God of War--The Official Novelization

by J. M. Barlog

  “This place must have been important to the giants. It’s as if they test us,” Atreus said while Kratos retrieved the fallen crystal, placing it on the empty pedestal. “That looks right.”

  Kratos pulled the lever again while the crystals remained lit, revealing runic words on the now-illuminated floor.

  “That’s it!” Atreus ran to the sand bowl. “It means ‘freedom’.”

  When Atreus carefully scribed the rune in the sand with his knife, mysterious lights drifted skyward.

  “Frelsa.” Atreus recited the runic incantation.

  The statue responded, tapping its scepter three times, after which it emitted a light beam. “What is it doing?” he asked.

  Kratos shifted the weight of his axe in his hands.

  The light beam revealed a hidden door on the opposite wall.

  “Oh! Thought maybe there would be a bridge,” Atreus said.

  “The giants mean to test us further.”

  The God of War shoved the door open, allowing them to drop into the passage below. “Guess we must go down to go up?” Atreus said.

  Approaching a tight section of tunnel, so confining that swinging an axe might be near impossible, Kratos drew closer to Atreus to protect him.

  “These passages seem too small for giants,” Kratos commented, which brought a giggle from his son.

  “You laugh, why?”

  Atreus stifled his laughter. “Oh, you are serious.”

  “I am always serious.”

  “I forget. Mother said you never took an interest in our history. The giants are just a race, like elves and Huldra folk. It doesn’t mean they’re actually big. They come in all shapes and sizes,” Atreus explained. His sadness grew as he recalled how his mother had explained it to him when he, at first hearing about them, also thought they were towering, fearful creatures. Her smiling face flashed across his mind, sinking his heart a little deeper inside his chest. If only he could reach out to brush her cheek one more time. Maybe even hug her…

  “Then what of the World Serpent?” Kratos asked.

  The question forced Atreus only reluctantly to abandon his vision of his mother.

  “In that case, giant also means big. But there is only one of him. Giants are… complicated.”

  Kratos decided to allow the conversation to die there. He needed to focus on what lay ahead, and not on useless information only a mother would convey to her child.

  They reached an extremely cramped passageway, with Kratos’ shoulders scraping the sides.

  Dead bodies littered everywhere, all the victims of an assortment of different traps. “There are a lot of bodies. They look like men, though, not giants,” Atreus said.

  “Thieves seeking treasure. See the traps.”

  “Lucky for us they set them all off.”

  “Be grateful these stay dead.”

  After pushing through a barricade at the end of a hall, whose floor was shin-deep in skeletons, they emerged to the rear of the stag statue, realizing that along the way, they had somehow crossed the chasm.

  “We made it across!” Atreus said.

  Their entrance suddenly collapsed. “Won’t be going back that way,” Atreus said.

  As they turned to leave the statue behind, several Wulvers—blacked-furred, wolf-like creatures with glowing yellow eyes that stood erect—charged with jaws gaping and fangs dripping. The two had but a few moments to brace for the onslaught.

  While the Wulvers’ attack proved fierce, Atreus’ barrage of arrows distracted the beasts sufficiently to allow his father’s axe to dispense with them before they might become a threat to his son. Amid the carnage, Atreus picked his way over headless carcasses to examine a writing of sorts that he identified on the rear of the stag’s throne.

  “This is Duraþrór, one of the four stags of the World Tree. He is supposed to safeguard the entrance to Jötunheim while the giants slumber. Do you think it’s possible he is still there? Could we be close to Jötunheim?”

  “I do not know,” Kratos admitted, cleaning his axe of blood before slinging it over his back.

  As they pushed open the doors leading from the statue room, they found themselves facing a crossroads. Surveying their choices and determining none seemed to reveal imminent danger, Kratos chose the path to their right.

  As they approached a broken-down pulley contraption, several more draugr emerged from hiding places to attack. But by the time Atreus could get off his second arrow, his father had killed the remaining three. Witnessing his father’s vicious and relentless assault, Atreus could only wonder if he might ever become as proficient, and as fearless, a warrior as his father.

  “Where to now?” Atreus asked, scanning the dead and dying.

  “The peak is still our goal. We need to find a way up.”

  “We are seeing more and more of those things. Is the situation getting worse here?” Atreus asked, as they picked their way along. His father had no answer.

  Was this to be their future? Atreus wondered. Would they have to fight every day for the rest of their lives?

  As they neared the apex of the rock face, Kratos pointed out to Atreus some runes etched into the rock.

  “What do those…?”

  “It’s a name, I think. Hraezlr. It means ‘terror’.”

  After completing their ascent, Kratos and Atreus stood before a long path lined with flickering torches, with a steep drop-off on their left. Light from an exit to the path ahead beckoned them.

  Atreus stopped suddenly.

  A ripple of uneasiness rumbled through Kratos’ gut, stopping him a moment later. He turned back to his son. Each read the other’s face.

  “Hey, who do you think lit these torches? The dead need no light.”

  Kratos initially dismissed his son’s words. Whoever lit the torches would face the God of War’s wrath if they opposed them.

  “Stay alert,” Kratos replied.

  They emerged from a passage leading up to a large open space cluttered with primitive mining machinery, most prominent of which was a huge two-pronged metal claw dangling at Kratos’ eye level.

  “Whoa. What is all this? Where are we?” Atreus asked, scouring every inch of the machinery. Having never seen such work before, he had no idea these things even existed. His life in the forest had sheltered him from ever being exposed to such marvels.

  “We’re in some kind of mine. And if those gears and levers will draw this claw up to the summit, our goal is near.”

  “All right. So how can we use it?”

  Kratos shifted from gear to lever until he came to a rope-wheel contraption. Yanking the rope wheel activated the contraption and caused the claw to sway. Atreus studied the movements, identifying how each of the fifteen gears meshed with its mate and connected through a pair of levers to the chains.

  “I think I see how this works. The claw is on one side, and if we can get this lever here unstuck…” Atreus said, tugging at the gears that kept them from turning freely.

  “Wow!” Atreus screamed when, as a result of his action, the chain with the claw shot up into the darkness, pulling him with it.

  “Boy!” Kratos growled.

  As Kratos pulled the boy to safety, a nearby chain with a large tree trunk counterweight attached fell—and with it rained debris and a huge boulder, which pinned the chain beneath it on an unreachable platform to their left.

  “Great. Now the chain is stuck,” Atreus said.

  “That was careless.”

  “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir,” Atreus apologized, angry with himself for not first considering the consequences of his actions. He needed to take the time to visualize the outcome before he acted.

  Kratos pulled at the chain, testing the mechanism, while the counterweight remained pinned.

  Atreus wandered away, his interest snared by something he saw in a corner. He lofted the strange lantern candleholder—which had its candle set within a parchment bag inverted over it—to eye level, to examine it more closely. “Huh, no wick.”


  “That is of no use to us. The Bifröst lights our way.”

  “I know. But it is interesting, anyway.”

  Hastily casting the lantern aside, Atreus rushed to catch up with his already-moving father.

  They made their way through a side tunnel that rose toward the platform with the boulder pinning the chain.

  “I think we can get to that rock now,” Atreus said.

  Sizing the distance and the surroundings, Kratos leapt onto the right platform to reach the rock pinning the chain. Once on the platform, but before reaching the rock, Atreus discovered another broken lantern cast aside on the floor. As he took up the lantern, it moldered in his hands.

  “Broken. Go,” Kratos ordered.

  “What could they be for? There is something special about them. I can feel it,” Atreus persisted.

  Kratos dismissed his son’s comment, moving on with Atreus trailing reluctantly behind. They reached the huge boulder pinning the claw counterweight chain.

  “That looks really heavy,” Atreus said.

  Kratos tipped the huge boulder out of the way.

  “How? No way,” Atreus muttered in disbelief.

  The boulder tumbled off the platform, freeing the chain.

  “You did it! But how? I bet we can make the chain-wheel work now. Might be our way to the top!”

  But then he considered more deeply what he had just seen. No man he had ever seen in the forest could have moved that boulder. No man alone could have done that. How could his father be so strong, when no other men were? What explanation could there be for what he had just witnessed?

  Atreus had little time to wonder. Returning to the ground floor, a dozen Tatzelwurms emerged from holes in the floor to attack. Reptilian-skinned creatures, with cat-like bodies and huge upper fangs, they lurched, exposed razor-sharp claws and jagged teeth.

  Kratos took the lead, smashing into them and cleaving one after another. Atreus launched his first arrow to take out one charging him, just seconds before it could reach him. His second arrow pierced the neck of the next charging Tatzelwurm attempting to join the fray against his father. Kratos flashed a smile toward his son, then he hacked into the next wurm within range. Four more lost their heads just behind their shoulders.

  Calm returned.

  “Back to the wheel,” Kratos said.

  Operating the chain-wheel mechanism, the freed chain now allowed the counterweight to rise. “We got it working!” Atreus piped up, all the time watchful of their surroundings.

  The chain holding the claw returned to the ground. “We got the claw back!”

  Kratos held the chain taut, used the frost axe to jam the gears in place.

  “If we could just ride up with the claw somehow, we could get to the top in no time,” Atreus said.

  Kratos positioned himself beneath the chain. Using the chain-wheel, he brought the claw down, where it locked into place.

  “That is perfect,” Atreus said. “That should hold it.”

  When Kratos recalled his axe, the claw began to rise. As they ascended, they watched the draugr clustering below, seeking ways to climb up.

  “Do you think this goes all the way to the top?” Atreus asked.

  “We will see soon enough.”

  A shudder of concern rippled through the boy. “Something feels strange up there. We are heading into danger.”

  “Do not concern yourself with what might be. Focus on what is, and always remain vigilant,” Kratos counseled.

  “Yes, sir.”

  When the claw stopped short of the summit, Kratos and Atreus abandoned it to land on an adjacent platform. Atreus dashed to a nearby lantern, hidden behind some rubble.

  “Wait! This one is not broken!” he said, holding it overhead, looking beneath it to reach the candle. Pulling it out, he paused, finding a note attached to the end with a hemp string.

  “Look at this,” he said.

  He passed the parchment to his father, who angled the Bifröst light so Atreus could read it.

  “A giant’s prayer. They are asking their ancestors to watch over them and guide them home,” Atreus said. He studied the candle and the lantern. Then he gazed up the elevator shaft. A broad smile flashed across his face.

  Setting the lantern down, he rolled the candle’s burnt wick between his fingers. Then, using the soot on his fingers, he scrawled something on the back of the parchment.

  “Boy,” his father grumbled impatiently.

  “Wait, wait! I think I know how it works!” Atreus responded. Excitement overflowed in his voice. Quickly pulling two runestones from his pouch, he struck them together over the candle’s wick.

  The spark ignited a weak blue flame. Carefully, he eased the candle back into the lantern. Afterward, he brought it to his father, eager to demonstrate what he had deduced.

  “Watch.”

  He released the lantern. It wobbled at first, then it began rising slowly skyward up the shaft, ascending the mountain interior. The lantern’s light illuminated the path upward, revealing the massive structure and the carved walls in the darkness. They watched in silent awe.

  “Wow,” Atreus whispered.

  “What did you write?” Kratos queried.

  “I asked them to watch over Mother.” He craned his neck, looking up, which caused him to lean into his father. Kratos recoiled slightly, gazing down at his son. Seeing the expression of joy and wonderment on Atreus’ face tempered his apprehension. He leaned in to allow Atreus to rest fully against him.

  “Do you think they will watch over us on our way to the peak?”

  “Come. It is a long way up.”

  Locating an iron counterweight discarded on the platform, he attached it to the chain then motioned Atreus back into the claw, after which he pushed the weight off, which pulled the claw upward.

  “We are almost there. Nothing is going to stop us now,” Atreus said. He released a silent sigh of relief.

  Only he was wrong.

  Before they could breach the summit, an ebony-scaled, yellow-eyed, three-clawed dragon lurched out from an unseen alcove in the wall to attack with a beam of pure electricity. Latching onto the lift with razor-sharp talons, it drew closer while simultaneously spreading gaping jaws.

  Atreus panicked, screaming in abject terror.

  “Calm yourself, boy,” Kratos demanded. Panicking at such a crucial moment could get both of them killed. “Just remain behind me.”

  Despite the tight confines of the claw and the surrounding shaft, Kratos worked his axe free from his back to maneuver it in such a way that it allowed him to hack at the talons holding them.

  “It’s not letting go!” Atreus yelled.

  The dragon ripped the claw from its bindings to drag it down a side tunnel, where Kratos and Atreus were able to escape. The dragon, meanwhile, dashed away before Kratos could fire his axe at it. For a long moment both just stared into the darkness.

  “How do we defeat that?” Atreus asked.

  Kratos offered no answer.

  Taking the new passage up an incline, they worked their way past gnarled red roots overrunning their path.

  “That looks like a root of the Yggdrasil tree,” Atreus said.

  They continued through the tunnel, facing daylight when they followed a bend in the passage.

  “I can’t believe we fought a dragon. I was aiming for his eyes, but I kept losing my footing. Do you think this is its home? Did they move in after the giants left? Or are they why the giants left?”

  “The air grows thin up here. No more questions. Breathe,” Kratos said, emerging into the bright sun near the mountain’s peak. He scanned for a path that might take them higher.

  They had progressed no more than a few dozen strides on a winding path when distant screaming stopped them in their tracks.

  “Go away! Help! Help me somebody!”

  It was Sindri yelling as he crouched behind a jagged rock formation, hiding from the dragon.

  “Sindri’s in trouble. Can you kill
something that big?” Atreus asked.

  “If we can force it off balance.”

  “I can distract him.” Atreus withdrew his bow and an arrow.

  Kratos knew the arrow would have little impact on the dragon, whose scaly hide kept meager projectiles like arrows from penetrating.

  When Atreus started for Sindri, Kratos drew him back. “What are you doing?” he growled.

  Sindri screamed. The dragon ripped away a chunk of the little man’s hiding place, causing him to curl into a tighter ball as the beast sniffed ever closer. He shut his eyes as if to pray, or maybe to keep from witnessing what was about to become his gruesome fate.

  Atreus sought his father’s response with a look of desperation.

  “We have to help him!”

  Assessing the situation as quickly as he could, Kratos released his son. “Go to the right, find an angle, then wait for my mark,” Kratos instructed.

  Atreus nodded. “Thank you.”

  The lad hopped across a series of rock pillars spanning the chasm between them and the dragon, firing arrows along the way. As he had hoped, the arrows distracted the creature, shifting its attention toward him rather than Sindri or his father, who at that moment was skulking along the underbrush to a place where he could take the dragon by surprise.

  Kratos attacked with a flying axe, which failed to penetrate the beast’s shoulder. The dragon whirled about, as if only mildly irritated. Kratos went in again for the dragon’s long neck, this time gashing deep enough to draw blood.

  Atreus used that opportunity to race to Sindri’s side behind the rock formation. “You okay?”

  “For now,” Sindri replied in a shaky voice. His hands trembled out of control, and he quickly shifted to place the boy and his nocked arrow between himself and the monster.

  The dragon returned to Kratos, swiping its tail wide to knock him from his feet. As Kratos scrambled back upright, the dragon lurched. Kratos threw his axe up just in time to force it into the dragon’s gaping mouth, preventing the beast from taking off his arm in one bite. The God of War retreated, needing to gain sufficient space in which to launch his next assault.