"I'm sorry, they've come!" Sculla's whisper sliced through the clamor of pillaging and violence that echoed through the darkened hall.

He fled with Crassus, not yet formally anointed the fifty-first emperor of the Novissime. The vote in the senate had occurred only days before. It was unanimous, but the official ceremony had not yet taken place. While the senate made plans, and with much of the Placian Guards' ranks lost at Adrianople, the Nu's sudden attack surprised everyone. Sculla knew they had made it too easy for the little monsters.

Crassus rushed to keep up with Sculla. Sculla did not run, but walking put Crassus half a step behind.

Sculla considered the young emperor-in-waiting's position, and tossed an attempt to ease whatever doubts brewed in him. "We must survive this, Crassus. Do not worry, when the world settles your next fifty years will help guide the Novissime into this new era."

"But Geta."

Something in the words made Sculla feel they were an act; as if Crassus had to utter them to keep up some appearance even as they fled.

"It is fine. I sent him on a ship to Joan." Sculla had arranged to have Crassus's son removed from the city after the fall of Adrianople. That Crasus didn't know confirmed that Crassus did not care.

"What forces are in the City? Why are the walls not holding?" Crassus did his best to sound as if he was demanding information, and not simply begging for answers. Sculla was not fooled.

"My Lord, control yourself. This horde is remarkable. When this is over we will study accounts of their techniques, but for now we must simply survive."

A door slammed open against the stone wall behind the two. Sculla and Crassus slipped down another hall, then made a quick turn in and through the royal chef's small living quarters and into the kitchen.

The pale light from the thin windows running along the top of the kitchen walls showed a chaotic scene as they sped through. Wide-mouth terra cotta pots were shattered and strewn among metal pans across the countertops and floor. All the food appeared to have been taken in some frenzied hurry. But it was silent now.

"Have they come this far already?" Crassus asked.

"No, we would have been met in the hall if they had. The staff has run off."

"They've stolen Novissime food as well! We will find them!" Crassus once again tried to sound like an emperor.

"You have to stop that!" Sculla hissed. "That is the foolhardy influence of the Severans. It is what led to this mess and it is why Aiden is dead."

Crassus tightened his mouth, either in defiance or obedience. Sculla had no time to discern which.

The path, Sculla had told Crassus when they met in the Great Hall, was to exit through the connecting passageways, through the chef's quarters and kitchen, then through the stockroom of food, and finally through the tunnels used to transport the food to the docks. "A ship will take us out of the Nu's reach. You will not be remembered in this as a warrior emperor, but you will be alive."

Sculla pressed the door to the stockroom ever so slowly expecting to be met with death. Another ransacked room with all light extinguished. Sculla closed the door and the two were left in total darkness. "Crack the door, Marcus." Crassus ordered as best he could.

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"They'll see the door open and know we came this way, Emperor." Sculla pulled the end of his robe up and groped in the darkness for Crassus's hand. He shoved the cloth into the hand of the emperor. "Follow me."

The two made their way through the darkness slowly, crashing into overturned crates and tables as they inched toward the door. From behind, light flooded the stockroom.

A single Nu invader screamed at the two in an unintelligible language.

"Run, Crassus!" Sculla exclaimed, pulling at the young emperor. Crassus pulled back and turned to the little Nu. "I am the emperor of the great Novissime; Crassus Pious, first of my name! I sit atop the world and will not be cowed by any man or beast!" The Nu sliced at the Emperor as he came near, but Crassus was ready.

He had not trained extensively, compared to a Novissime soldier and perhaps not as much as other nobles, but Crassus had enough training to match the Nu's skills for a time. He managed to knock the curved blade from the Nu's hand and grapple him to the ground. Sculla watched, impatient yet impressed, as the future emperor knelt on the Nu's belly and rained heavy blows.

"Emperor, we have to move!" Sculla warned. After a few more blows Crassus stood, spit on the injured beast like man and turned to Sculla. Through the open door, four more Nu each wielding the same curved sword burst in.

Crassus managed only half a step toward the exit before a Nu landed a slicing blow to his back. It was not fatal, but enough to bring him to his knees. Sculla didn't wait to see what happened next. He ran from the stockroom at a speed he had not reached since his youth toward the docks.

In the bay a ship at full sail, ready to escape the burning city of Oram sat waiting for the senator. Sculla came to a gaunt wisp of a man hidden beneath the docks with a small boat. He put a hand on the man's shoulder, "We must go. I'm afraid the empire is lost." Wordlessly, the man took Sculla to the ship.

The screams of the citizens of Oram could be heard from the ship as clear as if he had been among the pillaging, yet from the outside Sculla appeared unbothered. He watched flames engulf the Royal Palace. Though he could not see much more in the haze of rising smoke he imagined the destruction of the noble houses, the theaters, coliseum and the shops along the winding mesh of stone and dirt streets. Sculla heard more screams of terror from the plebes and nobles and considered that he could not tell the difference.

The memory of his early years with his father's fire business brought a grim smile to his face. He thought of the similar feeling he had known while watching a house burn, hearing the order from his father to start and the ease at which the fire could be extinguished. His thoughts, in those days, had been on why the people had not been ready to put out their own fires. He did not wonder that now. Sculla knew why. He had seen a generation rise and fall, then another. They all did the same thing. They rushed to improve and change and take. They neglected the necessity of understanding even the simplest truths. They pretended to know, but it was all an act so deep even the actor did not realize it. The people could not prepare for their own fires. They could not do anything but pretend.

On the eastern shore of the harbor, as the ship sailed to safety, Sculla could see the fires of an even more ominous sight. The seemingly endless Nu horde stretched across the entire shore and reached inland to the farthest visible hills.

"The vultures swarm." Sculla said to an approaching crewman, matter of factly, yet with a touch of sadness. The man handed a golden goblet of wine to Sculla. He swirled the purple liquid.

"Yeah, they really weren't ready." Sculla almost laughed at the crewman's remark. The man spoke as if he had seen everything coming. The crewman was only safe from the pillaging because Sculla had commissioned a ship to be ready and waiting. It just so happened to be this ship and the man just so happened to be among its crew. Sculla eyed the man's weathered face, the rough brown skin stretched across deep caverns beneath his high, jutting cheekbones. He imagined that face screaming with the rest of them, if not for the indifferent turn of fate. He knew any words he said would not be understood. Sculla answered with a smile, "They never are."

"Why do you think that is?"

The man's oblivious response brought a second wave of the same feeling. It hit Sculla like a stiff punch. He thought for a moment. "People lie to themselves, until they can't." Sculla raised the wine to Oram, then sipped as the city burned.