In an instant the power was there. In an instant he was a god.
The lightning crackled into being around him like sharp fractures of a hidden light.
For the space of that single heartbeat Juba had shut his eyes. When he opened them, men began to die.
The bolts pulsed out of him, through him, ripping across the air, searing it with a speed beyond the eye. The hungry tongues cracked out like whips of the purest white fire and men were struck down where they stood: shaking with the energy, unable to move or scream. The thunderous boom of the torn air threatened to send Juba backward, but he held on.
Hungry. He was hungry. The Shard was hungry.
More and more power rushed down and out of him. He felt like laughing and crying all at once. This is life, this is power, he thought. And a voice answered, No, this is death, this is destruction.
Only when the wind of God struck him across the face did he let go.
Juba staggered, and he buckled over, his hand falling off the Shard and onto the wooden shaft of the Trident as he leaned on it for support. He gasped for air, and for a moment he could hear nothing else.
Blinking, he looked around and saw the broken fog of smoke twisting angrily through the violated air. Bits of paper and cloth fluttered in the quiet. And all those who’d stood before them were dead. They had been scattered upon the walkway above, some crushed back against the battlement, others fallen with their black-streaked limbs dangling obscenely over its edge. Still others had fallen to the ground and lay in broken piles before them.
He’d killed them.
In a second, he’d killed them all.
No bird called out. Nothing and no one made a sound, as if the world itself could not accept what he had done.
“Juba,” a voice said. “My love, Juba.”
He blinked, looked over, and saw Selene. She was crouched, her hands held up in front of her open satchel, palms out as if she meant no threat to him. Her face was dirty and streaked with tears. Behind her Isidora was pushing herself to her feet, her eyes wide in fright. She appeared to be backing away.
“Selene,” Juba said. “I don’t know how—”
She nodded. She smiled. And she bent down to put her head under one of Caesar’s motionless arms. “Help me. We have to hurry.”
Juba hesitated for a moment, then he nodded, too. He stepped forward, feeling dizzy, and he set the Trident down upon the earth in order to help Selene carry Octavian between them. “Take it,” he said to the girl. “I can’t.”
Isidora looked to Selene, who nodded. Then she came forward and picked up the Trident, leaning into it and the Lance as if they were walking sticks.
Selene started forward, and Juba simply followed. They stepped over bodies, and he saw the twisted expressions upon their smoking faces. His stomach heaved, and he vomited upon the ground, upon his feet. Still he trudged on in mute horror, climbing steps as she climbed them, bearing the weight as she bore it.
Shouts began again. A few arrows struck the wood around them as they climbed. One shot through the air so close that it tore across his arm. He felt the pain. He looked down and saw the blood. But he was numb to it now.
Just keep walking. Step by step. Body by body. Rising.
At the top of the stairs Selene walked them to the edge of the battlement. She leaned Caesar against it, standing him up beside Juba amid the men he had destroyed. Isidora was shouting, and he felt sudden heat as walls of flame shot up from the wooden walkways to their left and right. He was aware that there was fire raging below him, too.
Whether Isidora had set the stairway aflame behind them or whether the Cantabrians had done it, he didn’t know.
Didn’t matter. There was nowhere to go either way. This was the end. In flames amid the dead.
“Juba,” Selene was saying. “Stay with me. Hold on to Octavian.”
Juba nodded. Tears were streaming from his eyes, but when he looked out over the edge, he could see the stakes still mounted there, with the bodies of the legionnaires Corocotta had tortured. Beyond them was the valley, stretching out toward the Roman encampment. And flashing gold across it, in the light of the early morning, he saw eagles.
He heard horns.
Juba turned to tell Selene, and he saw that she was pulling Isidora up beside him. The little girl hugged close to his body even as he held Caesar’s. The fires were very close.
“Hold on tight,” Selene said over the flames. She put her left arm around Octavian’s back. Her right hand fell into her satchel and enclosed something there. She leaned close. Juba felt once more the hard plate of the Aegis. But he felt, too, the love of the heart behind it.
A wind rose around them, and Juba felt his weight lifting.
“Now jump,” Selene said. “I’ll catch you.”
19
WHAT LIES BEYOND
ELEPHANTINE, 26 BCE
Caesarion, his hand still on the shoulder of Vorenus, turned to look back at the man they’d all thought dead. Truly dead. “You died, Pullo?”
“I believe I did.”
There was a depth in Pullo’s eyes now. Caesarion had noticed it from the moment they had joyously greeted each other the day before. It was a depth that had shocked him even more than the horrible scars that crossed Pullo’s face like the cracks in the clay of a dry riverbed, even more than the painful way in which the broken man walked now. There had been no such depth in his eyes when last they’d met. Back then, Pullo was mirth and unbridled passion. Now, though the same hints of his old happiness were there, they were like flashes of light at the edge of a great pool. Caesarion had thought it was sorrow, but Hannah had said that it was wisdom. Perhaps she was right, as she so often was, but he wondered, too, if there was truly a difference.
“You died,” Hannah repeated.
Pullo nodded. “Though I’ve never spoken of it.”
“In Alexandria,” Vorenus whispered. “Beneath all that rock.”
Pullo nodded again.
“It was a brave act, Titus Pullo.” Hannah’s tone was almost reverent. “You saved our lives. You saved the Ark, and in so doing saved many lives more. You were like Samson among the Philistines.”
“Samson?” Vorenus asked.
“An ancient hero among the Jews,” Hannah said. “He was the strongest of men, and when he was captured and blinded by his enemies, placed in their temple, he pulled it down upon himself, killing them all. It was the sacrifice of a great hero, and his story has been long told among the Jews.”
“Just as yours has been among us,” Caesarion said. Then, fearful of too much emotional solemnity, he playfully punched the big man on the shoulder as he walked back over to Hannah’s side. “Not that you’re for sure the strongest of men, mind you.”
Pullo laughed at that, a rumble that felt like a sigh of relief.
“Though you are the strongest I’ve ever known,” Vorenus said, his heartfelt love and respect for Pullo abundantly clear. “But even so, my friend, how did you make it out? That much rock…”
Pullo’s rumble subsided, and he took a deep breath. “I don’t remember everything. But I remember enough. We’d thought he was dead. Juba, I mean. So when we took the Ark down to the platform under the bridge I didn’t even think to look behind us. My fault, I guess.” He looked up at Hannah, his brow knitted with sorrow. “I am sorry for your brother. I failed him. I failed you all.”
“You did not.” Hannah’s voice was both stern and forgiving. “It was not your fault. As the keeper of the Ark, his life and those of the other men who died that day were in my keeping. I have had to make my peace with Jacob’s soul. Don’t let it be your burden, too.”
“It’s true,” Caesarion added. “Don’t carry more than you need to carry.”