Athena almost laughed. Aphrodite called the offer to kill another god a mere “squabble.”
“That is so, but nothing says a mortal cannot kill a Gorgon.”
“It’s never been done.”
“That does not mean it cannot be done, using the right instrument of destruction.”
Aphrodite shook her head and said, “No, no, this isn’t right. To be the force behind Medusa’s death is wrong. We can work out our differences, whatever she might think them to be.”
“Medusa is jealous of your beauty,” Athena said. “She yearns for a lover-any lover-as skillful as one you might accept into your bed for one night only.” Athena lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “She thinks you have stolen Hermes from her.”
Aphrodite laughed harshly.
“Hermes sleeps where he pleases.” A small smile flicked on her face. “He is always welcome in these chambers, but I cannot imagine him bedding Medusa, even blindfolded.”
“Beauty inspires Hermes. Ugliness certainly offends him. Medusa blames you for his natural inclinations.”
“How can she demand that he go against his nature?” Aphrodite said. “That would introduce evil into the world, where there should be only love.”
“Such is her jealousy, such is her wickedness.” Athena saw that Aphrodite stood a little straighter as resolve hardened the goddess’s heart.
“I cannot bear the thought of Hermes being in danger from a Gorgon.”
“And I cannot endure for a moment longer the knowledge that Medusa plots against you, dear Aphrodite. Let me tell you what we can do…”
Athena left Aphrodite soon after, sure that Kratos’s character would be tempered even more and his skills sharpened to perfection before the final battle with Ares-if he could reach the Oracle and discover the method to kill a god.
EIGHT
KRATOS CLIMBED ATOP a pile of dead bodies to look over the repair work being completed on the wall. The engineers had placed sturdy cross members against the wall, then had driven posts deep into the ground to hold them in place. It was crude but provided a barrier to keep Ares’s minions from flooding into the roadway. As long as he didn’t have to worry about those skeletal archers coming up behind him, Kratos could safely head for the city again. Without a word to the defenders nearby, Kratos sprang down the roadway and ran for the city.
Night fell upon Athens. The vast columns of smoke now swirled and spun, lit only by the fires below, and through the haze Kratos would occasionally glimpse Ares himself, large as a mountain, towering over the Acropolis. It was from the god’s own hand that the Greek fire flew, great flaming gobbets that he cast at random around the city.
The roadway began to fill with refugees, civilians clutching whatever was most precious to them, fleeing the city while they still could to allow the soldiers the best chance to fortify and defend it. Every few hundred yards, the crowds became thick enough to impede his progress-but the impediment was momentary, because Kratos simply cut his way through with the Blades of Chaos. Bloody refugee body parts flew to either side of the Spartan as he ran, and any Athenians who witnessed such a slaughter wisely pressed out of Kratos’s way.
Kratos spared not an instant’s thought for these unfortunates. He wasn’t here to save the civilians-and the Blades of Chaos could drink innocent lives as easily as those of opponents. The surge in his strength from each murder let him run ever faster, until he might have been wearing the winged sandals of Hermes himself.
The heavy black smoke took on a more noxious odor as he neared the ruined gate of the city. The memory of burning corpses could never be erased from his brain. After so many battles, digging graves had been impossible; there were always more dead than there were shovels and men to use them. Kratos had ordered the bodies stacked and set ablaze. The funeral pyre for one had become the pyre of hundreds, and so it was for many years.
The gates of the city lay in shattered ruin. Some few civilians picked their way through the rubble, but more Arean fire rained down upon them; their screams were brief, and soon they became extensions of the pyre. Only the guardhouse remained intact, though it seemed abandoned. As Kratos passed, however, a voice cried from the shadowed window, “You there! Halt!”
The voice was thin and wheezy, and when Kratos turned to look, he found one bent and wizened man, barely strong enough to stand upright in his armor. “State your… State… Uh, what are you doing here?”
“I seek Athena’s oracle, old man.”
The ancient guardsman peered at him myopically. “The Oracle? What for?”
“Where is she?” Kratos asked with as much patience as he could muster.
“She’s got a room in the Parthenon, on the east side of the Acropolis, but…” The old man shook his head woefully. “That area’s on fire. Whole place is on fire. Oracle might be dead. No one has seen her since the fighting began. Once she told me my own future, d’you know that? Now, this was a long time ago. I had to sacrifice-”
Kratos successfully stifled a sudden urge to lop off the old fool’s head. He growled, “How do I get to the Acropolis?”
“Well… you can’t go through here.”
“What?”
“I got my orders from the commander of the watch, just before the gate was knocked down by one of them fireballs. Nobody enters through this gate, what’s left of it, that is.” The old man held a dagger in one quivering hand. “Besides, what d’you want to go in there for? The place is lousy with undead, there’s Cyclopes and worse-and I even seen a Minotaur too!”
Kratos shook his head, thinking of the fight down at the Long Wall. More wasted effort. Ares’s army was already inside the city.
He left the old man babbling to himself and sprinted into dark streets illuminated only by distant unchecked fires.
RUNNING THROUGH THE DARKENING CITY, Kratos cursed himself for a fool, even as the Blades of Chaos sang their crimson song through countless bodies of Ares’s minions. Undead legionnaires flew to pieces so quickly that none broke Kratos’s stride. Skeletal archers fired flaming shafts as he passed, but none even grazed him. He nimbly sidestepped raging Cyclopes and dissipated ghostly wraiths with hardly more than a gesture.
And all for nothing. Just as the slaughter he had meted out at the Long Wall’s breach had been for nothing.
Ares’s army had attacked the wall in the first place not to gain access to the city but because that was where the soldiers were. Ares’s legions lived only to kill. If Athenian soldiers had made a stand down at Piraeus, that’s where those abominations would have attacked. They never needed to cross the walls at all. As Kratos ran, more foes sprang from the earth itself, as though some impossible netherworld had opened the gates of reality to spew its spawn onto Athenian streets.
Kratos cursed himself for fighting them as if they were human.
He no longer paused to slay them. Why bother? Athens and its people could not be protected by the destruction of Ares’s army-the god’s army could not be destroyed. Like dragon’s teeth, each beast Kratos might slay could be recreated on any spot, at any instant. Killing them did nothing but feed power to the blades-power that he didn’t need. To Hades with fighting. He would seek the Oracle, learn her secret, and then be on his way.
As he should have done from the beginning.
From around a corner ahead, he heard snorts and growls and the voices of men shrieking like little children. Soon two Athenian soldiers came in view, running full tilt, their weapons and shields forgotten. They screamed to Kratos that he must run, they’re right behind us! A heartbeat later, Kratos discovered what they were fleeing: a towering creature with the head and hooves of a great bull and the body of a man.
The Minotaur-the Cretan monster supposedly slain by Theseus. Kratos snorted. Why should he be surprised to find the creature alive?
Theseus had been Athenian.
The Minotaur wielded an enormous labris-the double-faced ax of Crete, its blade alone the size of a man and twice as heavy. The great
beast raised the labris high overhead and, with a mighty heave, hurled it spinning through the thickening gloom.
One of the soldiers, looking fearfully over his shoulder, saw the blade coming and ducked aside. The other never looked back. The first he learned of the flying ax was when it lopped his head off in one clean slice and whirled on without even slowing. It sang through the air, spinning straight at Kratos’s face.
Kratos judged the distance and the spin, then took one step forward so that the haft of the swirling ax, instead of the gore-smeared blade, smacked his palm. It struck with enough force to kill an ordinary man. Kratos didn’t even blink.
“Run!” the remaining soldier screamed as he sprinted past. “ You have to run! ”
“Spartans,” Kratos replied with scalding contempt, “run toward the enemy.”
The Minotaur gave a snort, lowered his wide-spreading horns, and charged.
Kratos hefted the labris. “You’ll be wanting this back,” he said, and hurled it at the charging monster, who pulled up short, snarling, and attempted to duplicate Kratos’s feat. The Minotaur discovered this was trickier than it had looked.
The Minotaur misjudged the ax’s spin by half a step: The blade sheared through its hand, through its nose and on through its brainpan, before whirling on to vanish in the smoky gloom.
The half-headless corpse stood swaying. Kratos lifted the severed head of the Athenian soldier and hurled it like a rock. The head struck the monster’s chest and knocked the great beast flat.
Kratos sneered down at the dead soldier. As he passed the corpse of the Minotaur, he shook his head and snorted with contempt.
Theseus. Some hero. Only Athenians would make a hero of a man for slaying such a paltry little beast. Good thing Kratos wasn’t here to save the people; he couldn’t stand to look at them.
Before he reached the corner, however, he discovered that he had made a mistake. It had not been the Minotaur; it had been only a Minotaur. The truth of this was revealed to him by the appearance of three more of the towering man-bulls, thundering toward him with axes raised.
Kratos grimly drew the Blades of Chaos without slackening his pace. Another senseless delay. He’d make better time off the streets.
The three Minotaurs spread out to bar his path, but a headlong sprint faster than the gallop of a racing horse gave Kratos the momentum he needed. A dozen strides short of the monsters,
Kratos hurled one Blade of Chaos high, where it whipped over the lip of the nearest balcony. The chain snapped tight and yanked him into the air, over the heads of the astonished Minotaurs. He flipped the other blade at a higher balcony and in this fashion swung himself all the way up to the rooftops.
From here, he could clearly see the Parthenon and beyond it the sky-spanning figure of the God of War, who still hurled handfuls of fiery slag into the city below.
Even that momentary pause was enough for Ares’s minions to locate him again. Flocks of harpies swooped toward his rooftop, wraiths floated through nearby walls, and the building trembled as Minotaurs and Cyclopes scaled its walls.
“Ares!” Kratos roared his challenge, brandishing the undying fire of the Blades of Chaos.
The mountain of war god swiveled eyes like bloody full moons in his direction. Behind his beard of flames, Ares’s lip curled in a cruel smile as he raised a burning hand high enough to scorch the clouds. He hurled a ball of fire larger than the entire building on which Kratos stood. As the blazing missile seemed to expand with alarming speed, Kratos had an instant to wonder if perhaps overweening pride had made him hasty in attracting the war god’s attention.
He gave a mighty leap out from among the crowd of his enemies, reached a wall of a taller building nearby, and kicked off again, hurtling high over a broad plaza. He struck a great broken pillar and clung to it for an instant, glancing back at the rooftop from whence he’d come. What he saw gave him pause.
The whole building was a mass of flame; harpies screeched, Cyclopes howled, and Minotaurs bellowed as they burned. Then it was his turn to cry out as a gobbet of the gelatinous fire ran the length of his back. His grip slackened, and he slipped down and then tumbled to the street in agony. Twisting from side to side, trying to roll as if mere flames devoured his flesh, did no good.
More flame roared toward him, and the plaza below filled with monsters. With supreme effort, teeth clenched against the never-ending burning on his back, Kratos hurled himself onward. Toward the Parthenon. Toward the Temple of Athena. Pain could never slow the Ghost of Sparta. He stumbled on, toward the Oracle-and the secret of killing a god.
KRATOS RAN WHEN HE COULD, the pain abating somewhat in his back, and killed when he had to; he stumbled through the streets, over the rooftops, and even waded the labyrinthine sewers connecting endless catacombs. Although the sewage burned worse than he thought he could endure without dying, by the time Kratos emerged, Ares’s touch on his back had diminished. The skin felt taut-crisp. But he could still move, still fight when he had to. Finally, after what felt like days, he reached the broad avenue leading up the Acropolis to the Parthenon-and there he faced a new challenge.
The roadway was patrolled by Centaurs. Wild and untamable, these gigantic man-horse monstrosities had a reputation for fierceness in battle that Kratos already knew was well founded. He had faced these creatures before and always found them formidable opponents.
But they never lived long. None who faced the Ghost of Sparta ever did.
The one nearest spotted him through the smoke. Bellowing its war cry, it reared and spun to face him, then without hesitation it charged.
Kratos widened his stance and waited.
Hooves pounding, the Centaur raced directly for him. Kratos realized he could not outrun the creature, not with the skin on his back cracking and giving new torment with every movement. He judged the distance and then dodged at the last possible instant. Like all four-legged animals, shifting to the side during attack was impossible, once committed. Kratos let the man-horse race past. Unlike other four-legged animals, however, the Centaur possessed the ability to swing its upper body about.
And this one did. Spear stabbing, it almost impaled Kratos. Only a quick parry with his blade prevented a vicious stab wound to Kratos’s side.
The man-horse tried to dig in its hind hooves to stop so it could rear and twist about, but Centaurs could not turn to face the opposite direction of attack quickly. Kratos used this to his advantage. He attacked while the Centaur’s weight pinned its rear hooves to the ground. If it had tried to kick him like a mule, Kratos’s attack would have failed.
He arched up over the man-horse’s back, Blades of Chaos swinging in wide circles of death. Either of the swords would have killed the Centaur. His right blade burrowed deep into the neck, while his left raked along the man-horse’s side and streamed sundered guts out onto the city square.
Kratos lost his balance, slipped in the Centaur’s blood, and fell heavily atop the corpse. For long minutes he could only lie in the puddle. He forced himself to his feet and stretched after recovering a bit of his usual power, though his movement was restricted by the skin taut as a drum’s head on his back. He surveyed the area. It was as he feared: Ares had infiltrated many of his army into the city. Two more Centaurs galloped to attack him.
One Centaur held a huge spear tucked like a lance under its corded arm; the other swung an iron weight at the end of a long chain. As they bore down on him, Kratos dropped low. The chain and ball swung harmlessly over his head, but the spear stung his forearm-only the chain embedded in flesh and bonded to bone saved him from losing the hand. But even the powerful impact of the slash did not slow his counterstrike. If he had been whole, if his muscles and powerful back had responded as they should, his aim would have been perfect. Instead, he missed and the Centaur flashed past, unscathed by his blades. Kneeling like a penitent, he whipped the Blades of Chaos out to his sides, backhanded, and sheared through the nearside front leg of each Centaur. The beasts fell forward and skidded al
ong, leaving bloody smears on the pavement. Kratos stood and, with one more flick of the blades, slashed their heads from their bodies.
He shook the gore from his blades as he looked about for new enemies-new victims-but found only flames and carnage. Fires sprouted like unholy weeds, devouring the city.
He started back up the road to the Parthenon, each step stronger than the one before. The Blades of Chaos, in taking life, nourished him and allowed regeneration. Stiffness remained in his back as a reminder of the foolhardiness of taunting a god. Kratos used his blades at times as walking sticks to help him up the increasingly steep road. The soldier had said Athena’s oracle was in a temple near the majestic structure, which now stood blackened with soot and lit by the burning city below.
Kratos heard a rising-whistle sound he knew too well. In an eyeblink, he had thrown himself into a headlong dive that cleared a low wall one instant before another of the god’s fireballs splashed liquid flame throughout the neighborhood. A wave of fire broke over him, and he ran deeper into the courtyard, seeking cover under the tiled eaves. One touch of such anguish was all he could endure. He found a half-full fountain choked with weeds. He leaped into it and rolled in the damply rotting muck. The stagnant water smelled of dead fish, but it smothered the last of the burning gel that had clung to his skin.
“By the gods,” he said, gritting his teeth as a final wave of pain passed through him. Then he stood and knew he could fight on. For honor, for Athena-and because it was all he knew.
Returning to the paved street revealed only new obstacles. Fireball after fireball blasted all the roadways leading to the summit, making of them rivers of flame. As if he had divined Kratos’s destination, Ares closed every path.
Kratos cursed and threw himself once more into a sprint. He moved to circle the Acropolis-there must be some gap in the war god’s ring of fire.
His new energy took him into a quieter section of Athens, one that so far had escaped the worst of the destruction. People peered fearfully from windows as he passed, but no one lay dead in the street, though this was merely temporary; on the far side of the neighborhood, he met an undead patrol.
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