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

“Harder,” Kainda says and then grins. “If you’re not up to it, let me wake her.”


There’s a high-pitched wail from inside the jungle. A moment later, three harpies charge back into view. I lift Mira into my arms while Kainda readies for a fight. But the harpies steer clear of us. They’re terrified. So terrified, in fact, that they bolt straight past us and run right off the cliff, plummeting to their deaths.

“I’m starting to see why they were cast out,” Kainda says.

A loud laugh wipes the smile from her face.

We both recognize the booming mockery carried by the laugh of a Nephilim warrior. It’s joined by several more.

A second shriek rips from the jungle, and the top half of a minotaur sails into the clearing.

More laughter follows. Trees crack. Footsteps rumble. A Nephilim war party steps into the clearing and looks straight at us.





5



The three warriors are short by Nephilim standards. Twenty feet tall, tops. But they’re decked out for battle. One carries an oversized scimitar, one an axe and the last a double-sided spear. Each is dressed in similar black leathers, the stylization of which reveals that they are from the Egyptian clan. Blood red hair, matted like a dirty dog’s, hangs to their shoulders. Unlike many of the larger Nephilim I’ve seen recently, none of them have gigantes wings or Titan tails.

“Lesser Egyptians,” Kainda whispers, locked in place like me.

We should probably be running, but the moment we move, I have no doubt these warriors will spring into action. I’d like to learn everything I can about them before that moment arrives.

“Scouts,” Kainda says. “Too short to be anything else.”

“Do you know them?” I ask.

“They would have been below even my station,” she says.

Kainda’s master had been Thor, son of Odin, leader of the Norse warrior clan. In terms of Nephilim hierarchy, her word once carried a lot of weight, even more than these three. And as a hunter in the service to Nephilim royalty, she wouldn’t have had many opportunities to fraternize with lesser warriors. That this is my first time seeing them means they were probably shunned, possibly living outside the major citadels—Asgard, Olympus, or in the case of Egyptians, Tuat.

“Will they recognize you?” I ask.

“If I got close enough for them to see my hammer, maybe,” she says, “but their eyes are not on me.”

She’s right. They’re looking at me. And my blond hair makes me easy to recognize.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “They won’t be a problem for us.”

As though in agreement, the three warriors take a step back.

Then another.

And as quickly as they arrived, they leave, slipping back into the thick jungle.

Kainda and I look at each other, sharing our bewilderment.

“That,” Kainda says, “was unexpected.”

“If they’re scouts, we’re going to have company, soon.” I bend down to Mira, give her face another pat. “Mira!” Still nothing. I take her beneath her arms and lift. She’s tall, but not heavy. Of course, even if she was, the part of me that is still a hunter would never complain about it. I put her over my shoulder. “We should—”

The ground shifts beneath my feet.

The vibration grows in intensity and is quickly joined by a rumble. A horn blast, deep and powerful, rolls from the jungle. The cracking of tree limbs and trunks that follows sounds like the manic popping of a burning fireplace log amplified through a loudspeaker.

We back away from the jungle, our pace quickening with each step.

“That’s a lot more than three,” I say.

The jungle explodes. Leaves and branches burst into the air. At least thirty heavily armed warriors charge—all Egyptian, and all larger than the three scouts. None of them have wings or stingers, but really, thirty warriors in a berserker rage don’t really need either.

With Mira over my shoulder, this is more than we can overcome.

I turn to run and start to shout for Kainda to do the same, but she’s beat me to the punch and she’s at least five steps ahead of me. The ground shakes so violently that I fear I will trip. And a delay of a few seconds is all the giants will need to close the distance.

But I forget all about my balance issues when I remember where we’re headed. Going left or right is no good—Nephilim could lurk in either direction along with who knows what else. So we’re headed back the way we came, which is about a hundred more feet of grassy clearing and then about one thousand feet of vertical space.