But he wasn’t ready to die. Not yet.
“Come on, then!” he roared. “Come and die!”
Kratos blocked an ax blow from one Minotaur and lunged, catching a Cyclops behind the hamstring. A slash hobbled the monster, but as he limped back, the other two crowded close to join the battle.
Kratos slipped out from under another earthshaking club blow from a Cyclops and began a steady parry. The Minotaurs had ditched their axes in favor of long spears, with which they could strike at him without getting in the way of the Cyclopes; one slip would leave him as full of holes as a cheese grater. They coordinated their attacks like a well-trained, experienced unit.
He was only one mortal against myriad creatures dragged from Hades, but it was he who attacked. “Out of my way or die where you stand!” he thundered, and then undertook to make his boast into a simple statement of fact.
Kratos slipped between the Cyclopes and struck a mighty double-bladed blow into the chest of the nearest Minotaur. New strength and power flowed up the chains into his body as the blades drank the man-bull’s life. He whirled to hamstring another Cyclops, but the enormous monster was faster than it looked. The one-eyed creature swept its vast club into a rising parry and cleared the blades from between them, then dropped its club and wrapped its arms around Kratos’s chest. The Cyclops squeezed until the Spartan’s ribs began to crack and clouds of blackness washed through Kratos’s vision.
The Cyclops roared its triumph-until its lone eye focused on the Spartan’s face.
Kratos was smiling.
The blades came down at the joining of the Cyclops’s neck and shoulders, carving a gore-splashing V downward until they met at the creature’s monstrous heart. Kratos released the blades to seize the Cyclops’s head-which still blinked its eye in astonishment-and then hurled it, along with much of the creature’s spine, into the path of the jabbing spears of the Minotaurs.
As the rest of the Cyclops’s body shuddered and collapsed, Kratos kicked off it into a small gap between the corpse and the stone wall.
His victory was short-lived. His battle with the Cyclops, quick as it had been, had allowed the Minotaurs to surround him. Kratos spun in a full circle and saw a dozen of the bullheaded monsters advancing. Even the Blades of Chaos would not slay so many. If he engaged one or two, that many more would attack from behind. He crouched behind the Cyclops’s massive body, using it as a battlement, while he reached back over his shoulder-and his hand filled with twisting serpents. The Minotaurs rushed him from every direction. He swung the deathly head of Medusa out before him.
Emerald energy crackled out from the Gorgon’s dead eyes, and each foe it touched instantly stiffened into cold gray limestone. One Minotaur, caught in mid-thrust, toppled sideways, knocking another to the street-where it shattered like a dropped clay pot.
Kratos sprang to action. Ten seconds was all he had.
The blades flashed out, and where they struck, the statues shattered. Kratos leaped up to the shoulders of the one remaining Cyclops and kicked himself up and out again, toppling the frozen creature, whose weight crushed its hamstrung brother and the last two Minotaurs.
And as Medusa’s fell power abated, chunks and shards of petrified monster turned back into meat and bone and blood, a sprawl of carnage that filled the street.
“Lady Aphrodite,” Kratos murmured, “I should never have doubted.”
A whisper, hardly more than a zephyr in the tumult, came beguilingly to his ear: “Perhaps someday I’ll let you apologize. Personally.”
He released Medusa’s head back over his shoulder, sheathed the blades, and ran as though all the forces of Hades snapped at his heels.
Which they did.
Dodging, he went uphill, although he found no easy path toward the Parthenon. It seemed that all the mountain burned. The acres atop the Acropolis flamed with the fury of a new sun.
“Helios…” Kratos wondered aloud. “Have you joined my enemies?”
Athena had enlisted the aid of powerful allies, but Ares might have Olympian aid as well. The political intrigues of Mount Olympus were mysterious and deadly for any mortals caught up in them. He wasn’t too concerned. He had sworn ten years ago that whatever dared to stand between him and his vengeance would be destroyed, whether it be man, beast, or god.
Anyone who wanted to live had better stay out of his way.
He started up a narrow street that looked promising, but then mist swirled out of nowhere in front of him. He swatted at it with his right-hand blade, but the mist formed a thicker cloud just beyond his reach. Kratos settled the blades into a fighting grip. Whatever new threat this might prove to be, he would destroy it as he had all others. When the mist flowed and took the shape of a thin column, he swung as hard as he could.
The blade passed through the mist, leaving not so much as a swirl to mark its passage.
He was debating whether he should use the Rage of Poseidon or if Medusa’s Gaze might give this mist enough form for him to strike. Before he had decided, the mist solidified into a tall, beautiful woman wearing little more than thin streamers of cloud for a skirt and a top wrapped around her bodice but once. The material was as transparent as the mist, but even as he watched, she became more substantial.
Some sort of succubus? A Siren? It didn’t matter-she looked solid enough now. He slashed into the woman with a strike that would cut a mortal in half.
She did not appear to notice. “Do not fear, Kratos. I am the Oracle of Athens, here to help you defeat Ares. Revealed in my divinations are secrets unknown even to the gods. Find my temple to the east and I will show you how to murder a god.”
“Oracle! Wait!” Kratos dropped the blades and stared through the once again empty space. He looked up the hill toward where the Oracle had pointed. A misty gesture, vagrant air currents-how could he know?
The path narrowed quickly, but he kept climbing. When he reached a spot halfway up, he looked back over Athens and shook his head in dismay. The fighting was nearly over. Ares roared with evil mirth, bellowing flame like a volcano, as his army flowed like the sea through the streets of Athens.
“God of War,” Kratos said through his teeth, “I have not forgotten you. For what you did that night, this city will be your grave!”
An earthquake shook the city center. Kratos had to stop and widen his stance in order to keep his feet. Smoke from the burning buildings cleared for a moment to give him a direct view of Ares himself.
The huge god stepped over the Long Wall and strode up the causeway, stepping on Athenians too slow to escape his advance. The war god roared, shaking the heavens and the earth. He reached down, caught a soldier, and flicked him away as he might an annoying bug. The screams were thin and high and then died along with the man when he crashed into the roof of a temple devoted to Zeus. Then Ares began stamping on any who caught his eye, his fury palpable.
Ares rampaged through the city, crushing buildings and kicking away people in the square. The city was entirely at the mercy of the God of War, and mercy was in short supply. Ares had no more mercy than he did compassion or self-restraint. It was a bad night to be Athenian.
Kratos was a Spartan. Was there ever a good night to be Athenian?
He turned his back on Ares and followed the roadway upward onto the Acropolis. Another earthquake took him off his feet, forcing him to roll clear as a stone wall collapsed beside him. Kratos climbed back to his feet to look into the city.
Ares had drawn a sword the size of ten warships and raised it high above his head. The God of War brought it crashing down again with such force that houses for blocks around crumbled as the shock wave spread throughout the city. Ares delivered another blow, but this time Kratos was braced for it. He turned back to his path and set out toward the Parthenon.
“They come, they’re coming!” A woman on the roof of a nearby temple shrieked the warning, then scrambled down a rickety ladder to the sacristy’s front door. An undead archer fired from among Kratos’s pursuers. The shaft
pinned the woman to the wood frame, which caught fire as the arrow exploded.
Kratos ducked and shifted aside when he heard a furious flapping of wings that he knew all too well, but he was not this harpy’s target. The foul beast swooped down to pluck at a woman running with a child in her arms. The harpy grabbed the child and carried it aloft. The woman screamed and threw rocks, but the harpy soared upward to hundreds of feet. Then it let the child drop.
“Noooo!” Kratos raged. He took a step and reached out, as if he could keep the child safe. He couldn’t. A vision of his beloved daughter filled his eyes-and then blood replaced the vision. Again.
The woman frantically tried to catch her infant, racing toward it with arms outstretched, only to see her child’s brains dashed out on the rubble of another temple. The harpy swooped low again, this time clawing at the woman. She fought off the flying monster but tripped on a broken flagstone.
Kratos raced forward and then leaped with all his prodigious strength. His fingers slipped away from the harpy’s wing but caught a taloned foot. The harpy screeched in rage and fought to break free. Rage at the child’s death lent Kratos the raw determination to clutch down hard enough to drag the harpy from the sky. The hideous creature crashed to the ground, only feet from where the child had perished.
A twist, a turn, and Kratos worked up to where he could smash his fist into the harpy’s face. He continued to pummel the monster until only pulp remained. Panting, he held the scrawny neck in his grip, then cast the corpse away so its foul blood would not mingle with that of the fallen child.
“Help me, help me!” the bereft woman called to Kratos. “A trapdoor inside. Safety. Sanctuary is yours if you will help me!” The harpies had seen the fate of their companion and converged, thinking the woman was the easiest victim to slay.
Kratos let his revulsion for what crimes the harpies committed decide the matter for him. Swinging the Blades of Chaos, he charged. The first stroke took off a pinion. The second severed a clawed foot. A double swipe of his blades removed one harpy’s head from its birdlike sloping shoulders. “Go,” he said to the woman. “Find your refuge.”
The woman did not plead with him to join her. Another harpy screeched as it swooped like a falcon. Kratos sprang into the air, hurling himself and his blades at the creature, but he was just too far away to reach it.
The woman took the full strike on her back.
Vicious claws opened bloody gashes, and then the harpy beat downward with its wings and plucked the woman’s spine from her body. What remained fell lifeless to the ground.
Kratos ran, jumped onto an overturned crate, and launched himself through the air in a burst of furious attack. One blade sheared through the harpy’s face, from her mouth to her ear. The second blade sliced through her breastbone almost without resistance, opening its monstrous heart to spew black blood across the streets below. Man and harpy fell heavily to the ground. Kratos rolled free, jerked the chains around his forearms, and brought the Blades of Chaos whistling back to hand.
“There! There he is! Kill him! Kill him for Lord Ares!”
Charging toward him were a dozen Minotaurs, followed by six Cyclopes and half a hundred undead legionnaires-and behind them were still more. They choked the road; he could never fight his way clear.
It appeared his quest was about to end in a sudden and bloody failure.
He drew his blades. He was Spartan.
Just because he could not win was no reason to quit.
TEN
ATHENA STARED DOWN into the broad scrying pool below the throne of Zeus. A few ripples crossed it, but these came from the gusts swirling through Olympus. With a gesture, Athena stilled the waters so that they became clear as the sky. She bent forward to get a better view as Kratos unleashed Medusa’s Gaze.
“Your mortal fights well.”
Athena looked up. Her father had willed himself once more onto his throne, where he now leaned forward, peering intently into the pool. Could it be that Zeus showed the faintest hint of satisfaction?
Even Athena could not read the face of the Lord of Olympus for certain, but she dared hope.
She moved to one side, the better to keep one eye on the pool while she tried to fully decipher his expression. “I did not realize you were following the battle.”
“Slaughter,” Zeus said, “is mightily diverting. It has been many years since we’ve had such fine wanton destruction.”
“Ares brings it to my beloved city,” Athena said, a catch in her voice. “But Kratos’s savagery comes from Ares. He is what my brother has made of him.”
“He may be a bit more than that,” the Lord of Olympus murmured. “You know, the sack of Athens is shaping up to be an epic poem-you should ask Apollo to compose an ode, perhaps. Commemorate the occasion. Doesn’t have to be anything so elaborate as Homer’s tale of Troy-after all, Troy stood against all of Greece for ten years. Athens hasn’t lasted ten days. Nonetheless, many of your soldiers are managing to die heroically. And then there’s your Kratos.”
The Skyfather pointed to the scrying pool, which reflected Kratos’s battle against a flight of harpies. “His furious quest for vengeance-one tiny mortal against the God of War? Very nice. Really. I couldn’t have done it better myself.”
“High praise, my lord father-perhaps the highest I have ever received.” She didn’t let it go to her head, because Zeus, premier among the other Olympians, was a deep planner. Athena wondered at his interest now and if he worked his own subtle plans.
Whatever the machinations, her Kratos played a prominent role.
“I am gratified you are taking such an interest in the struggle, Father. Would it be too bold for me to ask if your interest arises from the struggle itself?”
“My dear daughter, this is not about you. It had better not be. This is only your mortal against Ares’s mob of horrors raked from the dregs of Hades. That Kratos has survived so far makes this a bit more interesting than certain gods had been expecting.”
“Do you favor Kratos?”
Zeus turned pensive, running fingers through the wisps of his cloud beard. Athena tried to read the thoughts behind his eyes and could not. She caught her breath when her father spoke, his words slow and obviously carefully chosen.
“My son shows increasing disrespect, and that distresses me. He kills your worshippers in Athens, but that is to be expected.”
Athena started to point out that Ares also singled out Zeus’s worshippers, destroying the Skyfather’s temples and corrupting sacrifices to win his favor, but she saw that he already understood this.
“Ares’s hubris grows with every victory. Do what you can to support Kratos if your mortal can bring about a greater humility by thwarting Ares.”
“My brother cannot be stopped in this fashion,” Athena said, immediately regretting her words. Her passion betrayed her true intentions. “Not directly. Everyone on Olympus knows my support for the valiant when they face impossible odds. Seldom do they win-poor old Leonidas at Thermopylae, betrayed at the last-but when they triumph… Well, even the Lord of Olympus knows how to honor a hero.
“So, would you see Kratos win? What are you suggesting?”
“I suggest nothing,” Athena said. “I suggest nothing more than that Kratos can use divine help in his struggle.”
“I will not openly oppose Ares, no matter how impudent he has become.” Zeus stroked his beard more fiercely now, lightning bolts dancing through the clouds and leaping from finger to finger. Athena tried to read her father’s mood and could not. But she hoped when he spoke next.
“It has always been worrisome to me that the oracles know what I, Lord of Olympus, cannot see with all my powers.”
“Perhaps it is for the best,” Athena said.
“Best for whom, dear daughter, best for whom?” Zeus turned his attention back to the scrying pool and the vast destruction Ares delivered to the city and people of Athens. The Skyfather leaned still farther forward. “We’re just getting to the good part.�
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Athena caught her breath as Ares appeared on the battlefield and began to crush Athenians under his sandal. Zeus gestured, and the view dissolved to a vision of Kratos sprinting up the long roadway toward the top of the Acropolis, just as a mortal woman failed to save her infant from a harpy-and another harpy snatched up the woman and savaged her with its talons.
“That woman is one of your worshippers!” Athena pointed at the bleeding woman. “Do you see?”
Zeus frowned. “Indeed. In fact, she’s a priestess-that little building of hers is an inn, consecrated to me in my Zeus Philoxenos role.”
“He thinks to destroy my worshippers,” she said. “Are you certain this priestess of yours was an accident? Perhaps he has aspirations for a higher throne.”
“Please, dear child.” Zeus thrust out his finger and touched the woman just as the harpy ripped out her spine. The ruler of the gods sighed and drew back his finger, now dotted with a single drop of water from the viewing pool. He turned and flicked the water droplet high into the air. It caught a ray of sunlight, turned into a rainbow, then vanished.
“There,” he said, looking satisfied. “She will be well judged by Aeacus at the gates of the underworld.”
“Why do you intercede in this way for a simple mortal worshipper, when you won’t allow me to intercede for my thousands?”
Zeus’s eyes flashed. “Because I can.”
He held her gaze until she had to look away. Then he became once more caught up by the vision reflected in the pool. “Look-there, do you see him? He’s killed the harpy, but now a whole company has him cornered! Perfect!”
“It is?”
“Tell me, how many monsters has Kratos destroyed today?”
Athena frowned. “Almost four hundred. Why?”
“Only four hundred?” Zeus looked exasperated. “What is his problem? He will never reach your oracle this way.”
She had faith in Kratos’s prowess. She would have even more if Zeus did not actively oppose him.
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