by J. M. Barlog
The dense undergrowth a dozen paces to their left rustled violently.
Fear swarmed across Atreus’ face. Something monstrous was invading.
Remaining calm, but bracing for the worst, Kratos shot to his feet, lurching the unmoving boy up by the collar and shoving the lad behind him.
A hulking gray hand slammed over a nearby ridge, reaching for the carcass. The woodland troll, three times Kratos’ height and easily four times his girth, lumbered into the clearing. Its gaping mouth, framed by two curved defensive tusks, opened in preparation for gnawing into the stag. Having caught the scent of deer blood, the creature had decided it had found something to sustain itself.
“What is that?” Atreus called out.
“Woodland troll. Stay behind me,” Kratos commanded.
Kratos started to back Atreus to safety when the troll lunged for them, slamming a massive fist into the God of War’s chest, while simultaneously lifting the limp deer with its other hand.
The attack sent Kratos and the boy tumbling into a hollow in the trees.
“Kjöt,” the troll growled.
“What did he say?” Kratos asked out the side of his mouth.
“I think he said meat.” Atreus scrambled through crackling auburn leaves to retrieve his fallen bow.
“Dauði Kaupmaðr ta,” the troll snarled.
It lofted the carcass in victory, and with the deer’s limp head flopping, brought the neck toward its gaping jaws.
“No! You’re not taking our kill!” Atreus fired back, understanding the last word as “take”.
“No!” Kratos yelled, withdrawing the Leviathan axe strapped across his back. Issuing an unspoken command, he charged the axe with frost, aimed, then hurled it at the troll. The deer trunk came down to shield it from the strike. When the axe penetrated the stag’s hide it instantly froze it, causing the startled troll to release it. The carcass shattered into a hundred pieces when it hit the ground.
“Þú tilheyra ekki hér!” the troll uttered. Disgust lined its voice; contempt poured out of dark, soulless orbs.
“We do belong here!” Atreus shouted, amazed he’d deciphered the troll’s claim. His mother had anticipated that someday this exchange would come, and he should be prepared to handle it. “We hunt where we please.”
Raising an open palm, Kratos commanded his axe’s return. The weapon, magically bound to him, responded without hesitation, whipping back into his hand.
“Father?” Atreus knew he needed to do something but didn’t know what. He had never encountered such a creature when he hunted with his mother. Recovering his quiver, Atreus fumbled to extract an arrow while still on his knees.
Trembling hands worked frantically to nock the shaft.
Before Kratos could mount another attack, the troll slammed its full weight into him, casting him aside like a limp ragdoll and toppling the axe to the ground a short distance beyond reach. The beast then released a garbled laugh at the human’s feeble efforts.
But what the troll’s simple mind failed to comprehend how the axe returned a moment later, allowing Kratos to position the blade defensively.
Now coveting the iron weapon, the troll turned to face Kratos squarely, while the axe rose over the God of War’s head. The creature detected Kratos’ smile. Its face turned grim and vicious.
In one smooth motion, Atreus leveled his bow on the troll, whose monstrous hand seized the axe handle to hold Kratos at bay.
“Father, move away,” Atreus yelled. He struggled to line up a clear shot at the troll’s vulnerable chest.
Kratos slammed his free fist into the troll’s jaw, knocking it back a few feet. The troll had seriously underestimated this man’s strength.
“Do not fire!” Kratos commanded.
Kratos charged, only to take a slamming fist to his chest, which drove him to the ground while the troll leaned over him with a sickening grin.
With a quivering hand, Atreus held the arrow at full draw, angling the tip skyward for fear an errant release could maim his father by mistake.
The troll hoisted the closest boulder overhead, angling toward Atreus.
“Boy!”
“I’m fine. Kill it!” Atreus yelled through clenched jaws. The true gravity of the situation took control of his brain. He saw in that instant the very distinct possibility that the troll might kill his father. Refusing to accept the possibility of losing another parent, Atreus leveled the bow, aiming the tip at the center of the troll’s chest. The easiest target is the largest, his mind instructed him. But before he could focus his concentration and exhale, the troll lunged for Kratos. The God of War slammed the troll’s neck, forcing it rearward clutching its throat to breathe.
Kratos leapt to his feet, throwing his axe up quickly enough to drive the blade into the troll’s shoulder.
An agonized wail shattered the forest stillness as the troll shifted his hand over the spurting wound.
Infuriated, the troll swung his other arm to knock Kratos from his feet. Atreus now had a clear shot, but only for a moment, as the stumbling troll charged his father before he could regain his footing.
“I have a shot!” Atreus yelled, hoping his father might retreat just long enough for him to deliver a deathblow.
Atreus’ heart pounded. The arrow tip wavered in his aim. His mouth turned cottony; tears blurred his sight. He had to act. He couldn’t allow his father to die.
Just as the troll tightened its death grip on Kratos’ throat, Kratos brought his axe up to cleave the troll’s grotesque head.
Wailing and stumbling, the troll groped wildly to extract the blade, without success. With a last grasp, the troll toppled face-first into the dirt.
The clearing fell silent for a long moment. Nothing moved. Then Kratos collected himself before returning to his knees.
Atreus leapt to his feet with a grating scream. Casting his bow aside, mind clouded with rage, he dropped to his knees beside the troll, rapid-fire stabbing his hunting knife into the body. In that moment, all his bottled rage and fear and anger boiled to the surface. The thought of losing his father after just losing his mother drove him to a place where he could no longer restrain his emotions.
“This is what you get!” he screamed.
Tears stole Atreus’ vision. He cast his face away to prevent his father from witnessing what was written across his face. He refused to allow his father to see him as a sniveling child. He had to be a man. He had to act like a man.
“Think I’m afraid of you!” he snarled at the troll, lowering his knife while wiping away tears.
In the next moment, Atreus released a jarring cough, forcing him to his hands and knees while struggling to breathe. Kratos responded by grabbing his son around the waist to draw him away, while Atreus sought to lash out once more at the troll.
“You are nothing to me! Nothing!” Atreus forced out between coughs.
Kratos took the boy by the shoulders, forcing him to face him. “Boy! Look at me! Look at me, boy!” he commanded, when Atreus refused to pull his stare from the beast.
“Look at me now!” Kratos snarled.
“No! No!” Atreus yelled back, yielding fully to his inner grief.
Kratos grabbed his wrists and locked on Atreus’ face.
A deadpan Kratos offered no smile, no heartfelt words to console, no embrace that might indicate he shared in the grief that tore at Atreus’ soul. Instead, he released his son, so Atreus could sheath his hunting knife. A cough erupted in the lad, but this time he suppressed it through force of will. He must no longer appear weak. He must no longer be the child his father saw whenever he looked at him.
“We did it,” Atreus said at last, panting.
Kratos stared for a long moment. He seemed to be reading Atreus’ mind. He was evaluating him in a way Atreus failed to comprehend.
“You are not ready,” Kratos muttered finally.
“What?” Atreus found himself spouting. He knew he should remain silent. But he could not. “I found the deer. I s
hot the deer. I proved myself. How am I not ready?”
Kratos returned his axe to its sling on his back before wiping the troll’s blood from his face. Then he started out from the clearing.
“What are we going to eat?”
“Badger.”
“I hate badger,” Atreus muttered with disgust on his face. Kratos kept going, ignoring the comment.
“I haven’t been sick in a long time,” Atreus shouted a few moments later. “I can do whatever you demand of me.” Slinging his quiver and bow over his shoulder, he started after his father, now a dozen paces in the lead.
Kratos cast a glance over his shoulder at the boy.
“You are not ready,” Kratos delivered with a grave finality in his voice.
“I am,” Atreus whispered. As he passed the beast, he couldn’t stop himself from delivering a final mighty kick to the dead troll’s gut, recoiling in fear when a sudden noxious flatulence moved the carcass. Atreus pinched his nose.
“Where are we going now?” Atreus pressed, unable to prevent the pent-up frustration from showing in his words. Kratos disappeared into the thick forest.
“I am ready,” Atreus repeated, more loudly.
“Do not speak again.”
“I will show you,” Atreus said, under his breath.
Kratos emerged from the forest first; Atreus followed a few paces behind, a dead badger slung over his shoulder. They paused on the rocky outcrop overlooking the valley below.
Home.
The simple word held such a different meaning now. Home could never be the same.
Kratos scanned the surrounding fields before advancing onto the winding path leading to their house.
“Father, look,” Atreus said, angling his bow at a pair of black ravens cawing aloft in an arcing formation. The boy’s tone caught Kratos off guard.
“So?”
“I have never seen them before. Mother instructed me to tell her if ever I spotted ravens over our forest.”
“Leave them.”
Moments later a formidable gyrfalcon, half the size of Atreus with speckled black plumage and a seven-foot wingspan, soared out from the forest canopy, scattering the birds in different directions.
“Jöphie is back. I thought she had abandoned us after…”
Atreus outstretched his arm to attract the bird, which would easily consume his entire arm, to support her as a perch, but the bird of prey ignored his offering and settled onto a nearby tree stump.
“She only went to Mother. She never would come to me,” Atreus said, abandoning his attempt.
Offering no more than a cursory glance at the falcon, Kratos maintained a watchful eye on the surrounding vegetation as they made their way into the clearing that opened up onto the house. They had never encountered woodland trolls so close to where they lived before. Its presence sent an unsettling rumble through Kratos’ gut.
“Why do you suppose Mother insisted I inform her if I saw ravens? What could they mean? And why are we seeing them now?”
When Atreus looked skyward, the ravens were indeed gone.
“I have no answers.”
Seeing his home left Atreus empty inside. The joy he had always felt in the past when returning home no longer filled his heart. Their hours of silent journey only intensified the feeling of loss.
The badger was all they had to show for their hunting trip. And that was only because badgers were plentiful, slow, and clumsy creatures that fell easily to the arrow. But at least they would eat fresh kill this evening.
Once inside their house, Kratos barely spoke, leaving the carcass to Atreus to skin and gut for their dinner. Afterward, sitting on a three-legged stool before the hearth, Atreus skewered the animal before fitting it onto the iron spigot for roasting. The flames cast his mind back to his mother’s funeral pyre, where she lay enshrouded in white linens as the flames licked upward on all sides to consume her. He had shed no tears at that moment, his mind so taken by his grief that he could only stand there in shock. Then he winced from the pain he endured when he realized he had left his mother’s hunting knife upon her chest after using it to cut the cloth to encase her. At the last second, he had stuck his hand through the flames to snatch the blade back, tossing it aside from the fiery pain it laid across his palm.
Tears welled as he contemplated life without her. He forced his mind to recall the warmth of her cheek pressed against his when she showed him how to use the bow she had made for him. Her gentle hands wrapped over his, to make certain he held the string properly. He would miss the way she could encourage him with just a few simple words.
“BOY!” Kratos roared in anger, surging past him to rip the burning meat from the flames.
Atreus abandoned his memories to stare blankly at the charbroiled badger coming off the skewer. The only thing worse than eating badger: eating charred badger.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized weakly.
“Apologize to your empty belly, not to me,” Kratos grumbled while he shifted the blackened meat to the table.
They supped in silence, and afterward sat in their chairs before the hearth to keep warm. The third empty chair beside Kratos only served to intensify the loss both were enduring.
“It is time,” Kratos said, rising to retreat to his bed in the far corner. Atreus remained a moment longer, seeking to rekindle his mother’s smile in his mind. It was her smile that he would miss the most. Tonight, he would force himself to dream about her. He would dig up memories of the times they were happily working side by side in her garden. She was always happiest when she tended her plants.
Atreus dragged himself out of his chair to retire to his cot, across from his parents’ now half-empty bed.
He could hear his father’s forced breathing rising in the night. He squeezed his eyes shut. They popped open seconds later. Sleep eluded him as he stared at the ceiling timbers. He had never felt more alone in his life than at that moment. All that he knew that made him happy was gone. Anger swelled at the thought of all that he cared about having left him. He knew he was wrong in thinking that. He had his father. He was not alone. His life was meant to go on. But why were the gods punishing him so? What had he done that angered them so much? His mother preached to him that there were gods that were good and cared about humans. So why did those same gods choose to leave his mother unprotected?
Minutes after exhaustion drew Atreus into a dreamless sleep, he was awoken by the turmoil of thrashing arms across the room. Kratos, engulfed in a tormented sleep, battled a foe existing only in his mind’s eye.
* * *
Kratos held a defensive stance, his back against a rock wall, his blades out to defend himself from a trio of yowling wolves twice his height: one black with verdant eyes, one white, and the third gray. The black beast seemed to be the alpha, assuming the most forward position. A beardless God of War, clad in the clothes of his life in Greece, slashed his Blades of Chaos to keep the predators at bay. But his actions failed to discourage their assault. Kratos realized he needed to bring down at least one of the wolves if he hoped to survive their onslaught. The white wolf advanced as if on command. The movement revealed a woman behind the beasts, clad in a long cloak and cowl obscuring much of her face. Her raised arm sent all three creatures airborne to attack.
“WHO ARE YOU?” Kratos screamed with all the force he could muster, just as the black wolf ripped into his thigh to drag him away.
* * *
The dream vanished in that moment, with Kratos springing upright in his bed.
The red and orange of a rising morning sun bathed him with relief. Sweat drenched his clothes and his bed. Quiet consumed the house. His son remained asleep across the room. Kratos thought for sure he had screamed the words out loud, but his son’s continued slumber indicated they had merely been part of his nightmare. For a long moment he struggled to recall the woman’s face. His arms ached despite the respite of the night. For so many decades he had successfully banished the horrifying incident from his memory. Now
it resurfaced to torture him, for what purpose he could not discern.
Many moments later, Atreus drew up his eyelids from his peaceful sleep. Gazing across at his father, his face conveyed a troubled mind. The disconcerting silence commanded the room.
“I did everything you asked. Why is that not good enough?” he ventured, rekindling the words his father had delivered to him while they were hunting.
Kratos buried the memory of his dream, returning to the moment.
“You surrendered control,” Kratos explained, trying to constrain the harshness that so often entered his voice when he addressed his son.
“That troll was trying to kill us. It’s not like you never get angry in a fight,” Atreus retorted.
“Anger can be a weapon… if you control it, use it to your advantage. You clearly cannot,” Kratos explained.
“I learn quickly,” his son countered. “Mother told me that.”
“And you risk falling ill every time your anger rules you. That is not the first time,” his father said, pulling himself from his bed.
“I know, Father, but it’s been so long since I was sick last. At least… The last time it was bad. I am ready.”
“No, boy. You are not.”
“But—” Atreus started.
Rustling tree branches stopped him midsentence. The noise began innocently enough, but quickly escalated into a resounding thud. Something big was clearing a path toward their house.
Fear choked Atreus’ throat.
Kratos took up his axe, measuring the time it would take to gain a position to protect his son.
“What was that?” Atreus asked, lurching out of his bed.
“Silence.”
The flapping of formidable leathery wings taking flight stole the silence, followed by an unearthly screech that rippled through the air. Then came the sound of tree branches snapping under great strain.
Neither father nor son moved. Neither breathed. The silence filling the room choked Kratos.
Thunderous pounding battered their door.
“Come on out! No use hiding anymore. I know who you are,” a callous, scratchy voice commanded.
