clothing dragged his withered carcass up to the grave’s edge. He blinked at Kratos with age-dimmed eyes, then tossed a shovel onto the ground near the pile of dirt and placed his hands flat, trying to pull himself out. He failed.
“You gonna help an old man or just stand there gawking?”
Kratos could only stare. How could any mortal-let alone an ancient man-have dug a grave in such rocky ground?
“Come on,” the old man snapped. “What, the Ghost of Sparta is afraid of me? Can’t you see I’m older than the dust from a Titan’s beard?”
Kratos released the blades and took the man’s hand. The old fellow seemed not to weigh anything at all. “You know me?”
“Of course I do. You have the blades, the skin as pale as the moon! You are the one, indeed. Perhaps Athens will survive, at that!” The gravedigger laughed. “But be careful. Don’t want you dying before I’m done with this grave.”
“A grave, in the middle of a battle? Who will occupy it, old man?”
“You will, my son!” The gravedigger looked Kratos over, from his sandals to the top of his shaved head. “Oh, I’ve got a lot of digging to do, indeed. All will be revealed in good time. And when all appears to be lost, Kratos, I will be there to help.”
“The Oracle,” Kratos said. “Have you seen her? She was taken by harpies.”
“Oh, sure enough, I saw her.” The gravedigger picked up his shovel and stabbed its blade into the earth beside the grave with surprising energy. “Many a thing I could tell you ’bout her, if I had half a mind,” he said.
If the desiccated old coot did have half a mind, this conversation would already be over. “All I need to know is where they’re taking her.”
The ancient gravedigger turned toward the Ghost of Sparta, and all suggestion of senility drained from his voice. His eyes burned with the fires of Athens below.
“Well, where d’you think harpies’d be takin’ her?” the old man said scornfully. “Don’t you know the first thing about harpies?”
“I know how to kill them.”
“That’s the last thing about harpies, boy! First thing is, they like to eat where they kill. Second thing is… they roost up high!”
The ancient gravedigger threw back his head, laughing while Kratos stared, anger growing. Then the old man fell silent, turned, and looked upward to the sundered temple roof. Kratos heard the screech of a harpy and the scream of a woman in pain…
Blades found his hands, and Kratos charged back in to the temple. His sandal slipped on a pool of blood and he skidded across the floor, one knee sliding through gore on the cold marble. High above the temple floor, only a level or two below the topmost reach of the temple, the harpies appeared to be having some kind of disagreement-as though one of them wanted to carry the Oracle off to some secure dining area, where they could enjoy themselves without the fear of being rudely interrupted by the Blades of Chaos, while the other seemed to have decided to forgo the formalities and just eat the Oracle here.
The Oracle fought back with all her human strength and will, hammering at the monsters with her fists and prying at the powerful talons sunk into her shoulders. As the harpies fought back and forth, the Oracle’s blood trailed down her breasts and flanks and dripped from the ends of her toes. Her struggles began to weaken.
Kratos dropped the blades and let them return to their sheaths on his back. His only weapon effective at this range was the thunderbolt, which would fry all three of them when it hit… unless he missed. It seemed unlikely. On the other hand, it might be worth his trouble to just go ahead and miss after all-but in a useful fashion.
Again he gathered solid lightning in his right hand, and he cast the bolt a span or two high, close enough that it startled both harpies, then struck the balcony just above them. The thunderbolt blasted out huge chunks of white marble that slammed down into the harpies, who seemingly decided that this particular meal was turning out to be more dangerous than they’d anticipated. They stifled their squabble, let go of the Oracle, and beat their wings as hard as they could, angling for cover. A swift appraisal of the rate of the Oracle’s fall told Kratos he had time for one last shot-and lightning from below blew both harpies into smoking gobbets of flesh.
Kratos sprinted toward the spot where the Oracle would strike the temple floor, trusting to save her. But she didn’t land.
“Help me!” The Oracle hung from a hawser dangling from a crane affixed to the temple’s roof. Ares’s barrage of Greek fire, or perhaps Kratos’s own lightning, had broken something loose; the Oracle clung for her life hundreds of feet above the temple courtyard. Worse, the hawser swung erratically and threatened to send her over the side of the mountain-down past that sheer cliff. Kratos knew, if she fell that way, all his strength would count for nothing.
He scanned the temple courtyard for any way to get close to her. He saw a structure of rickety timbers that might allow him to cross an upper tier.
“Kratos, save me! You must hurry!” she screamed from high above. This rescue needed to be accomplished now.
He reversed the Blades of Chaos to an underhand, dagger-style grip, then leaped as high as his mighty thighs could propel him up the legs of the marble statue. The same qualities of workability that made marble the choice for statues now made it the choice for a ladder.
With strike after strike, the Blades of Chaos chopped into the marble, driving deep enough that Kratos could use them as pitons to haul himself ever higher. When he withdrew the blades to chop again, the chipped-out gaps left by the blades made admirable footholds. In this fashion, he scaled the vast statue, reaching the goddess’s serving tray in only seconds.
“Kratos! I can’t hold on!”
“You won’t have to,” Kratos said, as he took three steps for momentum, then hurled himself through the air from the very edge of the tray.
He stretched out, and out, and at the last instant the hawser swung back toward him. He struck the Oracle with his shoulder as though tackling an opponent in a pankraton free-for-all. This broke her grip on the hawser and let them fall free…
With one arm around the Oracle’s slim waist, he grabbed at another rope with his free hand. His fingers touched the rough rope, closed-and for a moment he thought they were safe. Then the rope began playing out over a pulley above.
Kratos grunted, twisted, and snapped the rope hard, sending a shock upward that dislodged the rope from the pulley. The fall stopped suddenly as the rope fouled on a hook, and Kratos and the Oracle swung back and forth like a pendulum. Loosening his grip, Kratos slid down the static rope to stand on the temple floor once more. He released the Oracle, who looked at him intently.
“Kratos! As Athena herself has foretold. But you are late-perhaps too late to save Athens.” She moved closer until her face was only inches from his. She reached up and took his head in her hands, one palm pressed warmly into each of his temples. Kratos tried to pull away, but her grip was surprisingly strong-and his strength surprisingly lacking.
“Or is it Athens you have come to save…?”
Kratos cried out, “No! I-” He jerked to free himself, screwing shut his eyes and trying to step backward-but it was too late. Her power spread irresistibly through his mind.
Needles danced across his brain, pricking ever faster and causing discomfort that built into abject pain. His head felt as if it would explode at any instant-and when he opened his eyes he was elsewhere.
HE SAT ASTRIDE A HORSE, a sword gripped in his hand and held high over his head, exhorting his troops upon the bloody field of battle against the barbarians.
“Rally to me, men of Sparta! Though we are only fifty, we will fight like a thousand! Kill them! Kill them all! No quarter! No prisoners! No mercy!” His breath gusted like fire from his nostrils and his heart hammered like Hephaestus’s forge. The stench of blood and death filled him to bursting. A thousand deaths this day would belong to him and him alone! He led the charge…
… at the head of a thousand Spartans as they rushed into battle on his command. He was a hero now, a legend. Spartans vied among themselves for the honor of serving the legendary Kratos. As his victories mounted, their numbers swelled. He carried two swords into battle. When the first dulled from hacking through the bone and
