The night is dark, the future seems darker and a desperate Agamemnon launches a sneak attack on the Trojan host camped so close to the stockade and ditch. The say an animal is most dangerous when it is cornered. So it is too with men. This book illustrates the terrible choices made by men facing annihilation, manifesting the most ignoble traits of arrogant kings and how those actions set in motion events that ultimately brought about the death of the age of heroes.

Book three takes us from the clandestine mission of Odysseus and Diomedes culminating in the death of Patroclus and the return of Achilles to the battlefield of Troy; traumatised by grief, fixated upon revenge, urgent for the death of Hector.

Until this time, Achilles had been respected for his abhorrence of unnecessary cruelty. The shocking precision of his kills, whether of animals during the hunt or of warriors on the battlefield had always been informed by this sentiment. Previously, whenever possible, he preferred to capture rather than kill his enemies – taking them alive in shoals. Now, he took no prisoners; caring nothing for mercy, honour, or life itself – least of all his own – in a ferocious nightmare of nihilistic rage.