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

And then it hits.

My ears pop and grit scours my exposed skin. The pulse of air is gone as quickly as it came. Hunters shout in surprise and anger. It worked, I think, looking up. Hunters are scattered, just twenty feet away, but they’re already picking themselves up. I catch a glimpse of the wiry me with the tufts of red hair. He’s already back on his feet and staring at me, a sick smile on his face like he knows something I don’t.

“Solomon!” Wright shouts. “Above you!”

I look up in time to see the head of an ax descending toward my skull. Without thought, I roll to the side. Sparks fly as the giant metal blade strikes the stone floor where my head had been. The ground beneath me vibrates as the giant lands. He used the wind, I realize, to cover the distance with a jump. He swings again, sweeping the blade horizontally. I push off the ground, and I’m carried up by a gust of wind. The ax passes by beneath my face, severing a shock of my blond hair.

Before the last strike is complete, he swings with the second ax, bringing it down with the strength to cleave my body in two. I leap back, out of the way. Is he really trying to kill me? I wonder. I thought Nephil would want me alive. Then I remember his blood. In theory, he could kill me and bring me back with his blood if he was fast enough, a fact that does little to comfort me. Better to be dead than a vessel for Nephil.

The attack persists without pause, and I know this giant won’t grow tired. I’m forced back as blow after blow narrowly misses me. When my foot strikes water, I know I’ve run out of room. Something has to change, I think, no matter the cost.

I focus. Hard. The giant’s progress is arrested. A manacle of stone rising from the floor binds one of his legs in place. It’s the same technique I used to trap Pan, but only one leg to conserve energy and time.

He swings at me, not knowing what has happened and misses without me needing to dodge. I am out of range. Despite having altered the world in an unnatural way, I’m not exhausted by the effort, but I think that’s thanks to adrenaline. I’m going to feel this later. But for now, it’s my turn to press the attack.

He swings again, grunting with confusion. I leap up, bending Whipsnap back as far as it will go. As the ax blade passes beneath me, I let go of the mace end. The shaft springs straight, adding its force to my strike. The spiked mace strikes the monster’s wrist, shattering it. The result is both disturbing and advantageous. The ax falls away, propelled by the force of the missed strike. But it hurtles straight for Wright. He sees it coming and leaps away, but not before the heavy handle strikes his leg across the shin. I don’t hear the bone break over the warrior-me’s howl of pain and ecstasy, but I can tell it did by the look on Wright’s face.

Wright lands in knee deep water, clutching his leg.

Stupid, I think at myself. Stupid! My powers are as dangerous to my friends as they are to my enemies.

But there is no more time to berate myself. The warrior swings at me again, and I block the strike with Whipsnap’s staff, which flexes. The force of the strike combined with the flexing staff propels me through the air. I land twenty feet away, splashing into the water. A gust of wind picks up around me, bracing me for landing as it usually does, but instead of cushioning my fall, it carves a hole right into the water, and I continue falling through it like it’s not even there. By the time I realize what has happened, I’m thirty feet down.

I cut the wind and water envelopes me.

How did I do that? I wonder. The air around my body repulsed the water and I fell through it. But can I direct myself through it? I turn toward the surface, focusing on the water around me, pulling trapped air out of crevices and down from the surface. A bubble forms around me and I can breathe.

I push the air up, and it takes me with it. Faster. Faster!

I break the surface, rising from the water like a missile fired from a submarine. As I cross the tunnel, I see Kainda to the left, swinging her hammer wildly. She’s surrounded. In danger of being overwhelmed.

Em fights on the other side of the tunnel, keeping her enemies at bay with an array of flung knives, but several of the perfectly aimed projectiles are struck from the air before reaching their targets. The spindly clone has drawn the original Whipsnap and blocks the knives with perfect accuracy. Then he turns my weapon on Em, using its reach and his long arms to open a straight gash across her lower back. She grunts in pain, but presses her attack. She will fight until the end, which I think might come sooner than later.