“Your thunderbolt?” He looked up, but the portal where the god had emerged had already closed. Above there was no longer blue sky and billowing white clouds. All he saw was dirt with roots growing down through it. He had not left the escape tunnel.
But the scar on his right palm proved almost too brilliant for him to examine.
Kratos reached back over his right shoulder, as though drawing back his arm to throw a javelin. He grunted in surprise when a solid bolt of lightning manifested in his hand. He hurled it forward, and it lanced along the tunnel quicker than he’d thought. The detonation caused the far end of the tunnel to begin collapsing, opening a sliver of night sky above the Acropolis. Kratos set out toward it, but again he heard a voice-with his ears or with his mind, he could not say.
“Go back and fight!”
Kratos stopped, still weak from his earlier conflict. “But the Oracle-”
“Destroy another three hundred monsters and she’ll be there when you arrive.”
Kratos was sick of sneaking around underground, feeling like a mewling babe and almost too weak to stand. Once more he reached back, and again when he threw his hand forward, a blast of lightning flashed the length of the tunnel. This one destroyed the timbers that supported the hearth slab, and the whole thing dropped and shattered, scattering the tunnel’s floor with burning embers.
He nodded to himself. Using the thunderbolt buoyed his spirits-and erased some of the weakness in his muscles. Being so near a godlike power rejuvenated him. Time to go back and see exactly how well this thunderbolt worked against a real enemy.
TWELVE
SLAUGHTERING THE MINIONS OF ARES outside the inn proved to be more fun than Kratos had anticipated. When Zeus gave him the power of the thunderbolt, apparently he’d also refilled that general magical reservoir; Poseidon’s Rage crackled more deadly than ever before, and Medusa’s Gaze turned monsters to stone by the dozen, and Zeus’s Thunderbolt shattered a mob of petrified monsters in a very satisfactory fashion.
Best of all, the flood of potent magic through his palm when he used the thunderbolt healed his wounds. Stretching and turning failed to cause the slightest discomfort on his back, where the touch of Ares’s fire had so sorely injured him. After a few throws of the thunderbolt, Ares’s minions had fled, giving Kratos a chance to bathe in a fountain and clean some of the Cyclops’s gore from his body.
When he’d finished his ablutions, he felt certain he could take on and triumph over the worst that Ares had to offer.
He found a particular sequence to be most effective: He’d leap into the midst of a crowd of monsters and call on Poseidon’s Rage, then whip out the Gorgon’s head and turn them all to stone, because they would be too stunned from Poseidon’s Rage to avert their eyes. Then he would hurtle into the midst of another squad of the undead legionnaires, fire a thunderbolt back at where he’d come from, and, while the petrified monsters were raining down in pieces, he would once again fire Poseidon’s Rage against the fresh meat around him.
He became adept enough with Medusa’s Gaze to petrify swooping harpies as they passed, turning them into the equivalent of sharp-edged catapult stones that could mow down a half dozen undead at one blow. And he found that the bronze armor of the undead legionnaires had an interesting property when struck with Zeus’s Thunderbolt: If other similarly clad undead were near enough, the thunderbolt would arc from monster to monster, popping them off in a pleasingly swift succession like chestnuts tossed into a bonfire.
Kratos stood appreciating his handiwork when the clack of hooves against the cobblestones alerted him to approaching Centaurs. He turned, thinking he would face only one. A herd of the half-horse, half-man creatures trotted into the plaza and quickly arrayed themselves against him.
Somehow, one had managed to come up behind when his attention was diverted by the main herd. Powerful hands lifted him off the ground and held him high. He saw the sky and struggled to draw a weapon-any weapon. In a flash, Kratos realized he was unable to fight like this. He kicked his feet up high and rolled backward, breaking the Centaur’s grip.
The man-horse cried out in rage as Kratos landed on the creature’s rump, legs dangling down on either side of the equine body.
“You are the one Lord Ares seeks!” The Centaur swung half about and tried to land a fist on the side of Kratos’s head. The Spartan ducked easily, shrugged his shoulders, and brought forth a loop of the chain fused to the bone of his forearms. He didn’t draw the Blades of Chaos-he snapped the chain holding the pommel to his flesh about in an iron garrote.
Kratos rocked back, strangling the Centaur. The creature tried in vain to pry loose the chain wrapped about its throat. It went to its haunches and reared, hoping to throw off Kratos. The Ghost of Sparta clung to the chain as if it were a bridle and reins rather than a strangling weapon.
He scooted forward, came closer to the man part of the monster, and kicked hard so his heels drove into the Centaur’s belly. As the creature galloped forward, Kratos guided it to the spot among the others in the herd that he desired most.
At the last possible instant, he released the chain and raised his right hand. The star brand burned furiously, then released Zeus’s Thunderbolt. Kratos aimed not at the Centaurs’ bodies but at the ground where they stood. Suddenly molten ground beneath their hooves caused them to rear and crash into one another. Not satisfied, Kratos loosed another thunderbolt, this time directed at their horseshoes. As with the bronze armor worn by the undead legionnaires, the metallic horseshoes sparked and blazed, burning upward until not a Centaur in the herd commanded a full four legs. Several had lost all four legs up to the fetlocks; none was able to fight.
Kratos kicked free of the Centaur he rode, but before he could draw the Blades of Chaos to dispatch it, the creature raced away, leaving behind only a high-pitched keening of stark fear.
Kratos realized, as much as he appreciated the stark power of Zeus’s gift, he had to press on to find the Oracle. He lost track of how many monsters he had destroyed; when finally no more came to assault him, the roadway was paved with corpses three deep in all directions. He didn’t bother to count. Despite Zeus’s assurance, he felt time pressing down upon him. Kratos ran up the incline of the roadway, falling into an easy lope. As he ran, his mind cast forth, considering different courses of action, but most of all his mind always returned to the Oracle and her mysterious secret of how a mortal might murder a god.
He was so lost in thought that, as he rounded a turn in the path, he ran smack into an undead legionnaire. They collided, Kratos rebounded, and the armored skeleton warrior crashed to the ground. The clatter of its bones against its sword and shield when it fell echoed through the Acropolis. Kratos recovered more swiftly than the skeleton warrior, drew the Blades of Chaos, and scissored off the undead’s skull.
Kratos laughed. None stood against the Ghost of Sparta. And when he saw a dozen legionnaires coming down the path to investigate the noise, he laughed even more. These undead legionnaires were well armored and impressively weaponed. Hollow, disturbingly evil eye sockets glared like embers in a darkened room, through bronze helmets decorated with black feathers. They carried bucklers studded with brass nails. A few swung scythes, but most were armed with swords, and they marched in a tight, disciplined formation, with more pressing in at their backs.
And a single thunderbolt blew them all to pieces.
The ravening blast radiated outward, zigzagging on its way like lightning from Mount Olympus itself. The leading trio of legionnaires exploded. As did the next rank and the next and the next.
Kratos gingerly stepped over the smoldering bones and burned parts blasted from the legionnaires’ bodies. Beside the path lay a bronze helmet, the black feathers smoking, as was the skull strapped inside. Melted swords and sundered helmets lay scattered along the path.
Kratos stared in wonder at the white scar on his palm. Then he hurriedly turned the palm away. Should he accidentally trigger a thunderbolt while he stared at his own hand, his death might be both swift and humiliating.
Once more he fell into the distance-devouring lope that was his habitual pace up the increasingly steep path. In places, pilgrims had painstakingly carved steps from the rock for the weaker supplicants. As if in a dream, he no longer climbed the Acropolis of Athens toward the Parthenon but instead some winding mountain path thousands of
