God of War--The Official Novelization

by J. M. Barlog

  “So whatever happened to Týr?”

  “Odin came to power, regarding Týr as a threat to his rule. He suspected Týr of collaborating with the giants instead of helping to steal their secrets. Something he accused me of, though in Týr’s case, I believe he was right.”

  “So you think Týr was helping the giants?”

  “I do. He felt responsible for the suffering visited upon them by Odin. I suspect he had something to do with helping them cover their tracks.”

  “The missing Jötunheim tower!”

  “Correct. Whatever happened to it, I believe it could only have been done with Týr and the giants working together.”

  “But why did Týr feel responsible?”

  “Odin deceived him into believing he wanted peace, so Týr brought Odin to Jötunheim to negotiate. The giants saw through it, and banned Odin from their realm. That’s when Thor began using Mjölnir to wipe them out, and they retreated from Midgard. No man nor god has set foot in Jötunheim since.”

  The platform stopped, allowing Kratos to move toward a set of doors. “Where is this Black Rune, head?”

  “Don’t know. I’ve never been in here.”

  As the doors swung open, they spied down the hallway before them a black stone dangling from the ceiling in the center of a majestic room.

  “The stone! That has to be it!” Atreus said.

  As they approached the stone, a spherical barrier formed around it, encasing it within three swirling, ornate metal rings, as the entire array rose into the air.

  “Naturally,” Atreus said, exasperated.

  Then a hand appeared out of the hole in the floor that the rings rose out of. It planted itself on the stone, waiting for the other hand to appear. A draugr head followed. As the creature slithered out of the hole, another followed immediately behind, moving with more urgency. Three more draugr followed.

  Kratos attacked without a moment’s hesitation. A dozen mighty slashes of his axe left mangled corpses littering the floor.

  “Did not think it would be that easy?” Mimir said.

  “No,” Atreus agreed. “Was kind of hoping, though,” he muttered under his breath. “So what now?” he asked his father.

  Kratos strayed to an alcove containing a statue of a mountain troll.

  “The Stonebeard King,” Mimir said.

  “A king?” Atreus asked.

  “Only because he proclaimed himself king and no other troll could defeat him.”

  A narrow passage forced Kratos to sidestep along its length, with Atreus leading the way through. He held his hunting knife out before him just in case they encountered anything, knowing his father was incapable of defending them in such constricted confines. A treasure room filled with an array of artifacts from across the known world greeted them on their exit from the passage.

  “Wow,” Atreus muttered, taking in the gold, silver, and precious gems. He had never seen such a display of opulence. His life had been simple and unadorned. He had no idea such treasures even existed. Even his mother had never spoken of such things.

  On a nearby table, littered with plumed helmets and shining armor plates, something stole his attention.

  “Look at that!”

  While he raced over to examine it more closely, Kratos crossed to another table, scanning for anything useful. He examined a rotund bottle briefly, discarding it over his shoulder to shatter on the floor. A tall, slender vase next to it suffered the same fate. Spying a clay flask with distinctively familiar markings, he snatched it up, removing the cork to smell it. A slight smile crossed his face. He jammed the cork back in before stashing it in his pouch.

  Then his smile faded.

  Two Greek vases sat on twin pedestals, illustrated in the silhouetted black-figure style of Greek antiquity. The first depicted a Greece in ruins being rebuilt. The second illustrated a Spartan warrior, standing atop a tall mound of mangled bodies.

  Moving closer, Kratos picked out the pale skin against the telltale scarlet slashes of his tattoos. He was the Champion of Athena depicted on the vase, screaming in rage at the heavens. Kratos stared at the vessel with a haunted face. At that time he had been feared and hated in his land, and he had accomplished feats that were the envy of all the gods, yet they portrayed him to the world as a monster.

  Unaware of exactly what was consuming his father’s intense concentration, Atreus approached from behind, an ornate pharaoh’s crown wobbling on his head with each step.

  “What did you find?”

  With a sweeping hand, Kratos slammed the vases into a thousand pieces on the floor before his son could see them. He wanted no questions about that world he’d left behind. How could he possibly explain the scene they depicted on the pottery? What could he possibly say that might nullify the savagery meant to endure in clay forever?

  “What was that?” Atreus said, reading the emptiness haunting his father’s expression.

  Leaving the treasure room, they progressed to another large, circular room. On the opposite wall, a massive mural of two wolves perched on a rock outcropping amidst a dense forest snared their attention.

  “It’s the wolf giants, Sköll and Hati,” Atreus pointed out.

  Kratos stared at the beasts with a shiver of recognition. The image of him dressed in his Greek attire, being dragged by a verdant-eyed black wolf while the others flanked either side, flashed like lightning across his mind. Were those the creatures that had brought him to this land? He could not recall them being that large. The beasts that attacked him had determined his fate against his will. But for what purpose? Why was he meant to be in this land?

  “That is correct, lad, the bringers of day and night. It is prophesied Ragnarök begins when they catch the sun and the moon. And Odin controls them. He believes by controlling the wolves, he can control the timetable for the ultimate battle, a battle he hopes to win.”

  They continued through the room.

  “Don’t you enjoy it at all? Being a god? Out on an adventure in some amazing place? Maybe Mother wanted us to have a little fun. Everything we’ve seen and done. Maybe it was her gift?” Atreus said, with embarrassment tingeing his cheeks.

  At last, Kratos and Atreus breached the inner chamber deep within Týr’s temple. Once inside, however, the door slammed shut, sealing them in.

  “This can’t be good,” Mimir muttered.

  Kratos made his way across the room to a wheel crank he suspected was necessary to force the doors back open.

  “Wait. Look, the runestone is coming down,” Atreus said.

  When the rings spinning about the runestone reached the floor, a wrist trap clamped shut on Kratos’ hands, locking him in place on the wheel crank.

  “What’s going on?” Atreus called to his father.

  “A trap,” Kratos said, yanking on the clamps to try to break free.

  The floor beneath him began to sink, while bursts of water sprayed him from pipes in the floor.

  “Father!” Atreus screamed.

  Frothing water churned in, pooling at Kratos’ feet, with him still trapped on the crank. “Boy, get out of here.”

  “I am fine. How do we get you out?” Atreus shouted.

  “Pull chains, there on that wall.”

  “But… there are three of them. What do I do?”

  “Atreus, focus. You can do this.”

  “Please hurry, lad, I don’t know yet if I can drown. And I’d rather not find out,” Mimir said.

  “Okay… think. Hati’s the silver one. He hunts the moon. Sköll is gold and chases the sun. For Ragnarök to happen, they have to eat them. But these are out of order.”

  “Good, boy,” Kratos said in encouragement, while the water level crept up his legs.

  “So the moon goes on the left, sun on the right, with Midgard in the middle. But which chain do I pull?”

  Atreus could consume no more precious time analyzing. He pulled the chains in left to right order. Nothing. Then he tried right to left, to no avail. On this third try, he p
rogressed from the center chain to the left chain, followed by the right chain. Success! The water began to drain as the platform rose, but Kratos remained locked to the wheel.

  “We did it!” Atreus cried.

  “Almost,” Mimir said.

  The lad’s excitement turned to horror when the platform beneath his father continued to rise toward spikes, which simultaneously began descending from the ceiling.

  “Father, above you!”

  Frantically, Atreus searched for some way to save his father. Seeing nothing he could use, he unsheathed his mother’s knife, dashing over to the rotating mechanism to jam the blade into it. A moment later, the blade snapped and the mechanism continued to turn. There was a gut-wrenching moment when Atreus was out of options, before a shard of the knife wedged in the gears, forcing the mechanism to stop.

  “Her knife?” Kratos said.

  “There was no other way.” Sadness crushed Atreus’ heart. It was all he had left from his mother.

  “That was cunning, boy,” Mimir said.

  “Except I ruined it.”

  “Saving my life,” Kratos added. He gazed at his son.

  Atreus nodded, coming to terms with what he had done. His expression, however, changed to alarm when he suddenly noticed Kratos’ neck.

  “The rune Freya drew on you is gone.”

  “Is it?” Kratos said, unconcerned.

  “What do we do?” Atreus asked.

  “We keep going.”

  After working Kratos’ hands free of the crank, they moved on to an iron gate. With three mighty axe swings, Kratos destroyed the grating, which allowed them to escape the room. Reaching the main balcony, they witnessed the rings receding to reveal the Black Rune.

  “The rune is free,” Atreus said.

  Kratos spun his son around, kneeling before him. “Take this.” Holding out his open palm, he offered Atreus another hunting knife, this one with Greek engravings on the hilt.

  Atreus hesitated, but then wrapped his trembling fingers cautiously around the handle. Kratos closed his hand over his son’s—gripping it tightly—then he curled his other hand around both. Pulling their hands up between them, he drew Atreus close.

  “The day of your birth, I made two knives, mixing metals from my home and this land. One was for me, and, when you were ready, the other for you,” he said. He released his fingers, leaving Atreus holding the knife. The lad turned it over, admiring the exquisite craftsmanship.

  “Today is that day.”

  “So I am a man now, like you?”

  “No. We are not men. We are far more, which makes our responsibility far greater,” his father corrected. Could the boy even comprehend what that meant? “And you must be better than me. Understand?”

  Atreus stared at the knife, then at his father. He nodded absently. “Say it,” Kratos demanded.

  “I will be better.”

  Kratos, unconvinced his message had sunk in, placed a reassuring hand on the boy’s shoulder. “The power of this weapon, of any weapon, comes from here.” Kratos indicated the boy’s heart. “But only when tempered by this,” he added, indicating Atreus’ head. “By the discipline and the self-control of the one who wields it. That is where the true strength of a warrior lies. You must never forget that.”

  Atreus nodded.

  “Good. Come.”

  They continued on their way, plunging deeper into the temple until they reached a sealed vault, where Kratos discovered the Black Rune inside a glass orb. The sacred rune was etched on an obsidian tablet in the orb suspended from the ceiling. Behind it loomed the stone statue of an ancient mountain troll, whose curled horns on the sides of its head angled away from its cheeks. Massive stone hands supported stone pillars.

  Using his axe, Kratos brought the glass orb crashing to the floor.

  With a growl, Kratos smashed the Black Rune orb open. The glass shield protecting the tablet shattered into a thousand fine shards. Carefully reaching between the shards, Kratos extracted the tablet. Finding nothing on it, he handed it to Atreus.

  “Blank,” Kratos muttered, his mind mired in confusion. How were they to get the Black Rune they needed so badly?

  “Wait,” Atreus said.

  The tablet began emitting a flickering glow. The light intensified into a magical crescendo under the boy’s touch. Then a brilliant flash filled the room, followed by a concussive air burst, as glowing light radiated.

  An ancient symbol flickered across the tablet, then faded. But as it did, the light seemed to penetrate Atreus’ skin—spider-webbing up his arms into his chest.

  In the next moment, the stone troll burst into life. “Boy!” Kratos cried out.

  A huge fist swooped toward Atreus, who stood staring trance-like at the blank tablet.

  Kratos surged forward to intercept the powerful punch. Shielding his son and the tablet, the God of War took the full brunt of the troll’s attack, which drove him to one knee. He barked angry commands, while preventing the troll’s fist from crushing them both.

  “Did you see it?” Kratos asked.

  “Yes!” Atreus shouted.

  “Are you certain?”

  “Positive. It is in here!” Atreus pointed to his head.

  “Good. Then aim for the face!” Kratos replied over his shoulder.

  Atreus removed his bow and notched an arrow, while his father fought to keep from being crushed. The lad realized there was only one way to stop the troll in time to save his father. He took steady aim, watched that the tip of his shaft held true, and fired. The arrow pierced the troll’s left eye, forcing it to reel back. The retreat allowed Kratos to pull his blades and attack while the troll struggled to maintain its balance. Slashing left to right, Kratos gashed the troll’s neck just below the head. The monstrous creature dropped to its knees, staring not at Kratos but at the boy as it toppled face-first onto the stone floor.

  The stone troll defeated, Kratos and Atreus left the vault chamber, following the only path ahead. Soon they reached what appeared to be a dead end—a circular room hanging from an ancient chain-pulley system. A pool of sunlight illuminated the center of the floor. There, the torso of a twenty-foot broken statue of Týr lay on its back, the legs and the foundation positioned nearby, severed at the knees.

  Atreus stepped into the sunlight to peer up a tall chimney-like shaft that stretched all the way to the surface. Suspension chains attached to a counterweight ran the length of the shaft.

  “Sunlight,” Atreus said.

  “Our way out,” Kratos said.

  Using his axe, Kratos broke through the support holding the counterweight in place, which caused the entire room to slowly rise in the shaft like an enormous elevator.

  “We are so close to the end,” Atreus said.

  “Sit,” Kratos commanded.

  They were safe, and had nothing to do but wait for the elevator to deliver them back to the sunlight.

  “Why?” Atreus asked, then reading his father’s expression, he complied. Kratos lowered to sit across from him. Reaching into his bag, he withdrew the horn flask he had pilfered from the treasure room.

  “Lemnian wine. From the island of Lemnos, near my place of birth,” he said.

  Atreus drew closer. His father rarely spoke about his life. There was so much Atreus wished to know. But he held his questions in check, fearing they might only induce his father’s silence.

  “Lemnos,” Atreus said, relishing the sound of a Greek word rolling off his Norse tongue.

  Using his teeth, Kratos pulled the pine-resin stopper from the flask before handing it to the boy. “To our journey’s end.”

  Atreus brought the flask to his lips, hesitating after sniffing the foul odor wafting from the opening.

  “Smells like rotten egg. You sure this is still good?”

  “Possibly.”

  Breathing only through his mouth, he risked a small drop on his tongue. His face immediately contorted while he choked it down. But he had to swallow; a true man would knock back a ge
nerous drink. Keeping the liquid down, he returned the horn flask.

  Kratos drained what remained in the flask without breaking eye contact. Then, with a face as hard as stone, he tossed the flask over his shoulder. Only then did he crack a smile for his son.

  Atreus smiled in kind, still uncertain if he was going to be able to keep the liquid from coming back up.

  They sat, staring at dusty rays of sunlight streaming in. There was so much Atreus wanted to say. He had never felt this awkward around his mother. She always knew how to talk to him.

  “I don’t want to forget anything about her,” Atreus muttered, with a sadness that consumed his face and his heart. Inside he was angry for feeling the way he did, angry for saying what he said. How was he supposed to act as a god? Should he even feel things for people? He wondered if that was why his father seemed angry all the time. Maybe a god feeling anything for mortals was forbidden, or at the very least, frowned upon.

  Atreus looked to his father, hoping for some acknowledgement for his feelings. Kratos merely nodded before casting his gaze back toward the sunlight.

  “Why did you leave your home to come to this land? Does it have to do with the other gods there?”

  Kratos gave no answer. It was the best he could offer under the circumstances. He had faced so much death, and so much pain, that he no longer even knew how to deal with it.

  “Týr proves there are good gods. You are a good god, right? You only kill those who are deserving.”

  A sudden avalanche of violent images roiled across Kratos’ mind: scores of men fell without mercy to his blades. His face, however, remained stoic, unreadable.

  “Ah, but who shall be deemed worthy enough to judge?” Mimir interjected.

  “Quiet, head. We are,” Atreus fired back.

  “Now you sound like your da,” came Mimir’s rebuttal.

  A moment later, they cleared the top of the shaft to find themselves looking down the caldera bridge. In the distance, Peak’s Pass beckoned them.

  “Ready?” Kratos asked.

  “Ready,” Atreus said with a confident nod. Time to act like a god.