God of War

by Robert E. Vardeman

  “You going to heave me overboard, Cap’n? Don’t think I got the strength left to fight the tiller.” The steersman sagged under the strain of holding the ship on a steady course in the fierce gale.

  “Only if you fail.”

  The tiller bucked like a thing alive, lifting the man off his feet. He clung fiercely to it, struggling for purchase. Kratos lent his strength to the task. The pair of them forced the rudder straight. Timbers creaked, and for a time Kratos thought the ship would tear itself apart.

  When Zeus began sending his bolts dancing across the sky, Kratos saw gauzy lights of many colors sizzling on the spars, working up and down the mast and across the canvas, and he knew he had been given a reprieve. Athena protected him and the ship against the worst of the weather. The small globes of burning fire that did not sear were her message to him.

  After what seemed to stretch to an eternity, the ship cleared the last of the hulks in the Grave of Ships and skated across open sea.

  The wind remained steady, but the rain died away. Arms aching, back feeling as if it had been broken, Kratos sank to the deck.

  “The sun, Captain Kratos, the sun’s shining!”

  “Praise Apollo,” Kratos said. “Praise Athena.” He felt that at least three of the gods dwelling on Mount Olympus favored him now. Poseidon had thanked him and given him special powers-and had not claimed the ship and crew for his own watery realm. For the first time since boarding this ship, Kratos knew that he would once more step onto solid land. When he did so next, it would be in service to the goddess Athena.

  “Steady course,” Kratos ordered.

  “Even if I have to lash myself to the rudder, a straight course it’ll be, Capt’n,” the steersman declared. “I have a yearning for the countryside once more. The sooner we put into harbor, the sooner I can roll in the tall grass.”

  Kratos left the man and once more descended to Lora and Zora’s cabin. He went into the cabin and closed the door behind him.

  “Master,” they both cried.

  He was tired to the point of exhaustion, but he could only gape at the pair.

  “You disobeyed me,” he said. “You did not find suitable clothing.” Both wore only tunics and no skirts or pants.

  “We must make amends then, master,” they said. “Will you punish us? Please?”

  Though he did not find much rest in the bed he shared with the twins, the journey to the Harbor of Zea proved pleasant; their tender ministrations helped keep his nightmares at bay. But a full day before the great city topped the horizon, a vast column of black and swirling smoke warned him of the danger ahead.

  Athens was in flames.

  SIX

  KRATOS STOOD in the tall tower that commanded the walls above Piraeus. From here he could see the great Long Walls that connected the port to the city of Athens, more than three miles inland. Though, as a Spartan, he considered Athenians to be weak, cowardly, and generally worthless, this day he had to give them a certain grudging respect. With only citizen soldiers to hold them, these twinned great walls still stood mostly intact. An impressive achievement, that, even against a conventional army.

  Against Ares’s hordes of harpies, undead legionnaires, Cyclopes, and who knew what other monstrosities scraped from the underside of Hades, the Athenians’ ability to so far hold the walls was astonishing-something Kratos would not have believed if he had not seen it with his own eyes.

  “It is said that the God of War, Ares himself, takes the field against us,” said the exhausted, hollow-eyed captain of the tower guard. “Ghost of Sparta, is it so?”

  Kratos ignored him. The last thing he needed was to give these pathetic part-time soldiers an excuse to run away. His mind was on something else that he would not have believed unless he had seen it with his own eyes; he turned to cast his gaze seaward, in hopes of catching a last glimpse of the sails of his onetime ship vanishing over the horizon.

  Coeus and many of the others had proven their worth to him. Having them beside him, for only a brief instant, would not change the outcome of this battle, but it would afford the ship’s new captain and crew the chance to die nobly in battle. Sailing off as they did only postponed their deaths.

  Unless Ares was stopped at the walls of Athens.

  And as Kratos had slipped away from the ship in the dark predawn hours, the statue of Athena at the prow spoke to him once more-to remind him that the death of Ares would earn him forgiveness for his crimes. As if he needed reminding. Athena also spoke to him of her oracle in Athens; the Oracle would tell him how to defeat the God of War.

  He brought his attention once more to the battle for Athens. Ares’s legions were arrayed mainly against the city itself-and not uniformly either. For some reason Kratos could not fathom, the creatures seemed to avoid the groves and grottoes that dotted the countryside around the city. Kratos shook his head, uncomprehending-putting those groves to the torch would have made more sense-but the God of War had never been known for his keen tactical mind.

  Unlike Athena, who was legendary for the subtlety of her battle plans, Ares preferred to simply drive his armies forward in great waves, a rising tide of death, until they finally smashed through his enemies’ defenses and slaughtered every living creature in their path.

  Kratos knew this too well. For many years, he had been the one pushing the armies onward in great bloody battering rams of human flesh. For many years, he had laughed like a blood-drunk monster as his men put whole nations to the torch. And he would have been doing it still, were it not for that one little village… that one humble shrine to Athena… and those who sheltered within it.

  Kratos shook himself free of the memories. Like quicksand, the madness that lurked always beneath the surface of his mind threatened to suck him down and drown him in an unrelenting nightmare.

  His assessment of the tactical situation was unsentimental. Only a trickle of carts still crept up the wide road between the Long Walls. From what he’d seen in Piraeus, most of the draft animals had been already slaughtered for meat. No ships entered the harbor with fresh supplies; out past the breakwater, dozens of burning hulks sent the smoke of dead sailors toward the skies and formed a persuasive warning against daring the waters within. From the red-lit pall of smoke roiling upward from the city, Kratos guessed that Ares’s creatures had found a way to hurl Greek fire over the walls-or, perhaps, simply had their harpies carry the smoldering pots and cast them to the ground from above.

  Once Ares’s legions breached the Long Walls, any hope of reinforcement or resupply would be lost-and, worse, those legions would have a wide paved road upon which to march against the weakest point in the defenses of the city in the hills above.

  His army would march quickly and slaughter all as it went. Athens would fall, without doubt. To Kratos’s practiced eye, it looked as if the city might not stand until morning.

  “Athena has not abandoned us.” The captain sounded as if he was trying to convince himself. “The gray-eyed goddess will break these armies-she would never allow her city to fall!”

  “Hold fast to whatever courage you have,” Kratos said darkly. “Athena has heard your prayer.”

  “She-” The captain sounded breathless with sudden hope. “What help? When will her aid arrive?”

  “Today this Spartan is your Athena-sent ally,” Kratos said, and vaulted through the tower’s window, landing cat-footed on the wall below. Another leap took him to the road.

  He fell into the ground-devouring stride he had used in the field so many times to move his soldiers into position. The Long Walls cast a cool shadow across the road. From atop them, archers fired endless volleys of arrows. Kratos had no need to see their targets; he heard them. Growls, snorts, animal noises-screeches and roars that could come from no human throat.

  Kratos ran on. He saw no reason to waste time fighting for these walls, when any fool could see they’d not stand another day.

  An Athenian archer, falling from one wall, crashed to the roadway a few yards ahe
ad of Kratos. The man had a great spear sticking all the way through him, and his face had been ripped away by harpy claws, but as he hit the roadway with crushing force, he still held his bow high, protecting his weapon with the last of his strength. Kratos approved of this-the man was nearly as disciplined as a Spartan. Well, a very young Spartan. One not yet fully trained. Nonetheless, Kratos went to him, knelt, and heard the gurgle of the Athenian’s last words.

  “Take my bow. Defend the city!” was all the archer grated out before his spirit left to meet Charon on the bank of the Styx.

  Kratos pried the bow loose from the corpse’s clutches and dislodged the quiver with a dozen arrows still in it. While he preferred the Blades of Chaos or his own bare fists, Kratos was a master of all weapons. He tested the draw on the bow and let the string twang without sending an arrow on its way. The archer had been a strong man, and this weapon might prove useful.

  As though summoned by his thought, shrill cries of panic came from the civilians who drove the carts ahead. Panic became agony as a whole section of the wall bowed inward, raining loose stones and falling archers. In an instant, a dozen feet of the wall had collapsed.

  Without conscious thought, Kratos nocked an arrow and let it fly. His shaft flew straight to the undead legionnaire forcing its way through the breach in the wall. The arrow pinned the legionnaire’s head to the part of the wall still standing. Two more undead legionnaires outfitted in bronze armor forced their way past, only to meet the same fate with an arrow apiece. The arrows didn’t destroy the creatures, but pinning them to the wall like a rabbit on a spit held them in place so that even Athenians could dismember them.

  “Flee,” he growled at the screaming civilians. “You’re in my way.”

  Without hesitation Kratos stepped into the breach, firing as he went. Six more arrows flew straight and true, pinning legionnaires to one another, but the undead behind them simply clawed them to pieces and kept coming. Three more arrows dispatched another five or six of them. As two more crowded through, brandishing swords, he reached for another arrow, only to find the quiver empty.

  He cast the bow aside; without arrows, it was as useless as a eunuch.

  The two rotting monstrosities crowding in upon him did not deserve the honor of destruction by the Blades of Chaos. Kratos simply stepped forward to meet them and drove his fists into and through their putrefying chests. His hands closed around their spines, and he shook them as though shaking filth from his hands, ripping their backbones free. As these two legionnaires collapsed, Kratos whipped their spines like flails, dispatching their fellows one after another. The archers to either side of the breach joined in, raining shaft after shaft into the monsters below.

  The chains on Kratos’s forearms heated up as creatures crushed in upon him. He drew the Blades of Chaos and swung them in front of his body to protect against spear thrusts. The chains burned like fire in his bones.

  The blades sliced through undead flesh and littered the rubble of the wall with dismembered monsters. His twin swords flashed in fiery wheels around him, driving Ares’s creatures back out through the breach-but the undead legionnaires had drawn back only to allow a Cyclops to advance.

  The one-eyed monster lumbered up, three times Kratos’s height and more than ten times his weight. The creature came swinging an iron-studded club so large that an ordinary man might be felled by the wind of a near miss.

  The Cyclops rushed forward, eager to slay or die in the attempt. It wielded the massive club as if it were only a willow wand. Raising it high above its head in a double-handed grip, the Cyclops slammed the club straight down at the top of Kratos’s head, as though trying to drive the Spartan into the ground like a fence post.

  Kratos intercepted the blow with the Blades of Chaos crossed overhead. The impact drove Kratos to his knees. Briefly. An instant later, he powered himself back to his feet and sliced the blades together like pruning shears around the weapon’s haft.

  The end of the club exploded away like a rock from a sling.

  The Cyclops let out a roar of pure disbelief. Kratos dug his toes into the scree of broken wall around him, found purchase, and hurled himself at the monster. He drove hard, ducked beneath the Cyclops’s clumsy attempt to grapple, then stabbed upward with both blades, carving into its bulging belly.

  The Cyclops screamed. Horribly.

  Kratos twisted the blades and sliced them back within the wounds. When he finally pulled them free, they drew out entrails with them. Ducking another wild grab, Kratos dived forward to roll between the monster’s legs. Behind the Cyclops, he spun and stared up the broad, hairy back. He jumped, grabbing hold of the Cyclops’s leather harness straps for support and digging his toes into the creature’s flesh for traction. The Cyclops screeched and thrashed about, trying to dislodge Kratos from its vulnerable back. The Ghost of Sparta kept climbing, even when the Cyclops began spinning about. Reaching the monster’s neck, Kratos grabbed hold of greasy hair and reached about to repeatedly smash the hilt of a blade into the Cyclops’s face. When he hit the lone orb, the Cyclops went berserk.

  Kratos succeeded in grabbing the nose and finding the bulging, damaged eye. He plucked it out, viscous fluid squirting through his fingers. The Cyclops had been frantic before. Now it threw its arms high in the air, tipped its head to the sky, and roared in rage at the gods. This was Kratos’s only chance to make a clean kill. As the Cyclops tilted back, Kratos struck. Feet on the creature’s shoulders, he lifted the Blades of Chaos high over his head and drove the twin swords directly downward into the gaping eye socket.

  Little by little, the Cyclops’s powerful struggles weakened until it dropped to its knees, blood spurting from its sundered eye cavity. The Cyclops fell facedown on the ground. Only when he was sure the monster was dead did Kratos jump away from the broad back and shake blood free from his blades.

  Above him on the wall, the Athenian soldiers stood stock-still, staring in openmouthed disbelief. Then one soldier let out a wild cheer. It was picked up by the others along the length of the Long Walls. “Death to the monsters!”

  A full company of undead legionnaires scrambled toward Kratos, but a feathered shower of deadly shafts chopped them to bits. Again a cheer rose along the wall.

  Kratos had begun edging for the hole in the wall when he saw what now moved to face him-wraiths, emaciated monsters whose bony arms ended in wickedly sharp blades. From the waist down, their bodies were nothing more than swirling black smoke. They floated toward him with deceptive ease, then surged forward to attack. Barely did Kratos have time to unleash the Blades of Chaos to defend himself. The wraiths coordinated their attack perfectly, circling him and attacking first from the left, then the right.

  Arrows from above did nothing to drive back these creatures. Shafts passed completely, harmlessly, through them, as though their bodies were no more than smoke.

  With a blinding flourish of his Hades-forged weapons, Kratos lopped off one bladed hand, but the other wraiths pressed in around him. He defended himself ably as he backed into the breach; the best way to face these creatures was one at a time.

  “By the gods, we will stop them!” A squad of swordsmen rushed to Kratos’s assistance, banging their weapons against bronze shields. Their courage far outstripped their skill, but they could take some pressure off him, even against the wraiths.

  “Close the gap,” Kratos shouted, engaging a bladed hand before deftly cutting it from the skeletal wrist. “You cannot defend this breach for long.” And wraiths were starting to hack away at the ragged edges of the wall to make a larger hole. If it got much larger, the Athenians couldn’t hold it at all-and Kratos didn’t want to have to guard his own back as he ran for the city.

  “I don’t recognize you,” said a young soldier, coming up behind. “Why aren’t you in armor?”

  “Send for engineers, fool!” Kratos snarled. “If the monsters take this breach, Athens’s belly lies exposed!”

  The young warrior began barking orders, and the other
Athenians seemed relieved to have someone tell them what to do. The soldiers nearest forced their way into the breach, making a wall of their shields and their own bodies to keep back the Hades-spawned hordes. Others dragged heavy timbers, rubble, and anything at all they could use as a barricade to pile at the hole, but to Kratos it was clear this was futile. The pressure against a handful of men was too great, and no permanent repair could be made with wraiths and legionnaires constantly hacking to enlarge the gap.

  The last of the Athenians at the breach fell to undead archers. A half dozen burst through, unleashing fire arrows wildly in all directions; each one that struck true exploded in a burst of flame and took an Athenian life. Kratos unleashed the Blades of Chaos once more and took out two of the skeletal creatures before they could create more havoc along the aerial walkways. The rest of the undead archers concentrated their fire on the fresh soldiers racing to plug the hole. They were devastatingly effective. By the time Kratos had killed the archers at the gap, the wraiths beyond had widened the hole enough for another Cyclops to barrel through.

  Kratos plunged forward to meet the monster’s charge. Using his preternatural strength, he lifted the Cyclops from its feet and drove it back through the breach, into the wraiths and undead legionnaires outside. The Cyclops cleared its way with a few swings of its immense club, knocking undead to pieces and sending wraiths flipping through the air, then strode forward to again vie with Kratos. New legionnaires pushed forward to continue chipping away at the wall, widening the breach with each blow.

  Kratos judged his distance, then launched a long thrust with both blades. He slashed the Cyclops’s throat on either side, then pulled back hard, hooking the curves of the blades behind the creature’s neck. As the blades ripped free, the Cyclops’s head flipped from its shoulders, bounced on the ground, and rolled past Kratos’s feet. A fountain of blood shot skyward from the creature’s neck, and Kratos lifted his face to the scarlet shower as though it were cool spring rain. He plucked the unseeing eye out and held it high over his head, then heaved it in defiance at Ares’s advancing minions.