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

“And I fight the monster Nephil who controls the form of my father. All of this is possible because of this man.” She motions to me.

Inwardly, I’m caught off guard and thinking, Who? Me? But on the outside, I stand confident and bold. I know what I have to do, even if it makes me feel uncomfortable. Despite being freed, these people are still hunters, like Kainda, and Em...and me, despite my previous denial.

“I am the Last Hunter,” I say loudly. “I am Solomon Ull Vincent, the first and only Antarctican, leader of the human resistance against the Nephilim, and...I am your King!”

To my surprise, and I’ll admit it, delight, a cheer rises up. It’s just one person at first—Em, I think—but then it moves through the base behind me and the hunters before me.

As a smile spreads on my face, I think, round two goes to the human race, though it nearly didn’t. I glance down to my shoulder, where the black tendril burrowed into my flesh. There’s no wound, but I can still feel its lingering effects, and the raw power of its attack. Had Merrill waited just an instant, the darkness might have claimed me. And if that happened, all would be lost.





29



Em, Adoni, Zuh, I think, letting Luca know who I want my orders to be transmitted to, split these hunters between you. Get them settled inside the base. Do your best to explain how we’re organized and how we are communicating. Put them in defensive units with hunters already among us.

Luca can send my orders to these new hunters just as easily as everyone else, and they’ll understand, but they need to be prepared for the mental intrusion.

Em speaks up from just behind me. She must have already been on her way out. “Hunters, I am Emilie, daughter of Tobias—”

“The daughter of Tobias,” a woman hunter says in surprise. She’s tall and slender with long curly, light brown hair that hangs wildly to her shoulders. She’s holding a double edged sword that looks like something a Roman centurion would carry in one hand and a long spear in the other. “Was he not slain by Ninnis, father of Kainda?”

Em frowns and nods. “He was.”

“And yet you stand beside her?”

I think I understand the gist of this questioning. In hunter culture, the slaying of one hunter’s kin by another might result in some sort of blood feud, or at least a deeper than average hatred.

Em steps up next to Kainda, who’s at least a foot taller, and looks up at her. “We are as sisters. The sins of our past, and those of our fathers, are forgotten. As they are for you, as well.”

To say the hunters are surprised is an understatement. The news travels quickly toward the back of the throng. It’s clear the conversation is about to expand and while I would love to explain the depth of their new found freedom, the rumbling beneath my feet is a constant reminder that we have no time.

“Hunters!” I shout. “Time is short. You all know what is coming. Explanations will come, but only if we survive the coming battle.”

“And if we don’t survive?” the woman hunter asks, sheathing her sword.

“Then you will die nobly, and free,” I tell her.

This seems to placate the crowd enough for Em and Kainda to get them moving toward the base. I notice many of the soldiers following the hunters with their weapons. Lower your weapons, I think, they are with us now. A moment later, the soldiers comply.

You’re doing well, I think to Luca.

This is harder than I thought it would be, Luca admits. Speaking to you is easy. Speaking to more than a hundred thousand other people is not. I’m getting tired.

Me too, I tell him. The darkness took its toll. I’m far more tired than I should be. But we must persevere. This will all be over by the time the sun sets again.

Okay, he replies.

But, I think, if you ever feel like you can’t handle it, or are worried you can’t reach everyone, you let me know.

I will, he says.

As the woman with the Roman sword passes me, she offers a slight bow and pauses. She glances back toward the valley’s bottleneck. “It won’t be long.” She speaks perfect English with a Southern California accent.

“I know,” I tell her.

“We’re just a small group,” she says. “There are far more—”

“I have seen,” I say.

“Then it was you in the jungle?” she asks. Before I can answer, her face becomes serious, but then relieved. “We found Ares.”

I look at the sword hanging from her waist, and then to the long spear in her hands. Not Roman, I realize. Greek. “He was your master.”

“No longer...thanks to you.” She offers her hand and I take it, shaking it slowly. She motions to the hunters filing past. “They call me Deena, but you can call me Jennifer. I was a roustabout working at McMurdo. Must have been forty years ago. Don’t remember exactly what happened. Had too much to drink one night, woke up in the feeder pit. You know how it goes.”