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

The dinosaurs part for us and we continue along the path to the gate on foot. When the dinosaurs start to fan out behind us, turning toward the jungle and forming a living, sharp-toothed wall, I ask, “The clearing isn’t mined, is it?”


“Mines?” Xin asks.

“Explosive traps triggered by weight,” Kat explains.

“No,” Xin says, “though I suspect such devices were used in the jungles surrounding us.”

The gates are chain link, topped with razor wire—a feeble stumbling block against just about anything that might come out of the jungle, including us, with the exception of Turquins, the big predatory birds that look like a cross between a turkey and a penguin. Two soldiers in a ten-foot tall guard tower stare at us. One points a large machine gun in our direction. As dorky as it feels, I force myself to smile and wave.

Both men look like they’ve smelled something foul. They have no idea who I am, and though they might recognize Xin, they don’t trust him. The machine gun is proof enough of that.

“Stop right there,” says one of the men, his voice cut with the threat of violence should we not obey.

I stop, just ten feet from the gate. Fifteen feet from the men. I look at their guard post and frown. Even up there, they’ll still be looking up at the warriors. Of course, they can also jump out and survive the fall if need be.

“See something you don’t like?” the second man says. He’s noticed my frown.

“We’d like to come inside,” I say. “I’m a friend of Merrill Clark.”

“Far as I know, he’s never said anything about you.”

I meet the man’s eyes. He’s young, maybe my age if you ignore the fact that despite my late teen appearance, I’m in my mid-thirties by surface years. “My name is Solomon Ull Vincent. I am the last hunter and leader of the men and women you now know as hunters.”

This catches their attention. They start eyeing me up and down, whispering to each other, but loud enough for me to hear.

“This is the guy?”

“He doesn’t look like much.”

“What if he’s lying? Could be lying.”

“He is with that freakjob...”

I glance at Xin. He’s unfazed by the insult, or perhaps doesn’t realize it’s an insult.

“The kid, too.”

They would let us in if I told them to, Xin says to my mind, but when he looks at me, his eyes say something else.

I know, I know, I think back, make an impression.

Without lifting my arms, or making a movement that might make me a target, or reveal I am the source of the phenomenon, I direct a sphere of wind to form around one of the men. His whispered sentence is cut off by a “Whoa!” He rises into the air.

“Charlie!” the man shouts, reaching out for his partner. “Dude! Help me!”

But Charlie doesn’t move. He’s stuck in place, part of him in shock, the other part bound to the wooden floor, which has twisted around his feet. The wood, hewn from the trees that once filled this clearing, bends to my will.

The airborne soldier flails like a bird with broken wings until I bring him down, outside the gate. I spin him upright and hold him just a foot above the ground so that we’re face to face. It’s then that I’m struck by the man’s stature. “You’re short,” I say.

“W—what?” he replies. He looks me up and down. “You—you’re tall.”

I am? I look down, confused by this. Over the past years, I have grown taller and muscular. I grew a beard. All without noticing. “How tall?”

“Like six-five,” he says.

“Huh,” I say. It’s not really surprising. One of my uncles is six-seven.

Xin clears his throat.

Right. Make an impression.

“What’s your name?”

“Duane. Corporal Duane Cairns.”

“Well, Corporal,” I say. “You know who I am, yes?”

He nods. There’s no doubting it now. He’s probably heard stories about me, from the other hunters and from the freed prisoners, but I doubt he, or many of the other people here, believed them. He does now, of course.

“Could you open the gate so I don’t have to melt it?” I ask. “I’m trying to be polite.”

His eyes go wide. I’m not certain I could do such a thing. I think I could, but I’ve never tried. Still, since he’s floating in the air at the moment, he’ll believe I can do just about anything.

“Yeah, yeah,” he says. “Charlie, open the gate!”

I motion to Charlie with my hand so that he knows it is, without a doubt, me who sets him free from the wood binding his legs. An electric motor buzzes a moment later and the gate grinds open.

Cairns looks relieved when I put him on the ground.

“Could you go tell the people in charge that I am here?” I ask.

And... Xin’s voice fills my head.

“And,” I say, cringing inwardly as I speak the words, “that I am ready to take command.”

He looks at me like I’m insane, but then nods quickly and hurries into the base.

I glance up at Charlie and the man snaps a salute.