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

I lower the leaf and look to Kainda, who has just backed away from her own lookout position. She traces her finger across her arm and mouths the word, “Scars.”


Scars? I’m not sure what the significance is. They have a lot of scars, but I’m not sure what that—I nearly jump up and shout “eureka,” when I figure it out. Nephilim warriors don’t have scars because they heal so quickly. The other species of Nephilim heal as well, though much slower, but their purple blood still gets the job done well enough that I’ve never seen a scar on a Nephilim.

That’s what sets these Nephilim apart from the others. They can’t heal. They might be just as old, but they can be killed. Easily. And that’s reason enough to cast them out. While hunters are also susceptible to quick deaths, we’re also small enough to be useful in the underground. These things, even the chicken-lady harpies, are too large to do much more than use up resources.

This is good news. Fifty to two becomes a lot more manageable when the dead stay dead. Of course, the same applies to Kainda and me. I shift forward, lift the leaf and take another look at this band of misfit Nephilim.

They’re armed, but the weapons are crude. The most basic are sharpened tree branches. The most advanced are maces fashioned from large stones...tied to tree branches. But the weapons are wielded by strong arms, and I have no way to know how skilled they are at fighting. Most are equipped with weapons bestowed at birth—horns, talons, sharp teeth and hammer-like fists. We can’t underestimate them and we can’t act rash—

One of the harpies involved in the scuffle clucks its way to the side, pecking its human-like mouth at the gorgon’s tail. The movement gives me a clear line of sight to the center of the gathering, but just for a moment.

Still, it’s long enough to see what’s got them all riled up.

Mira.

She’s prone and motionless. Her head is turned to the side, her eyes closed. I look to see if her torso is rising and falling, but my glimpse is cut short by a circling griffin. Alive or not, I don’t know, but it’s clear that this argument will end with Mira being claimed by one side or the other, and I cannot wait for that to happen.

I start to rise.

“Sol,” Kainda whispers.

My boiling blood blocks out her voice.

“Sol!” she says a little more loudly. “Wait!”

But her plea for patience fades behind me as I surge up and out of the jungle, yanking Whipsnap from my belt and alerting the mythological mob to my presence. As my wind-propelled leap crests at thirty feet and I drop toward a surprised looking harpie, I see what must have kept Kainda from leaping out of the jungle alongside me.

A thirty-foot tall centaur with an upper torso that has the bulk of a warrior and the pale gray skin of a gatherer, focuses its massive, black eyes on me—

—and enters my thoughts.





4



It doesn’t speak, but I can feel its consciousness humming inside my head. Despite the mental intrusion, I’m committed to my attack. I draw Whipsnap back, aiming to thrust the bladed end through the breast-bone of the harpie now letting out a panic-stricken squawk. But as my arm shoves the blade forward, the huge gatherer-centaur does something to my mind, severing the connection between my thoughts and my body.

My leap becomes a ragdoll tumble. I crash to the ground landing hard in the trampled grass.

Then, something in my mind pushes back.

Hard.

The centaur is repelled, and I regain control of my body as the giant rears back in pain.

What was that? I wonder, as I climb to my feet. I was so taken aback by the appearance and sudden mental intrusion of the Nephilim centaur that I didn’t have a chance to put up some kind of cerebral fight. The force that pushed the centaur back wasn’t me, and Ull, my former split personality with a bad temper, is now fully a part of me. So what repelled the creature?

A question for another time, I decide as a griffin lunges.

The griffin ripples with lion muscles. Its large paws are tipped with eagle talons, black and needle sharp. Its head is all oversized eagle. Its hooked beak is open wide, blasting a high-pitched shriek as its ten-foot wings pull it up into the air above me and then propel it straight down like a two-ton mortar round.

While pulling one hand back, readying a strike, I raise the other toward the griffin, willing the wind to catch its wings. The giant creature should have been catapulted away.

But it continues to dive toward me.

There isn’t even a breeze.

And I am out of time.

I fall back, flat on the grass. A second later, the griffin lands over me, its lion paws framing me on either side. Its eagle eyes lock onto mine, looking down at me. Its beak hangs open, as though in surprise. A bead of purple blood slips down the lower beak, gathering at the end and dangling above my forehead.