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

I roll to the side. The hood falls back over my head, bringing my sunglasses forward again. As I struggle to my hands and knees, I pull the sunglasses back over my eyes. I turn toward the man and see the unbridled rage in his eyes. He’s about to let that arrow blast through my head.

“Look at me,” I say. “I’m human. I’m not like Xin.”

Xin’s name makes the man sneer. I’m digging my own grave here. Luckily, Em comes to my rescue.

“But father, his hair.”

My hair…. My hair! The blond streak!

I sit upright. The arrow follows my head, but I’m not seeing it anymore. “Do you have it too?” I ask. “Is the red fading?”

My excitement disarms the man slightly. He lowers the arrow to my chest and looks back at Em as she removes her hood.

She’s pretty, but skinny. Her blue eyes blaze like her father’s. But it’s her hair that holds my attention. Much of it is deep red, like mine, but at least a quarter of it is light brown.

Innocence regained. Like me.

I turn to the man. “And you?”

“Less than her,” he says, and then raises his aim back to my head. “But more than you. How did you know those things about me?”

“I have a photographic memory,” I say.

“This does not explain how you knew my name.”

“It does,” I assure him. “I…I read a lot before coming here. Science. Literature. History. In the outside world, your mission to Antarctica is now part of the history of Germany leading up to World War Two.”

His eyes widen. “A second world war? The Führer?”

“Invaded Poland. Then just about everywhere else in Europe.”

“How many this time?”

“Dead?”

He nods.

“The highest number I read was seventy-eight—”

“Thousand?” he says.

“Million.”

The arrow lowers as the number saps his desire to kill me.

“What are you talking about father?” Em asks.

“Do not tell her,” he says to me. “It will taint her innocence.”

His concern is noble, so I agree with a nod and get back to answering his original question. “I read about your expedition. There was mention of the plane crash. The names of the men on board. And the one that went missing.”

“Several other men went missing on that expedition,” he says.

“All here?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “Just one other. The rest were claimed by the land.”

“I guessed at your name,” I say. “You look like a Tobias.”

He looks down at himself, hidden beneath layers of fabric. “You cannot see me.”

“Okay,” I say with a grin, “You sound like a Tobias.”

Em lets out a snort.

“And Ull? How did you know that he was my master?”

I point to the bow.

“Ahh,” he says.

“Plus you kind of smell like him.”

Em laughs loudly now and despite clearly fighting it, Tobias smiles. The sight of his grin relaxes me and I allow myself a chuckle.

“It still doesn’t make sense,” he says. “That someone broken by Ninnis and subservient to Ull could manage to not only fight the mental bondage, but then also escape to the surface… You’re fast, I’ll grant you that. I’ve never seen someone dodge arrows like that. But escape, on your own, should have been impossible.”

“You did it.”

“We had help.”

A surge of hope fills me. Not only have I met two free hunters, but they also escaped with help! There might be others.

“So how did you do it?” he asks again, his smile gone. “How did you escape from Ull?”

My grin fades, too, as the memory returns.

“It was easy,” I say. “I killed him.” I look Tobias in the eyes and add, “I took his own arrow and buried it in his forehead.”

“Ull…is dead?”

“And buried,” I say. “At New Jericho.”

That last bit of information seems to confirm my story. Tobias suddenly roars with laughter. He falls to the snow, jubilant. Em and I watch him, half grinning, half concerned. Has the man gone mad? “I’m free,” he says as his hood falls from his head and frees his shoulder length, red hair.

He shouts again, this time raising a victorious fist into the air, “I’m free!” And as his daughter embraces him, joining in his laughter, I see something amazing. A shock of the man’s blood red hair turns brown.

Innocence reclaimed. I laugh with them.





19



I barely notice the five mile walk as I’m led to Tobias’s and Em’s hideout. We move in silence, vigilant against hunters—who might be looking for me, or for them. Despite the silence, my mind is alive with excitement. I have made friends. Allies. Skilled allies.