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 ahead 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
