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

A wet tear punctuates the emergence of a massive sword from the insides of the behemoth. It slides through the thick flesh horizontally, carving a neat line. A second sword emerges. Then a third, all slicing the monster open like a Tauntaun on Hoth. It happens fast. In seconds. And in that short time, I’m too stunned to react.

The cut flesh separates, but there’s no blood, nor fluid of any kind. Instead, there is a battle cry. A human battle cry. Three sets of Nephilim hands lift the flesh up, supporting its weight on their unfurled wings, while all around them, an army of hunters surges out.

A Trojan horse. Nephil wasn’t overreacting, he’s simply one step ahead. And his tactics, while gruesome, are effective. The hunters leaping from the insides of the behemoth, are within striking distance of the trenches and only a single coil of razor wire stands in their path—an insignificant obstacle.

As the first of the hunters closes in on the razor wire and easily leaps it, I think, Merrill, shofar!

The horn blasts immediately, but is muffled. Remembering my sound dampening effect, I free the compressed dome of air and allow the full power of the shofar to go roaring up through the valley.

The attacking hunters fall to the ground, the red beginning to fade from their hair. The Nephilim inside the behemoth shriek and shrink back, letting the giant folds of behemoth skin fall atop hunters still climbing out.

This will be another victory for us. Our army will grow once again and Nephil will be forced to stop using hunters against us.

When the horn blast stops, the sound of shouting voices, pounding helicopters and roaring jets take its place. But I barely hear them. My attention is on the few thousand hunters still on their knees.

I’m about to call out to them, to welcome them as freed brothers and sisters when the unthinkable happens. A splash of red appears and then washes over the group like a giant invisible painter is brushing their heads with blood. All of them are reverting back to their corrupted selves.

Merrill! Again!

The horn blast sounds, long and powerful.

The hunters resist. There is the occasional flicker of normal hair color, but it doesn’t last long.

I don’t understand! Why is the shofar not working?

“On the cliffs!” someone shouts when the sound of the shofar fades again.

I glance up to the top of the cliffs. Winged warriors line the precipices on either side of the valley, their wings outstretched. Their presence is ominous and hellish, but they’re not what holds my attention. It is the much smaller, much more numerous, force of gatherers that catch my eye. There are thousands of them, each between six and ten feet tall. Their skinny gray bodies are almost invisible with all the rising smoke, but their black, oval eyes cut through the distance.

Gatherers have the ability to communicate telepathically. That’s how Xin, who was part gatherer, gained his ability, which he somehow passed on to Luca, who is fully human. But gatherers can also manipulate minds, implant thoughts, erasing them or controlling their targets completely. And right now, high up on the cliff, they’re out of the shofar’s range, even amplified as it is.

They’re keeping the hunters corrupt, I think.

Along with this realization comes a droning buzz inside my head. They’re trying to control us, too!

Guard your thoughts, I shout mentally to my troops, warning them of the danger. Resist their control! From such a great distance, my unwilling force should be hard to control completely, but the distraction could prove fatal. Snipers, clear the gatherers from the cliffs.

A second later, the first sniper round is fired. I see a single gatherer drop to its knees and tumble over the side. Gatherers can heal, but much more slowly than warriors. If the bullet didn’t kill it, the impact with the ground should. More snipers follow the order and a constant stream of bullets fly toward the cliffs, followed by a constant rain of gray bodies falling down. But there are so many gatherers, that each death counts for little.

Solomon.

It’s Luca.

I can feel them. They’re trying to find me.

He’s talking about the gatherers, I’m sure. They can probably sense his presence. Maybe even feel his thoughts and understand what he’s doing for us. If they were to somehow interfere with Luca, or hurt him, we would lose our ability to communicate quickly and universally to our multilingual force. The result would be chaos. But I’m not sure what more we can do, aside from killing as many gatherers as possible. We could napalm them, I suppose, but my lungs already sting from the first toxic cloud produced by the first bomb. And our supply is limited. We need to save it for the second Behemoth. Missiles are an option, too, but we could create a rockslide, covering the battlefield, or our base, with mounds of stone, a condition that would benefit our much larger adversaries. I hate it, but Luca is going to have to fight, too.

You’re stronger than they are, I tell him.

But there are so many.

Not for long, I think. Fight as hard as you can. I send an order through him to the helicopter pilots, directing them to climb and strafe the cliffs with their chain guns.