“If you can, follow,” Kratos told his crew.

If they couldn’t, they weren’t worth saving.

He vaulted the rail and landed cat-footed on a sea-slimed plank. He skidded along it, wheeling his arms for balance. The sea foamed among the jagged drifting planks, and every swell set derelict hulls grinding against one another like wooden millstones. To fall into these waters would be certain death.

Fifty feet ahead bobbed another ship. Its mast had been lopped off, and from the look of the encrusted barnacles and rot-blackened seaweed that festooned the hull, the ship had been a prisoner in the Grave of Ships for many years. Anything that still floated was better than his own galley, which was surrendering to the sea with a vast sucking sound and a chorus of screams from sailors too slow to leap away.

A moment later, the only sounds were the crash of waves and the thin whistle of the slackening gale. Walking quickly across the broken remnants of perished ships, Kratos reached the abandoned hulk. The high curve of slimy hull looked impossible to climb, even for him.

He paused and glanced back to see if any of his crew had followed. Only a handful had avoided being sucked under with the galley-a Hydra’s head rose up from the depths and snapped savagely, taking more of the crew by cutting them into bloody halves. In silence, Kratos watched them die.

He was used to being alone.

The spar on which he balanced rolled unexpectedly beneath him. Without hesitation he leaped, fingers scrabbling for the hulk’s encrusted anchor chain. Barnacles slashed his fingers, but he only snarled and gripped so much the harder. His feet met the curve of the hull, and he carefully walked his way up, pulling himself along the chain. He swung himself up onto the deck.