The Tyrant's Tomb

leaving a trail of bloody footprints on the asphalt that reminded me—quite
inappropriately—of a ballroom-dancing diagram Fred Astaire had once
given me.
Caligula prowled around him, supremely confident. He wore the same
self-satisfied smile he’d had when he impaled Jason Grace in the back. For
weeks I’d had nightmares about that smile.
I shook myself out of my stupor. I was supposed to be doing something.
Not dying. Yes. That was at the top of my to-do list.
I managed to get up. I fumbled for my sword, then remembered I didn’t
have one. My only weapon now was my ukulele. Playing a song for an
enemy who was hunting me by sound did not seem like the wisest move, but
I grabbed the uke by the fret board.
Commodus must have heard the strings twang. He turned and drew his
sword.
For a big man in blinged-out armor, he moved much too fast. Before I
could even decide which Dean Martin number to play for him, he jabbed at
me, nearly opening up my belly. The point of his blade sparked against the
bronze body of the ukulele.
With both hands, he raised his sword overhead to cleave me in two.
I lunged forward and poked him in the gut with my instrument. “Ha-ha!”
There were two problems with this: 1) his gut was covered in armor, and
2) the ukulele had a rounded bottom. I made a mental note that if I survived
this battle, I would design a version with spikes at the base, and perhaps a
flamethrower—the Gene Simmons ukulele.
Commodus’s counterstrike would’ve killed me if he hadn’t been
laughing so hard. I leaped aside as his sword hurtled down, sinking into the
spot where I’d been standing. One good thing about battling on a highway—
all those explosions and lightning strikes had made the asphalt soft. While
Commodus tried to tug his sword free, I charged and slammed into him.
To my surprise, I actually managed to shove him off-balance. He
stumbled and landed on his armor-plated rear, leaving his sword quivering in
the pavement.
Nobody in the emperors’ army cheered for me. Tough crowd.
I took a step back, trying to catch my breath. Someone pressed against
my back. I yelped, terrified that Caligula was about to spear me, but it was
only Frank. Caligula stood about twenty feet away from him, cursing as he
wiped bits of gravel from his eyes.