The Tyrant's Tomb

The emperors obviously wanted to send a message: they intended to
dominate the world at any cost. They would stop at nothing. They would
mutilate and maim. They would waste and destroy. Nothing was sacred
except their own power.
I rose unsteadily. My hopelessness turned into boiling anger.
I howled, “NO!”
My cry echoed through the ravine. The emperors’ retinue clattered to a
stop. Hundreds of faces turned upward, trying to pinpoint the source of the
noise. I clambered down the hill, lost my footing, somersaulted, banged into
a tree, staggered to my feet, and kept going.
No one tried to shoot me. No one yelled, Hooray, we’re saved! Frank’s
defenders and the emperors’ troops simply watched, dumbstruck, as I made
my way downhill—a single beat-up teenager in tattered clothes and mudcaked
shoes, with a ukulele and a bow on my back. It was, I suspected, the
least impressive arrival of reinforcements in history.
At last I reached the legionnaires on the highway.
Caligula studied me from across fifty feet of asphalt. He burst out
laughing.
Hesitantly, his troops followed his example—except for the Germani,
who rarely laughed.
Commodus shifted in his golden armor. “Excuse me, could someone
caption this scene for me? What’s going on?”
Only then did I realize Commodus’s eyesight had not recovered as well
as he’d hoped. Probably, I thought with bitter satisfaction, my blinding flash
of divine radiance at the Waystation had left him able to see a little bit in full
daylight, but not at all at night. A small blessing, if I could figure out how to
use it.
“I wish I could describe it,” Caligula said dryly. “The mighty god Apollo
has come to the rescue, and he’s never looked better.”
“That was sarcasm?” Commodus asked. “Does he look horrible?”
“Yes,” Caligula said.
“HA!” Commodus forced a laugh. “Ha! Apollo, you look horrible!”
My hands trembling, I nocked an arrow and fired it at Caligula’s face.
My aim was true, but Caligula swatted aside the projectile like it was a
sleepy horsefly.
“Don’t embarrass yourself, Lester,” he said. “Let the leaders talk.”