Kratos did.
“Zora and I are completely different,” said the other.
“Do you do everything together?”
The twins exchanged a look, then moved forward with a single mind. Their answer became obvious as they stripped him of his clothing and led him to a wide, soft bed. The only complaint Kratos had was clumsily knocking over a wine bottle in the midst of their doubled passion.
Afterward, he awoke with a woman on his left and another on the right-he had lost track of which was Lora and which was Zora, but he knew better than to check their defining marks. That would only spark demands for more lovemaking, and he had a crew abovedecks to command. Athena’s demand must be met, and soon, from the vision of her city being laid to waste. “I want more wine,” he said, reaching over one redhead to get his hand around the bottle on the deck.
“We are your willing slaves, Captain Kratos,” one of them said.
The other added, “So long as you can keep us satisfied.”
“The captain had concubines in this cabin-” Kratos began. “Oh, yes, he kept girls of his own,” a twin said, a little sadly. “He never touched us.”
“Never?”
The other sighed. “He wasn’t man enough. After two or three of the crew died, he locked us away.”
“They… died?” Kratos couldn’t quite make sense of this. “So the captain locked you up? They died doing… what?”
“Us,” one said brightly.
The other contributed a perky nod. “He wanted to keep his crew safe. From us. We have been very lonely.”
Kratos said slowly, “I see.”
“And we’re so happy to have met you… and that you didn’t die. Really.”
“Likewise,” Kratos said. He reflected that this trip to Athens might be more interesting than he had anticipated.
The twin on his left stroked the bulge of muscle at his shoulder. “Are you a-”
“-king, Master Kratos?” finished the twin on his right side.
“I am only a soldier,” he said.
“A great soldier,” said one.
“A champion,” agreed the other.
“I have been given a quest by the gods.”
“That sounds-”
“-dangerous,” the twins said.
“We sail for Athens. There I will set you free.”
“We don’t want to be free. We want to be your slaves.”
“Forever,” said the other. “Or at least until you die. You’re very strong, master.”
“And so large.”
Kratos found himself without anything to say.
“We never wanted to go to-”
“-Attica. It’s a terrible, cold place, or so-”
“-we’ve heard.”
Kratos cursed the gods in his heart. If only he could be like other men and lose himself entirely in pleasures of the flesh. But even Lora and Zora could never drive away the nightmares and hold his madness at bay.
All he now lived for was Athena’s pledge to erase his visions and to quell the ghastly memories that plagued his every living hour. Removing the visions of death and horror, guilt and abject pain, was a reward far beyond anything Lora and Zora could offer, no matter how skillful they might be.
“This vessel must get free of the Grave of Ships,” he said, swinging his legs around and getting out of bed. The wine under his feet had turned as sticky as blood. He started to wipe it off, but the twins scampered lithely from the bed.
“Allow us to do that, Master Kratos.” They cleaned his feet lovingly, but he had no time for this. Ares’s Hydra was dead, but what other abominations might the God of War send to destroy him? Kratos did not want to find out, not trapped among the hulks of so many dead and discarded vessels.
“You can come on deck,” Kratos told the twins, “but dress completely.”
“There is nothing for us to wear in this cabin,” they said in unison.
“Find something,” he said curtly. He hesitated to have them search the captain’s cabin. The three women left there must have had clothing aplenty, but stripping it from their corpses was not something he anticipated would be greeted well by the twins.
“We will be there soon,” they said.
Kratos made for the deck. He was far from Athens, and once he arrived, he had a god to slay. Simply getting this slave ship free from the other hulks would be a daunting task.
On deck, the brisk wind and hint of rain warned of an impending storm. Trapped among the other ships as they were, the storm would toss them about and crack the hull like a walnut shell. He went below, to the slave hold, and peered at the miserable wretches. They whined and begged until he would just as soon have opened the scuttle cocks and let them swim away. Perhaps freedom would remind them what it was to be a man.
“I will free you. And you will work,” he said. “Work harder than you ever have. We sail for Athens.”
“Free us!”
“I have no need of slaves. I need a crew. Have any of you worked rigging before?” He saw a hand tentatively raised. “You are my first officer. The rest of you will listen and learn from him. His word is as mine. Go against either of us and I will feed your entrails to the sharks. Obey and you will be free once we reach Piraeus.”
There was some muttering among the caged slaves, but the one he had designated as his first officer rose to the challenge and spoke for the rest. “We will be free?”
“On my life, you will,” Kratos promised.
“Then let us out. The way this ship is wallowing about, a storm is rising.”
“What’s your name, First Officer?”
“Coeus.”
“Get them on deck and at their stations, Coeus. You were right about a storm brewing.”
With cuffs and kicks to the hind side, Kratos helped along the slaves who were strangely reluctant to leave their cage. When the last had made his way to the deck, the wind whipped along fiercely and sent tiny bullets of raindrops hammering into them.
“To the rigging. Get the sails lowered. There’s no other way out of this damnable watery graveyard,” Kratos bellowed. “We must run ahead of the storm or we are lost.”
He saw that Coeus knew the rudiments of unfurling the sails and lashing them securely for running, but trying to teach each of the crew aloft was impossible in the wind. One screamed and tumbled from the cross spar. Kratos watched the man vanish beneath the waves. He never surfaced.
Kratos felt the ship lurch, as a horse reluctant to race might give a false start. Coeus did what he could. Kratos had to find a steersman to tend the flopping rudder. He grabbed a slave by the arm and dragged him along up to the poop deck and the tiller.
“Take this. Move it left or right as I command.” The slave did as he was told, clinging to the beam as if his life depended on it. Which it did.
Once the man wrapped his arms around the tiller and began experimenting with the yield and resistance, Kratos went forward again. He stopped beside Athena’s statue. It remained dead, inert, unmoving, and unseeing.
“We are on our way,” he said softly into the teeth of the wind. Then he strained to lift the sea anchor that fixed them in place. His back ached with the strain, and veins stood out like cords of rope on his arms as he drew the heavy anchor up bit by bit. Once the huge iron hook had cleared the sea, the ship surged, free and floating.
“To the left, hard to the left!” His bellowed command was swallowed by the rising wind, but the novice steersman saw him gesturing and leaned into the tiller. Experiencing more resistance than he’d expected, the steersman redoubled his effort. And again.
