by J. M. Barlog
“I am so happy we are leaving this place,” Atreus said, climbing into the tunnel.
“It is behind us now,” Kratos offered, once safely ensconced inside the tunnel. Kratos led and Atreus followed, keeping within a few paces of his father.
Three hundred paces later, Kratos and Atreus emerged into a steep-sided canyon, which led them to a sprawling overlook. They took in the sight of the distant mountain peak scraping a cloudless azure sky. The panorama took Atreus’ breath away. Aside from the stories his mother had told, he had no idea such a wondrous land existed beyond his little world. For the most part, he always suspected his mother had fabricated the stories simply to entertain him on all those lonely days and nights when his father was absent. He never would have believed that what she had told him was actually true. The majesty of the mountain peak commanded the attention and stirred the soul. He wondered why that place seemed so important. What could there be on that peak worth risking their lives to reach?
Atreus struggled to bury his sorrow, when he noticed his father looking at him. The sternness in his stare forced Atreus to tuck away his grief.
“Mother told me stories of places like that. They are even more grand than she made them out to be. I wish she was here to share this with us.”
Kratos drew his son closer, swallowing the grief that the very mention of her brought to his mind. He needed to drive those feelings back deep inside. He had to avoid thinking about her. He must go on; he must fulfill his promise to her, and at the same time, keep his son safe.
Kratos reached out to set a hand on the boy’s shoulder, stopping himself halfway. His hand remained suspended while he wrestled with his churning conscience. He did not know how to be a father to his son; there was no one in his past to teach him. He had relied on Faye to bind their family together. They were happy in that way. Now, they were lost. But Kratos felt determined to find a path that could bring his son back to him.
At a loss as to how to convey what he was feeling, or how to ease the terrible pain now haunting his son, Kratos withdrew his hand and walked off.
“Come,” the God of War said bluntly.
Atreus held his ground, to scan the breadth of the vista one last time. There was a special air to this place he had never dreamed existed. And, somehow, he felt strangely connected to it, like he belonged here, rather than in the forest where he grew up. Launching into a quick stride to catch up, he marched a few paces behind his father, stowing away those memories of his mother with the promise he would revisit them at another time.
Before long, they encountered vibrant, leafy forest. But the sparkling ash-tree-green foliage was different to any he had ever seen before.
“I have never ventured this far from our house. And Mother never spoke of such a place. Has this always been here?” Atreus asked.
“I would assume so. Tracks,” Kratos said, hoping such a detail might draw the boy out of his depression. He could think of no other way to help him.
“Boar, maybe,” Atreus responded with a renewed enthusiasm, but not so much that it brought a smile to his face. This was a new opportunity to demonstrate his skills to his father and maybe earn a little more respect, as long as he did not fail.
“Find it for me.”
Atreus took a knee to study the tracks in the muddy earth. The depth of the tracks indicated a hefty beast. He traced along the ground, losing the tracks in a thorny, yellow-flowered thicket a couple of dozen strides ahead. Returning to his feet, he stepped quickly in the direction the tracks led, his look roving from side to side for signs that might aid him.
Kratos lingered a few paces behind, allowing his son to lead, and relieved he could focus on something new.
They trudged up a narrow winding path that ended at the ridge of a gentle slope. At first, Atreus lost sight of the tracks, fearing he had also lost his target. As Kratos crested the ridge, he scanned the surrounding vegetation. If the beast were close, they would need to spot it before it spotted them.
Grunts from a foraging animal drifted in the breeze.
“Sounds like boar,” Kratos whispered. He shot an arm out, snaring Atreus midstride before he breached the ridge. With a finger to his lips, he motioned to crouch behind a halberd-leafed willow hedge five paces ahead.
Poised at a babbling creek thirty paces downwind, the stout plum-colored boar with yellow markings tugged at the tender shoots of bird’s nest spruce. The creature’s golden mane undulated from side to side in the gentle wind, its ivory tusks curling from its lower jaw. It paused, ever so slowly lifting its massive head to scan the neighboring forest.
Neither Kratos nor Atreus dared even breathe while the beast remained alert. The slightest gesture could send it scurrying to the safety of the downy willow thicket a few paces across the creek. Atreus needed the beast in the open if he wanted a clear shot.
The creature returned to grazing. Kratos signaled Atreus to take up his bow.
In a calculated smooth motion, Atreus unshouldered his bow and removed an arrow from his quiver, notching it in place. He drew in a deep breath as he brought the arrow feathers to his cheek, lining up the tip with the boar’s yellow marking at its upper shoulder. It was as if the creature’s peculiar pattern highlighted the best point at which to aim.
His mind raced through the myriad details. Check the wind, account for the drift. Keep the tip on target. Breathe. Bring the bow to full extension to achieve maximum kill power.
This beast was more formidable than others Atreus had hunted in the past. For a brief second, he debated whether he was strong enough to deliver a fatal shot to the creature.
“Release when you are ready,” came his father’s reassuring whisper. His father was trusting him.
But Atreus wasn’t ready. Had the creature heard his father’s words? The moment seemed endless.
Yet the creature had not abandoned its grazing.
“Remember, draw to your chest. That boar’s hide is thick.”
Atreus could wait no longer. At any second, he expected the boar to hear their words and flee. He rushed his exhale, checked that the tip remained on the yellow target.
He fired.
The arrow whipped silently through the air.
Direct hit! The tip struck the boar’s shoulder just behind the foreleg bone. The arrow, however, bounced off on impact, shattering the tip. The colored markings served as a decoy, protecting the boar from being struck in a more vulnerable spot, as long as the hunter fell for the ruse—which Atreus had.
The boar dashed into the safety of the nearest undergrowth.
Atreus sprang to his feet, angry, confused, and saddened that he had again failed his father.
“But… I hit it. Didn’t I? I followed what you said, and it bounced off. Could the boar be magical?”
“What do you think?” the God of War asked, deciding to engage his son rather than scold, so as to raise his spirits despite his failure.
“It did not look like any of the boars Mother and I hunted in our forest. It was different to any creature I have ever seen.”
“Get after it then,” Kratos ordered.
Atreus scrambled down the ridge, sliding on his side when he lost his balance underestimating the steep slope. He completely abandoned his arrow that had broken, though retrieving the tip would have been a wise choice at that moment.
“I’ve got tracks,” Atreus announced. Kratos scrambled to join him.
“What should we do once we find it? I drew the bow to my chest like you said, and the arrow still failed to pierce its hide.”
“You aimed for the animal’s flank. Next time go for soft belly,” Kratos said.
“I understand.”
As they reached the underside of the ridge, they entered a littered camp that appeared to have been abandoned for some time. Acting on instinct, Kratos grabbed Atreus to keep him beside him while he carefully assessed the place. Just because it appeared abandoned, did not necessarily mean it was abandoned.
“Stay alert.”
“More of those people?” Atreus said, growing nervous from his father’s sudden unexplained caution.
“Something else,” Kratos said, trying to stay calm.
As Kratos passed a dilapidated hut, something burst from the doorway: a soldier, armed and armored, but no living man. His skin was blue and translucent, and with him came a palpable chill in the air. It lunged for Kratos with its sword. The God of War spun about, slashing his axe into the creature’s head. When he did, the body burst into flames as it crumpled to the ground.
“What was that?” Atreus asked, concerned. “It’s not like the other dead men. Draugr are hot—he was cold.”
“I do not know.” Kratos quietly recalled a word the bandits had used. Hel-walker.
Kratos scanned the remaining encampment for signs of others. Only after prolonged silence did he conclude that the creature was a lone warrior in the area.
Atreus lingered at the fringe of the encampment, since his father had yet to move to continue their search for the boar.
“Ready?” he asked, watching for acceptance on his father’s face. “I think it went this way,” Atreus said, indicating fresh tracks.
“Go then.”
They followed the tracks leading them deeper into the woodland, pausing when the tracks turned north. Thirty paces ahead, the boar tugged at glistening red berries on low-hanging branches in a thorny gold-leafed thicket.
Kratos gestured.
Atreus took up his bow, dropped to a knee. His father knelt behind him just as he had before, placing his arms gently around him to help with the aim.
But Atreus shrugged him off. His father was treating him like a child. His mother would never have done that. His father needed to allow him to do it on his own.
“I got this,” he risked whispering back.
Kratos retreated, allowing Atreus the space he needed. But he remained within a step of him in case anything went wrong. He feared that if his son missed again, the creature might charge, so Kratos braced to fight it off.
Atreus breathed in, aiming the tip at the boar’s soft belly. The surrounding woodland sounds ceased as Atreus focused. He became so calm he could feel his own breath slipping in and out of his lungs.
“Elbow up. Relax. Accuracy over speed,” he whispered to himself.
Time slowed to a crawl. He thought at any moment the boar would lift its head, see him ready to fire and dash off. He ceased his breathing.
He fired.
The boar reared up, releasing a shrieking squeal as the arrow pierced flesh. Despite the agony of its wound, the beast pounded the soft dirt to find refuge in the overgrown halberd-leafed willows to its right.
“I got it, Father!”
“Don’t lose it now,” Kratos said with acceptance in his voice.
Without a word, Atreus bolted into the bushes. As he vaulted over a fallen log, he brushed too close to a jagged branch that snagged his clothing and popped his hunting knife from its sheath.
Kratos followed a few steps behind, vaulting over the log just as Atreus had, in exactly the same place. He landed on something that captured his attention: his son’s knife. There could be no greater error for a young huntsman than to lose what he might need to save his life. Shaking his head, Kratos retrieved the knife, tucking it into his belt. Perhaps Atreus needed to learn a lesson.
Kratos looked up. Only a few moments had passed, but Atreus was gone. Panic took over his brain like an avalanche. He had only allowed his attention to waver for a brief moment.
“Atreus!”
“Atreus! Where are you?” Kratos yelled, stifling the anger from his voice. With each passing moment the anger turned to fear.
His heart pounding from emotions he rarely felt, he dashed down the path into a dense grove of gray alder. The overgrown, gnarled limbs reached out to snare him. He desperately sought any glimpse of movement, any tremor of disturbance that might indicate the location of his son.
Why did the boy fail to respond to his call?
“He’s slowing down!”
Atreus! But he sounded far away. And the way the words echoed forced Kratos to pause and spin around, hoping to home in on the direction of the voice.
“Where are you?” he shouted. Kratos headed in the direction of the voice, but the grove was a woody maze, forcing him down many false paths. After excruciating moments of searching in the forest without a single sign of Atreus, Kratos forced himself, against his judgment, to stop. He needed to reorient himself. He was lost, and he felt no closer to locating Atreus than when he began.
“Boy!” He could no longer stifle his emotions. Withdrawing his axe, he readied himself to attack anything that might come between them.
“I found him!” Atreus called. The words, however, came from an entirely different direction than his previous call. Kratos spun, dizzy with desperation.
“Hurry, Father!”
Kratos’ mind raced in a thousand directions at once. His whole body went cold when the skeletal form of a draugr emerged from a thicket.
“Wait, boy!” Kratos shouted. It took a flurry of axe swipes before he was able to dismember the creature’s arms and finally hack off its head.
“Father, please hurry!”
This time the voice seemed more distant. Was Atreus moving farther away?
“Stay in place!” Kratos seethed, repeating the words while twisting about to scatter his voice in many directions.
“Where are you?” his son called back casually.
Kratos needed deep, calming breaths before returning his focus to what he needed to do.
“What did you do?” a feminine voice snarled.
“I’m sorry!” Atreus cried, his words wavering with a panic that clawed up Kratos’ spine.
Atreus was in trouble.
“Atreus!” Kratos screamed. “Where are you?” Silence seized the air; and panic seized Kratos’ insides.
“Answer me!” the God of War shouted.
Snaking his way through a narrow path of spiny thistles, Kratos finally caught a fleeting glimpse of his son’s clothing. Relief rushed in. Atreus knelt before the felled boar in a sun-drenched clearing.
“What did you do!” the female voice shouted.
The lad was not alone. A cloaked figure, wearing a gilded, sheathed broadsword strapped across her back, hunched over the wounded animal beside him.
Breathing hard, his pupils flared, Kratos approached, his axe ready.
“We did not know he belonged to anyone,” Atreus pleaded.
“He does not belong to anyone. He is my friend,” the shadowy figure said.
“The boy was obeying my command,” Kratos said, halting a few paces short of the pair.
The cloaked woman turned a shoulder, looking with surprise at Kratos, and then continued to work her bloodstained hands on her animal.
“Then help fix this,” she growled, reaching for Kratos’ hand to pull him to his knees beside her.
She forced his massive palm over the boar’s wound. “Hold here.
“Hildisvíni, I warned you about straying too far. I was not angry with you,” she said to the panting beast.
Atreus read the terror that accompanies the fear of imminent death in the boar’s human-looking pupils. It was as if he were staring at another person, not a forest creature. He could not fathom how this could even be.
With Kratos clamping the seeping wound, Atreus leaned in closer, hoping to assist, while the woman circled the beast, rolling up her sleeves and mumbling to herself as she moved. Kratos gazed up at her, seeing her face clearly for the first time. She appeared no older than his wife, with ocean-blue eyes. Her lips were thin, her jaw locked. And Kratos detected a thin battle scar running across her cheek. A sparkling blue crystal suspended around her neck caught Kratos’ attention. He never expected to encounter a woman in these woods, let alone one with such a valuable gem in her possession.
However, her radiant beauty held Atreus steadfast. She reminded him of his mother, not so much by
her appearance, but in the way her focus revealed her compassion.
“Hold tight, I said. He is losing blood,” she said.
The boar struggled under the intense pain, releasing a terrified grunt. Its labored breathing turned erratic and shallow. The beast’s great head shifted onto the boy’s lap, as a helpless Atreus looked on.
“I am not going to let you die, you hear me, Hildisvíni?” The woman choked back waterless tears.
Atreus’ discarded arrow lay beside them.
The woman extracted a handful of herbs from a pouch on her belt. She crushed them into her palm, mixing them with her spit to prepare a poultice.
“The last of his kind in all the realm, and you shoot him! You needed food?” she snapped, while she worked frantically to complete her preparation.
“Target practice,” Atreus squeaked.
“Target practice!” she screamed, not at the boy, but at Kratos.
“I am so sorry,” Atreus said. His voice crackled with guilt.
“You are sorry? You are sorry! Hold pressure on the wound.”
The boar’s stare darted from the lad to Kratos then to the witch, in such a way that Atreus was convinced it had indeed understood them.
“The blame is mine. I made Hildisvíni angry. He ran off. I warned you about wandering the woods without me. Why did you not listen to me! I should have kept a closer eye.”
“Is he… going to die? Please save him!” Atreus found himself pleading.
“I will not let him die. You hear that, Hildisvíni. You are not going to die today,” she said, with such intensity that Atreus believed she held the power to make it true.
Finishing her paste, she lathered it across both hands.
“The arrow severed a blood vessel. We must open the wound to locate both ends.”
As she spoke, she motioned for Kratos to make an incision in the soft belly around the wound with his knife. Once done, the severed blood vessel became apparent.
“Now, hold the ends together tight,” she ordered Kratos, who leaned in further. In a moment, amidst the pulsing blood, he managed to pinch the ends.
“Line them up. Evenly,” she commanded.
