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

I see Kat last, now by Wright’s side. He’s propped up against the wall. Both are firing their weapons at the warrior, who is about to throw his second ax at the pair. Kat might be able to dodge the strike, but Wright is lost.

A gust of wind directs me toward the giant and I announce my presence with a battle cry, drawing his attention and convincing him to keep the ax. He turns to me, but he’s too slow. I plunge the bladed end of Whipsnap into the giant’s eye, shoving it through to his brain.

I draw my blade back out and aim to strike again. With the blade tip just inches from the monster’s other eye, my attack is stopped. I glance back in time to see the end of a whip wrapped around the staff, and then my weapon is yanked from my hands.

One of the hunters has stopped me, and taken my weapon. I leap away, out of the giant’s reach. His eye is already healing, but he acts disoriented by being blind in one eye. “Aim for his eyes,” I say to Kat. “It will slow him down.”

I land and face off against the hunter. For a moment, I’m concerned it’s the dual whip-wielding Olympian I let go and sent to help the escaped prisoners. But I quickly see that it cannot be him. This whip-wielder is a woman. And now she has Whipsnap.

“I don’t want to kill you,” I tell her.

“Nor I you,” she says, pointing the blade end of Whipsnap at my chest. “Yield. Now.”

“You can join us,” I say. “Fight for your brothers and sisters again.”

“I am fighting with them,” she says.

“Not with them. For them.”

She scoffs at the idea, and I can see I’m not going to get anywhere. I move in close, preparing to fight her, hand-to-hand, when suddenly her eyes go blank. She drops Whipsnap at my feet and collapses. There’s a knife in her back.

Em. I turn to thank her, but she’s fully engaged with four hunters and the clone. Not engaged, I realized. Retreating. She’s out of knives. She used the last one to help me. The wiry clone moves in fast, striking Em’s shoulder with the mace end of the original Whipsnap. The blow is hard and sends Em reeling back toward Wright. She clutches her shoulder.

I pick up the new and improved Whipsnap and rush to their aid. I leap over the giant’s back and feel a rush of air as he swings and misses. When I land, Kainda is at my side, hammer at the ready. She’s covered in cuts and bruises, but the hunters that had surrounded her now lie in a heap.

Had this just been hunters, we would have won this fight, but the Nephilim clones are too much in this small space. A mass of shouting voices turns my eyes further up the tunnel. More hunters.

The fight is lost.

Wright echoes my thought, shouting, “Retreat! Get the hell out of here!”

I’m not sure how that’s possible. I look over my shoulder at the water.

The water...

The Nephilim, who can drown, will not follow us there.

“In the water!” I shout. Em and Kainda take defensive stances as they walk backward into the slowly rising waters. Kat wrestles with Wright, trying to get him up. They hobble toward us, but every step is agony for Wright.

“Leave me,” he says, shrugging away from his wife.

Kat growls out her words. “I’m not going to—” A stone flung by a slingshot-wielding hunter strikes her. A direct hit could have killed her, but the glancing blow only knocks her unconscious.

Standing on one leg, Wright thrusts his wife toward me. “Take her! I saw what you can do with the water. Take them all. Now!”

I don’t argue, but I stand and stare dumbly. “Solomon,” he says, looking me in the eyes. “This is war. People die. Find the shofar and get back to the FOB. That’s your mission. Now go!”

He turns away from us, slapping in a new magazine, and opens fire on the hunters advancing into the water. “Go!” He shouts one more time, spurring me into action.

I wade back. When I’m waist deep, the warrior shouts, “No!” He raises his ax, and for a moment, I think he’s going to throw it at us, but then he screams, swings down and severs his own leg. Purple blood sprays from the severed limb, but it quickly starts to grow back. Free of the stone binding him in place, he charges forward, into the water, limping on his half formed leg bones.

I wrap my arms and Whipsnap around Em, Kainda and Kat. “Hold on,” I tell them, “And to her.”

Em and Kainda hold on to my weapon with one hand each, and grip Kat with their other hands. We push back into deeper water, sinking below the surface. The warrior clone’s angry shout chases us beneath the water. His face plunges into the water, staring at us as we sink out of sight.

As we descend, my thoughts turn to Wright’s fate above. He’s dead, I know, perhaps dying right this moment—the recipient of the giant’s rage. It’s my fault, I think. It’s all my fault.





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