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

“Those are nests,” Kainda says.

“Really big nests,” I add. I count twenty of them. Each is made from a combination of branches, leaves and random pliable objects. I see tents, ropes, blankets and large feathers in the mix. The oval shaped nests are at least fifteen feet long, half as wide and deep. They cling to the cliff face, resting on ledges and glued in place by something white and goopy. At the top of each nest, the cliff is carved away, forming paths to the top as though formed naturally by some ancient waterfall or glacier.

I bring us close to the wall and land just above one of the nests. Once Kainda is out of my arms, she scrambles up the stone path, headed for the precipice. I linger behind for a moment, looking into the nest. I’m expecting to see more feathers. Eggs perhaps. What I find instead surprises me. Really, nothing should surprise me anymore. I’ve seen a two headed, flying gigantes. But when I see golden lion hair coating the bottom of the nest, I’m taken aback. True, I’d already surmised that the lions could somehow fly, but roosting like birds? Why? It doesn’t make any sense. Then again, I just flew up the side of a thousand foot cliff and I don’t have an S on my chest.

A chirp from above catches my attention. It sounds like one of the many species now populating the jungles of Antarctica, but the subtle urgent tone is all Kainda. I turn up and see her up above me on the slope, lying flat on her stomach. Without looking back she waves her hand, motioning me to join her.

I climb the stone in silence, still preferring bare feet to boots. Half way to the top, I see that Kainda is holding her battle hammer, which is a human-sized version of Mj?lnir, the Nephilim Thor’s hammer. He’d once been Kainda’s master, just as Thor’s father, Odin, was Ninnis’s, and Thor’s son, Ull, was mine. The Norse clan of Nephilim warrior, while not the most powerful, had produced three of the most feared and capable hunters, two of which might be their undoing.

Knowing that the hammer is out because Kainda is preparing for battle, I reach down for Whipsnap, but stop short of freeing the weapon. There were two Whipsnaps. The one I built from bone, wood and stone, and the second, forged by the Nephilim with an amalgam of solid, but light metals. I took both with me from Edinnu, and although I felt nostalgic about the weapon I constructed, I had to admit it was the inferior of the two. Of course, the second Whipsnap has been my constant companion for years, in the underground, on the surface and in Tartarus. I’m pretty attached to it. So I’ve kept the Nephilim variant, which has a more rigid staff that springs open more quickly. The crack it makes when loosed from my belt would give us away. I crouch down as I near the top, peeking through the tall grass at the edge.

My eyes widen and I whisper. “You have got to be kidding me.”





3



“Have you seen them before?” Kainda whispers.

“You haven’t?”

She shakes her head, no. “But...I think I know what they are.”

“Me too,” I say, looking at the figures. I can’t make out details from this distance—they’re at least a quarter mile from the cliff’s edge—but their bolder features make them easily identifiable to me. I point to a creature with the body of a lion, and the head and wings of an eagle. “That’s a griffin.”

She points to one of the myths made real, this one with the body of a horse and a humanoid torso. “That’s a centaur, right?”

“Yup,” I say, pointing out several more. “And there’s a manticore, a gorgon, a minotaur.” My finger lands on a strange chicken-like thing with the upper body of a woman. She pokes her head forward with each step, eyes to the ground. “And that must be a harpie.” Several more scurry up behind the largest of the bunch. “Harpies.”

It’s a Greek mythological Who’s Who, though it’s clear none of the would-be gods are present. These are the lesser creatures of the Greek myths. The pawns. The castaways.

“We call them the Forsaken,” Kainda says. “But I thought they were just a story told to scare us before we were broken.”

Despite my inner Ray Harryhausen fan being thrilled by what we’re seeing, the fact that these creatures are the living embodiment of what hunters consider scary children’s stories is not very comforting. I don’t really want to ask, but I need to know what we’re dealing with. “Tell me about them.”

“They’re Nephilim,” she says.

Of course they are, I think.

“But they didn’t fit into any of the more powerful classes. They might have the features of a warrior, a gatherer or one of the others, but they’re mixed, usually in disfiguring ways with lesser animals.”