels," the old man said softly, "are older than kings. They turn for gods and men alike."
I didn't answer. My mind was too busy trying to understand the logic of it all. The formation, the movement — it was a kind of arithmetic written in blood. Geometry and fear. Order and collapse.
Below us, the left Greek flank began to bend — not broken yet, but close. Every time a chariot darted past, a handful of men fell or scattered. I could almost feel the despair rippling upward, reaching me like heat from the ground.
Somewhere in the haze, I saw Hector again. He wasn't shouting, not waving his sword like the rest. He simply moved — slow, assured, as if the whole battle listened to his breathing. Around him, the Trojan ranks surged forward as if carried by one will.
The Greeks fell back a step. Then another. Shields slammed together in desperation. I could hear commanders shouting, promising glory, threatening death, anything to hold their line.
And I… I just watched.
Watched the chariots carve crescents through the dust. Watched men run, stumble, disappear beneath hooves. Watched the balance of power tilt one wheel-turn at a time.
This was no poem. This was no song.
This was what the Iliad must have looked like before someone decided to make it sound noble.
Homer said nothing more. The boy tugged gently at his cloak. The dog barked once, sharp and sad.
The sun climbed higher, a silent witness.
And for a fleeting moment, I wondered if it too wished to look away.
By midday, the plain had turned into a graveyard that hadn't yet realized it was one.
The chariots still wheeled through the haze, but slower now — not from fatigue, but from satisfaction. They had done their work. The ground below was no longer earth; it was bodies, armor, and dust glued together by blood.
I stood there, breath caught somewhere between awe and nausea. There's a point where the human mind stops registering death as individual — when the fallen become a single shape, a color smeared across the field. I reached that point, and maybe stepped beyond it.
The Greeks were breaking. Not in one dramatic collapse, but piece by piece, like ice cracking underfoot. Men ran. Men begged. Some didn't run fast enough. I watched a Trojan spear find the space between two shields — so clean, so simple — and wondered why my hands trembled when the rest of me felt numb.
Was this what the poets meant when they said "glory"?
From where I stood, there was no music, no divine justice — only noise. The kind of noise that eats through thought.
I tried to imagine being in the center of that chaos — the press of bodies, the metallic taste of panic — and realized that survival wasn't about strength, or even courage. It was about calculation. Distance. Timing. Knowing when to move and when to disappear.
That's when her voice came back to me — faint but precise, like a memory etched into the skull.
"Nothing you experience is real, Ethan."
Mnemosyne's words — the promise and the curse in one sentence.
If none of this was real, why did my heart still pound? Why did the air still reek of iron and sweat? Why did my stomach twist at the sound of a dying man gasping for his mother?
Maybe it didn't matter. Real or not, this was happening. And I wanted — no, needed — to see. To understand. To feel the pulse of history before it turned into myth.
There was a moment when I almost stepped forward, just to see how close I could get before fear stopped me. But then a chariot swept past below — the wheel slicing through a fallen man like parchment — and I froze.
Survival, I reminded myself, is the first form of wisdom. But curiosity… curiosity is the second.
Homer stood unmoving beside me, the boy clutching his arm, the dog pressed against his leg. He seemed to sense my thoughts because he turned, blind eyes fixed on me, and said quietly:
"The living envy the singers. But remember, boy — the dead envy no one."
His words struck deeper than the screams below. I didn't answer.
The sun dipped slightly, turning the air into a haze of gold and red. It was beautiful, in the way fire is beautiful — distant, consuming, impossible to touch.
Down on the field, Hector raised his spear again, calling to the Greeks who still dared to stand. They didn't answer. No one did.
The Trojans had the field.
And I had my questions.
Was this how myths were born? Out of men's fear and someone else's pen?
And if so… whose story was I standing in?
When the horns finally fell silent, the world felt broken in a new way.
The noise didn't stop — it simply went distant, as if muffled by the dead. The shouts, the clash, the ringing steel — all folded into a single hum that seemed to come from the earth itself. I realized then that silence isn't the absence of sound. It's what remains when sound gives up.
The Trojans were pulling back, their chariots like ghosts drifting through the smoke. The Greeks retreated in pieces — limping, dragging the wounded, cursing, praying, or just staring into nothing. No one spoke of victory or defeat. The field had no sides anymore. It only had survivors.
I turned back toward the camp, my legs heavy with exhaustion, dust clinging to my skin like ash. The air smelled of burnt leather, sweat, and bronze — the perfume of men who tried to be gods and failed.
Behind me, I heard the soft shuffle of footsteps.
The old man — the beggar — was still there. His robe, once white, was now the color of the battlefield. The boy held his arm, guiding him over the uneven ground, while the dog trotted silently ahead, tail low, eyes fixed on something unseen.
I called to him. "Old man! The camp's this way!"
He didn't answer.
He kept walking toward the horizon — toward Troy, its high walls gleaming faintly through the veil of smoke and dust. The city looked unreal from here, a mirage of stone and pride.
"You're going the wrong way," I said, stepping closer. "There's nothing for you there. The Trojans will cut you down before you reach the gate."
Still, no reply.
He just kept walking, step after careful step, as if each one was part of a path only he could see.
I frowned, feeling something strange stir inside me — irritation, maybe awe. "How are you even going to get in there?" I called out, louder this time.
He stopped. For a heartbeat, the wind carried nothing but the faint groan of the battlefield behind us. Then he turned slightly, enough that the light caught his face — pale, lined, eyes unfocused but alive with something too vast to name.
When he spoke, his voice was barely a whisper.
"I am going to write a poem."
The boy beside him looked up, as if hearing a sacred truth. The dog barked once, softly, and then they moved on — toward the walls, toward the heart of history.
I stood there, watching until their shapes blurred into the haze.
A poem. That's what all this was to him — not blood, not screams, not the weight of death pressing against the soil. Just words waiting to be born.
The thought chilled me more than anything I had seen that day.
Because if he was right — if all of this would one day be reduced to verses and rhythm — then maybe Mnemosyne wasn't lying. Maybe none of this was real. Maybe I was just another line waiting to be written.
I turned back toward the camp, the fires burning low against the dusk. Each step felt heavier, but my mind wouldn't rest.
Was I living the poem… or being remembered by it?