Below Kussara, the oldest city of the Hittite kings, Aeneas's army of the hungry listens every night to the feasts behind its walls. At dawn he tells them why they came: while they fought hunger in blood and dust, the city never stopped feasting, and today they take back what is theirs. He will walk up to the Lion Gate with twelve men as a prince of Troy; at dusk the army will put out its fires and march away; when the city sleeps he will open the gate, and the spoils will go home to their villages. Old Anchises recognises the trick the Greeks used on Troy. Creusa pins her father's seal to his cloak: a rearing horse. Lord Zidanta calls Troy "Wilusa", makes its prince kneel and drinks to the city that opened its gates to a gift. On Olympus, Athena knows the trick: it was hers. That night the gate opens, the dark plain fills with torches, and Kussara burns the way Troy burned. By noon the carts are on every road to every village, and a crow on the Lion Gate counts: one.
1. Kussara, the oldest city of the Hittite kings, on its hill above the hungry camp. 'They say those walls have never fallen.' 'They said that about ours.' When the wind turns it brings the smell of roasting meat; every night the city feasts.2. At dawn Aeneas speaks to his army from a cart: while they fought hunger in blood and dust, the city never stopped feasting; its people never saw their pain and never went one day without bread. 'Today we take back what is rightfully ours!'3. The plan: he walks up to the gate with twelve men, and they will open it for a prince of Troy. At dusk the army puts out its fires and marches west as if leaving; when the city sleeps he opens the gate. 'Then come in and take everything they have!'4. Old Anchises understands: 'A prince at the gate. Fires that go dark at dusk. Son... that is what the Greeks did to us.' 'I know, father. I watched it work.' 'Then you know how it ends.' 'Yes. For them, this time.' Creusa listens in silence.5. Before he leaves, Creusa pins her father's seal to his cloak; she never says where she had kept it. The seal of Priam: a horse. Thirteen men walk up the road to the Lion Gate. 'Who comes to the Lion Gate of Kussara?!'6. 'Aeneas, son of Anchises. Prince of Troy. Troy has fallen. I come to beg the mercy of the Great King's house.' Troy opened its gates for a horse. Kussara opens them for him.7. Inside, a market heaped with grain, oil and gold. 'Gods... there is enough here for ten winters.' 'Eyes down. Today we are beggars.' In the palace hall Lord Zidanta, who rules Kussara for the Great King: 'Ah, Wilusa! Little Troy by the western sea. We heard it burned.'8. 'In the Great King's house, a vassal kneels.' Aeneas kneels. 'When the Greeks came, my father begged this house for help. You sent nothing.' 'The Great King had wars of his own. What do you want, Trojan?'9. 'My people have turned on me. Tonight they march south. I ask only bread and a roof for my twelve.' 'Wilusa always knelt well.' At dusk the city watches the army's fires go out, one by one. On Olympus Athena sees it: 'I know this trick. It was mine.'10. They feast as if a war had ended. 'To Troy, who opened her gates to a gift!' 'To gifts.' Troy had slept like this once, drunk on a victory it never won; the Trojans move through the moonlit streets toward the gate.11. The gate guards are bound, alive. The crossbar comes out of its brackets. For a moment there is only the dark. Then thousands of torches flare up across the plain: they had never left.12. That night Kussara burns the way Troy burned. 'The storehouses! Leave the children!' At dawn Zidanta kneels in the ash: 'Who are you?!' 'I told you at your gate. A prince of Troy.' By noon the carts are on every road to every village. A crow on the Lion Gate: 'One.'
The cast
AeneasDardanian prince, son of Anchises and Aphrodite. A soldier of Troy on the night it ends.AnchisesAeneas's father. Old, scarred by lightning, keeper of the household gods.CreusaAeneas's wife, daughter of King Priam.AscaniusAeneas and Creusa's young son.AchatesAeneas's closest friend and shield-brother.PriamKing of Troy.PolitesPriam's youngest son.NeoptolemusSon of Achilles. The man standing over Priam at the altar.ZeusKing of the gods, and Aeneas's grandfather through Aphrodite. He speaks once, then turns his back.AthenaGoddess of wisdom and war-craft. She stood with the Greeks, and she tells Aeneas it is over.AresGod of war, Aeneas's uncle. He loves the fight more than any side in it.HadesLord of the dead. The only god who is kind to Aeneas, and the one who offers him a bargain.PoseidonGod of the sea. The kings of Troy never paid him for their walls.SergestusA Trojan spearman who got out of the burning city with nothing and nobody. Says aloud what hungry men think.MyrinaElder of a small hill village. She has outlived three raids by refusing to fight them.LykaEight years old. Frightened and brave at the same time.ZidantaGovernor of Kussara for the Hittite Great King. He remembers Troy only as Wilusa, the little vassal that once begged for help.
How it was made
1. A new face: Zidanta
The governor of Kussara got his own reference sheet before the first panel was drawn, so his square face, embroidered skullcap and gold bracers stay the same from his first sneer to the morning he kneels in the ash. Aeneas, Achates and Sergestus come from the sheets of the earlier episodes.
2. Drawn for the frame
Until now every panel was drawn in one of three shapes and cropped into its frame, which could cut off heads. From this episode on, each panel is drawn at the exact shape of its frame on the page: a long, low strip for the city at dawn, a tall narrow one for Aeneas's shout.
3. Faces first
Every panel says what each face must show: the hunger in the crowd, Anchises's grief, Zidanta's lazy contempt, Aeneas's cold eyes behind a bowed head.
4. Twelve pages
The longest episode so far: written from the author's beats, drawn panel by panel in the Graphic Studio, lettered by hand so every balloon points at its speaker, and composed into twelve pages.
Written and directed by the author, drafted and drawn with the AI tools in Boost Your Imagination.
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