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

The knife is knocked to the ground by an unseen force. It lands at the hunter’s feet. The man’s eyes go wide with understanding. “It’s you.”


Em draws two more knives, but it’s not necessary. The hunter backs out the way he came—and runs.

“What did you do that for?” Em says, wheeling around on me. I can’t remember her ever being so angry with me before. I see the look of a hunter in her eyes. But then she reels it in. “He’s going to get help. All those people you just freed are going to die.”

“I don’t think so,” I say, still on my knees.

She helps me up. “Solomon, even if those men get their weapons, if they get caught in Olympus, surrounded by hunters, warriors and who knows what else, they are going to die. And don’t tell me you will protect them. You can barely stand.” She sighs, shakes her head and says, “If only Tobias had a few more weeks with you.”

I note that she no longer calls Tobias her father. It seems she’s come to accept that her actual father might still be alive somewhere. But I don’t bring it up. “He’s not going to get help.”

“Are you part gatherer now?” she says, oozing sarcasm. “Did you read his mind?”

“I don’t have to read his mind, Em.” I step away from her, standing without help. “He’s a hunter. Think about it.”

She understands after just a moment of thought. “Fine.”

Hunters do not run from a fight. They don’t back down against insurmountable odds. And they would never, even in the face of death, run for help. Death would be preferable. They wouldn’t even call for help. That this hunter saw me, recognized me and then bolted can mean only one thing, and before I can explain it, the man returns, saying, “There he is.”

There are five of them, three men, one woman and a girl around my age, which is to say she looks eighteen, but could be forty for all I know. All are strangers to me, but Em says, “Zuh?”

The younger girl steps forward. “Emilee,” she says. “What are you doing here, you—” She sees the cages and her eyes go wide. Her mouth clamps shut for a moment and then she says. “Where are they?”

“Wait,” I say. “Don’t answer that.” They might not be attacking us, but that doesn’t mean I’m a fool. “Let me see your hair.”

It’s a vague request, but they all understand what I’m getting at. Zuh, whose dark black skin would make her nearly impossible to see in the darkest recesses of the underground, steps forward. Her blood red hair is like a pom-pom around her head. It’s the first bona fide afro I’ve seen on a hunter, but it fits her. She’s scantily clad, wearing brown leathers, but also has a menagerie of chains crisscrossing her waist and chest. It’s her weapon, I think, but I can’t identify it.

“Like what you see?” she says with a smirk.

My cheeks instantly flush.

She chuckles. “It’s a kusarigama.” She turns so I can see the sickle blade attached to the end of the chain. “He’s as innocent as they say,” she says to Em. Then she takes some of my hair and rubs it between her fingers.

I recover from her teasing and do my best to sound nonplussed. “Now yours.”

She gives me a wicked grin that’s full of mischief, but then tilts her head down and parts her pom-pom of hair. At the core is a dark bundle of black hair that she has curled up tight and tied down so that it cannot be seen. I nod and step past her. One by one, I inspect the others and see their carefully hidden shocks of untainted hair.

When I step back, I ask a question none of them are expecting. “How is this possible? None of you have met me. None of you have been with Kainda or Em.”

“Word is spreading,” says the man who first discovered us. “At first, we doubted. Then we heard that you had returned from Tartarus.”

“But the underworld is full of hunters seeking me out,” I say.

He smiles, but seems confused by the genuine nature of it. “Not all of them are your enemies. There are those still loyal to the masters. The oldest generations. But many of those seeking you out simply wish to follow you. And others are guiding the masters on false trails.”

“They are no longer your masters,” I point out.

He concedes the point with a nod.

“We would like to join you,” Zuh says.

It’s a tempting offer. Having five more hunters along would make us a formidable force. But I really don’t know these people and the mission we are on, and currently being distracted from, is too important to risk telling them about. I remember Xin’s warning, to trust no one. One of these hunters could be a shifter, a shape-changing child of trickster demons like Lucifer, the most famous of them all. I don’t think so, given the nature of our chance encounter, but I cannot risk the mission.

“Actually,” I say, “I could use your help with something else.”