The city was unusually quiet that night, as though the unseen spirits responsible for a typical night's creaks and clacks and groans had hushed in anticipation of what was to come. Epeius' wooden horse loomed above it, a pale and silent apparition in the moonlight.

Troy saw the creature's belly fall open, and Troy saw it disgorge its complement of soldiers. Swiftly, without hesitation, they swept through the city. By the time that the alarm was raised, Troy's gates had opened to the army hidden outside. By the time the Trojan warriors had awakened and armed themselves, they were already being slaughtered wholesale by their foes.

That night the streets of Troy ran with blood for Helen's hand. For all that it had cost them, the Greeks were nonetheless punished for the murder of King Priam while he supplicated at an altar; a storm claimed most of their fleet, and it would be many more years before Odysseus and his men returned home.

What Troy saw that night was treachery and murder. But it was also the end of ten years of uncertainty and bloodshed. There was a sense of catharsis in it, for the gods if not the men; and what remained of Troy saw the Greeks departing, lovely Helen in tow, for the homeland that most of them would never see.

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