by J. M. Barlog
“So, you wish to what? Take this blade from me by force?” Kratos eyed the little man with an expression that bordered on ridicule.
“Rather, I would ask that you surrender it without a fight,” Sindri countered plainly, swallowing his fear.
“You do not want me to have to hurt you, now, do you?”
Kratos raised the axe, causing a cowering Sindri to shield his head with his arms.
“It was my mother’s,” Atreus said quickly. “She left it to my father when she died.”
Atreus prayed his comment might spare the little man’s life.
For the first time since encountering Sindri, Kratos shot a disapproving glare at his son. He needed no diplomatic response from the lad to deal with this one.
“Faye is dead?” Sindri muttered to himself.
“How did you come to know her?” Kratos asked. “Why did you make the axe for her?”
Sindri ignored the questions.
Sadness came over the little man’s face. He lowered his arms, tipping his chin down in mourning while simply shaking his head.
“I am very sorry to hear that. She was a fierce warrior, and a good woman. I will make improvements to the axe, if it pleases you.”
“You knew my mother as a fierce warrior?” Atreus asked, perplexed.
Both Kratos and Atreus stared at him in confusion. Sindri knew Atreus’ mother, yet she had never spoken of him, or even of how she had come by the axe. Atreus never thought of his mother as anything other than his mother, the one who cared for him with a gentle touch, who praised his every accomplishment, regardless of how insignificant, and who never raised a hand in anger to anyone. How could she be a fierce warrior?
“But no one is asking you to improve it,” Atreus added.
“That is true, lad. But knowing your mother as I did, she would have insisted I repair that act of vandalism perpetrated against her axe by my brother.”
“I knew it! You are Brok’s brother!” Atreus exclaimed.
Atreus took the liberty of rummaging through Sindri’s nearby accouterments until he located what he sought. Extracting a branding iron, he lifted it into the air.
“The other half of the brand,” he said to his father.
“The blue one is your brother?” Kratos asked.
“Yes, though my talents are vastly superior. No boast, swear to Freya,” Sindri said.
“How come, if you’re brothers, you’re not also blue?” Atreus said.
“That, lad, is a story for another time.”
Kratos scrutinized him cautiously before setting the axe across his palms. “Do not undo his work, understand? Improve upon it only.”
“Yeah… but can you put it down over there? That handle is…” Sindri said, his face reddening with embarrassment while he shook his head in disgust.
“No,” Kratos said.
“Okay, then I will just… I will just,” Sindri stammered, searching for anything with which to take hold of the weapon. Locating nothing suitable, he removed his boot, slipping it over the axe handle so he might take it without actually touching it, despite his already gloved hand. He transported the weapon to the campfire workshop, extending it away from his body as if he held a dead rat. He placed it gingerly on a plank bench.
“Yuck. Is that dried blood? It is, isn’t it?” Smileless, the little man took up a file, which he began working along the blade’s edge.
“Did you really make that axe for my mother?” Atreus asked, with more than a hint of disbelief in his words.
“We did.” Sindri paused to face the boy squarely. “I see a lot of her in you, you know. She was a very special woman, who spoke the language of my people. She would say, ‘Maðurinn sem gengur eigin vegum hans…’”
“‘…gengur einn’,” Atreus finished, surprised.
“What does that mean?” Kratos interjected gruffly.
“The man that walks his own road…” Sindri started.
“…walks alone,” Atreus finished.
“Ah! She taught you some of our language as well,” Sindri smiled. “You and I have a kinship.”
“I guess so!” Atreus said, edging closer to the little man in a spirit of brotherhood.
Sindri jerked away. “Do not touch me!” he blurted.
“What? I did not touch you.”
“No, but you were becoming touch-adjacent,” Sindri scolded, as if Atreus had crossed some invisible boundary Sindri had set.
The little man finished filing the axe, carefully examining his work from every angle before returning it to Kratos, again utilizing his boot as a sleeve over his gloved hand.
Kratos accepted the axe, lifting it above eye level to admire Sindri’s work before whipping it back and forth to test its new heft. Satisfied Sindri had done nothing to degrade the weapon’s efficacy, Kratos slung it over his back.
“It would be wise in future if you kept my brother from laying hands on it again. But if he does, insist he temper his steel longer. He is warping the bit-work,” Sindri cautioned.
“What is that you were working on?” Atreus queried, fascinated by the mechanics of the gearbox.
“Sky Mover,” Sindri said proudly. He replaced his tools on his bench. “Just up that mountain waits a trove of rare resources. Once I mine it, I will need a way to bring it all down.”
“And you know how to fix it?”
“Not even a little. But it will tell me what is wrong, given time… probably… well, I hope.” Sindri returned to working on the gondola gearbox.
“Boy!” Kratos shouted. He had already resumed their path, distancing himself by thirty paces.
“I gotta go!” Atreus said. “It sure was nice talking to you. And good luck with your fixing.”
“Yeah, whatever. Best be careful. Nobody nice out there anymore,” Sindri grumbled to himself, returning to his gearbox. “Stupid head sheave. Tell me what is wrong with you!”
* * *
For a time, Kratos and Atreus walked against a stiff breeze without speaking, Kratos slowing his pace intentionally so he might remain beside his son. Atreus wondered if his talking to the little man had angered his father. Recalling their exchange, he didn’t believe he had said anything wrong, but felt something had caused his father to hide behind his silence.
Scaling a long, treacherous climb up a rock face, they reached a dead end at an old temple that had towering red doors with a fallen pillar blocking entry through them. There was no alternate path, so they would have to enter the temple somehow.
“Stand to the side,” Kratos ordered.
With a loud grunt and a heave, Kratos lifted the pillar sufficiently to angle it aside.
Just as he did, the temple doors burst open, splintering as a result of a great force surging against them. A terrible cry issued from inside, as a Forað barreled out of the opening.
The ogre twisted to slam Kratos into a wall, pinning him in place with a muscular forearm. With a bug-eyed face that was as cold as ice, the Forað leaned into Kratos before he could reach back to take up his axe, sniffing all about his upper body.
“þú mein líki nǫkkurr guð. Ganga bak nú,” the Forað said.
Atreus surged forward but stopped short, knowing there was little he could do against such an enormous creature.
“Don’t you call him that!” Atreus yelled, taking bow and arrow in hand. The Forað simply laughed.
“What did it say?” Kratos was able to spit out, despite the crushing pressure on his throat.
“It said you smell like a god,” Atreus said, uncertain if he had understood the ogre’s language. At first, he thought it had to be a mistake. What did a god even smell like? “And to turn back. Now.”
Atreus leapt for the ogre’s face, hoping at the same time to use his bow to tear the creature’s arm from his father’s throat.
“Let him go!”
Atreus plunged an arrow into the creature’s tree-trunk neck.
The Forað recoiled in pain, releasing Kratos, but at the same time backhan
ding the boy to the ground. It spun about in a rage to charge Atreus, who scrambled in terror back to his feet, where he assumed a defensive posture with his arrow ready. But Kratos intervened at the last second, jamming his bicep into the ogre’s gaping mouth, just as the creature was about to seize Atreus’ shoulder in its jaws.
Kratos screamed from the pain of teeth tearing his flesh. With his free arm, he swung with all his might at the ogre’s head, hoping to force it to release its now clamped jaw. Despite a solid blow to the temple, the ogre maintained its bite.
Atreus scrambled about to locate a rock. Finding nothing close, he resorted to his hunting knife. Before the blade had cleared the sheath, the ogre’s hand covered both his hand and his blade. Struggling to pull his other hand free, Atreus reached the dagger strapped at his father’s waist.
Atreus released a desperate, angry scream. He had to help his father. He had to free his arm enough to use the weapon. In the next moment, he managed to slip his arm free of the ogre’s grip. The beast angled its head to glimpse the boy’s intent and before the giant creature could react, Atreus drove the dagger into its right eye.
The ogre’s scream shattered the peace of the surrounding forest. The Forað recoiled, releasing its jaws from Kratos’ arm, dropping the boy so it could hold its spurting eye.
Atreus breathed in relief… until he realized the ogre was drawing itself up to attack, despite being left with a single eye and a single arm for combat—it needed its other arm to keep its eye from falling out.
“Bnǫkunr gidubð,” the creature snarled at Atreus.
“No. Now you will die,” the lad shouted back.
Kratos attacked from the creature’s blind side, cleaving the ogre’s face with a mighty axe swing. The Forað toppled backward.
“Father!” Atreus called out. Kratos heard terror in his voice when there shouldn’t have been.
Confused, since the ogre was no longer a threat, Kratos spun about to track where his son was looking.
Hel-walkers!
A dozen Hel-walkers were clustering at the perimeter of the clearing, their weapons poised to take on whoever won the battle.
Kratos turned back to Atreus with grave concern across his face. These creatures would not be easy to defeat. Hel-walkers liked to swarm, and Kratos would need to find a way to fight them off while protecting his son.
“Ready yourself,” Kratos ordered.
Atreus notched an arrow. If the Hel-walkers attacked en masse, he would never have enough time to fire more than a few arrows before they overwhelmed them.
Rather than take on the Hel-walkers, Kratos sought an escape route. The splintered doors could no longer be used to stop the onslaught, so entering the temple directly would be fruitless. Searching in the dim light, he spotted a path through another pair of towering doors nearby. Retreating from the approaching fighters, Kratos led Atreus through the doors, slamming them closed before the first of the charging Hel-walkers reached them.
Now safe, they continued out through another chamber, where they came upon a massive face carved into the rock.
“I can see why Mother wanted us to bring her here,” Atreus said.
“Indeed,” Kratos said.
They approached a cave opening in the side of the mountain. The surrounding rock was carved in the shape of a gigantic, howling face, with the cave entrance serving as the gaping, screaming mouth. An undulating black miasma spewed along the ground, smothering the pathway. “Is that smoke?” Atreus asked.
A trio of crested larks, locked in combat with each other, battled before the two on the path. When the birds noticed the approaching pair, they untangled, with two launching skyward while the third scampered on the ground until it encountered the fog. The lark began flapping wildly, now unable to take flight as if snared by the mysterious mist. It flopped out of control until, moments later, it went still, disappearing inside the miasma.
“Remain back, boy,” Kratos said, stopping him with an outstretched arm.
“That’s not just fog.”
Kratos ransacked his memory. He’d never before encountered something that potent.
The encroaching putrid stench of rotting flesh forced Atreus to bury his nose in the crook of his arm. “Aww, what is it?” he asked.
“We find another way up,” Kratos said.
“I wish the witch were here. She might be able to use her magic against it,” Atreus said, realizing he missed seeing her. In her own strange way, she seemed able to comfort him during his time of grief. His father certainly seemed incapable of helping Atreus cope with all the conflicting feelings trapped inside. Maybe missing his mother so much meant that any woman could ease the hurt constricting his heart.
“What makes you think she even has the power to oppose this thing?” Kratos said, irritated that the lad even brought up the witch. He disliked that she held such a power over him that he would think of her at such a time.
“My magic is useless against the Black Breath, and as you can see, there is no way around it. Odin saw to that long ago.” It was the witch’s voice.
“What?” At first Atreus thought he had imagined her voice inside his head. Maybe his secret desire to see her again toyed with his mind? He spun about, hoping it was not a trick.
The witch stood a dozen paces from him, her face pale, and her lips a thin, tight line. The sight of her brought a smile to Atreus’ face, a frown to Kratos’.
“What are you doing here?” Atreus asked.
“Making certain you can finish your journey,” she said with an innocent smile.
“Why did you wait to warn us, witch?” Kratos said, an edge in his voice.
“I was busy saving my friend, remember?” She ignored Kratos’ grunt. “The Black Breath is a corruption of magic even I cannot dispel. It consumes any who venture into it. Only the pure Light of Alfheim is strong enough to break through it. But that road is long and perilous. What does this goal mean to you?”
“It means everything,” Atreus said.
Kratos stared down at the boy, whose gaze remained on the witch. The earnestness of Atreus’ response settled heavily upon Kratos’ mind. How much should he risk? His son? Reaching the mountaintop to fulfill Faye’s last wish was all that mattered at the moment. He would let no one or no creature prevent him from succeeding.
“Follow me, then,” the witch said, leading them away.
“Why do you help us?” Kratos asked. Suspicion wrapped each word. So many thoughts churned uneasily in his mind. She knew exactly what he was. She had no reason to place herself at risk for them. Was this about his son, because he had lost his mother?
The witch stopped suddenly, spinning about to assess Kratos’ expression, inhaling deeply before speaking.
“Maybe I see more of myself in you than I am willing to admit. Maybe… maybe by helping you, I will atone for a lifetime of mistakes.” She paused there, reading his reaction, which was minimal. “Or maybe I just like you.”
“Even though we shot your friend?” Atreus asked.
“Even though you harmed my friend, yes.”
She revealed the true depth of her pain and her vulnerability in her soft gaze.
In that moment, Kratos measured the soul of this woman standing before him, and sensing no malice, he arrived at a decision.
“Where must we go?” the God of War asked.
“To a realm beyond your own.”
They took the long path back down the foothill.
“We are going to another realm? Are you not coming with us?” Atreus asked the witch.
“Only for a little while,” Kratos said to her.
“Only for a little while,” she repeated to Atreus. There was no smile on her face, only trepidation.
Exiting back through the shattered doors, the Hel-walkers having roamed away in search of other prey, the witch led them to the gondola machinery stairs, the same ones Sindri had been working on, where a blanket of tangled, gnarled vines prevented their access.
“We wi
ll use this. Rotna,” she said. Her seiðr magic forcibly untangled the vines, despite their resistance to her urging. Then they receded.
“Wait. We cannot use this. Sindri said it was broken,” Atreus said.
“Sindri?”
“An odd sort of dwarf we encountered at the foot of these hills,” Kratos said.
“He was hard at work on it when we got here,” Atreus said.
The witch raised a brow in concern.
“There was no one when I passed by. Perhaps he finished? Dwarves can be awfully resourceful.”
“And irritating, based on the two we met,” Kratos added.
“That too.”
Reaching the gondola, the witch sat first, gesturing to Kratos to manipulate the cart lever. “Just give that a turn.”
The gondola jerked forward, swinging as it slowly descended the caldera from the peak. Bracing against the side walls, Kratos and Atreus sat across from the witch.
“Týr’s temple is located at the center of the bay. It is from there we travel to Alfheim. Thankfully, it is no longer underwater.”
“Why is that creature in the water?” Kratos asked.
“No one knows. He just appeared one day. Soon after, Thor attacked and their battle could be felt across the realms. Ultimately, their exchange ended in a stalemate, forcing an empty-handed Thor to return to Odin. The serpent remained, growing so large it now spans all of Midgard.”
“See! Told you,” Atreus said to his father.
“They have hated each other ever since. Destined to kill each other come Ragnarök.”
“You believe in Ragnarök?” Atreus said, amazed.
“I dearly wish I did not, child,” she replied.
The gondola reached the base of the foothills, stopping at a rock platform that facilitated their exit. Kratos paused, allowing the witch to lead the way.
“You know, we actually talked to the World Serpent,” Atreus bragged.
“You did?” The witch’s face showed a pleasant smile in surprise.
