The Tyrant's Tomb

hands. Fire trucks were parked along College Avenue, their lights strobing in
the underpass. More faux-firefighter pandai guarded the station doors,
turning away mortals. I hoped the real firefighters were okay, because
firefighters are important and also because they are hot, and no, that wasn’t
relevant right then.
“This way!” Meg veered up the steepest hill she could find, just to annoy
me. I was forced to stand as I pedaled, pushing with all my weight to make
progress against the incline.
At the summit, more bad news.
In front of us, arrayed across the higher hills, troops marched doggedly
toward Camp Jupiter. There were squads of blemmyae, pandai, and even
some six-armed Earthborn who had served Gaea in the Recent
Unpleasantness, all fighting their way through flaming trenches, staked
barricades, and Roman skirmishers trying to put my archery lessons to good
use. In the early evening gloom, I could only see bits and pieces of the battle.
Judging from the mass of glittering armor and the forest of battle pennants,
the main part of the emperors’ army was concentrated on Highway 24,
forcing its way toward the Caldecott Tunnel. Enemy catapults hurled
projectiles toward the legion’s positions, but most disappeared in bursts of
purple light as soon as they got close. I assumed that was the work of
Terminus, doing his part to defend the camp’s borders.
Meanwhile, at the base of the tunnel, flashes of lightning pinpointed the
location of the legion’s standard. Tendrils of electricity zigzagged down the
hillsides, arcing through enemy lines and frying them to dust. Camp Jupiter’s
ballistae launched giant flaming spears at the invaders, raking through their
lines and starting more forest fires. The emperors’ troops kept coming.
The ones making the best progress were huddled behind large armored
vehicles that crawled on eight legs and…Oh, gods. My guts felt like they’d
gotten tangled in my bike chain. Those weren’t vehicles.
“Myrmekes,” I said. “Meg, those are myr—”
“I see them.” She didn’t even slow down. “It doesn’t change anything.
Come on!”
How could it not change anything? We’d faced a nest of those giant ants
at Camp Half-Blood and barely survived. Meg had nearly been pulped into
Gerber’s larvae purée.
Now we were confronting myrmekes trained for war, snapping trees in
half with their pincers and spraying acid to melt through the camp’s