The Tyrant’s Tomb by Rick Riordan

Got two words for you:

Swiss Army unicorns, man!

Okay, that’s four words.

IF YOU EVER GETthe chance to see weaponized unicorns in action, don’t. It’s something you can’t un-see.

As we got closer to the city, I detected signs of continuing battle: columns of smoke, flames licking the tops of buildings, screams, shouts, explosions. You know, the usual.

One Eye dropped me at the Pomerian Line. He snorted in a tone that said, Yeah, good luck with that, then galloped away. Pegasi are intelligent creatures.

I glanced at Temple Hill, hoping to see storm clouds gathering, or a divine aura of silver light bathing the hillside, or an army of my sister’s Hunters charging to the rescue. I saw nothing. I wondered if Ella and Tyson were still pacing around the shrine of Diana, checking the fire pit every thirty seconds to see if the Sibyl’s jelly-jar shards were cooked yet.

Once again, I had to be a cavalry of one. Sorry, New Rome. I jogged toward the Forum, which was where I caught my first glimpse of the unicorns. Definitely not the usual.

Meg herself led the charge. She was not riding a unicorn. No one who values their life (or their crotch) would ever dare ride one. But she did run alongside them, exhorting them to greatness as they galloped into battle. The beasts were outfitted in Kevlar with their names printed in white block letters along their ribs: MUFFIN, BUSTER, WHANGDOODLE, SHIRLEY, and HORATIO, the Five Unicorns of the Apocalypse. Their leather helmets reminded me of those worn by football players in the 1920s. The steeds’ horns were fitted with specially designed…What would you call them? Attachments? Imagine, if you will, massive conical Swiss Army knives, with various slots from which sprang a convenient variety of destructive implements.

Meg and her friends slammed into a horde of vrykolakai—former legionnaires killed in Tarquin’s previous assault, judging from their grungy bits of armor. A member of Camp Jupiter might have had trouble attacking old comrades, but Meg had no such qualms. Her swords whirled, slicing and dicing and making mounds and mounds of julienned zombies.

With a flick of their snouts, her equine friends activated their favorite accessories: a sword blade, a giant razor, a corkscrew, a fork, and a nail file. (Buster chose the nail file, which did not surprise me.) They plowed through the undead, forking them, corkscrewing them, stabbing them, and nail-filing them into oblivion.

You may wonder why I did not find it horrifying that Meg would use unicorns for war while I had found it horrifying that the emperors had used pegasi for their chariot. Setting aside the obvious difference—that the unicorns weren’t tortured or maimed—it was clear the one-horned steeds were enjoying themselves immensely. After centuries of being treated as delightful, fanciful creatures who frolicked in meadows and danced through rainbows, these unicorns finally felt seen and appreciated. Meg had recognized their natural talent for kicking undead posterior.

“Hey!” Meg grinned when she saw me, like I’d just come back from the bathroom instead of the brink of doomsday. “It’s working great. Unicorns are immune to undead scratches and bites!”

Shirley huffed, clearly pleased with herself. She showed me her corkscrew attachment as if to say, Yeah, that’s right. I ain’t your Rainbow Pony.

“The emperors?” Meg asked me.

“Dead. But…” My voice cracked.

Meg studied my face. She knew me well enough. She had been at my side in moments of tragedy.

Her expression darkened. “Okay. Grieve later. Right now, we should find Hazel. She’s”—Meg waved vaguely toward the middle of the town—“somewhere. So is Tarquin.”

Just hearing his name made my gut contort. Why, oh, why couldn’t I be a unicorn?

We ran with our Swiss Army herd up the narrow, winding streets. The battle was mostly pockets of house-to-house combat. Families had barricaded their homes. Shops were boarded up. Archers lurked in upper-story windows on the lookout for zombies. Roving bands of eurynomoi attacked any living thing they could find.

As horrible as the scene was, something about it seemed oddly subdued. Yes, Tarquin had flooded the city with undead. Every sewer grate and manhole cover was open. But he wasn’t attacking in force, sweeping systematically through the city to take control. Instead, small groups of undead were popping up everywhere at once, forcing the Romans to scramble and defend the citizenry. It felt less like an invasion and more like a diversion, as if Tarquin himself were after something specific and didn’t want to be bothered.

Something specific…like a set of Sibylline Books he’d paid good money for back in 530 BCE.

My heart pumped more cold lead. “The bookstore. Meg, the bookstore!”

She frowned, perhaps wondering why I wanted to shop for books at a time like this. Then realization dawned in her eyes. “Oh.”

She picked up speed, running so fast the unicorns had to break into a trot. How I managed to keep up, I don’t know. I suppose, at that point, my body was so far beyond help it just said, Run to death? Yeah, okay. Whatever.

The fighting intensified as we climbed the hill. We passed part of the Fourth Cohort battling a dozen slavering ghouls outside a sidewalk café. From the windows above, small children and their parents were tossing things at the eurynomoi—rocks, pots, pans, bottles—while the legionnaires jabbed their spears over the tops of their locked shields.

A few blocks farther on, we found Terminus, his World War I greatcoat peppered with shrapnel holes, his nose broken clean off his marble face. Crouching behind his pedestal was a little girl—his helper, Julia, I presumed—clutching a steak knife.

Terminus turned on us with such fury I feared he would zap us into stacks of customs declaration forms.

“Oh, it’s you,” he grumbled. “My borders have failed. I hope you’ve brought help.”

I looked at the terrified girl behind him, feral and fierce and ready to spring. I wondered who was protecting whom. “Ah…maybe?”

The old god’s face hardened a bit more, which shouldn’t have been possible for stone. “I see. Well. I’ve concentrated the last bits of my power here, around Julia. They may destroy New Rome, but they will not harm this girl!”

“Or this statue!” said Julia.

My heart turned to Smucker’s jelly. “We’ll win today, I promise.” Somehow I made it sound like I actually believed that statement. “Where’s Hazel?”

“Over there!” Terminus pointed with his nonexistent arms. Based on his glance (I couldn’t go by his nose anymore), I assumed he meant to the left. We ran in that direction until we found another cluster of legionnaires.

“Where’s Hazel?” Meg yelled.

“That way!” shouted Leila. “Two blocks maybe!”

“Thanks!” Meg sprinted on with her unicorn honor guard, their nail file and corkscrew attachments at the ready.

We found Hazel just where Leila had predicted—two blocks down, where the street widened into a neighborhood piazza. She and Arion were surrounded by zombies in the middle of the square, outnumbered about twenty to one. Arion didn’t look particularly alarmed, but he grunted and whinnied in frustration, unable to use his speed in such close quarters. Hazel slashed away with her spatha while Arion kicked at the mob to keep them back.

No doubt Hazel could’ve handled the situation without help, but our unicorns couldn’t resist the opportunity for more zombie-posterior-kicking. They crashed into the fray, slicing and bottle-opening and tweezing the undead in an awesome display of multifunction carnage.

Meg leaped into battle, her twin blades spinning. I scanned the street for abandoned projectile weapons. Sadly, they were easy to find. I scooped up a bow and quiver and went to work, giving the zombies some very fashionable skull-piercings.

When Hazel realized it was us, she laughed with relief, then scanned the area behind me, probably looking for Frank. I met her eyes. I’m afraid my expression told her everything she didn’t want to hear.

Emotions rippled across her face: utter disbelief, desolation, then anger. She yelled in rage, spurring Arion, and plowed through the last of the zombie mob. They never had a chance.

Once the piazza was secure, Hazel cantered up to me. “What happened?”

“I…Frank…The emperors…”

That’s all I could manage. It wasn’t much of a narrative, but she seemed to get the gist.

She doubled over until her forehead touched Arion’s mane. She rocked and murmured, clutching her wrist like a ballplayer who had just broken her hand and was trying to fight down the pain. At last she straightened. She took a shaky breath. She dismounted, wrapped her arms around Arion’s neck, and whispered something in his ear.

The horse nodded. Hazel stepped back and he raced away—a streak of white heading west toward the Caldecott Tunnel. I wanted to warn Hazel there was nothing to find there, but I didn’t. I understood heartache a little better now. Each person’s grief has its own life span; it needs to follow its own path.

“Where can we find Tarquin?” she demanded. What she meant was: Who can I kill to make myself feel better?

I knew the answer was No one. But again, I didn’t argue with her. Like a fool, I led the way to the bookstore to confront the undead king.

Two eurynomoi stood guard at the entrance, which I assumed meant Tarquin was already inside. I prayed Tyson and Ella were still on Temple Hill.

With a flick of her hand, Hazel summoned two precious stones from the ground: Rubies? Fire opals? They shot past me so fast, I couldn’t be sure. They hit the ghouls right between the eyes, reducing each guard to a pile of dust. The unicorns looked disappointed—both because they couldn’t use their combat utensils, and because they realized we were going through a doorway too small for them to follow.

“Go find other enemies,” Meg told them. “Enjoy!”

The Five Unicorns of the Apocalypse happily bucked, then galloped off to do Meg’s bidding.

I barged into the bookstore, Hazel and Meg at my heels, and waded straight into a crowd of undead. Vrykolakai shuffled through the new-release aisle, perhaps looking for the latest in zombie fiction. Others bonked against the shelves of the history section, as if they knew they belonged in the past. One ghoul squatted on a comfy reading chair, drooling as he perused The Illustrated Book of Vultures. Another crouched on the balcony above, happily chewing a leather-bound edition of Great Expectations.

Tarquin himself was too busy to notice our entrance. He stood with his back to us, at the information desk, yelling at the bookstore cat.

“Answer me, beast!” the king screamed. “Where are the Books?”

Aristophanes sat on the desk, one leg straight up in the air, calmly licking his nether regions—which, last I checked, was considered impolite in the presence of royalty.

“I will destroy you!” Tarquin said.

The cat looked up briefly, hissed, then returned to his personal grooming.

“Tarquin, leave him alone!” I shouted, though the cat seemed to need no help from me.

The king turned, and I immediately remembered why I shouldn’t be near him. A tidal wave of nausea crashed over me, pushing me to my knees. My veins burned with poison. My flesh seemed to be turning inside out. None of the zombies attacked. They just stared at me with their flat dead eyes as if waiting for me to put on my HELLO, MY NAME USED TO BE name tag and start mingling.

Tarquin had accessorized for his big night out. He wore a moldy red cloak over his corroded armor. Gold rings adorned his skeletal fingers. His golden circlet crown looked newly polished, making it clash nicely with his rotted cranium. Tendrils of oily purple neon slithered around his limbs, writhing in and out of his rib cage and circling his neck bones. Since his face was a skull, I couldn’t tell if he was smiling, but when he spoke, he sounded pleased to see me.

“Well, good! Killed the emperors, did you, my faithful servant? Speak!”

I had no desire to tell him anything, but a giant invisible hand squeezed my diaphragm, forcing out the words. “Dead. They’re dead.” I had to bite my tongue to keep from adding lord.

“Excellent!” Tarquin said. “So many lovely deaths tonight. And the praetor, Frank—?”

“Don’t.” Hazel shouldered past me. “Tarquin, don’t you dare say his name.”

“Ha! Dead, then. Excellent.” Tarquin sniffed the air, purple gas scrolling through his skeletal nose slits. “The city is ripe with fear. Agony. Loss. Wonderful! Apollo, you’re mine now, of course. I can feel your heart pumping its last few beats. And Hazel Levesque…I’m afraid you’ll have to die for collapsing my throne room on top of me. Very naughty trick. But this McCaffrey child…I’m in such a good mood, I might let her flee for her life and spread word of my great victory! That is, of course, if you cooperate and explain”—he pointed at the cat—“the meaning of this.”

“It’s a cat,” I said.

So much for Tarquin’s good mood. He snarled, and another wave of pain turned my spine to putty. Meg grabbed my arm before my face could hit the carpet.

“Leave him alone!” she yelled at the king. “There’s no way I’m fleeing anywhere.”

“Where are the Sibylline Books?” Tarquin demanded. “They are none of these!” He gestured dismissively at the shelves, then glared at Aristophanes. “And this creature will not speak! The harpy and the Cyclops who were rewriting the prophecies—I can smell that they were here, but they are gone. Where are they?”

I said a silent prayer of thanks for stubborn harpies. Ella and Tyson must’ve still been waiting at Temple Hill for divine help that wasn’t coming.

Meg snorted. “You’re stupid for a king. The Books aren’t here. They’re not even books.”

Tarquin regarded my small master, then turned to his zombies. “What language is she speaking? Did that make sense to anyone?”

The zombies stared at him unhelpfully. The ghouls were too busy reading about vultures and eating Great Expectations.

Tarquin faced me again. “What does the girl mean? Where are the Books, and how are they not books?”

Again, my chest constricted. The words burst out of me: “Tyson. Cyclops. Prophecies tattooed on his skin. He’s on Temple Hill with—”

“Quiet!” Meg ordered. My mouth clamped shut, but it was too late. The words were out of the barn. Was that the right expression?

Tarquin tilted his skull. “The chair in the back room…Yes. Yes, I see now. Ingenious! I will have to keep this harpy alive and watch her practice her art. Prophecies on flesh? Oh, I can work with that!”

“You’ll never leave this place,” Hazel growled. “My troops are cleaning up the last of your invaders. It’s just us now. And you’re about to rest in pieces.”

Tarquin hissed a laugh. “Oh, my dear. Did you think that was the invasion? Those troops were just my skirmishers, tasked with keeping you all divided and confused while I came here to secure the Books. Now I know where they are, which means the city can be properly pillaged! The rest of my army should be coming through your sewers right about”—he snapped his bone fingers—“now.”