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

As I flash past, I doubt Apollo even feels his own death. One moment, he was targeting a cresty, the next he was cleaved in two.

I return to the battlefield, landing in front of Grumpy. I push at the Nephilim with the strongest wind I can muster and launch fifty of them flying back. I turn and look over my shoulder. Kainda is still atop Grumpy. She has a bleeding gash on her forehead, but she’s suffered far worse. Em is still here too, but she’s on foot.

I look for Zok and find the dinosaur twenty feet away, slumped over on her side. The massive chest no longer rising or falling. Another casualty.

Modern soldiers swell our ranks, using their long range weapons to stumble the approaching warriors. Mira and Kat arrive with them, both carrying the XM-29 assault rifles.

“Any bright ideas?” Kat asks.

“Working on one now,” I say, only half present.

“Make it snappy, kid.”

I ignore her, reaching out to the elements around me, setting something in motion that nearly drains me to the core. I fall to my knees and clench my eyes shut. It’s like lifting an elephant. Then it’s done. The thing is set in motion and takes on a life of its own. No longer fully exerting myself, I recover some.

“Just a few minutes,” I say weakly.

“Here they come!” someone shouts. I look up to see an endless horde of warriors charging toward us. Sun glints off their massive weapons and bathes them in a holy glow that feels blasphemous.

“Can you do anything?” Mira says, placing a hand on my back.

I try to stand, but find my legs unwilling. “Not yet,” I say.

“Behind us!” someone else shouts. “They’re coming from both sides!”

How is that possible? I wonder, as I turn around to look. There were a few warriors at sea, but not enough to instill the level of fear I hear in the man’s voice. Then I see them. Twenty-five of the giants, each carrying another, for fifty total. The force pounding down on us from the front is far vaster, but these fifty, attacking our rear, will crumble our defenses.

But there is something off about these Nephilim. They look...too big. Taking my spyglass from its pouch, I look at the approaching force.

I gasp, sounding like Em. Hold your fire, I think to what remains of the human resistance. The force approaching from the east is friendly!

Just as the thought reaches my army, they arrive.

The winged giants release their cargo, dropping twenty-five Nephilim dressed in white. The thirty-foot warriors, wearing golden armbands, belts and protective head gear, are striking, almost glowing. The ground before me rumbles as the largest of the group lands nearby. He turns his head to me, looking me in the eyes.

Cronus!

The Titans have left the refuge of Tartarus, risking oblivion to save the human race. And they’re not alone. There are twenty-five gigantes, the two-headed monsters who stand at least sixty feet tall and delight in killing Nephilim the way Nephilim delight in pain. The gigantes descend into the Nephilim horde, swinging thirty-foot swords in both hands.

A large gigantes settles to the ground gently, just fifty feet away, slowing himself with his massive wings. Gigantes are one of the most repulsive creatures I’ve experienced in the underworld. Their skin wraps around their bundles of muscles and their organs individually, so you can see gaps between sinews and dangling, skin-wrapped guts. Their two heads are concave on top, like their brains were scooped out. Their teeth chatter loudly, manically, and air hisses through the gaps in their cheeks. Their solid black eyes are unnerving and their three-fingered hands and feet have thick black talons. They are hideous, and I’ve never been more glad to see one.

The big one turns its two heads toward me, each speaking one word at a time. “Little one, get up and fight.”

I sense that it recognizes me. This is the gigantes I faced in Tartarus, the one that pulverized me and took pleasure in it. My stomach twists, but then I shout at the thing. “We’ve been fighting. It’s your turn now!”

The gigantes snarls at me, but then lunges forward, casting down a strong wind as it leaps several hundred feet and lands among a mass of startled Nephilim, cutting them down.

Cronus shouts back to me. “Solomon! Where is the shofar?”

“In the temple,” I shout back.

“We must have it!” he says. “It is the key to everything!”

“It won’t work,” I argue. “There are too many of them!”

“It only needs to work on one,” he says, and then stands. He raises his sword high into the air. “Humans!” His voice is thunder itself, the voice of a Titan. “Attack!”

Cronus charges, heading for the Nephilim army, with twenty-four warriors and thousands of humans by his side. Now that, is leadership. In the wake of this furious charge, this final charge, I find myself alone on the ground, weak and unable to move.

I want to join the fight with every fiber of my being, but I’m worn out. I can barely stand.