God of War--The Official Novelization

by J. M. Barlog

  “Let’s see how long you can stay in the air,” Baldur said.

  Tugging and pulling, Baldur attempted to force Kratos to surrender his grip on the dragon. But Kratos knew that as long as he kept one blade buried in dragon flesh, he could remain safe on the creature.

  Baldur swung himself over Kratos’ back and, using the chain against him, forced the blade free of the beast. As Kratos turned for another swing of his blade, Baldur kicked Kratos’ chest, breaking him away from the plummeting beast.

  Kratos plunged toward the caldera. The edges of his vision blurred with panic as he tumbled toward the caldera bridge, and he flung his body so the momentum would turn him back to face up at the dragon. Atreus still clung to the tail as the massive body descended. Slamming into the soft earth, Kratos pulled himself back to his knees in time to watch the careening dragon pass over the temple. A second later, two figures abandoned the beast on the opposing side of the temple.

  Kratos drew his feet beneath him, immediately launching into a slow trot for the temple. He needed time for his head to clear before he attacked again.

  “Baldur!” he screamed. An uncontrollable rage drove his voice. He ran like a demon thirsting for blood toward the realm travel room, where Baldur and Atreus had fallen. As he neared the chamber, the bridge shifted position on him.

  Baldur was aligning the Bifröst travel table to somewhere new.

  Kratos burst into the temple, heading for the realm travel room, where Brok had set up his workshop. Before Brok could even register he was there, Kratos was already halfway across the space.

  “Who is activating the bridge? Hey! I asked you a ques—” Brok said.

  Kratos timed his leap perfectly to fly through the shifting realm travel room door.

  Tumbling and then rolling back to his feet, he saw Baldur hunched over the realm travel table. Having completed the sequence of locking in the bridge destination, Baldur extracted his Bifröst from the table when he realized the god was bearing down on him.

  Without breaking stride, Kratos slammed full force into him, pinning Baldur to the table. The God of War cast his gaze at the bridge doors just as the inner and outer rings of the room made their slow, continuous rotation toward Asgard. Then he spied his son lying motionless on the other side of the table.

  A glowing, spectral nebula of dust swirled around the realm travel table like a growing tornado.

  Baldur recovered enough to push back on Kratos.

  “Too late, it’s locked in. When the bridge opens, the full weight of Asgard is gonna crash down on you,” Baldur taunted with a smug cackle.

  The room began rumbling; an electric hum sizzled through the air. Baldur grabbed Kratos’ head, slamming it into the table.

  “It is over.”

  The room’s inner and outer rings rotated past the Alfheim bridge door. Baldur tried for another slam, but Kratos resisted.

  “Is it?” Kratos said calmly.

  This time Kratos slammed Baldur’s head into the realm travel table. He did it with so much force that the table shuddered, leaving Baldur dazed. Then the God of War threw Baldur aside, and, in an act of desperation, pulled out his own Bifröst to jam it into the table’s power receptacle—but it failed to slide in.

  Atreus stirred, issuing a weak moan.

  Baldur regained his feet, leaping onto Kratos’ back to choke him from behind. Jamming both feet on the realm travel table allowed Baldur to push with all his strength, arching his back while attempting to separate Kratos from the table.

  The God of War held fast.

  The inner and outer rings rotated past the missing Jötunheim bridge door.

  Atreus regained sufficient consciousness to yank the hunting knife from his shoulder, returning clumsily to his feet to advance on them.

  “Now you will die!” he shouted.

  “No! You need to listen to me!” Kratos yelled.

  “Let me help!” His voice was gaining strength.

  Kratos had to check his anger long enough to reason with his son; Atreus did not understand the creature they were opposing. Until the boy fully fathomed Baldur’s true nature, any attempt he might make to help would be futile.

  Baldur looped his other arm under Kratos’ arm, trying to rip it away from the Bifröst as he tightened his choke hold.

  “Release it, or I kill him. You know I will.” Baldur savored the words as he whispered them slowly into Kratos’ ear.

  Through gritted teeth, Kratos released a vicious roar, the way a mother lion snarls when protecting her cub. He pressed down harder on his Bifröst.

  The receptacle yielded; the Bifröst locked in. The brilliant light dimmed. The electric hum dwindled to static. The temple itself rumbled and groaned. Kratos suspected jamming his Bifröst into the table was not something that was allowed.

  The inner and outer rings continued toward the Helheim bridge door.

  “What did you do?” a horrified Baldur said. His face turned ashen.

  Roots from the spectral World Tree lifted the travel crystal out of the center of the realm travel table and into place, while other roots lifted the Helheim bridge crystal into position.

  A beam of multicolored light shot through the two crystals.

  The malfunctioning Bifröst bridge to Helheim burst open in a terrifyingly brilliant display of light and sparks. Then came a vortex of swirling air. The entire room felt like it was in the eye of a tornado. Debris swirled everywhere. The open bridge sucked everything in like a vacuum.

  The vortex lifting him airborne, Atreus grabbed the roots stretching toward the bridge. On the opposing side of the realm travel table, Kratos was pulled hard into it, lurching forward as the winds swirled around him. Violent air currents caused Baldur, still clinging to Kratos’ back, to flip over the God of War and sail through the spectral tree toward the open bridge.

  As he flew by, Baldur shot an arm out at the very last second to snare the boy. His face turned a smile as they disappeared into the swirling Bifröst bridge.

  “Atreus!” Kratos cried out in anguish.

  He had no choice but to release the table and spiral off toward the open bridge.

  The violent wind swept them miles skyward.

  Kratos twirled through the air in a wide arc, all the time locked on his nemesis and his son. Ahead of him, Baldur maintained his grip on the boy as they broke through a stream of clouds.

  Kratos lowered his chin, tucked in his arms to streamline his aerodynamics. A second later, he was buffeted to within arm’s length of them.

  Seeing his father, Atreus reached back, stretching his fingers out, hoping.

  Fighting the wind, Kratos rolled his right arm out of its tuck to grab for his son. He felt his hand brush across his son’s fingers, but the wind lofted him to keep him from latching on. Kratos twisted his body left to decrease the drag, allowing him to slip in closer. This time his swipe latched onto Atreus’ outstretched hand.

  A thrill exhilarated him.

  Baldur responded by twisting onto his back, enabling him to seize Kratos by the throat. “You actually think you can save the little shit,” Baldur scoffed with a forced smile.

  Kratos hammered Baldur’s face with a fist that delivered little force, since it had to fight the rushing wind.

  Baldur swung wildly, accomplishing only a glancing blow to the side of Kratos’ head.

  When Kratos buried a fist into Baldur’s gut, he felt the other’s grip on his son weaken. Kratos had to act immediately if he wished to take advantage of the moment.

  Tugging Atreus free, Kratos simultaneously kicked Baldur in the ribs to separate him from them.

  But his action made him lose his grip on his son. Atreus, now free of both of them, was buffeted through the air just beyond Kratos’ reach. Tumbling through a cloud layer, all three hurtled toward the edges of Helheim proper and what appeared to be a harbor populated with warships.

  As they flew past the end of the bridge, Baldur slammed into the architecture, before landing out of sight
.

  Kratos nearly met a similar fate, but in the last second, he whipped his chain blades out to snare a bridge stanchion, which altered his trajectory. But he was still hurtling too fast for a safe landing. The God of War smacked into the Helheim docks.

  Regaining his feet while reeling from excruciating pain, Kratos clutched his shoulder in the piercing cold. He hastily scanned the landscape. His son was nowhere in sight.

  “Atreus!” he shouted.

  “I am here.” The voice came from somewhere in the dark abyss of Helheim.

  “Remain where you are.” Kratos climbed the stone structure in the direction of the sound. “Where are you?”

  “Here.”

  Kratos dashed quickly but carefully through the misty boatyard, filled with ships in varying states of war readiness.

  “It’s so cold… Where are we?” Atreus called out.

  The voice sounded closer than when Kratos had heard his son’s first call. He was moving in the right direction, he was certain of that. Yet he still had no idea how much further he needed to go to find Atreus. The mist could be altering the sound, making him think he was close, when in fact he still needed to travel a long way.

  “Helheim… Describe what you see around you.”

  “This is Helheim? The mist’s thick around me. There’s rubble on me,” Atreus said.

  “I am close.”

  “I can’t move my arms or legs,” Atreus responded, discernible fear rising with his words, which gave Kratos a sick tremor in his gut. He needed to reach his son before Baldur did.

  Kratos homed in on the direction of his son’s last call, dropping to his knees when he came upon a heap of rubble. Digging furiously at the chest-high pile, he uncovered his son’s arm, which then came flailing out.

  “I am here,” Atreus called in relief.

  Kratos cast off enough rubble to bring his son out. But instead of wrapping his arms around him, grateful he was still alive, Kratos allowed his anger and his past to swarm in. He knelt over Atreus with an angry finger pointed at a still-terrified face. When Atreus tried to regain his footing in the rubble, Kratos forced him back into his position on the ground. There was no mistaking the fury on his father’s face, or the throbbing vein on his forehead.

  Yet Atreus stared at him in disbelief. How could he be angry? What had he done wrong this time to warrant his father’s wrath?

  “You will listen to me, and not speak a word. I am your father—and you, boy, are not yourself. You are too quick to temper. You are rash, insubordinate, and out of control. This will not stand. You will honor your mother and abandon this path you have chosen. It is not too late.”

  Atreus wanted to speak, needed to refute everything his father had just accused him of. He was acting just like his father, so how could Kratos be angry with him? Was this not the way a god was supposed to act? How could he act differently from the man he looked up to most?

  Footsteps.

  The military precision and cadence of a marching patrol grew louder. Hel-walkers were coming.

  Kratos peeled back from his son to peer out over a large stone: a band of twelve approached.

  Lowering himself out of sight, he turned to his son. “This discussion is far from over,” he growled. Atreus nodded acceptance, still confused and somewhat shaken by the outburst.

  “We are here because of you, boy. Do not forget that.”

  Kratos had to turn his attention back to the oncoming enemies.

  “Now you die!” Atreus said with an ethereal echoing voice, clearly not his own.

  “Boy?”

  Kratos led them to the boatyard to plan a defense against the Hel-walkers. They sought refuge in a wooden structure close by.

  “For a thousand mortal lifetimes, the bridge keeper kept the living out of this place. But now that you’ve ripped his heart out, here we are. Funny how it all comes around.”

  A bright flash of intense light momentarily blinded them.

  “He should pay for what he said about Mother,” a phantom voice carried in the wind: Atreus’ voice.

  “Boy?” Kratos muttered, confused and now concerned.

  “That wasn’t me,” Atreus said from behind him.

  Not far inside the structure, they stopped in their tracks. An ethereal image of Atreus occupied the center of the room.

  “But we’re gods. We do whatever we want,” the phantom Atreus continued.

  Kratos spun to find Atreus standing behind him, despite having witnessed him ten paces before him a moment before.

  “I saw myself,” Atreus said astonished, his face ashen, his breathing coming in terrified gasps.

  “I saw it also.”

  “What was that?”

  Once the image vanished, Kratos and Atreus progressed into a new room. Another bright flash briefly stole their vision. Now an image of Atreus appeared. But Modi was there as well, appearing exactly as he had when they saw him in Peak’s Pass—collapsed on the ground, bloody, beaten, and pitiful.

  Modi began chuckling from the floor.

  “That’s what I said… to your mother… before I gave it to her,” Modi said in an ethereal echoing voice.

  The ethereal Atreus unsheathed his hunting knife to expertly stab Modi. Dark blood gushed from Modi’s throat. Atreus knelt before the man, grabbed his hair and yanked his head off the floor. He leaned into Modi’s face, who watched horror-stricken.

  “My mother still a whore? Huh? She still a whore?” the phantom Atreus spat. Modi gurgled unintelligible words, then Atreus released him.

  He turned from Modi, wiping his hands across his thighs, staining them with Modi’s blood as if he wished to wear the stain as a badge of honor. Behind him, Modi crawled desperately away, toward the edge of the bridge.

  The phantom Atreus, turning back to see Modi crawling away, wordlessly kicked him over the edge.

  A muddled Atreus stared blankly at the spot where his actions had replayed before him. “I couldn’t have done that.”

  “Why must I relive the things I have done? Is that part of being a god? Will these things haunt me all my days?”

  Kratos offered no explanation, despite knowing the answers to his questions.

  “I, I don’t even recognize myself anymore,” Atreus said.

  “This place corrupts the mind. Do not dwell on those thoughts. Not here. Not now.”

  “I understand.”

  “We must move. Quickly.”

  Navigating through various boatyard structures, Kratos and Atreus came upon a vista overlooking a deep chasm and a spectral bridge.

  “There. We need to be on the other side of the bridge,” Kratos said, pointing out their destination.

  “Is it safe to cross?”

  “Only the dead can cross.”

  “Then… how?”

  “We must find another way,” Kratos said.

  Before they could leave the boatyard, a squad of six Hel-walkers assigned to patrol the boats surged toward them. Only the fire from Kratos’ chain blades was able to defeat their onslaught. Kratos spun about to locate Atreus once he had dropped the last of the undead.

  “We must hurry to reach the bridge,” he said.

  As they neared a tower adjacent to the bridge, a surreal voice echoed through the stone corridors.

  “I would never have wanted this!”

  Baldur.

  “He is near,” Kratos cautioned Atreus, swallowing with great difficulty.

  Atreus’ hand tightened on his bow, though he knew the weapon was all but useless against their nemesis.

  They eased closer to the structure, Kratos realizing another confrontation with Baldur was now inevitable. But the man could not be killed! He would keep coming until he succeeded in destroying one or both of them. Kratos ransacked his memory, desperate to unearth some skill, some trick, some nuance of being a god that might allow him to defeat this monster in human form.

  They had not progressed far when another bright flash of light brought an illusion of the phantom A
treus across their path. They stopped, at a loss as to how to approach it. To their flank, separated by a translucent energy barrier, stood Baldur in the flesh. He was entranced, witnessing his own illusion of himself in which he held a knife threatening someone unseen.

  “You had no right,” the phantom Baldur spat.

  “I had every right. I am your mother,” a gruff feminine voice fired back with a venomous tone.

  “No right, witch!” the phantom Baldur screamed, his neck veins bulging.

  Nearing the scene, Kratos and Atreus discovered the object of Baldur’s tirade: Freya.

  Undaunted, she stood facing him, despite the knife poised to eviscerate her.

  “Can’t taste. Can’t smell. Can’t even feel the temperature of this room. Feasting, drinking… women. It’s all gone!” the phantom Baldur sobbed in insurmountable misery.

  “But you will never have to feel pain. Death has no power over you. You would rather die?”

  “Than never feel again? Yes! Take it away, Mother. Now!”

  “I cannot.”

  “Did you not consider all that would transpire as a result of your decision?”

  The phantom Baldur curled a hand around the back of Freya’s head, pulling her close to set the tip of the blade to her delicate flesh.

  “Take it away! Now!”

  “It does not work like that. In time you will thank me.”

  “No… I will never thank you.”

  He pressed the knife more forcefully. A trickle of ruby-red blood leaked out. Freya’s otherwise stoic demeanor revealed the first signs of fracture. Fear and concern took over her face.

  The real Baldur ventured closer, but only by a single step.

  “You ruined my life,” the phantom muttered.

  “My child, my lovely child, we can—” she started.

  “No!” he screamed. “If you can’t fix it—”

  The phantom Baldur slid effortlessly behind Freya, driving her to her knees, never releasing the knife from her flesh. His muscles tensed as if about to slice her throat.

  “Do it,” the real Baldur spoke out loud, hoping the force of his words alone could tip the exchange in his favor. “Come on,” he whispered anxiously, but only to himself.