God of War

by Matthew Woodring Stover

  Again, Athena told the simple truth. “Since the day that my brother tricked Kratos and drove him into my village temple in his blood frenzy. It was then I knew that Ares’s insanity had no limits, that his overweening ambition knew no bounds. What do you think he was planning for Kratos? Why give his mortal subject near-Olympian strength and toughness? Why would he affix the Blades of Chaos to Kratos’s wrists? Chaos—the primordial realm, conquered and brought to order by your grandfather Ouranos?”

  She drew herself up to her full height and turned to her father. “Kratos was always meant to be the weapon that killed a god. This truth names the coldest dread my heart has ever known: The god that was to be Kratos’s victim was you, Father. Ares was grooming Kratos for the same task I am, and for the same reason: to slay a god but to avoid Gaia’s immortal curse on any who shed their family’s blood. Father, you must help Kratos! He is not the true hope of Athens—he is the hope of Olympus itself! My lord father, I have seen this future in my darkest nightmares. If Kratos falls, so falls Olympus.”

  Breathless and nearly in tears, the goddess of foresight and clever stratagems had left to her only truth and love. “Father, please.”

  “My edict stands. One god may not kill another.”

  Athena had nothing to say.

  “Kratos may reach the Arena of Remembrance and face his final challenge. But that will not be the end.”

  Zeus looked grim, his beard crashing with lightning amid the thunderheads. “That, my beloved daughter, will be the beginning. Until then he has much to conquer, not the least challenge being his own nature. If he does—if he does—then I might find him worthy.”

  “Worthy of what, my father?”

  Zeus did not answer.

  NINETEEN

  THE TUNNEL THROUGH the living rock wound about with sudden right-angle turns and eventually opened onto the face of a cliff. Kratos looked up and saw the overhang was such that he had to find ledges and handholds to cross an expanse of rock before going upward.

  A quick glance convinced him that nothing but death awaited him below. He wiped his hands against his thighs once more to remove the last vestige of blood. The wounds he sustained had now clotted over—and more. The deaths of his opponents had renewed his own energy and accelerated healing once again. Since that day when Ares had answered his prayer before the barbarian king, it had been thus. Wounds healed quickly, but the aftermath always wore on him, because, while his body was whole, his spirit never was.

  “SHOW NO MERCY!” he ordered his warriors as they entered the vile village. A shrine devoted to Athena stood at the far end—a shrine that mocked Lord Ares and angered Kratos. Whatever angered the God of War angered his servant.

  Kratos was the first to light a torch and throw it onto a thatched roof. The flames burned brightly in the night but were a guttering candle flame to the anger and bloodlust that boiled within him. The entire village was an affront.

  “Kill them all!” he shouted, then set to using the Blades of Chaos to show his men the proper way of slaying. From one end of the village to the other, he killed without hesitation. The blades swung in a pattern, a deadly arc, that ended the lives of those trying to fight him with scythes and forge hammers—and those who did nothing but beg for his mercy.

  Kratos knew no mercy. And he would show no mercy to the old woman hobbling from the shrine. He shoved her aside. Those within would die by his sword.

  “Beware, Kratos,” she called in her cracked, ancient voice. “The dangers in the temple are greater than you know!”

  He laughed harshly. He was Kratos and feared no one, no thing, especially not the feeble thrusts and blows from the acolytes within. His mighty Blades of Chaos began swinging, slicing, slashing, and killing, until he saw nothing but a red veil of their spilled blood.

  And then there were two more bodies on the floor at his feet, fresh victims of his bloodlust. Kratos stared at them and screamed.

  Ares’s callous voice filled the temple. “You’re becoming all I hoped you’d be, Spartan ….”

  ANGER FILLED HIM ANEW at how Ares had used him so vilely. Kratos took a deep breath and forced back the dark tide threatening to drown him. The visions would be his legacy forever, unless he did as Athena had commanded. The gods would erase his nightmares—his memory—and again he could live in peace with himself. All he needed to do was cross the sheer face of the rocky cliff.

  He stepped out, shoved a sandaled foot into a small crevice, and reached widely for a handhold he spotted barely within reach. His fingertips clamped on the narrow outjut of stone, allowing him to move his other foot and continue across the cliff face. Many times he had scaled mountains to outflank an enemy, so this was not a new challenge for him.

  “By the gods, no!” The words escaped his lips when he saw a bulge of stone ahead begin to swell and take shape. The stone exploded outward as a man-sized, scorpion-tailed creature flowed from the very rock to block his way.

  Drawing the Blades of Chaos required stability he did not have. He jumped, caught at new hand-and footholds, and grabbed for the scorpion thing. Its tail whipped about, but Kratos had a firm grip on its throat and turned its body so that the deadly tail flicked past him harmlessly. He grunted, focusing all his strength on crushing the monster’s armored windpipe. Chitin cracked; the scorpion thing thrashed about wildly, its tail even more menacing now. Kratos jerked away as the tail sang through the air, aimed for his eyes. A droplet of poison that had beaded on the tip of the stinger splashed his forehead and burned like fire. His grip on the creature weakened as the poison trickled down into his eyebrow, searing the hair and threatening to run into his eye.

  Kratos swiped his arm against the poison drop to prevent it from blinding him—but his arm was coated with gore. Blood got into his eye and turned him blind. As he had experienced in battle, the blood dropped a Stygian dark veil across his vision. He blinked furiously to clear it. Blood in his eye was better than permanently blinding poison—but the distinction quickly vanished when he heard talons scraping on rock below him.

  The scorpion monster had fallen a few feet when he released it but was now returning to kill him. And he could not see it.

  He squeezed his eyes shut so hard they turned painful. Then he remembered the two bodies in Athena’s shrine. Anger and tears exploded within, and his vision was crystalline again. The rock scorpion was only a few feet away and approaching, its tail with the poison-laden stinger readied for a killing blow. Kratos made a wild grab, caught the creature by the neck again, and wrenched hard. The tail drove around in an arc over the creature’s head—into the rock, missing Kratos by inches.

  With another loud shout to focus his strength and rage, Kratos brought his fingers together, completely smashing the rock-dwelling monster’s throat. He held it suspended now, away from the rock, and did not have to see clearly to finish it off. It twitched feebly, then all life fled. He dropped it, watching the body rebound repeatedly from the rock face before disappearing far below.

  Kratos wiped the gore from his hand and continued traversing the cliff, blinking hard and recovering his vision. He had gone only a few yards, not even reaching the spot where he might scale the cliff and go straight to the top, when new scraping sounds alerted him to other scorpion things popping from the very rock.

  “Athena, you ask much of me,” he said, trying to speed along the path he had scouted across the stone face. Kratos had barely reached the point where he might climb directly upward when two more of the monsters overtook him, scuttling across the vertical rock as if it were level ground.

  Kratos found a ledge and positioned both feet on it. Still hanging on to a secure handhold, he wrenched a rock free with his right hand and flung it with all his might. The missile sailed true. The nearest scorpion reacted instinctively and lashed out with its curved, deadly tail. This was all the opening Kratos needed to hurl a second rock, which accurately struck the creature in the middle of its head. The tail flew to fend off this new attack—and the sco
rpion monster stung itself.

  Not waiting for the dying creature to fall from the cliff, Kratos threw a third stone, dislodging it. Now he faced only the one. This monster arched its back and showered stony splinters in all directions. Kratos protected his face against the calcified needles and futilely sought another rock. None was to be had. He looked up, charted his way to the top of the cliff, and started climbing, the scorpion directly under him and scuttling along faster than he could hope to scale such featureless rock.

  Just feet from the top of the cliff, Kratos released his grip and fell. He crashed into the scorpion at a spot where all eight of the monster’s legs were occupied with simply hanging on. With a twist, Kratos came about and caught the stinger as it arched out and upward to slice and poison him. A tiny drop of yellowish venom dripped from the tail. His weight was being supported entirely by the huge scorpion, and his drop onto its head had stunned the creature so much that its legs came free one by one.

  Kratos held on to the thrashing tail until he was certain the scorpion thing could not maintain its grip an instant longer. With a vicious twist, he wrenched at the tail and dislodged the monster. At the same instant, he kicked hard against the face of the cliff and sought a handhold.

  The scorpion thing followed its companions to the distant ground—and Kratos hung by the fingertips of one hand on a small, dusty ledge. Bit by bit his fingers slid off. He looked down, not to see where he would fall but to find footholds. Unable to locate any, he kicked as powerfully as he could. Pain lanced up his leg, but his toes chipped away enough of a hold for him to support his weight. His fingers fell away from the ledge, but his feet supported him as he sagged down.

  He stood in his hard-won footholds, then made his way across and upward to reach the top of the cliff. Once there, Kratos dropped to his knees and gave a silent prayer to the gods, though what aid he had received from them was a mystery. He had survived through his own effort and would continue to do so.

  From ahead, through an open portal in the side of the mountain, came crashing sounds—machines running, a rumbling noise that he could not identify. Drawing the Blades of Chaos, he approached the portal and advanced down its tunnel. He stopped beside a conveyor belt that disappeared under a rocky ledge. Kratos swung his blades against the stone, but even the potent magic locked in their metal could not dislodge a pebble. He turned and looked against the direction of the rapidly running conveyor belt and saw what had produced the crashing noise. Huge blocks studded with long spikes collided repeatedly.

  The only way to advance was to run against the direction of the conveyor belt and past the rhythmically opening and closing jaws. Kratos returned the blades to their resting spots on his back, gauged the action of the deadly jaws, and jumped onto the conveyor belt.

  He misjudged the speed and was carried along with it to smash into the rock wall. He screamed in pain and recoiled. While the face of the wall appeared to be ordinary stone, the merest touch drove lances of white-hot pain into his body. Kratos began running, until he canceled the speed of the belt under him and remained in place. Then he exerted more effort and gained against the conveyor belt, coming to the first set of jaws smashing together. Beyond lay several more sets. Once committed to this venture, he had no choice but to plunge ahead, never faltering. The slightest mistake would bring him between those spiked panels, impaling him. If he sank back to the conveyor belt, he would be swept into the wall and receive torture that burned at the very core of his being.

  With such incentive, he put on a burst of speed and successfully raced past the first set of jaws. The Scylla and Charybdis of his passage forced him to concentrate fully on avoiding the crushing jaws and sharp teeth. Only once as he raced forward, checked speed to run in place, and then burst ahead as the jaws opened did he receive any injury. The final gateway did not operate on a pattern but was inspired by Chaos.

  Kratos turned as a slender knife drove through his biceps, holding him in place. Realizing the danger of being restrained, he jerked savagely and left behind a gobbet of bloody muscle so he could race along the conveyor belt toward a stone ledge where he could step off safely. Rather than diminished sounds of machinery, Kratos heard more ahead, along a tunnel opening into a room that convinced him the Architect had been driven mad by the gods.

  Deep double grooves formed a field of squares. Rolling endlessly in those grooves were double-bladed wheels, their edges gleaming knives so sharp that Kratos had to squint as they raced by. To one side of the room, an iron gate blocked the way out, but he saw the key to opening it. A lever protruded from the center of one square. Throw it and the gate would rise. But to get to it would require even more timing and daring than avoiding the slamming jaws along the conveyor belt. The knife wheels never stopped, never rested, would slice him to ribbons if he committed a single misstep.

  With a powerful jump, he vaulted over one wheel and landed safely in the middle of a square. He stood erect as knife wheels raced past him on one side and behind. Kratos judged the periodicity of the wheel in front of him and stepped out just as it passed, achieving a square closer to the lever. Only then did he notice that the frantic pace of the deadly wheels had increased. The closer he got to the lever, the faster they rolled.

  He reached for the Blades of Chaos to destroy any of the wheels in his path, then stopped. Would the Architect guard against such mechanical intrusions? The metal of the wheels carried a silvery sheen unlike anything Kratos had ever seen before. Although the Blades of Chaos were magically forged, and Ares had never warned him how they might be broken, Kratos obeyed his gut instinct that the blades were the wrong weapon to use against the knife wheels. Other weapons were his to command, but he wanted to slay Ares with the Blades of Chaos. Since the God of War had fused them to Kratos’s forearms and he had used them for ten long years to murder in Ares’s name, it was only fitting that the Ghost of Sparta drive the tips through the god’s body and watch him die from his own gifted weapons.

  Kratos abandoned the hilts of the blades and plunged forward, depending on coordination and innate skill to dodge the rolling death wheels.

  He stumbled onto the square holding the lever, regained his balance, and pulled with all his might. The response was all he had hoped for. The metal gate on the far side of the room clattered and clanked open. Kratos took a few seconds to gather his wits and had started to jump past the knife wheels to exit this chamber when he saw the gate slowly descending.

  “You are diabolical,” Kratos said, offering a half dozen inventive curses on the Architect’s head. The lever, once thrown, allowed the gate to remain open only a short while. Twice more Kratos threw the lever and counted off the time to determine how quickly he had to cover half the room crisscrossed by wheeling death scythes. It wasn’t long.

  But it would be long enough.

  Kratos braced himself, threw the lever, and then jumped to the adjoining square. Gathering speed, he hopped to the next and the next, then realized time was dwindling and he still had two more squares to traverse. He put on a burst of speed that allowed one knife wheel to rake along his chest, opening a shallow wound under his ribs. Spinning about and using the impact to add to his speed, he vaulted high over the last wheel denying him exit, somersaulted, and went under the falling gate with only inches—and seconds—to spare.

  Kratos lay on his back, staring up at the low ceiling of the corridor as he regained his strength. With the clanking and clashing of metal against stone at his back, he wended his way through a tunnel until he came out in front of a huge circular doorway. Pressing his eye against the crack in the middle of the stone, he saw an altar outside in the bright desert sun. Even with his most powerful effort, he could not pry open the door from this small crack. He had been given the tantalizing look at where he had to go but not how to open the door.

  Kratos turned and stared down the length of an immense room.

  He ran into the chamber and looked up, knowing he had seen this before. High above he saw the ledges and
walkways where he espied a statue of Atlas holding the world balanced on his mighty shoulders. All his travails had brought Kratos to the floor of what could only be described as a shrine to the Titan. Running forward to a point under a walkway hardly twenty feet over his head, Kratos took in the details and what had to be done.

  Atlas was crushed by the weight of the world. The burden had to be relieved. Kratos went to a crank mounted before the mighty statue and hesitantly pushed against it. The crank moved only a small distance before resistance increased to the point where Kratos had to either stop or commit greater effort. Looking away from the statue to the walkway he had passed under revealed a second lever. Mind racing with possibilities, Kratos came to a swift decision and applied himself to turning the crank.

  Bit by bit it moved. With more effort, he swung it around in a complete circle. With still more exertion, muscles straining and sweat pouring from him as the resistance increased, he brought the crank around a second time. The statue now half-stood with the world on its shoulders. Knowing that he had successfully figured out what had to be done next, Kratos bent his back, got his powerful legs under him, and began moving the crank at a steady rate around and around. With every circuit the world lifted a little higher on Atlas’s shoulders, until the statue was no longer bent double.

  In spite of Kratos’s best effort to turn the crank more, he now met total resistance. He stepped away, looked back at the bridge across the vast shrine and the lever there. Legs pumping, this time speeding him up steps and around to come out onto the walkway, Kratos was on a level with Atlas’s eyes. Though the orbs were chiseled from cold stone, he thought the son of Iapetus and brother of Prometheus and Epimetheus stared at him with relief.

  He applied pressure to the lever on the walkway. This required little effort compared with hoisting the world above Atlas. Kratos recoiled when he saw the statue stand a little taller, then heave the huge globe toward him. With nowhere to run, Kratos awaited death.