The King of the Gods gave forth a sigh tinged with melancholy. “I loved Troy. Several of my sons—your own half-mortal brothers—perished trying to save that city. I will not be deceived again, child.”
“Deceive you, my lord? How could I hope to?” And why would I need to? she thought. Truth suffices. “Am I not Goddess of Justice as well as Wisdom? And it is justice that I seek here before your throne, beloved father. Kratos has suffered much at my brother’s hands.”
“Justice,” Zeus murmured. “Justice is a chain invented by the weak—”
“—to shackle the strong,” Athena finished with him. “I’ve heard you say so before.” A thousand times, she thought, but kept that disrespectful comment to herself. “It is not Kratos who asks. He has not called upon the gods for aid since that day he begged Ares to save him in the face of the barbarian horde. I ask, Father. Any instant may be his last,” Athena said. She opened her hand toward the golden fountain that burbled beside the throne of Zeus. “Behold.”
The fountain’s spray resolved into an image of the storm-tossed Aegean, littered with the wreckage of countless ships. At the heart of the image, flame and lightning blasted from flashing steel as Kratos used the Blades of Chaos like grapnels to chop into the vast reptilian neck that he climbed relentlessly, pulling himself up to where he could get in some cuts at the head.
“Is that the Hydra?” Zeus said with a faint frown of puzzlement. “Didn’t Hercules strangle that beast years ago? And was it always so huge?”
“This is a new Hydra, freshly born, my lord father. This Hydra is the spawn of Typhon and Echidna—the vast Titans you yourself defeated and imprisoned in the earth far deeper than the reach of even Tartarus. They are the ancestors of every disgusting perversion of nature that my brother inflicts upon Kratos.”
Zeus’s frown of puzzlement darkened toward a scowl of distaste. “Setting that creature on Kratos without my permission smacks of willfulness on the part of your brother, but there is little I can do to help Kratos. The sea is the kingdom of my brother Poseidon. To even so much as strike the creature dead with my thunderbolt would be an insult to his sovereignty—and Poseidon is sensitive about his dignity, as I’m sure you recall.”
“I do, Father. Believe me, I do. But it’s not aid in this particular crisis that I seek. Kratos can handle this creature without your help.”
Zeus’s brow lifted. “Considerable faith you place in his abilities.”
“My lord father, I believe he is nearly indestructible. But I have plans of my own for him, plans that he cannot fulfill if he must constantly fight off my brother’s monstrous legions. I ask only that you forbid Ares any future assaults.”
Zeus sat up straight on the throne, gathering about himself the radiant mantle of kingship. He turned toward the fountain. “Where is Ares now?”
Rainbows in the mist swirled about to show Ares striding across a desert land like a volcano come to life. His hair and beard roiled with ever-burning flame, and the black of his armor darkened the sun. His every step crushed numberless men beneath his blood-soaked sandals as a mortal might tread upon ants.
“Where is he?” Zeus said. “What is he doing in that desolate Egyptian desert?”
“Spreading terror and destruction.”
“No doubt,” Zeus said with an appreciative chuckle. “It is a pity to interrupt his fun.”
The King of Olympus raised his mighty fist and drew in a breath so deep it altered storm patterns throughout the Mediterranean, then unleashed a single word:
“Ares.”
The image of the God of War twitched visibly and then threw a dark look back over one shoulder without replying. He deliberately returned to crushing humans.
“How dare he ignore me?” Zeus drew another breath, this one causing frost to form all around and clouds to pelt the earth with sleet.
“My son, your presence is required upon Olympus.”
Again the God of War twitched but only lowered his head sullenly as though he could not hear.
“You must cease your Hydra’s attack immediately. I have use of the mortal Kratos. Ares? Ares! I will not be ignored when I command you.”
Zeus’s brows drew together, and the clouds of his beard and flowing mane shaded dark as a winter storm. Athena stepped to one side. She had anticipated this moment as surely as an oracle scrying the future hidden to her godly powers, and she didn’t want to get in the way.
Zeus lifted his hand, palm upward, and a small spear of scintillant energy formed. With a flick of his hand, as if he did nothing more than shoo away a fly, he loosed the thunderbolt. It seared past Athena and flashed away into the sky. An instant later, lightning struck the desert in the image, so close to Ares that the god recoiled from the explosion of molten rock and fused sand.
The God of War lifted his face to the sky, his features twisted with bitter resentment; Athena could feel the god’s anger all the way from that twisted, devastated land. “Why does my father disturb me as I go about my work?”
“It is not your place to ask,” thundered the King of the Gods. “Your place is to obey. Come to Olympus and kneel before the throne to beg forgiveness.”
“I will not, so long as that treacherous, lying, frigid bitch-sow you name my sister is anywhere near the place. The stench of her corruption repels all honest gods.”
Zeus rose to his feet. Lightning played about his brow. “You dare to defy me?”
“Your thunderbolt caught me unawares. I will not again be so easily startled.” Ares set his mighty fists upon his hips. Every move caused his weapons to clash with the sound of battle. “You are welcome to leave that padded throne in your honey-scented palace and come out into the world to get me.”
“Beware, Ares. My thunderbolt can strike even you.”
Ares tossed his fiery locks scornfully. “You think to frighten me with lights and noise? Me? The God of War? Am I a cold gray cowardly virgin, supplicating before your throne, speaking lies and treachery? I am Ares. If you think to bring war against me, Father, recall that war is my kingdom!”
“You see?” Athena said softly. “He is as I have told you. His madness burgeons with every passing day. If he dares defy your command, what will he not dare? Father, it may become necessary—”
“No,” Zeus said grimly. “No, Ares is not so foolish as to challenge me.” Athena saw that the Skyfather spoke one thing and thought another. Getting Zeus to place Kratos under his protection, even for a short while, had given her a great opportunity.
“Is not death the penalty for defiance?”
“I have decreed that the gods will not make war upon one another. No god may slay a god. This law is absolute and binds even me. My brothers and I destroyed the Titans because they fought constantly among themselves; their bitterness over old, never-forgotten feuds divided them until too late. The Olympians will not suffer the Titans’ fate. If Ares must be … destroyed, it will not be by my hand. Nor yours, Athena.”
She lowered her head, again to conceal the birth of a smile. “As my father commands. I have no thirst for my brother’s blood.”
“I don’t believe he would say the same about you.”
She opened her hands helplessly. “He cannot accept that Kratos and all the armies of humanity are now mine to command, while among his legions are numbered only the undead and the dark spawn of Typhon and Echidna. But he has not been tricked, nor even treated unfairly. You were there, Father. You saw the contest, and you witnessed Ares’s free agreement to my bargain.”
“Yes. And I saw at the time the very gleam you have in your eye right now. He did not consider what your bargain might mean—and you knew well that he would come to regret this deal.”
“My brother is impulsive and headstrong. Am I to blame that his lust for bloodshed overpowers his reason? Even had I offered him the gift of my foresight, do you think he would have accepted it?”
Zeus shook his head, smiling fondly despite the dire subject of their conversation. “Not even the K
ing of Olympus can win an argument against the goddess of stratagems. What do you propose?”
“If he cannot be slain,” Athena said carefully, “he can still be humiliated.”
“A lesson in humility may well be warranted, since he cannot be allowed to ignore my commands in this arrogant fashion,” Zeus murmured thoughtfully. “How do you intend to teach it?”
“I am not the teacher Ares needs,” Athena said, still speaking nothing less than pure truth. “If my lord father would only speak with his brother Poseidon and ask that the King of the Ocean receive me and listen to my word, the lesson will teach itself.”
“Indeed?” The flicker of lightning returned to Zeus’s brow, and his eyes narrowed in suspicion. “This, too, you have planned, haven’t you? It seems an overly intricate stratagem for such small reward.”
“To embarrass my brother was never my goal,” Athena said.
And this, too, was truth, absolute and unmistakable. Athena’s plan had never been to shame her brother. Ever since the Kratos incident in her village temple, she had understood another truth, one that the rest of the Olympians had only begun to glimpse: Ares was more than headstrong and disobedient, far more than brutally ambitious and bloodthirsty.
The God of War was insane.
DOWN FROM OLYMPUS came the Goddess of Wisdom and War. Each step caused the singing of birds. Soon the birds’ sweet tunes became the rush of water crashing against rocky shores. Salt spray misted her face and beaded in her hair, constellations of diamond stars. Her bronze armor shone in brilliant tropic sun.
When finally she stopped, she stood at a shoreline that stretched to either side farther than even a god could see. The endless sea before her rose to the far horizon.
“O mighty Lord of the Deep, the Goddess of War would speak with you,” she said. “Heed my father’s request, and hear my word.”
Athena waited. Was this a deliberate insult? Was Poseidon still sulking about the destruction of Troy? Or was this the fruit of an earlier grudge? She had never been on particularly good terms with the King of the Ocean, ever since that squabble over the naming of what was now Athens.
Perhaps she should have brought a gift.
Finally the ocean began to boil at the far horizon. The frothing churn raced toward the shore where Athena stood, and an instant later a vast waterspout roared up to mate the sea with the infinite sky. Poised amid the mountainous column of water stood Poseidon, brawny arms crossed over his thick chest. His crown was crusted with barnacles, and his trident dripped blood and entrails.
“I bring the greetings of Olympus, Lord Poseidon,” she said, bowing deeply.
“I have no time for you, Athena.” The Lord of the Sea gestured curtly over his shoulder with the trident. “My business takes me far beyond the Pillars of Hercules.”
Athena nodded sympathetically. “Atlantis again?”
“Those people are no end of trouble,” Poseidon muttered.
“Your patience with them is admirable.”
“Admirable perhaps, but irritation is a blade that whittles my patience dangerously thin. My brother asked that I hear your petition. Out of respect for him, I listen.” The sea god leaned toward her. “Briefly.”
Athena lifted an open hand. “Let there be no bad blood between us, my uncle. Our feud should be diminished by time, should it not? It was hardly so consequential that its wounds should be inflamed still to this day.”
Poseidon reared up to an even greater height and poked his trident in her direction. “That city should be mine! I struck the rock on which the Acropolis sits and—”
“And a spring burst forth indeed, but of brine,” Athena said sympathetically. “Am I to blame that the people of the city preferred my olive tree to your saltwater spring?”
The sea god said sullenly, “Athens is a terrible name for a city.”
“Poseidia would be more melodious,” she admitted. “If my beloved uncle might be appeased by some more substantial gesture, I hope to remind you that Athenians—thanks to my lord uncle’s generous patronage—are the greatest sailors in all the known world. Their strength is in their navy, and they do honor to the Lord of the Ocean every day.”
“Well …” Poseidon grumbled, the sound of waves crashing against an unprotected cliff. “I suppose that’s true. Let us put our disagreements behind us, my niece. What business brings you this day to my endless shore?”
“My lord uncle, I have come to apologize for my brother’s deadly insult to your sovereignty.”
“What?” Poseidon’s brows of sea foam drew together, and the ground beneath Athena’s feet gave a warning rumble. “Which brother?”
“Ares, of course. What other god would so boldly dare to tempt your anger?”
“Besides yourself?”
“I know of late you have been preoccupied with Atlantis—which is the sole seemly explanation for allowing Ares’s monsters to swarm your seas unchallenged.”
“Swarm my—” His gaze went distant, and what his deific vision found caused him to gasp like a sounding whale. “A Hydra? In my Grave of Ships! The impudence—I have told Zeus, again and again, he is far too lenient with his children! Ares should have spent an entire age of the world beside Sisyphus! I am not so forgiving as my brother. I will crush him! Where is he? Where?”
“Far from your realm, my lord uncle—safe in a distant desert.”
Poseidon roared, raised a fist, and all the world trembled. “Am I called Earthshaker for naught?”
“My lord uncle, please!” Athena cried. “Let not your wrath fall upon him directly! There is no shame in being bested by great Poseidon, ruler of two-thirds of all that is. No lesser god can hope to stand against any of the brother kings. If you truly want to punish Ares, you must smite his pride.”
The tremors faded away. “There is truth in this,” Poseidon admitted. “But how best to do so?”
“Show all the gods how even a mere mortal can best Ares’s plans and defeat his will,” Athena said with studied casualness.
“Yes, that is so,” Poseidon said. “But what mortal? Hercules? Isn’t he busy somewhere in Crete? Peirithous is in Hades, Theseus is old, and Perseus—who knows what he’s been up to? I don’t think he’s reliable.”
“There is another,” Athena said, forcing herself to show no hint of emotion. “Has my lord uncle heard of one particular mortal, called by men the Ghost of Sparta? His name is Kratos.”
Great Poseidon bent toward her, interested. “The Fist of Ares?”
“Fist of Ares no more—now the Ghost of Sparta serves me. Did you not attend the Challenge of War Gods?”
He nodded slowly, remembering. “Yes, yes, of course. It had slipped my mind—the fate of land-borne armies means little to the sea.”
“Kratos had forsworn his service to Ares even before I won him and the rest of the armies of humanity in the challenge.”
“Oh, yes, I remember, now that you mention it—something to do with that little village temple of yours that Kratos sacked, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, Uncle. And for Kratos, a horror beyond imagining. It haunts him to this day.”
“So this Kratos is the mortal you have in mind?”
“Your perception is justly legendary, my lord uncle. Ares hates Kratos with a passion even the gods can barely comprehend, and only a distant dream of vengeance upon the God of Slaughter keeps Kratos fighting on. There could be no greater shame for Ares than to be thwarted by Kratos.”
“How can any mere mortal hope to overpower the legions of Ares?”
“As the Fates would have it,” Athena said, a bit of a twinkle brightening the gray of her eyes, “I have an idea….”
THREE
FOR HOURS, KRATOS FOUGHT through the Grave of Ships.
The Blades of Chaos flamed in constant motion, rising and falling, whipping to the extreme lengths of their unbreakable chains, slicing through the rotting flesh and brittle yellowed bone of undead legionnaires, shattering the scales of Hydra heads, puncturing eyeba
lls, severing tongues and ripping at throats. They slashed and hacked, stabbed and pierced, and through it all they burned with an unnatural flame, as though the hellish fires of the Hadean forge sprang from their edges to burn away the lives of all they touched.
Kratos burned with the same fire. Each slice of any creature’s life that the Blades carved away flowed back up the chains to where they were fused with the bones of his wrists. The stolen lives charged his body and flooded his mind with inexhaustible fury. If he was not killing, it was only because he was sprinting toward more victims. He never stopped.
He never even slowed down.
The blades could not be broken; they could not be nicked or dulled. Even the black blood and putrefying flesh that should have clotted and crusted the blades and their chains simply vanished, consumed by unnatural fire. Kratos raced from ship to ship, balancing across floating beams above seas churning with the feeding frenzy of sharks below, who fought for scraps of his victims. The ships blurred together into an endless nightmare maze of decks and masts, of sails and cargo nets, and always there was the unending stream of mindless undead attacking with the same maniacal bloodlust, more harpies to swoop and dive and rake him with their shit-smeared talons.
He no longer knew if he was moving toward the merchantman he had followed into this watery hell or winding farther away. He didn’t care. He didn’t think about it or about anything at all. He threw himself into his work with the joyous abandon of a bacchant and lost himself in the purity of unchecked slaughter.
He killed. He was content.
He fought on until his path was once again blocked by another uprearing head of the Hydra. Each he faced was larger than the one before. When this great beast cracked its jaw wide to roar, Kratos might have been thrust into a tunnel with dark saliva-damp sides. All he could see was the huge mouth, gaping twice as wide as his body, and the yellowed razor-sharp teeth in front of him. He reached over his shoulders and gripped the handles of the Blades of Chaos.
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