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

Hoping I’m not being watched, I strap on my climbing claws and take to the trees, moving quickly up into the canopy, watching the scene below as I move in.

Ninnis begins to laugh. “You are no better than that fool, Tobias.”

Em screams in anger, throwing more blades as Kainda charges in. The combined attack is impressive and so refined that I think the two women have been practicing together, working on coordinated attacks the way Em and Tobias once did. Em’s blades pass just over Kainda’s shoulders as she runs and keeps all four black limbs busy. The attack is so well coordinated that when Kainda strikes, Ninnis has to leap back.

Kainda’s hammer smashes into the lake, exploding water into the air. As she draws back to strike again, all four black limbs strike her chest and send her flying. Her hammer is knocked from her hands when she crashes into a tree and falls to the jungle floor.

Em presses her attack, but not even one of the blades gets past Ninnis’s defenses. Still, they do provide a nice distraction.

When I reach the end of the canopy, I leap.

If not for the sun, my airborne attack would have been more successful, but it’s not a total failure. Ninnis sees me coming at the last moment. The blackness reaches up for me, but I twist my body around and land on Ninnis’s back like he’s going to give me a piggy back ride. I punctuate the attack by wrapping my arms over his chest and squeezing. The serrated, triangular feeder-tooth blades slip into his flesh.

Ninnis shouts in pain and we both fall back beneath the surface of the lake. He thrashes and kicks. I can feel the blades cutting through his skin, burrowing deeper. Is he trying to kill himself? I can’t imagine him panicking.

And then, he’s still. Motionless.

My hands begin to sting. It grows intense, like there is acid in the water. I’m about to let go when Ninnis’s body rises out of the water and takes me with it. What’s strange about this is that Ninnis did not move. It’s as though he levitated out of the water. When I look down and see the lake’s surface beneath his feet, I know that’s exactly what happened.

The sting on my hands becomes a burn and I let go.

But I don’t fall. I’m caught, as though I’m in the grip of a Nephilim warrior. As I’m drawn around in front of Ninnis, I can see the blackness around my waist. The appendage undulates from Ninnis’s chest, intangible, yet physical at the same time. I’ve seen it before. In my mind. The spirit of Nephil, but under Ninnis’s direction.

The six wounds left by my climbing claws at the top of Ninnis’s chest, above the darkness, ooze blood.

Purple blood.

How corrupt has he become? Could he really be so evil that he has become more Nephilim than human? Is that even possible?

The wounds stitch back together.

“No,” I say.

“Yes,” Ninnis says, taking delight in the word. “You’re beginning to understand.”

He’s been toying with us. Tunis is right. He’s not human. There is nothing that Em, Kainda or I can do to stop him. Not now. He’s just been toying with us.

Em shouts and throws a knife.

Ninnis allows it to strike him, right in the eye. The wet splotch of the blade burying itself in Ninnis’s face is revolting, but not nearly as bad as the slurp it makes when he pulls it out. The eyeball quickly reforms and the wound disappears. He flicks the blade aside, into the lake, as though he might a twig on a boring summer day. Then a spear of black launches out, wraps around Em, slams her to the ground twice and tosses her to the side. She’s motionless when she lands, and I hope the shallow water covering the ground softened the blow and that she’s merely unconscious. But I know that if Ninnis isn’t stopped, she will be dead along with the rest of us.

But I’m helpless at the moment.

Ninnis turns to me and I can see by his expression that he means to gloat. He never gets the chance. Kainda’s heavy stone hammer collides with his face and throws him backwards. The blackness around my waist slips away and I’m dropped into the water.

I scramble back on shore and see Kainda hunched over, clutching her side. “Run,” she says to me. “You have to live.”

I ignore her, looking for Whipsnap, searching the water-filled jungle. But there is no sign of it. Not that it would help.

Ninnis roars as he floats up out of the water, held aloft by a pillar of darkness. I turn to face him, but he pays me little attention. The darkness shoots out and slams me against a tree so hard that I black out.

I come to just seconds later, but a lot has changed in those seconds. The darkness has hold of Kainda and is pinning her against a tree. My vision flickers. I hear Ninnis shouting something about betrayal and weakness.

My vision returns.

Ninnis is holding his sword, Strike, poised over Kainda’s chest.

“No,” I say, but my voice is weak. “Stop. Take me.”

Ninnis’s head slowly turns around toward me, his neck spinning further than a man’s should. “Don’t worry, little Solomon. You’re next.”

Without looking back, he plunges the sword forward, burying it in Kainda’s chest.





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