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

“Shut-up,” Kainda hisses. “Both of you. I swear you’re like a couple of children in need of a few lashes.”


My instinct is to look at Mira and share a knowing smile, but the fact that Kainda is likely speaking about the parenting style modeled for her, and which she might actually believe is appropriate, makes me frown. I’d never thought about the possibility of having children some day. And it’s still a long way off. But if we survive this war, and really do get married, will she want to raise our children as hunters? Or will their childhoods look more like mine?

A conundrum for the future, I tell myself.

I look up to Kainda, who currently leads our upward charge. “What is it?”

She’s just around the bend and no longer climbing. As I follow the curved stairs up, I see the stone just beyond her change from a smooth and steady gray to a column of blocks. One more step reveals an archway.

“We’re there,” she says.

We gather at the top step, looking into the space beyond, but remain unmoving, like there’s an invisible force field preventing us from entering.

The chamber beyond the doorway is vast, with a flat floor and a domed ceiling, all carved right out of the solid stone. Beams of light stream through circular holes punched into the wall every fifteen feet.

“Is that daylight?” Mira asks.

“I think so,” I say and finally take a tentative step inside. The floor is as smooth as the walls in the stairwell. It’s almost soft under my feet. I scrunch my toes expecting to feel the threads of a rug, but it’s all solid stone. As my eyes adjust to the brighter light inside the chamber, I start to see details.

The room is largely empty save for a few pedestals that rise straight out of the floor. I walk to them and count seven. Mira kneels beside one of the protrusions and runs her hand over the top. I look for Kainda and find her walking around the perimeter of the chamber, looking at the walls between the windows.

“It’s indented,” Mira says. She moves to the next pedestal and touches the top. “They all are.” She stands, steps inside the circle and sits atop of the stone towers. “They’re seats.”

I step inside the circle and sit down across from Mira. She’s right. The indentations were worn by human backsides, which means these seats were used for a very long time.

“It’s like this was some kind of meeting place,” she says. “Maybe for leaders of some kind.”

“Or a secretive cult,” I add.

Mira frowns at me.

I shrug. “Just saying.”

A rumble rises through the nunatak, the stone seat and then my spine, reminding me why we’re here. I stand and head for one of the windows. It’s round and four feet in diameter. As I get closer, I see that it has been carved through ten feet of stone, at an upwards 45 degree angle. I put my face inside and look up. There’s a stone ledge blocking my view of the sky, but its bottom glows with a greenish hue—sunlight reflecting off the green jungle far below.

A breeze flows through the opening. As it washes over my face, I close my eyes and take a deep breath, expecting the sweet scent of a thawed Antarctica. Instead I get a perfume of decay, blood, feces and death—the scent of Nephilim. It’s so strong, I feel like I’ve just licked a warrior’s armpit. I reel back from the window, smacking the back of my head against the stone and falling to the floor, stunned.

“You okay?” Mira says, crouching behind me. She sounds more concerned than comical this time around. Probably a result of the disgusted look on my face. She must catch a whiff, too, because she suddenly groans and puts a hand over her nose. “Oh, God. Is that...them?”

I rub my head. “Eau de Nephilim at its finest.”

When I look up, I don’t see the window. Instead, my eyes focus on the wall between this window and the next. What I see is enough to make me forget all about the stink. “Whoa.”

Mira turns to the wall and holds up her glowing crystal, illuminating the scene. The entire wall, ten feet up to where the dome begins and all fifteen feet between the portals, is a collage of images and strange text, similar to those found in Egyptian tombs, but much more simplistic in style. But they’re also more complex than what is typically thought of as “cave paintings,” which is to say, these aren’t the paintings of a lone wandering artist, or even a collection of artists over time—this was a communal effort to create something permanent.

“It’s a record,” I say, looking at the vivid portrayal of a hunt. Ten warriors dressed in brown and carrying spears are battling a large animal. I point to it. “That’s a giant sloth, I think.”

The next picture over depicts a celebration. The dancing figures are lit by a bonfire’s glow and their shadows are cast on the wall. In Mira’s shifting blue light, they almost look real. The effect is really quite spectacular.