The Last Hunter: Collected Edition (Antarktos Saga #1-5)

“Em, wait!” the man shouts.

Normally I’d tune out anything someone shouted while I’m about to be pounced upon, but the shortened name—Em—fills my mind as I catch site of the second hunter. It’s a girl. Like the man, she’s clothed in all white, but she’s a good foot shorter than me and has wide hips. Well, not wide for a girl, but wide for a boy. A glint of sunlight on metal brings my eyes to her hands, where she holds two daggers, one of which is now swiping toward my midsection.

Like Kainda, it would be a mistake for me to underestimate this hunter simply because she’s a girl. In fact, as someone who spent most of his life being out-muscled by the opposite sex, this should be second nature to me by now. I leap back, bending my stomach out of the way. The blade flashes past my stomach, scratching the fabric of my snowsuit.

Crunch, crunch, crunch.

The man is approaching now, too. He sounded worried about the girl and probably gave up on the arrows because his erratic shooting might strike her.

The girl strikes again. I block the blow with Whipsnap, bend the weapon back and let it spring out as I spin to face the man. The girl shouts in surprise as Whipsnap sweeps out her legs and knocks her onto her back.

“Em!” the man shouts again, uncommonly worried for a hunter.

For a moment I wonder if this man is a hunter at all, but then I see the blades attached to the top and bottom of his bow, which he now holds like a staff, and I know without a doubt that this weapon was dreamed up in the nightmare of the underworld.

Whipsnap collides with the bladed bow again and again as the man attacks and I parry. Each of his strikes is aimed to kill, and several come close. If this does not end soon, I will surely die.

The man thrusts. The blade passes by my face, missing by inches.

I have him now. His stomach is open. Whipsnap’s blade is pointed at his gut. All I need to do is thrust.

But I don’t.

I can’t.

Instead, I apply hundreds of pages of ninja magazine fighting technique tutorials stored in my perfect memory. I take hold of his jacket with my left hand and leap. I place my feet against his stomach and let his momentum and my weight pull us to the ground. When we strike, I thrust with my legs and send the man flying. For good measure, I add a gust of wind to take him five feet further. The impact should give him something to think about.

But as the man sails through the air, he shouts, “Epsilon! Like we practiced!”

Epsilon?

I hear the girl shifting as she stands. Her face is masked, but I can sense a grin there.

The man lands like a cat, rolling back to his feet, an arrow already being nocked.

The girl opens her jacket, revealing a belt and two crisscrossing straps over her chest, which are absolutely laden with throwing blades. She lets the first one fly just as the man fires an arrow. As the wind kicks up around me I realize that Epsilon is code for some kind of practiced attack. The arrows and knives will come like hail from a storm and I’m not sure I can deflect them all without also compromising my body. Either way, these two have the upper hand.

I need Ull, but there is no time to free him. The first knife flips past my head, causing me to duck directly into the path of an incoming arrow.





18



If not for the wind acting as my instinctive guardian, I would be dead. The arrow coming for my head bends as the wind carries it up and just over my nose. But there is no time to think about how lucky I am, because two more knives and another arrow are coming my way.

A combination of quick movements and wind gusts keep the blades from striking their target, but each shot comes closer than the last. I will the wind to carry snow and obscure my attacker’s view, but I’m moving fast, and the gusts must continually change directions; only a few flakes shift on the ground.

“Aim wide!” the man shouts. “I’ll force him to you.”

At first I think they’ve made a mistake, announcing their intentions, but I quickly realize it doesn’t matter. She’s now throwing where I’m not, while he’s aiming where I am. No matter where I go, a blade awaits me.

I twist and spin Whipsnap in front of me. A knife blade is deflected, and an arrow dodged, but the hunters are running around me now, throwing and shooting from so many different directions that they’re impossible to keep track of.

Epsilon is a genius attack, I think, before the first blade—a knife—strikes my left arm. The sharp dagger slices through my coat and the top few layers of my skin. It’s a superficial wound, but I’m sure it’s the first of many.

“Stop!” I shout. “You don’t need to kill me!”

“Don’t listen to him, Em!” the man shouts.