Robert Vardeman - God of War

“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.

Kratos let out a howl when the ship hove to and filled its sails with the heavy wind. Timbers creaked and the ship’s keel reverberated as it struck underwater debris. Once, a huge wave rose before Kratos and broke over his head. He lost his balance and was washed along the deck until a strong hand grabbed him. He looked up to see Coeus grinning like a fool.

“Watch yer step, Cap’n,” the first mate said. Then he shouted to those in the rigging above to lash down the sails more firmly.

Kratos got to his feet, thanking Athena for sending him one tried-and-true seaman to assist him. A huge gust of wind seemed to lift the ship from the water and sent it skimming the surface at the speed of thought. The prow touched every lifting wave and skipped forward, hardly descending into the deep troughs of the waves.

“Ware the sails,” Kratos yelled. His words were gobbled by the hungry wind. The corners of the canvas sails began to shred from the constant whipping. “Lash them down!”

“We need more men aloft,” Coeus shouted almost in his ear. “We’re lost if we don’t furl the sails. The wind’s too high.”

“Leave the sails as they be,” Kratos shouted back. The ship crashed into one piece of wreckage after another in the Grave of Ships.

“The mast will break. The storm will destroy us!”

“Full sail and ahead,” Kratos ordered. Coeus began to argue, but Kratos cut him off. The steersman valiantly clung to the tiller, but it kicked back too strongly for one man to restrain. Kratos pushed past Coeus and rushed to aid the steersman. As he crossed the quarterdeck, he grabbed a slave and dragged him along.

“No, don’t, let me be. We’re going to die. We cannot survive the storm. Poseidon will see us all in his watery graveyard!”

“Help the steersman keep the rudder straight ahead.”

“We’re going to die!” The slave fell to his knees. “By the gods, save us. I beseech you, gods of Olympus. Save us!”