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  They beat at the air with their wings, wrenching the woman from the ground. Powerful claws sank into the Oracle’s shoulders. The harpies screeched with evil glee and took wing, the Oracle dangling from their punishing talons.

  “Kratos!” she called, her voice going faint from despair. “Kratos, save me!”

  Kratos leaped with all his might, but another harpy had timed his spring and slammed down onto his back like a falcon taking a rabbit. He spun with a snarl, and a single cut with the Blades of Chaos took one wing and the top of its head. Not yet understanding it had been mortally wounded, the screeching monster raked at him furiously with her claws. A second flurry from the blades sent those claws to the temple floor, lacking the arms to which they had been attached.

  But even that single second of distraction had proven too costly.

  Before he could gather himself to spring again, the harpies carrying the Oracle flapped powerfully and disappeared through the hole blasted in the temple roof, and all their sisters followed. Kratos watched helplessly as the creatures and their prey disappeared into the murky clouds of night.

  Alone in the temple, Kratos turned to the blank-faced statue of Athena and spread his hands.

  He did not pray to the gods, he cursed them. Then he formed a plan to rescue the Oracle.

  THIRTEEN

  INSPIRATION FROM THE GODDESS did not appear to be forthcoming. Kratos would have to come up with a plan of his own. As usual.

  He peered through the smoldering gap in the temple ceiling, trying to catch sight of the harpies and the Oracle. No luck.

  He ran outside and circled the temple, thinking furiously. How could he rescue the holy woman if he did find her aloft? Zeus’s Thunderbolt would fry the Oracle along with the harpies. Medusa’s Gaze might work, but using it would involve being in a position to catch the Oracle as she fell. The probability that she might be falling attached to a pair of solid stone harpies-or that she might be turned to stone herself-did not increase the plan’s attraction. To use Poseidon’s Rage, he’d have to practically catch the fleeing she-raptors with his own hands-and if he got his hands on them, he’d hardly need magic to do what needed to be done.

  A bow, he thought, wistfully remembering the fine strong bow he’d been given by the dying Athenian at the gap in the Long Wall. A bow and two arrows.

  Two would be all he’d need, to injure, to weaken, to shoot from the sky.

  Desperately searching the sky, he was slow to register a scraping sound at the side of the temple. Kratos rounded the side of the building and saw a freshly dug grave. He drew back as a flurry of dirt sailed from the hole. He advanced cautiously, unsure what was happening. When a hand appeared over the rocky edge, Kratos spun and drew the Blades of Chaos, instantly ready for a fight. Grunting, mumbling to himself, an elderly man in ragged, filthy clothing dragged his withered carcass up to the grave’s edge. He blinked at Kratos with age-dimmed eyes, then tossed a shovel onto the ground near the pile of dirt and placed his hands flat, trying to pull himself out. He failed.

  “You gonna help an old man or just stand there gawking?”

  Kratos could only stare. How could any mortal-let alone an ancient man-have dug a grave in such rocky ground?

  “Come on,” the old man snapped. “What, the Ghost of Sparta is afraid of me? Can’t you see I’m older than the dust from a Titan’s beard?”

  Kratos released the blades and took the man’s hand. The old fellow seemed not to weigh anything at all. “You know me?”

  “Of course I do. You have the blades, the skin as pale as the moon! You are the one, indeed. Perhaps Athens will survive, at that!” The gravedigger laughed. “But be careful. Don’t want you dying before I’m done with this grave.”

  “A grave, in the middle of a battle? Who will occupy it, old man?”

  “You will, my son!” The gravedigger looked Kratos over, from his sandals to the top of his shaved head. “Oh, I’ve got a lot of digging to do, indeed. All will be revealed in good time. And when all appears to be lost, Kratos, I will be there to help.”

  “The Oracle,” Kratos said. “Have you seen her? She was taken by harpies.”

  “Oh, sure enough, I saw her.” The gravedigger picked up his shovel and stabbed its blade into the earth beside the grave with surprising energy. “Many a thing I could tell you ’bout her, if I had half a mind,” he said.

  If the desiccated old coot did have half a mind, this conversation would already be over. “All I need to know is where they’re taking her.”

  The ancient gravedigger turned toward the Ghost of Sparta, and all suggestion of senility drained from his voice. His eyes burned with the fires of Athens below.

  “Well, where d’you think harpies’d be takin’ her?” the old man said scornfully. “Don’t you know the first thing about harpies?”

  “I know how to kill them.”

  “That’s the last thing about harpies, boy! First thing is, they like to eat where they kill. Second thing is… they roost up high!”

  The ancient gravedigger threw back his head, laughing while Kratos stared, anger growing. Then the old man fell silent, turned, and looked upward to the sundered temple roof. Kratos heard the screech of a harpy and the scream of a woman in pain…

  Blades found his hands, and Kratos charged back in to the temple. His sandal slipped on a pool of blood and he skidded across the floor, one knee sliding through gore on the cold marble. High above the temple floor, only a level or two below the topmost reach of the temple, the harpies appeared to be having some kind of disagreement-as though one of them wanted to carry the Oracle off to some secure dining area, where they could enjoy themselves without the fear of being rudely interrupted by the Blades of Chaos, while the other seemed to have decided to forgo the formalities and just eat the Oracle here.

  The Oracle fought back with all her human strength and will, hammering at the monsters with her fists and prying at the powerful talons sunk into her shoulders. As the harpies fought back and forth, the Oracle’s blood trailed down her breasts and flanks and dripped from the ends of her toes. Her struggles began to weaken.

  Kratos dropped the blades and let them return to their sheaths on his back. His only weapon effective at this range was the thunderbolt, which would fry all three of them when it hit… unless he missed. It seemed unlikely. On the other hand, it might be worth his trouble to just go ahead and miss after all-but in a useful fashion.

  Again he gathered solid lightning in his right hand, and he cast the bolt a span or two high, close enough that it startled both harpies, then struck the balcony just above them. The thunderbolt blasted out huge chunks of white marble that slammed down into the harpies, who seemingly decided that this particular meal was turning out to be more dangerous than they’d anticipated. They stifled their squabble, let go of the Oracle, and beat their wings as hard as they could, angling for cover. A swift appraisal of the rate of the Oracle’s fall told Kratos he had time for one last shot-and lightning from below blew both harpies into smoking gobbets of flesh.

  Kratos sprinted toward the spot where the Oracle would strike the temple floor, trusting to save her. But she didn’t land.

  “Help me!” The Oracle hung from a hawser dangling from a crane affixed to the temple’s roof. Ares’s barrage of Greek fire, or perhaps Kratos’s own lightning, had broken something loose; the Oracle clung for her life hundreds of feet above the temple courtyard. Worse, the hawser swung erratically and threatened to send her over the side of the mountain-down past that sheer cliff. Kratos knew, if she fell that way, all his strength would count for nothing.

  He scanned the temple courtyard for any way to get close to her. He saw a structure of rickety timbers that might allow him to cross an upper tier.

  “Kratos, save me! You must hurry!” she screamed from high above. This rescue needed to be accomplished now.

  He reversed the Blades of Chaos to an underhand, dagger-style grip, then leaped as high as his mighty thighs could propel him up the
legs of the marble statue. The same qualities of workability that made marble the choice for statues now made it the choice for a ladder.

  With strike after strike, the Blades of Chaos chopped into the marble, driving deep enough that Kratos could use them as pitons to haul himself ever higher. When he withdrew the blades to chop again, the chipped-out gaps left by the blades made admirable footholds. In this fashion, he scaled the vast statue, reaching the goddess’s serving tray in only seconds.

  “Kratos! I can’t hold on!”

  “You won’t have to,” Kratos said, as he took three steps for momentum, then hurled himself through the air from the very edge of the tray.

  He stretched out, and out, and at the last instant the hawser swung back toward him. He struck the Oracle with his shoulder as though tackling an opponent in a pankraton free-for-all. This broke her grip on the hawser and let them fall free…

  With one arm around the Oracle’s slim waist, he grabbed at another rope with his free hand. His fingers touched the rough rope, closed-and for a moment he thought they were safe. Then the rope began playing out over a pulley above.

  Kratos grunted, twisted, and snapped the rope hard, sending a shock upward that dislodged the rope from the pulley. The fall stopped suddenly as the rope fouled on a hook, and Kratos and the Oracle swung back and forth like a pendulum. Loosening his grip, Kratos slid down the static rope to stand on the temple floor once more. He released the Oracle, who looked at him intently.

  “Kratos! As Athena herself has foretold. But you are late-perhaps too late to save Athens.” She moved closer until her face was only inches from his. She reached up and took his head in her hands, one palm pressed warmly into each of his temples. Kratos tried to pull away, but her grip was surprisingly strong-and his strength surprisingly lacking.

  “Or is it Athens you have come to save…?”

  Kratos cried out, “No! I-” He jerked to free himself, screwing shut his eyes and trying to step backward-but it was too late. Her power spread irresistibly through his mind.

  Needles danced across his brain, pricking ever faster and causing discomfort that built into abject pain. His head felt as if it would explode at any instant-and when he opened his eyes he was elsewhere.

  HE SAT ASTRIDE A HORSE, a sword gripped in his hand and held high over his head, exhorting his troops upon the bloody field of battle against the barbarians.

  “Rally to me, men of Sparta! Though we are only fifty, we will fight like a thousand! Kill them! Kill them all! No quarter! No prisoners! No mercy!” His breath gusted like fire from his nostrils and his heart hammered like Hephaestus’s forge. The stench of blood and death filled him to bursting. A thousand deaths this day would belong to him and him alone! He led the charge…

  … at the head of a thousand Spartans as they rushed into battle on his command. He was a hero now, a legend. Spartans vied among themselves for the honor of serving the legendary Kratos. As his victories mounted, their numbers swelled. He carried two swords into battle. When the first dulled from hacking through the bone and flesh of his enemies, he discarded it in favor of the second, which served him through another dozen or hundred opponents until it, too, dulled. Then he gathered weapons dropped by the dead or fleeing enemy so that the carnage would never slow, let alone stop. His valiant soldiers looked to him for guidance-the kind of guidance a legendary commander could offer. He gave them the lessons he himself had learned.

  He showed them how to kill. “No quarter! No prisoners! No mercy!”

  The warring became nothing more than a stage on which Kratos played. He killed for the God of War, he killed for the glory of Sparta, he killed for the sheer joy of watching men die under his sword. All feared him, ally and enemy alike…

  … except one.

  His calm and patient wife, who seemed the only mortal with the courage to stand against his fury. “How much is enough, Kratos? When will it end?”

  “When the glory of Sparta is known throughout the world!”

  She made a gesture, as if shooing away an annoying insect. “The glory of Sparta,” she said with scalding mockery. “What does that even mean? Do you know, or are you just mouthing the excuses you tell yourself to justify your bloodlust?” She gathered their daughter against her skirts, and the flash of anger vanished, replaced by a resigned melancholy. “You do not fight for Sparta. These things, you do only for yourself.”

  Before Kratos could respond, he saw his wife change, grow older, and… her eyes began to shed bloody tears, tears that caught fire as they ran down her cheeks. Where they fell, a wall of fire sprang up between Kratos and his wife-exactly like the flames kindled by his own men to drive the enemy before them and to hear the lamentations of their women. The flames blinded him and seared his flesh.

  But his wife! She was on the other side… the other side of ATHENA’S ORACLE pulled her hands off his temples and looked at him, her face bloodless. “By the gods! Why would Athena send one such as you?”

  Kratos took her by the throat with one mighty hand. “Stay out of my head!”

  For an instant, a need to snap that pretty neck shook him like an unfurled banner. His head rang with memories of war trumpets and the screams of terror and despair. He cast her aside, and she fell to the temple floor.

  She sat and rocked back on her hands, staring up at him. Then she stood and faced the Ghost of Sparta, unafraid. “Choose your enemies wisely, Kratos.”

  She turned from him and walked toward a section of temple wall where he made out the faint outline of a door. The wall beside it was marked with an insignia, where the Oracle stopped. “Your brute strength alone will not be enough to destroy Ares.”

  She leaned against the insignia, causing the wall to fade away and the door to open. “Only one item in the world will allow you to defeat a god.”

  Kratos squinted at the bright light pouring through the portal; it intensified until he had to use one enormous arm to shield his eyes. Heat boiled toward him as if he stood near an open furnace. What lay beyond confused him. This door should lead out onto the rocky night-shrouded cliffs surrounding the temple…

  But through the portal, as his eyes began to adjust, he saw noontide and swirling sands.

  If the Oracle found this in any way unusual or disturbing, she gave no sign. “Pandora’s Box lies far beyond the walls of Athens, hidden by the gods across the desert to the east,” she said with calm assurance. “Only with its power can you defeat Ares.”

  She stepped aside and turned her unreadable eyes on him once more. Kratos feared no man, no god, but he shied away from Athena’s oracle. She had entered the hidden realm in his mind and witnessed his shame.

  “Be warned, Kratos. Many have gone in search of Pandora’s Box. None has returned.” She pointed to the portal. “Go through the Gates to the Desert, Kratos. There begins the path to Pandora’s Box. It is the only way you will defeat Ares and save Athens. The only way, Kratos. The only way.” Her voice faded to a whisper, hardly audible over the whistling desert wind.

  Kratos ran forth from the temple, skirting the ramparts of the sacred mountain for a few minutes. Then before him loomed a crumbling gate, attended only by a vast statue of a hoplite. He pressed on through the gate without pausing. A strong wind whipped up a storm that cut at his face like tiny razors-and when he turned back for a last look at Athens, the city was gone. There was nothing to be seen in any direction save an eternity of sand.

  He was alone, more alone than he had ever been in his life.

  FOURTEEN

  “SO LITTLE LEFT. Would you care to wager on how long before your city will be rebuilt in honor of Ares?” Hermes fluttered above the reflecting pool, breeze from his winged sandals rippling the water and blurring the view of Athens’s destruction. He bent down and poked a finger into the liquid and disturbed the image just under the surface. A heretofore undamaged building fell into rubble at his touch.

  “Stop that,” Athena said sharply.

  “Why? I would say Ares is the c
lear victor here,” the Messenger of the Gods said, smiling broadly. “Do you think that building would have survived his assault? He has left you nothing, and now he reduces that nothing to… even less.”

  Zeus appeared, thunder rolling from his sudden entrance. Hands tucked into his toga, he frowned at Hermes, appearing wroth. “He’s done better than I expected. Ares usually blunders about like a Minotaur in a potter’s shop.”

  “Better than you expected?” Athena said pointedly. “Have you chosen to support my brother?”

  “No,” Zeus said, looking angrier yet. “He destroys too many of my shrines. It is almost as if he picks them out, but I must be wrong. It is your worshippers he kills, Athena.”

  Athena could only glower.

  “Ah, Lord and Father,” said Hermes cheerfully. “You have won handsomely in this business so far, haven’t you?”

  Athena looked sharply at Hermes.

  “What do you mean by that?” Zeus’s voice thundered and lightning sizzled his beard.

  “Is Kratos not your creature?” Hermes asked, fluttering up and away, seeming a little frightened. He looked to Athena for support, but she had none to give. She worried that Hermes understood Kratos’s true quest into the Desert of Lost Souls and would tell Ares, simply to relieve himself of boredom by stirring more trouble.

  “He is Athena’s pet, not mine,” Zeus said.

  “Yes, of course. I was wrong to assume you were aiding him, though someone in Athens uses a thunderbolt similar to your own against Ares’s creatures.”

  “Do you know that or is it only another of your whispered calumnies to set one god against another?” Athena asked.

  “You accuse me- me!-of inciting civil war in Olympus. Never!” Hermes turned his attention back to Zeus. “I am your loyal subject and son, Skyfather! I seek to harm no one but only to keep all informed.”