by J. M. Barlog
“Anything else?” Atreus asked.
After moments of no response, Atreus fell sound asleep.
Kratos stared up at the mosaic of a nearly full moon penetrating the crown canopy. The boy’s mother had taught him about the gods; he would teach him how to survive a savage world, and at the same time teach himself to be a good father. The latter thought ignited a flurry of disturbing images of his own father whipping through his head. He shook them out with a grimace before they might take root. He could allow only one thought to dominate his every waking moment: keep his son safe. Kratos allowed himself to sleep.
* * *
With the first weak rays of morning sun at their back, Kratos headed off at a determined march, taking a path that wound into a piney thicket a few hundred paces distant. Ahead, Atreus spotted an ancient rune etched on a boulder standing taller than his father. Running ahead, he mumbled the words to himself as he read.
“It says there is a Jötnar settlement ahead.”
“Jötnar?” Kratos asked.
“Giants.”
Atreus allowed his mind to ponder the giants while they walked. He realized he had never been this far from home before, and he had never been on such an adventure. His mother had kept him close to home when she took him hunting, and always shielded him from any dangers they encountered on their trips—if you counted a disagreeable badger confrontation as real danger. His mother seemed to display a special sense when it came to identifying danger in time to avoid it. Perhaps that was why their hunting trips always proved successful without them ever facing lethal conflict.
Atreus returned his attention just in time to spot a draugr approaching on the road. “Two more! Over there!” Atreus called, taking up his bow and bringing up an arrow.
“Hold your fire until they are close enough to hit without missing.”
Anxious, Atreus waited as the draugr lifted their rusted swords into attack position. He fired to hit the closest one in the temple, while Kratos flung his axe in time to hit the other in its head. Both fell immediately.
“How was that?” Atreus asked.
“Better. But leave me enough space to fight,” Kratos insisted.
Somehow, praise failed to feel like praise when it came from his father. Atreus thought he had performed well, getting his arrow notched efficiently, lining it up on the target without wasting a moment, then firing when he knew his aim was true. He decided “better” was acceptable.
“And take my time,” Atreus muttered.
“Correct,” Kratos said absently.
Before long, the only path ahead led to a dilapidated bridge. Frayed and weatherworn ropes secured rotted timber planks, which inspired little confidence.
Excited, Atreus ran ahead, pounding onto the planks.
“Wait!” Kratos barked, too late.
Atreus’ tenth unrestrained stride shattered the plank, which sent his right leg through the splintering wood. Terror rode his scream while he clutched the ropes to keep from falling completely through.
“Father, help!”
Kratos’ growl came out in a low rumble, angry and disappointed that Atreus had ignored his warning. The boy needed to learn to think before he acted; he needed to take the time to assess danger before charging headlong into it. Yet Kratos could think of no way to teach such a lesson innocuously.
“Hang on.” Kratos ventured onto the fragile bridge.
Clutching rope in both fists, Kratos advanced, bypassing rotted planks in favor of the ropes.
Atreus felt his grip weakening. He knew he had to do something. He tried swinging from left to right, in the hope of throwing his arm from the left rope to bring it beside his hand on the right rope.
However, the jarring movement threw the bridge into violent oscillations, which sent Kratos clutching the right-side rope and halting his advance.
“Do not move. I will get to you,” Kratos commanded, suppressing his anger so as to deliver his words with a calm demeanor, though terror ripped at his insides.
“I’m slipping!” Atreus cried out.
The structure gave way. As the bridge unraveled, Kratos launched himself for Atreus. While his son clung to his outstretched arm, Kratos curled his son’s body against his chest as they tumbled. Landing with a crushing thud, his son still atop him, Kratos endured the brunt of their twenty-foot fall.
“Anything broken?” Kratos queried, running hands along his son’s arms to check.
“I’m unhurt!” Atreus said, irritated by his father’s coddling.
“You must slow down. Your haste will cost us,” Kratos warned, his face in a scowl, which softened when his gaze drifted away to appraise their new surroundings. He curled his fingers around his axe handle.
“Are they dead? I mean… more dead?” Atreus questioned a moment later, indicating the array of unmoving draugr planted about haphazardly like statues. Instinct drove him to nock an arrow.
Poised for the worst, they held their ground. The lingering calm, however, seduced Atreus into lowering both his guard and his arrow, while cautiously approaching the nearest draugr for closer inspection. Were they even real? How did they come to be frozen in place?
“Boy…” Kratos warned with a low growl.
As if on cue, the nearest draugr sprang to life, whirling about to levy a rusted, broken sword on the lad.
“Not dead! They’re not dead!” Atreus screamed in a panic, jerking back while lifting his bow to fire.
Kratos attacked even before his son could finish his words. With fierce angled slashes, Kratos decapitated the three draugr nearest him. In an arcing backswing, he cleaved off the right arm of the next in the assault.
Atreus fired his first arrow wide of its mark, missing the draugr charging him. He ducked beneath the draugr’s wild-swinging blade to come up with another arrow notched in his bow. He dropped to one knee, sending the arrow through the draugr’s head before it could launch another attack.
“Remember, accuracy over speed!” Kratos instructed as he came around with his axe to repel a sword crashing down on him.
Atreus’ next shot found the middle of the draugr’s back attacking his father. Kratos whirled in time to bury his axe in the middle of the last draugr’s chest.
Atreus joined his father in the center of the carnage scattered around them. “That was the last one. Was I better?” Atreus asked.
“Take even more time. It does not matter if you fire only once. Show me control,” Kratos instructed.
“I will,” Atreus said. His distracted gaze went to a slate slab scrawled with runes adjacent to the path that led away. Curiosity drew him over for a closer look.
“Father, look at this,” he said excitedly, seizing upon another opportunity to demonstrate to his father what he knew.
“Read it to me.”
“It says a long time ago the Jötnar would gather here to trade with the gods. This place was a marketplace. Do you think Odin himself was ever here?”
“Your mother spoke of giants?”
“She taught me the word but said little about them.”
“What do you know of Odin?”
“Mother spoke to me about the god Odin on many occasions.”
A loud thud erupting from behind the crumbling remnants of an ancient stone building twenty paces on their left signaled another threat.
“Something’s moving over there!” Atreus said. “More draugr! We need to get back up to the ridge. But how?”
“Follow me.”
Scrambling to the wall on the far side of the ravine, Kratos swung Atreus onto his back before ascending the precipice. Even before the remaining draugr could mount a charge, the two were fifteen feet out of range. Another dozen long, hand-over-hand strides, and they crested the ravine. Atreus was hungry, though it appeared Kratos had no desire to slow or pause to eat. He wondered how long he might have to wait before they took the time to rest.
“Can we rest awhile?” he asked finally.
Kratos scanned their surroundings: open fields, sparse
grass, few trees. Not a good place to try to rest. He considered the risks.
“Wait here,” he commanded.
Advancing fifty paces, he turned about, signaling Atreus forward.
“I guess that’s a no,” the lad muttered, sensing an anger building inside.
When Atreus arrived beside his father, Kratos pointed.
Ahead, a closed iron gate blocked their path. Towering stone and mortar walls flanked either side. The barrier extended beyond their sight in either direction; the only way forward was through the gate.
“We get through that gate, then we rest. That will prevent anyone from attacking us from the rear.”
A smile returned to Atreus’ face.
On their approach, they discovered the rotting corpses of long-dead warriors littering the path and the adjacent fields. Kratos slowed, drawing Atreus closer by the arm.
“All these dead. You think it is safe beyond the gate?” Atreus asked.
“You think it is safer here?”
Grabbing the gate with both hands, Kratos heaved it open with a rusty squeal. Atreus led the way through, entering a vaulted stone chamber a dozen paces beyond.
“What is that smell?” Atreus asked, scanning ahead.
“NOW!” a gruff, raspy voice yelled from out of nowhere.
Atreus twisted in every direction to identify the threat.
Even before Kratos could react, the gate slammed shut behind them, trapping them inside.
A disheveled man appeared from behind a column, his look feral, and his hands tight around his broadsword.
“They Hel-walkers?” another man asked, emerging from out of the shadows.
“They are untouched.” A third emerged.
Kratos placed himself between the men and his son, bringing up his axe while Atreus drew his knife, the space too confining to allow use of his bow; and besides, he had insufficient time to notch an arrow if the men attacked. A moment later, four more emerged from the darkness, while two others climbed down from scaffolding extending twenty feet high along the north wall of the chamber. In seconds they surrounded Kratos and Atreus.
“Someone start the fires, we are eating tonight,” one of them said.
“Siegmund, your knives,” the bandit closest to Kratos said, offering up a toothless smile. Neither Kratos nor Atreus flinched a single muscle.
“So many days without meat,” another grimy man said, licking his lips.
Atreus wondered why his father chose not to address these men. Could they talk their way out of this? He risked a glance up at his father. His father’s gaze never wandered from those poised before him.
“By meat, they mean us?” the horrified lad stammered.
“Behind me,” was all his father said.
Atreus complied, jutting his knife out to protect himself, a feeble effort against so many.
“What if they change?” the shortest of the band said. He stood behind one of the others.
“We keep them alive, strip the meat off a little at a time,” a raspy-voiced one replied. For all intents and purposes, he appeared to be the leader of the clan.
“This fight is mine alone,” Kratos said, raising his axe to display his readiness to begin.
“Oooo, now we’re scared,” one of them said.
Three men took that fateful first step toward the God of War. Kratos responded with a flurry, slicing into arms before the men could jab swords into him. As Atreus retreated toward the gate, Kratos whirled about to cleave the bandit who lunged for his son. Moments later, two more with severed shoulders flopped to their knees, toppling dead to the ground. Amid the moans of those dying, the leader of the bandits leveled a shaking sword at Kratos.
“It is now your turn to die,” Kratos said. “Or perhaps if you linger, you can eat your comrades instead.” When the man advanced, choosing death, Kratos charged, arcing his axe to disarm the clumsy bandit. Before the man could withdraw, Kratos mangled his torso, severed his right arm at the wrist. As he reached for a knife at his belt, he surrendered his left arm at the shoulder. Blood gushing in all directions, he lowered to his knees, staring vacantly at Kratos.
“Who are—” he muttered, before slumping dead to the floor.
Kratos relaxed his weapon, surveying the carnage to confirm all threats had been eliminated.
A lone bandit in tattered clothes, who had cowardly hidden in the bushy undergrowth pressed against the side wall, slid out to grab Atreus around his chest. With a haughty smile, he pressed his blade to the lad’s neck.
“Father!” Atreus yelled.
Kratos turned. But even before he could raise his axe, Atreus reversed his knife, stabbing wildly and blindly into his attacker. Inky blood erupted from the man’s throat, spilling onto Atreus’ shoulder.
Atreus kicked the bandit’s knee, simultaneously spinning about to face his assailant. In the next second, the dying man’s face turned deadpan. He opened his mouth to speak, then released his arm from around the boy before slumping over him and toppling to the ground. He brought the lad down with his dead weight, never severing their eye contact. In death he flattened Atreus beneath him.
“Get him off!” Atreus screamed, thrashing in a panic. The dead body pinned him down, preventing his flailing arms from untangling himself.
Kratos yanked the body sideways, afterward extending a hand to help Atreus to his feet. A stripe of blood streaked across Atreus’ cheek. Kratos kneeled to eye level with his son, placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder.
Atreus refused to meet his father’s stare.
Kratos said nothing, gazing at him with compassion. Then he placed his other hand on his son’s other shoulder. Still dazed from the encounter, Atreus failed to even acknowledge his father was there.
Kratos gently tilted Atreus’ face to force eye contact.
Atreus stared with an expression Kratos had never witnessed before. Tears gathered. He realized what he had done. He understood what it meant to kill a man.
“Close your heart to it,” was all Kratos said. It had been so long since he had experienced his first kill that he could not remember what had gone through his mind at the time.
This day, this experience, would change his son forever. From now on, he would view the world differently. This was something his mother never could have taught him. This lesson he had to learn by experience alone.
Atreus failed to process completely what had taken place. Everything had happened so quickly that he never took a single moment to contemplate his action and its consequences. He nodded to his father before sucking in a deep breath. With a swipe of his shoulder, Atreus wiped away the blood from his face, leaving a crimson smudge across his cheek.
“I am fine,” he said when his father’s gaze remained fixed on him, and he refused to budge.
Kratos lingered a moment longer, staring at his son, hoping for a clue as to the lad’s state of mind. When none became evident, he rose to sling his axe across his back, as if nothing out of the ordinary had just taken place.
“Come then. We have a long—” Kratos said.
From the outskirts of his vision, Kratos detected movement. Fear swelled inside him. The corpses littering the ground jerked violently.
“They are coming b-back to life!” Atreus stammered.
The corpses slowly pulled themselves to their knees, seeking dislodged weapons before unsteadily drawing up to their feet.
Kratos took his axe in both hands. “Wait here. I will handle this.”
Kratos slashed, hacked, and stabbed until he had decapitated the rising bandits before they could mount an assault on them.
“They will not come back again.”
“I want to leave here,” Atreus said, numbed by the experience.
“Then collect yourself. We must find a way out,” Kratos said gently, gesturing to a beam of light flooding into the chamber from above. It seemed to be the only way to proceed.
“Okay,” Atreus said, composing himself. Kratos boosted the boy onto the scaffolding.<
br />
Nearing the midpoint of their climb, Atreus suddenly stopped, lost in his thoughts. He waited.
“You are stuck in your head, boy. Let it go. He would have killed you.”
Atreus turned his gaze to his father. He continued climbing. “I know. I had to do it. I do know that. It is just—”
“Then we will go home, boy.”
“What?” Atreus said, alarmed.
“To give up this easily, so close to the start… is unforgivable.”
His father’s words rippled through him. He forced himself to bury his thoughts and focus on what needed to be done. The only road to success is achieved by never giving up—his mother’s words.
“I am not giving up!” Atreus said. “I will do this. I just need to catch my breath,” he lied, trying to buy time to fortify his courage.
Reaching the end of their climb, they skirted along a narrow rock ledge that led to a tall window at the rear of the chamber.
“Listen to me. To be effective in combat, a warrior must not feel for his enemy. The road ahead is long and unforgiving. No place for a child, only a warrior. Can you be that warrior?” Kratos said, after they leapt from the window to return to the ground.
“I understand I can be that warrior.”
“Prepare yourself for what next crosses our path.”
Leaving the confrontation, Kratos led the way along a dabbled winding path in the direction of their mountain destination. He did not speak, but he was worried. The boy was too young to do what had to be done. He could learn along the way, or he could be killed at the next turn. Kratos wrestled with his decision to continue on the path ahead. He was certain he could overcome anything this world threw at him. But could he protect his son from the dangers at the same time?
“Can we rest?” Atreus asked, after they had traveled three hours in silence. All he wanted was something to eat and a soft place to sleep for the night. An orange sun clung low in the sky, casting eerie shadows all around. He also wanted his father to talk to him like his mother had whenever they traveled. He never felt alone when he was with her. Yet, despite his father beside him, Atreus shook off the loneliness creeping into his soul.
“We have time before the sun sets,” Kratos replied, after a pause while he checked the sun’s position and scanned the path ahead. A hundred paces distant the path meandered north. He read his son’s look.
