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

She just glares back at me, not because she’s angry about what we’re doing, but because I asked the question. I’m no mind reader, but Kainda is easy to understand.

Behind Kainda, Em has the same look on her face. The look of a hunter. These two women are dangerous. If only my parents could see me now, floating down a raging river with two of the most dangerous women on Antarctica, if not the planet, racing toward an encounter with a half-human, half-demon worshiped as a god in the ancient world. I’m not sure they would call me ‘Schwartz’ anymore. Doesn’t quite fit like it used to.

A spear of brown moving behind Em catches my attention. It’s a large tree trunk and it actually looks like it was logged—no roots, no branches—rather than pulled over by the flooded river. Why the Nephilim would be cutting down trees, I have no idea. Nor do I care. I’m more focused on the respite the twenty-foot hunk of wood promises.

I point toward the approaching tree trunk. “Grab hold of it!”

Both women look at me like I better not be thinking they need a rest, which I’m sure they do, so I come up with another reason. “It’s streamlined. Moving faster than us. We’ll make better time.”

This seems to make sense to Kainda and Em, or at least provides an acceptable excuse, and when the log catches up, they both grab hold. The log pulls them closer to me and I grab hold too, careful not to pull too hard and roll it. Kainda is on the other side of the log. Em is to my right. No one says a word. Hunters or not, they’re exhausted. We hold on and let the river take us.

But it’s not long before the river slows and widens. “We’re nearing the lake,” I say.

“Do you see them?” Em asks.

I can’t see anything with my head just above water. “We need to get to shore.” I push off the log and my body groans as I begin to swim. Em and Kainda follow without complaint, but none of us are moving too quickly. The river merges with the jungle. Where once there was a shoreline, there is now an endless pool of foot-deep water.

Reaching the shallows of the jungle, I get my feet beneath me and stand.

And then fall.

My legs are all but useless.

Thinking of Mira, I pull myself up again, using a tree for support.

“I don’t think we’re far from the lake,” Em says. She’s leaning against a tree, too. “I recognize the trees here.”

Kainda stands behind her, relying on just her legs to hold her up. I suspect the strength that holds her up has more to do with internal fortitude than the power of her muscles. “It’s not far,” she confirms, pointing down river. The canopy stretches for perhaps two hundred feet, casting the flooded jungle in shade. Beyond that, I see slivers of blue light where the tree line ends and the lake begins.

I take a furtive step and my leg wobbles. But I stay up. I yank Whipsnap from my belt and place the heavy mace end in the water, using it to support my weight as I’ve done before.

“Lead the way, old man,” Kainda says.

I’m too tired and focused on the Clarks to offer some kind of retort, so I just set out for the lake, moving as quickly as I can without collapsing. Our approach is clumsy and loud as we splash through the floodwaters. But I suspect time is short. Fifty feet from the lake’s edge, I’m moving at a fast hobble. I hear voices in the distance. Shouts.

A shadow flickers over the canopy. No! I’m too late!

I try to run, but fall, landing in the shallow water.

Kainda grabs my arm and yanks me up. We keep moving.

There’s an explosion, muffled by water. I move faster. The blinding shimmer of sunlight on water is just ahead.

In the distance, Enki’s deep voice is speaking.

I slash at some branches blocking our path and then lunge through, reaching the lake’s edge. I see the boat, far out in the lake, but no movement on board. But the boat holds my attention for just a moment. Between the shore and the boat, fifty feet above the water, is Enki. His bat-like wings beat at the air, keeping him aloft. And his long, scorpion tail twitches back and forth like an angry cat’s. His head hair, which isn’t covered by any kind of helmet, billows in the wind. He looks huge, and frightening, and he’s dressed for war in ornate metal armor. What human military force could face down a monster like Enki, let alone an army of them, and not simply run in fear?

An army of hunters, I think. But then I see Mira, clutched in his hands. She’s speaking to him. Her words are lost over the distance, but the tone is angry and defiant. She has grown into a strong woman. Like Em. Like Kainda. But in the hands of a Nephilim like Enki, her defiance will soon be crushed out of her.

I fill my lungs to scream, hoping to pull Enki’s attention away from Mira.

But then the giant flinches.

Mira falls from Enki’s grasp as he paws at his breastplate.

What’s happening?