goddess was judging the range. “Even my creatures know of our brother’s war upon your city.”
“Ares brings an army of underworld creatures to the fight. Undead legionnaires and archers take their toll, but the citizens of Athens can withstand their onslaught. The other creatures-the true monsters-are beyond mere mortals’ power to defeat.”
Artemis walked around a full circle, studying the other goddess from every direction. “In the hunt,” she said slowly, “we know who is hunter and who is prey. In that simplicity lies truth. Between you and Ares, nothing is simple.”
“I am not asking you to judge between my brother and myself. I am not asking you anything at all, my sister. I am here only to deliver melancholy news.”
“Do you care for anything in that city beyond the name it bears?”
Athena’s face went cold as stone. She had forgotten that Artemis’s words could strike as sharply as her arrows. “Of course I care for my mortals,” she said. “I must find what concerns you.”
“Ares is no friend. His legions ravage my forests, but I cannot oppose him in the field. Zeus prohibits that.” Artemis’s hand clutched her bow, swung it to hand, nocked an arrow, and fired. The arrow sang through the air and embedded itself in the bole of a tree. “Would that I could aim my hunter’s arrow at him!”
“Your forests,” Athena said softly. “Your beasts-all are prey for our brother’s legion.”
“Your city dwellers,” Artemis said, an edge in her voice. “Those in Athens scavenge my forests too.”
“They husband the forests and beasts,” Athena countered. “Ares destroys. His undead do not eat to survive or to worship us. They leave only destruction in their wake.”
“An abomination,” Artemis agreed.
“My city can celebrate the wilderness-if it survives,” Athena said. “My worshippers admire and respect you. Only last year,” Athena plowed on, “the prize at the Festival of Dionysus was taken by a play exalting you: The Tragedy of Actaeon the Hunter.”
“Tragedy?” Artemis said. “I seek to celebrate life.”
Athena had always thought turning Actaeon into a stag and having him torn apart by his own hounds was a bit excessive for only a glimpse of the goddess as she bathed-but this private thought would stay private; Athena could see no profit in dredging that up. “It is a pity,” Athena said carefully, “that my feud with Ares cannot be settled with, uh, a similarly elegant solution.”
“And why bring this matter to me? Ares is as immune to my arrows as he is to your blade.”
“Zeus would never permit even an arrow shot in anger,” Athena agreed. “However, Ares’s army marches through your sacred groves outside Athens. The foul creatures he commands lay waste to even the most inoffensive of your animals.”
Athena held her hands in front of her, palms together. She parted them slightly and turned them upward as a vivid scene formed in the air between her and Artemis.
“Such slaughter…” A tear rolled down Artemis’s cheek at the sight of the wanton destruction.
Athena parted her hands wider, and the floating scene grew in size. “The stream is befouled with blood-blood of your animals. Ares does not hunt, does not stalk for either food or pleasure. Death is only a passing satisfaction for him. There is no skill, no grace, only endless slaughter. This stream runs red with the blood of your fawns, elk, rabbits, even the birds of the air.”
The scene expanded to encompass a large section of the woods a few miles from the Long Walls protecting Athens. The carcasses of mutilated deer and foxes stretched to the limit of the view. A Cyclops lumbered forward, swinging a heavy club carelessly. To the left and right, it smashed the skulls of the fallen animals, although they lay already dead. In the wake of the Cyclops came hundreds of cursed legionnaires, and behind them trooped undead archers.
“None shows respect for the wood or its inhabitants.” Athena paused dramatically. “Its former inhabitants. They leave behind only death as they march to Athens, a city that honors you as it does me.
“There Ares’s army will do the same to the mortals,” Athena continued. “The coming fight will be between Ares’s minions and mine-but you see the result of that conflict. I would preserve your woods and ensure their sanctity.”
“Ares would never do so. He did not ask permission to cross my meadows and forests.”
“He is focused only on killing,” Athena said. “It matters naught to him what his army destroys.” She let the scene expand once more to show other elements of Ares’s army marching through other woods Artemis claimed as her sylvan domain. Only when she saw the expression change subtly on Artemis’s face, going from despair to anger, did Athena continue. “Neither of us can fight Ares, by our father’s decree. That does not stop our brother from destroying those who worship us.”
“You swear an oath that my woods will be sacrosanct?”
“Turn your creatures of the forest against Ares’s minions and my oath is made. I will see that all of Athens honors your bucolic temple,” Athena said, passion tingeing her words. “We must not allow him to trample the shrine you hold most sacred: the woods filled with creatures of hoof and wing.”
Artemis turned, drew another arrow from her quiver, and brought it to her string. She drew the bow back until it quivered with the strain. She loosed the arrow and it sang away, arching high into the air where it exploded with the fury of a new sun, rivaling anything her twin brother might place in the sky. The second sun rained down scintillant sparks.
Artemis said solemnly, “The army of Ares will find it impossible to pass through any forest where those under my protection roam.” With that, the Goddess of the Hunt spun and disappeared into the forest. In seconds the leaves had stopped quivering from her passage. She had become one with her domain again.
Athena counted this a partial victory. She had gained a potentally, but Athens-and, for that matter, Olympus itself-would never be safe while Ares lived. It was time to begin the next phase of her plan. Kratos must be trained. He must be tested. And most of all He must be properly armed.
FIVE
AS KRATOS TURNED the key he had struggled for so long to get, the mystical seal evaporated-and a soul- piercing scream came from the captain’s cabin. He kicked open the door, expecting to find what commanded such potent protections. In this, he was not disappointed. Kratos found treasure beyond turquoise and gold.
The three girls were as lovely as any he had ever seen. Or perhaps they simply looked lovely by comparison to the blackened, rotting faces of the undead that ripped at them with taloned hands.
Kratos froze for an instant, paralyzed by incomprehension. How had the undead gotten in here? Through the locked door? The only answer that made sense was his own culpability. By opening the door he had released more than the locking spell. He had also released the undead magically sealed in this room to protect against intruders. The captain must have known how to prevent their release. Kratos had blundered in and put the women in jeopardy.
In an instant, his confusion whirled away like leaves before a gale. Such imponderables were the stuff of idle hours. Right now he was still in a fight, as two of the rotting legionnaires rushed him, swinging wickedly hooked swords. Kratos reached back over his shoulder, and the same motion that drew the Blades of Chaos also bisected each undead from crown to crotch. He moved into the room and with his next swing severed the legs of an undead strangling one of the slave girls. The creature fell, dragging the girl with it to the floor, and went on strangling her as though Kratos had not mutilated its legs.
Kratos hacked off its arms and crushed its skull-but the severed hands only tightened, throttling the life from the woman. Snarling, he bent to rip away the clenched talons, but the girl’s head tilted at a crazy angle. Her neck had been snapped like a twig.
Another undead held a struggling woman in the air between itself and Kratos, making her a human shield.
“Steel works better,” Kratos sneered as he jammed a blade straight through her torso, encountering only the slight resistance of internal organs, and then the tip crunched hard into the undead holding her. He twisted the blade and they both fell limp.
“Don’t let it kill me. I beg you, don’t-” The third woman died as the undead drove a bony hand against her
