Empire of Dragons

Anatolia, AD 260. The Roman emperor Valerian is captured after the defeat at Edessa, and Marcus Metellus Aquila, commander of his guard, is condemned with a handful of surviving soldiers to labour in a Persian mine. Their escape saves them from slavery but leaves them stranded beyond the empire's eastern frontier, pursued by men determined to recover valuable prisoners.

At a desert oasis the Romans join an exiled prince attempting to return to the distant Kingdom of Silk. Serving as his escort takes them across India, the Himalayas and Central Asia into imperial China, where a struggle for succession threatens both their patron and their chance of survival. Roman discipline and engineering become their only advantages in a court and military system whose scale rivals the world they left behind.