OGNW 3

“Do you see it, brother, the way the strange winds curl around the big lad’s body?”

Kratos didn’t have to search particularly hard for who Mimir was pointing out. A shield wall was only as good as the uniformity of the men that held it. As a Spartan, great size was not something that was celebrated. Sometimes, it was perceived as badly as being born misshapen or dwarfed.

A figure too big standing in a shield wall would leave gaps that would be too obvious for any enemy worth their salt to exploit, which made the fact that the huge man took a place in the shield wall a particularly… foolhardy decision. Yet even these barbarians were not so stupid as to put such a man on the first ranks. Instead, he was positioned solidly in the middle of the second rank, where his great size wouldn’t put his men in as much peril.

“I do,” Kratos replied to Mimir easily. Unlike Mimir’s Bifrost eyes that peered past the physical realm with ease, Kratos was forced to actually focus before he saw it. Despite how mundane his amber eyes looked in comparison to Mimir’s glowing orbs, there was nothing mundane about it.

Power called to power, but it was more than that, more than an ephemeral sense of strength. It was the distorted features. For one, the big brute had three horns poking out of the crown of his head and through his iron helmet. The horns coiled up to kiss each other above his head. Then there were the glowing pits of red that Kratos assumed were a pair of eyes that stared at him intensely. Then there was the bronze skin.

“I reckon he’s the leader, which means he’ll be the one you’ll have to brutally murder so the rest can get to scampering off. However, I don’t expect it to be an all too easy fight like earlier. Unlike the rest of these barbarians, he seems to be the sole individual present to have transformed his Fylgia. Judging by the beast-like horns and the animalistic mien in general, he’s almost as big as a raider chief. I suppose he’ll be just as strong too.”

Kratos ignored Mimir’s words. Instead, he focused on the aspect of the brute that had drawn his attention. More than the twisted animal horns, more than the red glowing eyes and the fur of some unnamed beast draped over the brute’s shoulders, something else spoke to him. There was a recognition.

It didn’t take him long to finally realize it. “You’re wrong,” he grunted out, as the shield wall steadily progressed slowly, while the villagers that had managed to find a spine rallied around his ashen form, including the girl that stuck to his side like bark on a tree.

He didn’t blame Mimir for not recognizing it. After all, he had never seen such a clear blessing on another since his time in Greece. Mimir saw clearly, however he was blinded by preconceived notions and ignorance. Yet he did not fault him. It was not an act that was oft done by the Norse pantheon. The last time Kratos had seen such was when he stared into a pool of water. The blessing of a war god. That was what had twisted the brute so. A transformation of his Fylgia by a godly hand.

“What do you mean, brother?”

Kratos rolled his shoulder, easing his joints before replying to the curious god. “The mutilation of his Fylgia was not an act that he accomplished by himself. It’s a blessing. A blessing from a god.”

“Oh…” Mimir whispered. “Ohh!!” he exclaimed this time in realization at Kratos’ unspoken words. This strange world they found themselves in had their own gods, and he was about to kill one of their worshippers.

They crossed an invisible line, the shield wall anchored and carried forward by brawny and light-haired men. A line that instinctively made Kratos take a step forward in reply. The falling snow had died down a bit, for even the weather was holding its breath for what was about to occur.

A step turned to two, and two turned to three, then Kratos was in a flat-out jog. It would be an easy thing to ignore the first line of the shield wall and charge straight to the blessed brute that led them in the second shield wall, but it would do him no good to kill the leader only to turn back and see the people that his act had roused to a modicum of bravery be butchered by their better-armed, armored, and trained opponents.

He needed to thin the herd. Blissfully, like with each time he dove into combat, Mimir was kind enough to offer his silence. The closer he got to the shield wall, the more they readied for his approach. Over two dozen men in the first row alone. Their eyes narrowed, their muscles bunched up, and their spines stiffened as they looked to stop his charge dead in its tracks.

They should’ve brought a hundred thousand more.

“For the Hound!” they cried out with vigor, a war cry, a prayer, an oath. Kratos did not care. Other than to note the name of the God, whose followers he was about to butcher.

He slammed into their ranks like a bolt fired from a ballista. The first two men simply died beneath his feet as he trampled them beneath his feet, their bodies alongside their raised shields breaking and shattering like fragile kindling upon his unarmored and ashen flesh.

The third person had a moment to widen her bloodshot brown eyes before Kratos caved in her head with a powerful headbutt that broke her neck and sent her body flying back. Only then did Kratos use the spear in his hand. With the momentum gotten from his charge, he dug a foot into the earth and spun on the sole of his foot.

His blades or even the axe would’ve been perfect for such a whirling strike, but he would make do. With the strength and speed, he fought with and against such mortal foes, he did not need a bladed weapon. A blunt edge worked just as well. Draupnir’s golden shaft cleared his surroundings, breaking bones, pulling organs, and obliterating flesh as Kratos swung the god-killing weapon in a whirling arc that sent screams and cries of pain ringing out.

The lucky ones died to Draupnir’s bladed edges in a second, not truly aware of what killed them. The unlucky ones were forced to remain awake, yet broken underfoot, and Kratos was not done. His attack had been enough to stagger and throw back even the second shield wall, comprised of another two dozen burly, fur-clad men.

In the midst of the slaughter, he had not bothered to count how many he had killed, but when he looked around him, all his eyes could see were enemies. They were still too much for the dregs that had decided to fight, so he aimed to cut them down further. He hefted Draupnir by the shaft. This time, he didn’t bother with a complicated movement. It was a single lob that he threw without any true aiming. This was a target-rich environment.

The first spear slammed into an unfortunate and distracted man. That was all Kratos’ eyes picked up before he moved on, the enchantment on the ring he wore on his finger glowed as another copy of the god-killing weapon appeared in his palm. On and on he went. He hurled eight spears in total. Eight weapons of death and annihilation. Eight overpowered god-killing weapons against mortals. Then he stopped.

Another spear manifested in his hand, and without a second spared, he slammed the butt of the spear into the ground, and an explosion followed. The unfortunate bearers of the spears simply exploded from the magical reaction created by his trigger. Meaty pieces splayed about. Eight more were dead, but he had not gone through that effort to kill a measly eight.

Shards of mermaid-forged metal blessed by a god’s blood shot out in all directions, decimating and killing all those who had been unfortunate to stand too close to the eight he had buried Draupnir’s cloned copies into.

The visceral act of bodies exploding in such a gruesome display sent mists of blood sprouting from multiple areas of the field. The two shield walls were shattered, giving the villagers their chance. They surged forward, their crude weapons stabbing and hacking at reeling reavers.

A man fell, clutching a torn-open throat. Another gurgled as a spear pinned him to the earth.

That was all Kratos saw before Mimir shouted from his hip. “To your side, brother!”

The horned god should not have bothered. Kratos was already moving before the first word had left Mimir’s lips. He spun on the spot and raised an arm to brace, only to realize too late that the heavy bracer that housed his shield was absent.

The two-headed axe that tore past one of the blood mists slammed into his forearm, but Kratos absorbed the blow, pushing the weapon aside as it scraped across his flesh without biting. The only thing to be felt was a dull sense of pressure.

His quick adjustment sent the figure that launched itself out of the bloody mist after him careening to the side. However, Kratos was not one to let such a blow go unanswered. His empty left fist shot out, fast enough to bury itself into the side of the brute's head, shattering his iron helm and sending him flying back into the blood mist he had burst out from.

The brute tumbled along the snow, the littered bodies of his men softening his fall. Then he was dragging himself back to his feet, but not before shaking his head like a dog did to shake water off its fur.

The brute focused on Kratos again and gave a huff of anger before getting to his feet and gripping his axe tight in a two-handed grip. The blow that had destroyed his helmet had broken off one of his horns. This close and without a shield wall to obstruct his view, Kratos was given a clearer look at the raider.

Unlike what he had assumed originally, the brute was well-armored. A solid piece of steel chainmail covered his torso, while patches of chainmail hung from his shoulders and down to his elbows. His forearms and shins were covered by loosely held together iron greaves and vambraces that were of far lesser quality than the steel breastplate that he wore. Yet the crowning act of the brute was the axe in his hand—a roughly made weapon, yet one that had clearly been used to kill enough people that Kratos could feel something from it.

The brute pointed his axe at Kratos, lifting the huge two-handed weapon with a single hand. Then he roared something in that same guttural Old Norse, a string of sentences that ended with the brute slamming the axe head into the snow. Kratos didn’t need to understand the words to know he had been challenged.

"I am Grimvolf Bloodeye! Errant Champion of the Hound! Crusher of Kargol’s spine! Slayer of the Ravenmen! The ground trembles at my step, and the gods know my name!"

The now-named Grimvolf raised his axe high, the roughly hammered steel weapon gleaming in the dying light. "I offer your head, ashen one, to the Hound! Let your skull boil in the bronze cauldron of the hound!" Mimir cleared his throat as he finished his impersonation of Grimvolf before continuing in his regular voice.

“Or at least something along those lines. I suppose there’s an error margin of five percent, but that’s all. Tell me who else can break down and decipher a language that has suffered a linguistic drift so severe it’s almost like we were in another world, and all of that in hours and after hearing it only a couple of times? Aye, brother, I’ll tell you who else can achieve such. Nobody.”

Kratos ignored his friend’s boasting. Instead, he looked back at Grimvolf with a placid calmness that could only be achieved and born from serenity. Needless to say, his amber eyes told a single story.

He was unimpressed.

Just like the challenge earlier, there were some things that did not need words to pass on, and this was one. The brute’s eyes widened, and somehow Kratos knew he had broken a taboo, given great disrespect even without knowing it, yet his eyes remained serene. He didn’t care about whatever traditions the brute followed.

Grimvolf gave out one final roar and charged, a bone-chilling roar of anger on his lips. Kratos tightened his grip on Draupnir’s haft before relaxing it. The spear was not his first choice of weapon. Neither were the Blades that had scarred him, the memories they elicited too violent, too visceral, too damning. No, the position of his weapon of choice belonged to the Leviathan Axe - Faye’s dying gift to him.

Unlike the Blades, there were no terrible memories attached. He had not turned the weapon on a brother taken from him at a young age, on a wife and daughter taken by his own hands under the machinations of the god he had served.

The Leviathan Axe was pure. A new beginning. Unfortunately, the spear was all he had in hand. Yet for all his preference for the axe, Kratos was just as adept with a spear as he was with the axe, perhaps even more so. The spear was the first weapon he had held as a child. As a Spartan, a spear was like a third hand.

Grimvolf expected a fight, a battle between peers. Kratos disappointed him. This was no battle; it was not even going to be a slaughter. It was an execution.

The slab of iron called an axe was swung down in a two-handed swing strong enough to cleave a hundred-year-old tree in half. Massive muscles, bigger than a regular man’s head, burst out of the chainmail that protected the upper part of the limb, the vehicle of motion. Blackened veins trailed the appendage like writhing worms.

The blow was a simple one, yet one that had felled more people than Grimvolf could count. Kratos simply leaned to the side and spun Draupnir, the buff of the weapon deflecting the slab of steel and diverting it into the ground. The force of the blow meant that half of the bladed edge dug deep into the ground. The force of the collision sent a reverberation through Grimvolf’s bones, freezing him in place.

Kratos halted the spin and immediately swung downward. Draupnir’s bladed edge sang. It was a song of air and steel. It parted the brute’s arm at the elbow. Then, just as swiftly, Kratos buried the spear in Grimvolf’s foot before the brute could take a step back. Then he ripped the two-handed axe from the ground with disgusting ease and swung it down in a decapitating strike.

A second later, Grimvolf’s head went flying, while the rest of his body dropped to the ground a few short seconds later.

“I would never grow tired of watching you kill your enemies with their own weapons,” Mimir said with a laugh, while Kratos looked at the dead man for a long second before he discarded the axe to the side with a grunt and turned away - only to come face to face with the villagers, or what was left of them.

The skirmish had been tough. Even with Kratos heavily whittling their numbers, the attackers had been better armed, armored, and equipped. This was a battle as raw as any. There were no prisoners taken, which meant men were forced to fight harder.

Yet it seemed that the villagers had finished before him and had watched his duel, short as it had been. There were looks of shock, awe, and surprise on their faces, looks that slowly turned into expressions of despair and horror.

That was when Kratos heard it. A disgusting squelching sound.

“I don’t think you want to see this, brother. Spare yourself the horror and don’t turn around.”

Kratos ignored the warning and turned, and and his burrow furrowed heavily at the sight in front of him. Perhaps next time he should listen to the smartest god alive.

A/N: Mixed feeling about this chapter, so I've been seating on it for a while, but i'm tired of doing that, so here you go. Second part would probably drop in the next 24hours.