Chapter 38‘Hold him down and let me pull it.’
Aeneas’s eyes bulged open and he bit down on a strip of leather. It failed to cover the scream building in his throat. This was worse than anything he had ever known. Powerful hands gripped him by the shoulders, holding him to the ground. Dimly he recognised that he still lay by the remains of the olive tree, men and women crowding around, suffocating, gawking for a better look at their fallen god.
Through a haze, he caught sight of Mnestheos’s grey flecked beard, the old warrior’s face taut with anxiety.
Tarkhon gripped the stub of the arrow between his thumb and forefinger, braced himself and pulled. The scrape of metal against bone, a fresh surge of anguish. The Etruscan tugged, but his fingers slipped. Aeneas convulsed on the ground, shi
