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

As punishment for his failure to recapture the boy, Ninnis’s wounds were left to heal naturally, over time, rather than accelerated by the blood of the masters. This not only heaped hot coals of disgrace on his head, but also kept him out of the ongoing hunt. No one knew Ull better than Ninnis, and without him, they would never find the boy. And if they did, they wouldn’t stand a chance, not without the knowledge Ninnis possessed.

First, the boy had some kind of power over the elements. At first Ninnis had thought it was a side effect of being bonded with the body of Nephil, but Ull had always shown a strange resistance to the cold. Second, the boy’s memory had returned. He knew he was really Solomon Ull Vincent, not simply Ull the hunter. So his choices and strategies would vary greatly from those of a typical hunter. And third, some part of Nephil did indeed reside in the boy. He’d heard it in the boy’s voice when they last met. That made him unpredictable and more dangerous than Ninnis wanted to contemplate.

But none of this weighed as heavily on Ninnis’s thoughts as the three simple words Ull had scratched into the stone wall. Ull could have left Ninnis for dead, having knocked him unconscious in the freezing Antarctic air. But he didn’t. The boy had dragged Ninnis underground, laid him in a tunnel and left a message for him to find upon waking.

I forgive you.

Ninnis had scratched the message away, but it had been etched into his memory, haunting him every time he closed his eyes. After everything he had done to the boy—taken him from his family, starved him, broken him, stolen his memory and treated him like a dog—Ull had forgiven him? It didn’t make sense. Even with the boy’s memory returned, what kind of a person could do such a thing?

The strength of that gesture frightened Ninnis more than anything he’d faced before, but it also enraged him. He had little doubt that the message was left to taunt him. It made him look weak. Frail. Like an old man whose mind and actions were not his own. Poor, poor Ninnis.

It was time to set the record straight.

It was time to find Ull.

He would bring Ull back and break him again, or kill him.

Ninnis sat on a stool, checking over his equipment. Satisfied, he wrapped his belt around his skinny waist and tied it tight. He carried a water skin, binoculars, the trusty knife he’d had since his time in the British Army and an empty pouch for food rations he would hunt along the way.

Ninnis looked around his small room covered with symbolic graffiti left by the hunters who occupied this space during the thousands of years before his birth. After spending months recuperating here, he loathed the place. He was a hunter. Meant to roam the underground, to seek out and battle the enemies of his master—not to nurse wounds. He stood, walked to the door and yanked it open. A massive foot greeted him.

Ninnis stepped out of the room and looked up into the large eyes of a giant. He gave a bow and spoke his master’s name with reverence. “Lord Enki.”

“Rise, Ninnis,” Enki said, his voice resonating in the tall hallway that held two rows of doors to the quarters of other human hunters and teachers. “You join the hunt?”

“If it pleases you, Master.”

“It does,” Enki replied. “You have handled your punishment with strength and character, as I knew you would.”

“Thank you, Master.”

Ninnis stepped back, surprised by Enki crouching before him. “I have something for you. A gift I think will come in useful.” He held out a sword that glimmered in the flames illuminating the tunnel. It reminded Ninnis of a machete, but longer.

Ninnis took the offered blade and tested its weight in his hand. It felt good. Light. He swung the blade noticing how little effort it took. But it would not do. “Master,” he said carefully, “It is a blade without comparison, but its size will slow my progress through the underground. I cannot use this.”

“An assessment I knew you would make,” Enki said with a nod. “But you are wrong.”

The giant took the sword, pushed a small switch Ninnis had not noticed and gave it the tiniest of twitches. The blade curled in on itself, snapping into a tight roll of metal that would take up very little room.

Ninnis’s eyes widened. A grin spread on his face.

Enki handed the sword back to him. “Test the blade,” he said. “On my flesh.” The giant held out his forearm. “The blood that spills is yours.”

Sword in hand, Ninnis toggled the small switch back to its original position and shot his arm out towards Enki. The blade unfurled quickly as it arced through the air, fully extending as it passed by the master’s arm. A two inch deep, ten inch long slice opened up on Enki’s arm, but only a single drop of blood emerged before the wound healed.

“I will call it Strike,” Ninnis said. “As it resembles the serpent.”