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

“I guess I never really had a clear picture of how many Nephilim there are.”


“It’s a large continent,” Kainda says. “And they’ve had a lot of time.”

She’s right about that. In the same few thousand years, the human population has increased by several billions. That there is only a million or so Nephilim actually shows some restraint on their part—that most of them appear to be headed this way, doesn’t. They’re going for the kill, which again, I should have seen coming. That’s what Nephilim do.

“Okay,” Mira says, “We’ve done our recon. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“Not yet,” Kainda says. She looks like she’s counting.

“Are you counting?” I ask.

“The leadership,” she says. “Each commander is in charge of ten thousand. So if we count the commanders—”

“We can guesstimate their total number,” I say. When Kainda looks confused, I explain without being asked. “It’s a made up word. Guess and estimate. Guesstimate.”

She closes her eyes and sighs a deep breath. “We face near certain annihilation and you are making up words.”

“I didn’t make it up, it’s...just...forget it.” I turn my attention back to the army. A strong breeze carries a scent similar to dead fish rotting in the sun and I stifle a gag. My stomach sours further when I notice the organized march of the Nephilim warriors. I’m not sure why, but militaries always seem more frightening when they’re coordinated. “How can we tell the commanders apart from the others.”

“Red leathers,” she says.

I scan the sky above and the land below. When I’ve got the number, I swallow and it feels like I’ve got a stone in my throat. “Done.” The word comes out as a whisper. I can’t manage much more than that.

“How many?” Mira asks. She sounds afraid to hear the answer, as well she should be.

“There might be a few more that I can’t see,” I say, which is true, but saying this is more a delaying tactic than anything else, and Kainda will have none of that.

She elbows me in the rib. “How many?”

“Eighty-six,” I say.

“Eighty six?” Mira says. “There are eight hundred and sixty thousand of those things out there?”

“Probably more,” I say. “We can call it an even million and probably be safe.”

“Including the two Stay Pufts over there?” She motions to the behemoths.

“If you count them as one each,” I say.

“And should I ask how many we have at the FOB?” Mira asks.

“You shouldn’t,” I say.

“I kind of just did,” she says.

“It’s been a few days since we were there,” I say.

“Solomon,” she says, waiting for me to look her in the eyes. “Tell me.”

There’s no way to avoid telling her the truth, as much as I’d like to. Besides, she’s Hope. If anyone can spin the news into something positive, it should be her.

Still, I can’t help but try to avoid it one more time. “I didn’t exactly count.”

“I know the way your brain works,” she counters. “You counted whether you tried to or not. So guesstimate.”

“Fifteen hundred,” I say. My voice is so flat and emotionless I sound like that teacher from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. “Maybe two thousand.”

She looks ready to pass out. The news is clearly worse than she’s expecting. And for a moment, I see hope leave her eyes. This is something I can’t stand for.

“But,” I say. “We have the Jericho shofar, which reduces Nephilim to quivering lumps. We have modern weapons and heavy artillery. There are Navy ships off the coast. And jets. I’m sure more have arrived since we left to find you, probably from every nation within range.”

“There are a million of them,” she says. “Sure, some of them are human, and some of them are just a little bigger than humans, but they can control people’s minds, change shapes, fly and a good number of them are thirty feet tall, again, not counting those two!” She thrusts a finger toward the two approaching behemoths. They’re perhaps two miles off to the left, but they’re immense, filling up most of the western view. The hunters at the front of the army have entered the jungle where the nunatak begins. It won’t be long before they’re below us. If we end up behind this army, it could be a problem. We need to leave.

I’m about to say so when Kainda reaches past my face and flicks Mira in the side of the head.

“Oww!” she says. “What was th—”

“They don’t have him,” Kainda says, nodding to me.

“What?”

“The Nephilim don’t have him,” Kainda repeats, emphasizing each word. “Which means the very land itself is against them.”

I start to smile, but a sudden, jarring impact wipes the smile from my face and sets my head spinning. It comes again, before I can think, striking my forehead. As consciousness fades, my mind registers three things. A hand, dark and caked with mud, my blond hair locked in its grasp, and then a feeling of weightlessness, and wind...everywhere...whipping past my body—

—as I fall.





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