Melas jumped down from the chariot and stabbed at the man's bleeding belly, so that the bowels became visible and the life breath left his body. He started pulling off the man's well-made armor in shiny leather, but a blow on his shield made him stop. Ialmenus's shadow fell over him. "Do you want revenge or is your mind rather filled with thoughts of booty?" Ialmenus hit his spear on Melas's shield again, and Melas stumbled over and fell on his knees beside the wounded man. He looked up at Ialmenus who was like a black shadow, with the copper-glowing sun in the back. "When Ilion has fallen, you can loot your enemies," said Ialmenus. "When you have killed the men who burned down the house of your father, who burned your mother and your sister." He turned away from Melas and disappeared in the glowing dust and mist. Nordic Bronze Age - a mythical era 3,600 years ago. A time when black ships sailed across the Baltic Sea, when the elite built their power on trade and looting. A time when blood and honor, cunning and shrewdness decided who was the most feared ruler of the all the coasts and islands.Melas has been taken care of by relatives since his family was killed in a Trojan attack. He grows up with his cousin Thoas who becomes his ally in his dream of revenge. Together they swear an oath that they one day, as grown warriors, will sack Troy - Ilion - and burn the city to the ground. When Agamemnon, the most powerful chieftain of the Danaans, calls warriors across the Baltic Sea to a joint attack against Ilion, they see their chance. Ilion is an epic tale about the world's most famous Bronze Age battle ever, the battle of Troy, but in a Nordic setting according to a new theory by Italian nuclear engineer Felice Vinci. Malena Lagerhorn depicts a heroic and glorious era 2,500 years before the Vikings. Ilion is her first book translated into English. "The day has come when my theory has come to life in a fiction novel in the country of the proud Achaeans!" Felice Vinci, author of The Baltic Origins of Homer's Epic Tales