to Hades in a flash of eye-searing combustion. Even the legionnaire Kratos fought perished, as a fist-sized glob of fire splashed upon his helm and burned down until nothing remained above the bony shoulders but a puddle of molten bronze.
The armor Kratos had looted from his victims also blazed with dozens of droplets of fire. A quick flourish of the Blades of Chaos sliced away his improvised bindings, and the armor dropped to the floor, where it was swiftly consumed.
Kratos never even looked back.
He stepped over the Athenian’s smoldering corpse and entered the narrow corridor.
“I am Kratos of Sparta,” he called. “The goddess commands me to speak with her oracle.”
The ghostly woman who had come to him in Athens now appeared in the flesh, and her beauty stole away his voice. The translucent strips of green silk she wore as a skirt beguiled, moving to hide and then reveal her legs and thighs and hips. Wrapped around her bodice, the diaphanous cloth clung with static fierceness to every delicate curve.
“You came,” the Oracle breathed. Her voice soothed and aroused simultaneously. “I had begun to doubt you ever would.”
“The temple is not safe,” he said. “Ares’s dark spawn hunt within.”
The Oracle closed her eyes, then her heavy breasts lifted and fell with a deep, melancholy sigh. “My other defenders have perished. May their souls find nothing but joy as they join their beloveds upon the Elysian Fields.”
The Spartan thought this unlikely but held his tongue.
“Only you remain, Kratos.” Her eyes, like pools of moonlight, opened and fixed upon Kratos, and for a moment the Spartan could not remember even the battle around him. “You are all I have left.”
He shook himself back to the present. “And I am all you need. Hurry.”
He looked around the small room where the Oracle lived: only a bed and a few personal items. She led an unsophisticated, innocent existence, free of vanity or guile.
But the chamber itself was a tactical nightmare. If Ares’s minions came upon them in this room, the low ceiling and closed-in walls would hinder the use of the Blades of Chaos, and to unleash any of the gods’ powerful magic in such an area might well be suicidal. Worse, the corridor leading to the temple was the only exit from the room. Sufficient force at the entry would catch them like flies in a bottle.
“We must speak together, you and I,” the Oracle said, indicating a three-legged stool beside her bed. “Sit and I will tell you what you need to know.”
“Why did not Athena tell me everything I need to know to kill Ares?”
The Oracle made a dismissive motion to silence him and said, “I will reveal what I have seen. Sometimes my vision is precise. Other times, it is as if I am looking through a veil. Or perhaps it is better described as a shroud.” A distant expression changed her from anxious to ethereal. Kratos saw the power of her talent-or was it a curse?
“Revealed to me are secrets hidden to the gods,” the Oracle said. “For as far reaching as their wisdom is, there are some things to which even they are not privy.”
Kratos felt exposed under her unwavering gaze, which focused not upon him but seemingly on something beyond-something through him.
“The visions fill my every waking moment, my every dreaming instant, telling me what you must do.” Her voice dropped to hardly more than a whisper. “I know how to kill a god.”
ALL-TOO-FAMILIAR SCREECHING that echoed among the temple’s columns brought Kratos around, his blades ready for action. “This room is a trap. Ares wants you dead. Move and I’ll keep you alive.”
He raced back to the temple and skidded around Athena’s statue. Other than the corpses and blood splattered on the floor, the room stretched empty and quiet. He looked up to the sundered ceiling and found a reeking swarm of harpies.
He headed out to more-open ground, where he could meet them with all his force. A harpy screeched and hurtled down at him like an attacking eagle. He stabbed upward and drove the point of his sword into the hideous monster’s breast. Blood exploded and blasted into his eyes, but he still dismembered the monster with but a flick of his wrist. He slashed at the air as he blinked hard to clear his eyes.
More screeching harpies swarmed around him. His blades met monstrous flesh more than once, but their talons tore at his skin from all sides.
When he finally wiped the harpy gore from his eyes, he saw injured harpies scuttling along the temple floor. Ichor continued to stream from their wounds as they used their leathery wings to drag themselves along. When one saw him watching, she screeched at him again and they all clacked jagged teeth in a fierce challenge.
Kratos took one last swipe across his eyes, then moved in for the kill.
“Kratos!”
Terror in the Oracle’s voice brought Kratos whirling back toward the statue of Athena. Two harpies held the Oracle in their filthy talons. He leaped for them, blades at the ready. He had seen too well how swiftly even a single harpy could slaughter a mortal-the haunting memory of the child being dashed against Athenian cobblestones caused bile to rise-but they seemed to have some other plan for their captive.
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
