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

The soldiers emerge from the cages slowly. There’s a palpable sense of bewilderment as they try to comprehend the things they’ve seen here. Not just Pan and my unnatural abilities, but the ease with which Wright and Em killed the giant that had made their lives a living hell. How many of them had he taken, I wonder. But before I can ponder the question, a wave of dizziness spins my vision.

Setting the men free with one bold act, while impressive, has further drained my strength. Struggling to stay on my feet, I take Wright’s arm. Sensing my weakness, he helps prop me up. “You okay, kid?”

“We’re the same age,” I remind him with a weak voice.

“Right,” he says.

“I’ll be fine in a minute,” I add, and then change the subject. “Your people are on the coast, right? At the end of the river?”

“There’s an aircraft carrier group just off the coast. I’m sure they’ve got an FOB set up by now.”

“FOB?” I ask.

“Forward operating base,” he explains.

I make a mental note to find a book about the armed services and read it cover to cover. Would make speaking to Wright a lot easier. Then I dig into a satchel hanging from my hip and take out the modern mapping device I christened maptrack. I found it on a Chinese general who’d been killed by the Nephilim. It helped me find Em, Kainda, Luca and the others, but I have no need for it now. I show it to him. “Can you program the coordinates so these men can find their way to the FOB?”

He takes maptrack and looks it over. The touch screen display is in Chinese, but he seems to have little trouble navigating through the options.

“Can you read Chinese?” I ask.

“No,” he says, pushing buttons. “But the interface is fairly common, and the icons are universal.” Then he’s done. “All set. They can follow the river most of the way.”

I take the device and look at the map. “There aren’t any dots.”

“It’s a GPS device.”

I’m about to ask what GPS means, but I think he’s catching on to the fact that I’ve missed out on the last twenty years of technological advances. “Global Positioning System. It uses satellites in orbit. The signal can’t go through a mountain, so the positioning dots will appear once it’s outside.”

When I look up from the device, a sea of faces is staring at me. The freed prisoners have gathered around us, filling the hallway. Kainda and Em have taken up defensive positions on either side of me, their hands hovering just over their weapons.

“They’re waiting on you, boss,” Kat says to me.

My dizzy tiredness is replaced quickly by a horde of frantic butterflies in my stomach. They’re waiting on me.

“Kainda, Em,” I say, “Can you keep watch?”

Both nod and walk through the crowd, heading for either end of the hall. While the citadel is fairly quiet, this is still a Nephilim stronghold. There isn’t a lot of time. Now if I can just figure out what to say.

Maybe it’s the lack of a threat, or the laser-like focus of my captivated audience, but I’m suddenly very uncomfortable. “Umm, hi.” Stupid. Next, I’ll thank them for coming. Not that they’d understand me. Ahh, that’s where I’ll start, the language barrier. “Can those of you who speak English come closer?”

“I believe we already have, mate,” says an Australian man in green fatigues.

I look at the inner circle of men and see a kaleidoscope of nationalities surrounding me. “Where are you all from?”

“I’m a Kiwi,” says the man I thought was Australian. Kiwi is a nickname given to people from New Zealand. “One of the few remaining, I’m sad to say.”

I look to the next man.

“Turkey,” he says with a nod.

I look from one man to the next, and they rattle off their respective countries. India, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, China, North and South Korea and Germany. When they’re done, Wright and Ferrell are tense. “What’s wrong?” I ask Wright.

“Not all of them are exactly friendly to the U.S. or each other,” he whispers.

Some of the nations represented here were enemies twenty years ago. It’s disheartening to hear that things haven’t changed. They will now, I think. “Your individual countries no longer matter,” I say.