This ship had been abandoned for years. The mast had broken off and left jagged splinters, now dulled by storm and wave. He turned and looked back to where his ship had been. He found naught but steel-gray chop and foam nearly as white as his ash-stained skin.
The stench of black decay was his first warning. His second was the sudden red-hot sear from the chains fused to the bones of his wrists. Ares had been a cruel master; Kratos hated even the thought of him, save for one single act. Ares had joined to his arms the Blades of Chaos.
The embedded chains burned now as though they hung in a bonfire. Flame dripped from the blades on his back, but again he didn’t bother to draw. He turned and dropped into a fighting stance, hands wide to grapple and rip. The stench gained putrid strength as its source climbed into view.
That source was three of Ares’s soldiers-rotting corpses of undead legionnaires. These were the only soldiers the God of War could now command. Their eyes burned with a cold green fire. Decomposing flesh hung in rags from their bones. Without a sound, they rushed him.
Undead though they might be, they moved with uncanny speed. One thrust a spear at his head, thinking to force him to dodge, as another swung a length of chain at his legs.
He snatched the spear haft with both hands, driving it down to tangle the whipping chains-then Kratos released the spear and drove his hand into the slimy guts of the nearest legionnaire, his fingers ripping through the decayed flesh to seize its hipbone from the inside. Kratos squeezed with inhuman force; the legionnaire’s hip joint shattered, and the creature fell. Kratos moved on without looking back.
When the legionnaire with the chain swung it again, Kratos let it whip around his arms. He wasn’t worried; he had chains of his own.
As the undead leaped for him, Kratos slipped a loop of the blade chain around its neck. A twitch of his massive arms tore the legionnaire’s head from its shoulders. The third he dispatched with a simple blow of his fist, crushing its skull.