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

“We all saw what happened at the gates,” the aborigine says. “Behemoth. The fire. Nephil.”


The big bald man steps forward. “When you rejected Nephil and gave up his body, some of us were…inspired by your strength. We fled to the surface, and over time have managed to find each other and band together.”

A group of rogue hunters. The thought brings a smile to my face. “How many?”

“Thirty-one,” Em says.

“Your army,” the aborigine says.

“My army?”

“We have been waiting for you to return,” Em says. “Preparing for it.”

“How could you have known?” I ask. While I’m thankful for their faith in my abilities, I didn’t even think it was possible, so how could Em, not to mention these hunters I’ve never met, be so sure that I would escape Tartarus?

“Luca,” Em says. “When you left, he fell into a deep sleep. He would eat, and drink on occasion, but mostly he just slept. And spoke. About you. Little of what he said made sense, but the things he described are like nothing in the underworld. When he mentioned your name, I felt sure he was seeing you, as he did before.”

“You knew about the drawings?” I ask.

“I heard him tell you about them,” she says. “Thin walls.” Em starts collecting her knives from the trees and the ground around us. “About a week ago, Luca woke up.”

“When I left Tartarus,” I say.

“Said he saw you in his dreams,” Em says. “Said you were flying over the lake. Tried to call you.”

“I’m here,” I say. “I’m right here.”

“What?” she says.

“I saw him on the shore, yelling to me. It’s what led me here.”

She stops, looks at me and smiles. “Tobias would be proud of you.”

I look around at the group of hunters. “Of both of us.”

She shrugs and sheathes the last of her collected knives. Then she walks right up to me and stops. She’s looking me over like an art student observing a classic painting. In that quiet moment, I return her look, remembering the face of the one I call sister. Her deep blue eyes shift back and forth, from my face to my hair. Her skin is darker, but so are the freckles on her cheeks. Her hair is still a mix of brown—her natural color—and blood red, revealing the taint of Nephilim corruption.

“How did you do it?” she asks, her voice a whisper.

“I told you,” I say. “I walked out.” Thinking she wants a longer explanation I add, “We all carry burdens—the weight of the bad things we’ve done—and in Tartarus, those—”

“What?” she says. “No. Not that. Your hair.”

My hair? I haven’t given my hair a second thought. A streak of blond hair emerged when I remembered who I was and fled from the Nephilim, years ago. I’d hoped more of it turned blond since, but never thought to check, not to mention I didn’t have a mirror handy. The shock of hair that occasionally hangs in my face has been blond for a long time, so I haven’t noticed any change. But it sounds like the red might have retreated a little more. “Has more of the red gone away?”

Em laughs and shakes her head. “Solomon…” She reaches a hand out to the bald hunter. “Krane. Your sword.”

The bald man, whose name is Krane, steps forward and hands his scimitar to Em. The curved blade is wide toward the end, and very shiny. I imagine that Krane uses its reflective surface to blind opponents before striking, but it also makes for a handy mirror. She holds the flat surface of the sword up in front of me.

The face of a stranger stares back.

No…not a stranger. Someone long forgotten, mixed with an aged exterior. While I still look young, the stubble on my face has become a full-fledged beard. When I look at my bright blue eyes, I see Luca’s, too, and the small razor-clawed thinker double, but mostly I see the eyes that looked back at me in my parents’ bathroom mirror.

But there is something else. Something that is both new and old. And as I realize that what I’m seeing is not an illusion, my knees start to grow weak. I take the sword in my hands and fall to my knees. Turning my head in either direction, I inspect the change for any trace of corruption.

I find nothing.

My hair—every single strand—is blond.

My widening smile turns into a laugh. Now I understand, in part, why the hunters here are bowing to me. They know who I am, who I was and what I did. They know I entered Tartarus, where I stayed for three months, and I’ve not only returned, but I’ve returned purified. Free of the Nephilim corruption.

I look at each and every one of the hunters around me and see blood red hair on all except for the bald Krane. While all of them also have streaks of their original hair color to varying degrees, the red is a constant reminder of who they served, what was done to them and what they have done to others.

“You didn’t know?” Em asks.

I shake my head. “There’s a mirror shortage in Tartarus.”