God of War Read online

  God of War

  Robert E Vardeman

  Matthew Stover

  God of War

  Robert E. Vardeman

  Matthew Stover

  PROLOGUE

  At the brink of nameless cliffs he stands: a statue in travertine, pale as the clouds above. He can see no colors of life, not the scarlet slashes of his own tattoos, not the putrefying shreds of his wrists where chains were ripped from his flesh. His eyes are as black as the storm-churned Aegean below, set in a face whiter than the foam that boils among the jagged rocks.

  Ashes, only ashes, despair, and the lash of winter rain: These are his wages for ten years’ service to the gods. Ashes and rot and decay, a cold and lonely death.

  His only dream now is of oblivion.

  He has been called the Ghost of Sparta. He has been called the Fist of Ares and the Champion of Athena. He has been called a warrior. A murderer. A monster.

  He is all of these things. And none of them.

  His name is Kratos, and he knows who the real monsters are.

  His arms hang, their vast cords of knotted muscle limp and useless now. His hands bear the hardened callus not only of sword and Spartan javelin but of the Blades of Chaos, the Trident of Poseidon, and even the legendary Thunderbolt of Zeus. These hands have taken more lives than Kratos has taken breaths, but they have no weapon now to hold. These hands will not even flex and curl into fists. All they can feel is the slow trickle of blood and pus that drips from his torn wrists.

  His wrists and forearms are the true symbol of his service to the gods. The ragged strips of flesh flutter in the cruel wind, blackening with rot; even the bone itself bears the scars of the chains that once were fused there: the chains of the Blades of Chaos. Those chains are gone now, ripped from him by the very god who inflicted them upon him. Those chains not only joined him to the blades and the blades to him; those chains were the bonds shackling him to the service of the gods.

  But that service is done. The chains are gone and the blades with them.

  Now he has nothing. Is nothing. Whatever has not abandoned him, he has thrown away.

  No friends-he is feared and hated throughout the known world, and no living creature looks upon him with love or even a hint of affection. No enemies-he has none left to kill. No family And that, even now, is a place in his heart where he dare not look.

  And, finally, the last refuge of the lost and alone, the gods…

  The gods have made a mockery of his life. They took him, molded him, transformed him into a man he can no longer bear to be. Now, at the end, he can no longer even rage.

  “The gods of Olympus have abandoned me.”

  He steps to the final inches of the cliff, his sandals scraping gravel over the crumbling brink. A thousand feet below, dirty rags of cloud twist and braid a net of mist between him and the jagged rocks where the Aegean crashes upon them. A net? He shakes his head.

  A net? Rather, a shroud.

  He has done more than any mortal could. He has accomplished feats the gods themselves could not match. But nothing has erased his pain. The past he cannot flee brings him the agony and madness that are his only companions.

  “Now there is no hope.”

  No hope in this world-but in the next, within the bounds of the mighty Styx that marks the borders of Hades, runs the river Lethe. A draft of that dark water, it is said, erases the memory of the existence a shade has left behind, leaving the spirit to wander forever, without name, without home…

  Without past.

  This dream drives him forward in one final, fatal step, which topples him into clouds that shred around him as he falls. The sea-chewed rocks below materialize, gaining solidity along with size, racing upward to crush his life.

  The impact swallows all he is, all he was, all he has done, and all that’s been done to him, in one shattering burst of night.

  THE GODDESS ATHENA STOOD in full armor before her mirror of burnished bronze, nocked an arrow in her bow, and drew back the string slowly. She watched her every move in the mirror for proper form. Athena raised her right elbow slightly. Any deviation in the proper angle would cause the arrow to go awry. She sought perfection in all things, as befitted the warrior goddess. She held the string back taut, feeling the muscles in her arms and shoulders begin to strain. The sensation buoyed her, made her aware of not only herself but also of everything around her. A half turn, witnessed in the mirror, a small correction to her form, and she aimed the arrow across her chambers at a huge tapestry showing the Fall of Troy. The arrow slipped from her fingers and flew straight and true to sink into the threaded figure that was Paris.

  What a flawed hero, she mused. She had not made such a poor choice. She had risked much because the fate of Olympus hung in the balance when her brother Ares had flown out of control. Did Kratos experience such a moment of hesitation, just before the arrow flew from his bow? Doubt? Sureness? Uncharacteristically, she felt a stab of panic. Had all her machinations been for naught, gaining his services from Ares in an all-too-clever ploy?

  A small puff of air sent her spinning about, another arrow fitted to bowstring, then drawn back until the golden bow moaned with the strain. She considered her actions, then slowly eased her pull on the string, the arrow unflown.

  Lounging half naked on her couch of wine-red cloud, without the slightest bit of shame, lay a stunningly beautiful youth. His wickedly charming smile was not at all dented by having the arrow of Athena pointed at his forehead. “Lovely to see you,” he said. “Celebrating your victory, are you? You know what would make this occasion really special? Shed that perpetual virginity of yours. Don’t look so solemn. Don’t be so solemn. Let’s explore untrammeled territory. I am quite a good explorer and can show you the way down unfamiliar paths.”

  “Hermes,” she said through her teeth. “Have I not warned you about spying on me in my chambers?”

  “I’m certain you have,” the Messenger of the Gods said indolently. He rubbed his bare back along the couch, wiggling sinuously with pleasure. “Ah, wonderful. I had such an itch. In fact, dear sister, there is another itch I have-one that you can help me with, which is only fair, since you’re its inspiration.”

  “Am I?” Athena’s face might have been carved of marble. “Shall I scratch your itch with my sword?” The bow in her grip vanished, replaced by a wicked razor-edged sword.

  Hermes let himself sink back in the couch. He laced his fingers behind his head and spoke soulfully to the skies about Olympus. “Forever gazing upon what I cannot touch.” He sighed. “Such cruel fates should be reserved for mortals.”

  Athena had learned from centuries of experience that Hermes was so intoxicated with his own charms that, when he started flirting, the only way to deflect him was to change the subject. She used her sword to point at his sandals. “You’re wearing your wings. Is this an official message?”

  “Official? Oh, no, no, Zeus is off doing… something.” He smiled wickedly. “Very likely someone. Another mortal girl, I’m sure. The Fates alone know. Really, I can’t guess what he sees in mortal women, when any normal god would sacrifice an immortal private body part or two just for a chance to slip one past Hera’s girdle-”

  “The message,” Athena said. “Your excuse for invading my chambers?”

  “Oh, there is a message.” He produced his caduceus and waved it at her. “Really. See? I have the wand.”

  “Your beauty lends you the impression of charm. Your behavior dispels it.”

  “Oh, I suppose that was wit. It was, wasn’t it? I ask, beloved virgin of war, because otherwise there’d be no way to tell.”

  “Then let me reply with a question of my own. Is the message you bring of such import that I shouldn’t have you ki
lled for aggravating me?”

  “Oh, please. The word of our father forbids any god to slay another…” His voice trailed off as he found something entirely uncomfortable in her chilly gray stare. “Athena, my dear sister, you know, I’m perfectly harmless, really.”

  “That’s what I keep telling myself. So far.”

  “I was only trying to have a little fun. Just the tiniest amount. A bit of banter with my favorite sister. Cheer you up, yes? Take your mind off… well, you know.”

  “I do know. And you shouldn’t forget it either.” She glanced past Hermes to a dressing table, where lay a circlet of gold studded with precious gems. Yet another trinket made for a sacrificial offering to her by some ambitious craftsman in the city that bore her name. It was quite fine, for the work of a mortal. She supposed that she should probably answer his prayer-and she would have, if she had bothered to remember his name. Her preoccupation with Ares had taken her thoughts away from those mortals who so relied on her even as they died. That must change soon, to repair more than sundered buildings.

  “And, I, uh, I do apologize for the spying. Of all the Olympian goddesses, you are truly the most beautiful. Your form was elegant-nay, perfect with the bow curved back and the string taut. It was a sight to behold. Any foe would quake, just as an ally would rally to your cause.” Hermes rose from the couch, stretching his muscles in a fashion calculated to emphasize his lithe, youthful physique. “But you must admit, of the gods, I myself am the most handsome.”

  “If you were half as handsome as you think you are, you would indeed outshine the sun.”

  “You see? None can compare with me-”

  “I’d like to hear you say so in front of Apollo.”

  Hermes tossed his head haughtily. “Oh, certainly he’s pretty enough-but he’s such a bore!”

  “The next words from your lips had best concern your message.” She leaned toward him and poked him lightly on the chest with the point of her sword. “You have lately seen, I believe, the consequences of making me angry.”

  The Messenger of the Gods looked down at the blade against his ribs, then back up at the war goddess’s unwavering gray eyes. He drew himself up, adjusted his chlamys with exaggerated dignity, and said in a clarion voice, “It’s your pet mortal.”

  “Kratos?” She frowned. Zeus had said he himself would be looking after Kratos until after the memorial. “What of him?”

  “Well, I thought you might like to know, in view of all the aid he has given you and the concern you occasionally feel for him-”

  “Hermes.”

  He flinched, just a bit. “Yes, yes. Here: Witness.”

  He lifted the caduceus and pointed. In the air between them, an image built of a mountain, tall beyond imagining, and a cliff, impossibly sheer, impossibly far above the Aegean’s watery surge. On the edge of that cliff, Kratos paused and seemed to speak, though no one was there to hear.

  “Your pet has chosen a perilous path to tread. This one will take him to Hades.”

  Athena felt herself go pale. “He takes his own life?”

  “So it appears.”

  “He can’t!” The disobedient mortal! And where was Zeus? Not looking after Kratos, obviously-or had he, she now wondered, said he would be looking upon the Spartan? Which would be an entirely different thing.

  As her mind raced, sorting through all the possibilities and improbabilities, the Kratos in the image leaned forward and lifted a foot as though to step from the cliff into empty air… then he fell. Simply fell.

  No struggle. No scream. No cry for help. He plunged headfirst toward his death on the rocks below, and on his face was only calm.

  “You didn’t see this coming?” Hermes smirked. “Aren’t you supposed to be the Goddess of Foresight?”

  When she turned her level stare upon him, he smothered that smirk with a cough. “When next we meet,” she said, low and deadly, “I will share what I foresee for you.”

  “I, uh… was only teasing.” He swallowed hard. “Only teasing…”

  “And that is why I haven’t found it necessary to hurt you. Yet.” Her sword cut the air in front of Hermes’s nose. To his credit he did not flinch. Much.

  She gathered herself, and with a twitch of will she burst from the chamber, leaving Hermes gaping owlishly behind her. At the speed of thought, Athena descended from Mount Olympus to the rain-lashed cliffs. She arrived as Kratos hurtled into the ragged clouds below.

  The messenger had had the right of it. She’d had no inkling that suicide would be the end of Kratos’s story. How could she have been so blind? How could Zeus have let this happen?

  More important: How could Kratos be so disobedient?

  The Grave of Ships, she thought. That’s where Kratos’s fall had really begun. It had to be. The Grave of Ships in the Aegean Sea…

  ONE

  THE ENTIRE SHIP GROANED and shuddered, lurching upward into the fierce winter squall as though it had struck unexpected shoals here in the Aegean’s deepest reach. Kratos threw his arms around the statue of Athena at the prow of his battered ship, lips peeling from his teeth in an animal snarl. Above, on the mainmast, the last of the ship’s square sails boomed and cracked in the gale like the detonation of a nearby thunderbolt. A huge flock of filthy, emaciated creatures like hideous women with the wings of bats swooped and wheeled above the mast, screaming rage and lust for the blood of men.

  “Harpies,” Kratos growled. He hated harpies.

  A pair of the winged monsters shrieked above the wind’s howl as they dove to slash at the sail with their blood-crusted talons. The sail boomed once more, then it finally shredded, whipping over the deck and slapping the harpies from the air. One vanished into the spray of the storm; the other managed to right herself by tangling viciously sharp talons into the hair of an oarsman. She dragged the unfortunate sailor screaming and flailing into the sky, twisting to sink her fangs into his neck and feast upon his blood, which spewed downward in a gory shower.

  The harpy saw Kratos watching and screamed her eternal rage. She ripped away the sailor’s head and hurled it at Kratos; when he slapped this grisly missile away with a contemptuous backhand, she flung the sailor’s body with enough force to kill an ordinary man.

  Her target, however, was nothing resembling ordinary.

  Kratos slipped aside and snatched the decapitated sailor’s rope belt as the corpse plummeted. A savage yank snapped the rope and sent the corpse over the rail into the churning sea. Kratos measured the dive of the harpy as she swooped on him like a falcon, knifelike talons extended to rip out his eyes.

  Kratos reached back over his shoulders instinctively, his hands seeking the twin enormous, wickedly curved, and preternaturally sharp chopping swords that nestled against his back: His signature weapons, the Blades of Chaos, had been forged by the smith god Hephaestus in the furnaces of Hades itself. Chains from their hafts looped about his wrists and burned through his flesh until they fused with his very bones-but at the last instant he left the twin weapons where they were.

  A harpy wasn’t worth drawing on.

  He cracked the slain sailor’s belt like a whip. It spun out to meet the harpy’s dive and looped around her neck. He leaped from the statue to the deck below, his sudden weight wrenching the creature from the sky. He pinned her to the deck with one sandal while he hauled upward on the rope with a fraction of his full strength. That fraction was enough: The harpy’s head tore free of her body and flipped into the air.

  He snatched the head with his free hand, shook it at the wheeling, screeching flock above, and roared, “Come down here again! See what you get!”

  He punctuated his challenge by hurling the severed head at the nearest of the harpies with deadly accuracy and incredible force. It struck her full in the face, cutting off her screech like the blow of an ax. She flipped ass over fangs as she tumbled from the sky to crash into the storm churn, three spans off the port sweeps.

  Kratos only glowered. Killing those vile creatures wasn’t even f
un.

  No challenge.

  Kratos’s glower deepened as the storm gave him a glimpse of the merchantman he’d been pursuing. The big ship still had two sails up and was pulling away, running before the wind. Another instant showed him why his ship was falling behind. His oarsmen were cowering in fear of the harpies, pressing themselves into whatever space they might find below their benches or shielded by the thicket of oars. With a wordless snarl, Kratos seized a panicked oarsman by the scruff of his neck and, one-handed, lifted the man up over his head.

  “The only monster you should fear is me!” A quick, effortless snap of his wrist cast the coward into the waves. “Now row!”

  The surviving crew applied themselves to their oars with frantic energy. The only thing Kratos hated more than harpies was a coward. “And you!” He shook a massive fist at the steersman. “If I have to come back there to steer, I’ll feed you to the harpies!

  “Do you have the ship in sight?” His bull-throated roar caused the steersman to cringe. “Do you?”

  “A quarter league off the starboard bow,” the steersman called. “But he still has sail! We’ll never catch him!”

  “We’ll catch him.”

  Kratos had pursued the merchant ship for days. The other captain was a shrewd and able sailor. He’d tried every trick Kratos knew, and even a few new ones, but with every passing day, Kratos’s sleek galley had herded the merchantman ineluctably toward the one hazard no vessel could survive: the Grave of Ships.

  Kratos knew his quarry had to come about. To enter that cursed strait was the last mistake any captain would ever make.

  Ahead, looming like jagged rocks amid the narrow strait, lay shattered hulks of ships beyond number that had, through misfortune or miscalculation, found their way into the grave. No one knew how many there might be-hundreds, perhaps, or thousands, listing in the tides and the treacherous crosscurrents, grinding their hulls against one another until finally they either broke apart into splintered flotsam or took on enough water to sink. But even that was not the end of their hazard. So many wrecks rested on the seabed below that they had built themselves nearly back up to the Aegean’s surface in artificial reefs, waiting to rip out the hull of any unlucky ship above. These reefs could never be mapped, for no ship that entered the grave ever left it. So many sailors had perished here that the sea itself had taken on a foul reek of rotting meat.