He wondered if it might be hope.
– -
LATER, KRATOS PACED the length of the deck, taking note of damage and how repairs should proceed. He had a cage filled with slaves in the hold. They would crew for him in exchange for their freedom. Since Athena had entrusted him with the quest to save Athens from Ares’s army of Hades spawned soldiers, he would have no further need of a ship once he arrived at the Harbor of Zea at Piraeus.
The locked captain’s cabin where the three women had been killed hinted at how the former captain of this vessel had whiled away his hours, but Kratos would never again enter that compartment. Even if he had the slaves drag out the bodies and clean it from stem to stern, he would never step into that room again.
He dared not risk more visions.
But there was another room, also magically barred, lacking even a keyhole. The captain had kept concubines in his own cabin; what treasure would he have found precious enough to lock away even from himself? Kratos had little patience for idle speculation. The best way to discover the room’s contents was to break the door and enter.
Edging past the door to the captain’s cabin-he would not allow himself to so much as look at it-he stopped before the magical portal and began to examine it for any obvious way to open it. After all, if the room beyond held anything of real value, he might wish to be able to lock it away too. Finding no handle, lever, or keyhole, he tried simply to shove the door open. Corded muscle bunched in his massive shoulders, but he could not make the door so much as rattle. With a snarl he lost what little patience he’d had. He drew the Blades of Chaos and hacked at the door. Golden force flared, and the blades did not even touch the wood.
Fury rose within him, and outward from his bones surged the Rage of Poseidon. Power made him feel invincible, and the lightning of his fury burned the golden force away-and the door opened at a simple push.
Kratos stared in amazement.
In the middle of the room stood a half-naked woman whose beauty transcended anything in Kratos’s experience. She had her hands on cocked hips and had hair of flaming red more radiant than the sunrise, but this was not what Kratos noted. She was naked to the waist, a skirt swirling about the rest of her trim body. Her bare breasts were firm and high, capped by pink nubs that pointed at him in wanton invitation.
“Were you a slave on this ship?”
“Is the captain dead? I hope so,” the young woman said, leaning toward him with a beckoning finger. “I like your looks better.”
Kratos heard ominous creaking in the hull and looked around to be certain the vessel was not breaking apart. When he turned back, he blinked in surprise. The woman still stood in front of him, hands on her hips, hair wild and red and lustrous. But she was no longer naked to the waist. Rather, she wore a tunic-and had no skirt. She was naked from the waist down, when only an instant before…
“Is that why you were imprisoned with a magical lock? You’re a witch?”
“That’s not a nice thing to say. We aren’t witches!”
“We?” Kratos blinked. There were two women, identical in beauty, but one was naked above the waist and the other below. “What are you?”
“Twins,” they answered as one.
“The captain was a cruel master. He gave us only one set of clothes,” said the twin with the tunic.
The twin with the skirt showed a bit of a pout. “We shared the best we could. Do we not please you?”
“No, I-”
“No?” they cried in unison. “Then we’ll take off these offending rags!”
And they did.
Kratos was willing to admit that this improved the view. “I begin to understand why the captain kept you locked away. Identical down to the last mole and freckle.”
“Not so,” said the one on the left. “Lora’s mole is on the inside of her left thigh. See?”
Kratos did.
“Zora and I are completely different,” said the other.
“Do you do everything together?”
The twins exchanged a look, then moved forward with a single mind. Their answer became obvious as they stripped him of his clothing and led him to a wide, soft bed. The only complaint Kratos had was clumsily knocking over a wine bottle in the midst of their doubled passion.
Afterward, he awoke with a woman on his left and another on the right-he had lost track of which was Lora and which was Zora, but he knew better than to check their defining marks. That would only spark demands for more lovemaking, and he had a crew abovedecks to command. Athena’s demand must be met, and soon, from the vision of her city being laid to waste. “I want more wine,” he said, reaching over one redhead to get his hand around the bottle on the deck.
“We are your willing slaves, Captain Kratos,” one of them said.
The other added, “So long as you can keep us satisfied.”
“The captain had concubines in this cabin-” Kratos began. “Oh, yes, he kept girls of his own,” a twin said, a little sadly. “He never touched us.”
“Never?”
The other sighed. “He wasn’t man enough. After two or three of the crew died, he locked us away.”
“They… died?” Kratos couldn’t quite make sense of this. “So the captain locked you up? They died doing… what?”
“Us,” one said brightly.
The other contributed a perky nod. “He wanted to keep his crew safe. From us. We have been very lonely.”
Kratos said slowly, “I see.”
“And we’re so happy to have met you… and that you didn’t die. Really.”
“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.