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

I sense he recognizes the claws as weapons, so I take them off and put them away. He moves closer and some part of me tenses. But I know this creature. He is the first and only thing I’ve met in this underground world that I trust.

“You need a name,” I tell him, running through a list of options. He’s a male. I can tell from the broad head and muzzle, which with seals, like with dogs, helps in identifying the males without getting personal. Dr. Clark would have named him something ancient, but given the number of ancient names already littering the underworld, from gods to cities, I scratch those options off the list. I decide to stick with my 1980s pop-culture references. This time I choose the Herculoids. “I’ll call you Gloop.”

The seal sniffs me and my hair, his whiskers tickling my skin and getting a laugh out of me. Then he moves back with three gentle twitches of his flippers, sliding away from me.

“Gloop, wait,” I say. “Don’t go.”

And he doesn’t. Instead, he turns to the side as the water all around us comes to life. A second Weddell seal surfaces. Then another and another. They keep on coming until fifteen seals, two of them pups, hover on the surface.

They dance around me, swirling through the water, spinning their large bodies in an act of play that is innocent and makes me smile. After a moment of watching, I join in, slipping through the water, twisting around the seals’ bodies as they slide by mine. It is an elaborate dance with no leader, but when it ends I realize it had meaning. We are bonded. Like family. For some reason, these benign creatures, perhaps the only benign creatures in the underworld, have chosen to accept me.

Which is strange.

After seeing or smelling my red hair, most denizens of the underground flee or attack. But these creatures seem to see right past it, to my core, and they know I’m no threat to them. Ull would have been, but he’s not in control right now. He’s buried in my subconscious, pouting about not being able to kill anything.

With the dance done, all eyes are on me.

My mother sometimes referred to strange moments or coincidences as being “cosmic.” I think she got that from the sixties. But for the first time in my life I feel the word makes sense. Because this is cosmic. I can feel these seals. Not just the pressure their bodies exert on the water around them—the water I’m bonded to—but I can feel them in my mind. In my soul. They’re not speaking to me. Not like the Nephilim gatherers, who can communicate directly mind-to-mind. But I sense them. Their feelings. Their desires. And I understand, somehow, that they came here for me.

Why? I wonder. Then ask aloud, “Why?”

A distant shriek replies and I understand. The cresties are hunting, but they’ve only just recently eaten which means—

A shout echoes in the chamber, feminine and angry.

I am not alone.

The others have found me.

The hunters are here.





3



I start for shore, but I’m blocked by several large bodies. The seals sense the danger and they want to keep me from it. But I can’t leave Whipsnap behind. While I’m dangerous without it, I’m not at my best. If I don’t retrieve my weapon I will regret it.

Gloop rises in front of me, pleading with his black eyes. I reach out and put my hand on his wet forehead, which is softer than I was expecting, and say, “I will be quick.”

I can see he’s not happy about it, despite the perpetual smile, but he slides beneath the surface and disappears. The others follow his lead and within seconds it’s like they were never there.

I dig into the water, swimming for shore as fast as I can. I know I’m heading toward danger, but based on the human shouts—belonging to just one human female—and the multiple dinosaur shrieks, I think my enemies are preoccupied with each other for the moment. It’s possible the hunters don’t even know I’m here.

They will eventually. I can’t mask my scent or the evidence of my campfires after being here for so long. But if they don’t know I’m here, or how to get out, I should be able to disappear long before they realize how close they came to finding me.

I move silently through the cave’s jungle and reach the base of my perch moments later. Climbing the perch might expose me. It’s thirty feet high. But I need to risk it. Leaving Whipsnap behind would be like severing a limb. I scale the wall quickly and then lay flat on top. I gather my few belongings, including the telescope Ninnis gave me for my last birthday, and take hold of Whipsnap. My plan is to roll off the perch and fall to the ground, but I can’t help sneaking a peek at the action as the sounds of battle get louder. I turn toward the noise and find the combatants on a treeless grassy hill.