Old God, New World (GOW/WHFB)

He came to with a roar and a word on his lips. “Boy!”

Muscled limbs pushed him up from the snow-covered ground, and wide, frantic amber eyes jerked left and right, yet his vision told the same story.

A story of snow-covered landscape that blanketed the ground for as far as his eyes could see. Aged and old trees shot to the skies in search of sunlight that didn’t quite seem to reach the ground. Rock outcroppings escaped the hold of the snow and fought their way out of the ground as well.

Kratos swiveled, and yet, things remained the same. He was in a forest of snow, trees, and rocks. Even as he stood, posture in a half-crouch and alert, more snow dropped on his shoulders and bald head.

“Midgard?” he grunted to himself.

“Not exactly. While you had your very much needed nap, I’ve tasted the snow on the ground, and it doesn’t quite have the tang that accompanied Fimbulwinter.”

A high, aristocratic voice that dripped with knowledge and secrets spoke from behind him. If he was any less familiar with the voice, he would’ve turned around and tried to brain the fool who had tried to sneak up on an almost naked man in the middle of the forest.

“Mimir, you live.”

“Aye, I do, brother, I do. Although I find it incredibly heartbreaking that you didn’t shout my name as well after you woke up. What’s a poor, sad, and lonely head supposed to feel when you ignore him?”

He let out a grunt in reply. Filtering the babble that Mimir had tried to drown his ears with, instead, he focused on a continued observation of his surroundings and how much something was missing.

Something even more than the missing Leviathan Axe that was usually strapped to his back, more than the missing Blades of Chaos that seemed to have been forgotten behind. Something more important than the arms and armor he wore because here he was, naked with only a ring on his finger and his aged and old periskelis around his hips from which Mimir’s head hung. There he stood and he had only one thought and worry in his head.

“Where is Atreus?” His rumbling voice silenced the talking head strapped to his waist instantly.

He could feel Mimir work himself into saying something, so he remained silent and allowed the smart man to go to work. While Mimir thought, Kratos stood up in full and began to turn on the spot, taking in the full environment he had found himself in.

Where had he been before here? His head pounded something fierce, like he had been hit in the side of the head by Mjölnir. Yet he had weathered blows from the accursed hammer and had not been left this sore in the head.

So this was something else then.

“I do not know where he is, brother,” Mimir finally spoke. “I do not even know where we are, to be honest. This is not any of the Nine Realms. Wherever we’ve found ourselves, we’re a long way from home.”

For the first time since Kratos had known the horned god, he found something in his voice: worry and uncertainty. The first was a more understandable phenomenon for one who woke up face-first in snow. The second was enough to furrow Kratos’ brow.

There were very few things Mimir was not knowledgeable about. Very few realms the Celtic trickster had not traveled and seen in his long life. So for him to be filled with this much uncertainty…

“Where we are does not matter,” Kratos finally grumbled out a reply, his voice somehow managing to soothe the horned god on his hips. “All that matters is finding Atreus, then shelter.”

“Ha, of course, of course!” Mimir replied with a laugh, his worries and fear already washed away. “A new adventure then. Hopefully, it will be a better one than the last. Although isn’t shelter the first thing one searches for in such occasions first?”

Kratos replied with a grunt as he realized what the horned god was trying to do. Distract him with empty babble and platitudes so he wouldn’t worry about Atreus. He picked a location that spoke to something in him, and he began to walk.

“Hmm, which reminds me, what exactly do you remember last?” Mimir asked.

“A fight.”

“Yes, yes, I’m sure it was one. Now do you remember the particular fight in question? The enemies? The weapons they used? The location of the fight?”

Kratos gave a grunt in reply as he continued to walk through the snow. His feet parted the shin-high snow with ease as he walked.

“I suppose you don’t, which is really troubling because I don’t either. But whatever we fought, our presence here must be the result of that. A fight with an enemy powerful enough to displace us through space? Not even Odin should be capable of such a feat, I dare say, which brings us back to our location.”

Kratos hopped over a broken tree that impeded his path, as his feet continued to lead him forward, then he heard something else. Something different from the forest sounds that had accompanied him since he woke up.

The sound of something running through the snow. Unlike him, this person was struggling with every step they took, the snow muffling each step and slowing them down.

“I suppose we can just ask the people coming, although that begs the question: if we’re so far from the Nine Realms, what do you think are our chances they speak Old Norse?”

The figure ran out from behind a tree, revealing themselves to be a child. Off age with Atreus. Blonde hair, matted and caked with blood, hung from her head in a mess. She was dressed only in a rough-spun woolen dress that hung to her knees, while her feet were covered in knee-high wool boots.

The child jerked to a stop meters away from him. Frantic blue eyes, one blackened and bruised by a blow while the other filled with shed tears, stared up at him in horror.

“Peace, child,” Kratos called, his hands to his side as he spotted what she carried on her back. The reason her feet dug so deep into the ground despite the wool boots that should’ve distributed her weight in a way that should’ve made running in the snow easier. Another child, a babe.

The girl shook her head and said something that almost sounded like Old Norse, yet had been changed and shifted into something he barely recognized. Yet you didn’t need to know the words someone spoke to understand them. As proven by when Mimir decided to speak. “I reckon that was a plea. I could barely understand one in three words she spoke, it sounds like Old Norse but different.”

More footsteps rang out. These ones were heavier, rougher in their rhythm as they trudged through the snow before coming into range.

They were two men. Brown hair fell from their heads like a wave. Their wool and fur clothes were stained by blood—the same blood that caked the spear and sword in each of their hands. Their brown eyes trailed from the girl to Kratos and back to the girl.

At their presence, whatever hope the child seemed to have had vanished as she immediately burst into tears, while the child she carried on her back began to make noises from its harness.

The men said something vaguely threatening, as they waved their weapons at the child, then at themselves, then at Kratos. He stared at them in reply, his brows furrowing as he observed the scene he had stumbled into.

One that was familiar in some ways and yet strange in others. “They seem to be laying some claim over the child and are trying to dissuade you from coming closer. Although whatever claim they seem to possess over the child, she doesn’t seem to agree. Even now, her bruised eye flits about, searching for a way to escape.”

“Raiders?” Kratos questioned with a grunt as he stared at the duo. His calloused palm eased open, as he tentatively sought a connection with the weapon that rested in those grips easily.

“They don’t seem to have transformed their Fylgia or twisted their Hamr, so I very much doubt that. These seem like your garden variety of reavers instead.”

Three pairs of eyes drifted down to Kratos’ waist and the horned head that hung there. Its positioning made sure they only saw a part of it, but whatever they saw was enough to make them wary.

“Then I’ll have no need for it then.” He decided as he closed his palm and began to walk forward. Every step he took toward the men made them more wary. More words were said. Weapons waved at him as they took cautious steps back. It seemed that the sight of a speaking head on his waist brought more fear to them than a half-naked mountain of a man.

The child remained frozen in place. She watched him walk past her, her head turning along with his movement.

He came to a stop before the two men. “Leave,” he said gruffly. He had no interest in a fight so soon after waking in a strange land, yet he had seen the eyes on the men before him. Seen the hunger and taste for blood in them. He would not let the child fall victim to whatever they had planned.

They stared at him in confusion, before replying once more with their twisted Norse, while still waving their weapons in his face.

“This might not be a very accurate translation, but I’ve begun to break down and translate their words, a perk of being the smartest man in the Nine Realms. And I know for certain they called you a Vitki, or sorcerer I suppose, on account of my head on your waist.”

Kratos frowned. That single movement made the spear-wielding man’s eyes widen. He opened his mouth to speak, but the man was already moving to act.

The spearhead lashed out, aiming to pierce his throat in one swift, thunderbolt-like movement. Kratos was faster. His hand lashed out, catching the spear by its haft. He overestimated the wood, because it immediately splintered and broke in his hand.

The next second, his right hand caught the broken spearhead and buried it into the man’s chest. A Spartan kick to the same chest sent the man flying with a scream that ended the moment he slammed into a tree at breakneck speed.

The second man gave out a cry from behind him, and Kratos moved again in response. He spun on his feet, his backhand lashing out and slamming into the second man’s chest. The force of the blow caved in his chest, leaving a very visible dent where his ribs used to be as the body fell unceremoniously.

There was silence in the clearing for long seconds before Mimir decided to break it. “I got to say, brother, your talent and aptitude for violence is something that somehow continues to astound me.”

“I had no plans to kill them,” he replied as he stared down at the blood that caked his hand. Barely an hour into a new realm and two men were already dead by his hands.

“I know, brother, I know that. This was pretty much assisted suicide from their end, so it’s nothing to worry about. They must’ve thought you wanted to cast a spell or something and responded out of fear.”

Kratos replied with a grunt as he turned to the child that had watched it all happen with wide eyes. He thought for a second, then moved to speak when sounds rang out. Sounds he had grown familiar with from the age of seven when he had been introduced to the agoge.

The clashing of sword on shield, and the sound of axe ripping flesh and meat. They all culminated into something clear. A battlefield. A fight. The child’s attention shifted to the direction it was happening, the direction she had run from, then back to him. Then she turned on her heels, picked up the sword of the man whose chest he had obliterated with a backhand blow, then she ran back.

“I’ll give her points for bravery,” Mimir said, as Kratos watched her retrace her steps with calm amber eyes. “Then take those points back for the sheer stupidity of the act. I don’t suppose we’re going to do anything about that?”

Kratos gave a grunt in reply as he bent low, using the snow to wash his hand clean of blood before he stood back up. “It is in the way, and I have no plans to take a longer route.”

He began to walk once more, the sound of battle getting louder with each step. “Oh, jolly good then,” Mimir began. “I can never say no to killing raiders and reavers. Perhaps we’ll even find someone able to tell us something about these weird-colored winds.”

A/N: I've always wanted to write something Warhammer related since i got familiar with it two years back. This is my first attempt with that.